Being There

Why do people use your product?

That's a simple question that anyone in business needs to ask of themselves. For the radio industry, there's plenty of research to indicate the answers -- it's always part of Jacobs Media's Techsurvey, for one example -- but it came to mind last weekend when I tried to use local radio to serve a basic need.

I was at Target, idly checking my phone on Saturday when I saw Twitter posts about a shooting at a synagogue in Poway. Details were sketchy at the time, and I wanted to find out what was going on. Once I got to my car, I went to the source I thought would be the best option, local San Diego radio. And I tuned into the news-talk stations, and I got... Rush Limbaugh and Clark Howard best-ofs. Nothing on any station.

A tragedy was playing out mere miles from the stations' studios. A national -- international, even -- story was happening in the market. The stations did not break from their regular programming. I later learned that one of the stations belatedly went to "updates every 15 minutes," but that wasn't enough, and when I wanted the information, it was not there. At the same time, I found that CNN, the audio of which is on SiriusXM, had gone wall-to-wall with coverage, and I imagine the other cable news networks did the same. It was that big. Yet when listeners tuned into local radio, they did not get what they were looking for.

As I've pointed out before in similar situations, I understand the dilemma in which PDs and news directors find themselves in 2019. Budgets are tight. Local news is not a priority with corporate management. Local news doesn't show a profit. We don't have the staff. On a Saturday, the people in the building might not have the news instinct to break into regular programming. There are reasons. There are always reasons.

But you have a business, and if you ask that question -- why do people use my product? -- you should think about the answers: companionship, entertainment, and, yes, when something's happening in your town, breaking news. There's been a shooting at a house of worship? The hillsides are on fire? The freeway's at a standstill and you've been stuck for hours and Waze isn't telling you what you can't see in front of you? Earthquake, tornado, flood? They use your product to be connected, to get information.

This gets back to something I wrote about recently, the opportunity radio has to occupy that local news position. Happily, some stations do just that. WBT was all over the Charlotte campus shooting this very week, bailing from regular talk programming to cover the news. There are other stations bucking the trend and remaining the go-to for information when all hell is breaking loose in town. Yet it's not consistent, and it's sad (you can insert your own adjectives here) when huge nationally significant news happens, you go to local radio for the information, and it's not there when you need it. And as a listener looking for information, I felt... well, betrayed isn't the right word. Disappointed is better. I know too much about the business to get my expectations up.

Oh, let's add another question you should ask once you've asked why people use your product. Ask yourself if you're providing the thing people are looking to you to provide. If you're not, ask a third question: If consumers expect something from me and I don't give it to them when, how, and where they want it, why would they continue to come to me?

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Thanks for the many kind words about last week's column, by the way, and if you're interested in this week's column, you might want to go check my Facebook post from last week about the same incident that led to a really great exchange of viewpoints in the comments among some of the best broadcasters in the business. It's a reminder that there are plenty of people in and around radio who get it.

Perry Michael Simon
Vice President/Editor, News-Talk-Sports and Podcast
AllAccess.com
psimon@allaccess.com
www.facebook.com/pmsimon
Twitter @pmsimon
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