R U In Ur Lane?

Narrow is the road…to Heaven, and these days, your best audience. (Maybe not your biggest, and that’s ok!) Radio is a mass appeal medium adapting to survive and thrive in a culture where pinpoint precision can earn you the most love. Please allow me to share with you how broadening my station’s appeal (and audience) was a disaster, followed by recent proof that finding my narrower lane has resulted in surprising growth.

First, learn from my mistakes. It was 2006 or so, and during this season of Christian Music radio, there were a couple schools of thought. One was to be your Christian self…DJ’s, promotions, imaging, etc. The non-music stuff should be just as God-focused as the songs. The other school of thought was to “let the music do the Christian stuff.” The rest of the station would be hardly distinguishable from mainstream…the only main difference: you were family friendly, safe, clean, etc. Option A: Go Deep. Option B: Go Wide.

My station was a Go Deep one long before I got there. But you can probably understand the appeal of Go Wide. More listeners, which should lead to more revenue, right? (Spoiler alert: nah fam.) Another trait of many Go Wide stations was stretching our music lanes to include Christian singers making mainstream music. Daughtry. The Fray. Carrie Underwood. And many more.

I went All In like Matthew West. If a pop culture singer had once ever in public said “thank God,” they were in my short stack.

Wide worked! And bombed! Our cume doubled after sticking with the plan for about a year. Then came the pledge drives. New cume didn’t equal new money. New cume not only didn’t bring new money; old money went away. (This isn’t a knock on the Go Wide concept as a whole. There are ways to do it well. I clearly didn’t choose that path.)

Go Deep listeners didn’t understand the point of their giving anymore. If they wanted to hear and support the Go Wide singers, our market already had secular outlets scratching those itches. When I dove into the numbers (way too late), I learned that most of our new listeners were just hanging with us when their favorite commercial station was in a stopset.

I’d morphed the brand into everyone’s second favorite station and almost nobody’s first. I would have been better off staying in the Go Deep lane, and broadening our reach within that smaller but more passionate group of listeners.

When I have a few spare minutes these days, I lightly dabble in Tik Tok. I’m not gaming the algorithm to blow up my followers or view count. But I took one key ingredient of successful Tik Tokkers to heart: I chose a lane (eventually). At first, I did random dad jokes, life observations and the occasional mini-devotional.

I recently zoomed in on a single topic. I answer any and all questions about radio. It’s one of the few things I’m passionate about; on a good day, I’m knowledgeable too. Since this single tweak, I’m getting a couple new followers every day. OMG Hold the phone, right?!? But prior to picking a lane, I was getting a couple per month. In other words….exponential growth! (I’m @mikecouchman on Tik Tok btw…in case you want to be my third new follower today.)

Obviously my follower count isn’t worth bragging to Mom about. (She’s an AM radio P1 anyhow…she’d be like “you got tics??”) Imagine having an extra PPM/Diary or two in your ratings sample every day though. That would be a game changer.

Programming a station and goofing around on Tik Tok isn’t apples to apples, but I contend the lessons from both scenarios are universal.

Each station has a potential unique lane. So does each Air Talent. Straddling lanes isn’t how you get the most traction. Unless you’re a NASCAR driver maybe? Find your lane and your people. Let somebody else serve the lanes you don’t fit into anyhow.