Do you know who needs them?
Every single radio station across the entire country, is who needs them. What do they bring to the table? A full course dinner with dessert. In real estate, the word is LOCATION, LOCATION, LOCATION……IN THE WORLD OF RADIO, IT STARTS WITH CONTENT, CONTENT, CONTENT!

Every personality on a radio station has a job to do, and that job is no easy task. They have to create unique content every day to engage their listening audience. That personality is the moderator of a “community”. A community analogous to communities you find online, like blogs, Facebook, and Twitter. It’s people who can relate to that DJ, whether its their programming including views on subjects, poking fun at people, news events, satirical opinions- the list goes on and on. What’s most important is that they add value to the station, and changes the “vanilla” flavor to something that adds “spice” for the listeners. There is such a disparity between “cookie cutter voice tracked programming,” to a personality who can relate to the local community and listeners alike. It is like going from one end of the spectrum to the other. Yes, radio stations CEOs can save money by eliminating the talent on air and replace it with voice tracked programming, but at what price? You save a salary but you deteriorated and cannibalized your audience as a by-product. That same audience you worked so hard to acquire.

So let’s get back to the original question, why do radio stations need them? Their unique content becomes the personality of the station and an integral part of the fabric composing their listening audience. Their loyal followers are the audience that advertisers are attracted to. Local programming, talented DJs, unique original content are just some of the important ingredients that go into the recipe for a successful radio station. Top the cake off with a talented well trained sales department to market this to their agencies and advertisers, as well as a strong digital component; and behold, you have a formula and blueprint for success, and one helluva cake! See what jacobsmedia blog says about promoting local radio. The digital component is where there is a tremendous uptick in potential. It changes the face of terrestrial radio like a facelift and brings radio into the new millennium. The unique generated content on the radios respective web site allows the interaction with the audience but on a new platform. Some stations have a webcam set up in the broadcast booth(link to story), others are streaming, and still others are providing UGC that do not fall under the FCC regulations. Watch an interview online with a guest in its entirety without the timeline given on terrestrial radio. Today the consumer is in charge of what they want to listen to and what they want to watch. If radio stations hit those aforementioned benchmarks, then they have successfully engaged their audience. And that is something they have to earn! (more…)