If you could design your own radio station, what ideas / features would you include to attract listeners?

Question

What are you current opinions of the radio station you listen too. What do you think is a weakness of that station and what would you like to see more of that would make you listen to it more often?

What about any idea for an advertising campaign?

Answer 1

I think the radio stations where I live in Chicago, have become too Pop/Hip-Hop/Rap oriented and very few stations attract my attention. For example, WNUA 95.5 in Chicago does a great job of attracting loyal listeners by offering wonderful free trips and giveaways every single day. All you have to do is selected 3 tunes you would like to hear. If you're chosen, you win the giveaway or trip of the day. The first time I entered, I was selected and won a trip to a resort in Wisconsin, as well as a $100 gift certificate to a local restaurant.

I like a station that doesn't play too many commercials, and plays a wide variety of artists with really great music (w/o cursing or sexual language). Also, I think it's nice to have on-air personalities that are real, who share their love of life and music with the listeners. It's nice to hear about local weather, traffic, sports, and brief news headlines, just to keep the listeners informed.

If I had a station, each weekend a celebrity guest would be featured on a 2-hour show. He or she would be interviewed, and they would have the chance to interact with callers, during the show. Music would be played in-between. If that person where a music artist, their music would be featured during the show.

Each night, Monday-Sunday from 8pm until 4am, I would play music designed for a sensual, romantic mood. I would have 2 different hosts, each with a 4-hour slot to occasionally interact with listeners as well as talk to them and share experiences and their advice on love issues.

Each day, I would give away $1,000 to any listener who's online-submitted playlist is chosen.  Their playlist would be featured during a certain hour throughout the day. Also, for every winner, $100 would be donated to an accredited charity, in their name.

My station would feature some of what I mentioned above, with very few commercials, and lots of great music. No advertisements revolving around s*x, drugs, or politics. During the christmas season, christmas music would be incorporated into the daily music being played. We would offer a contest, where a lucky person would have their christmas dreams granted. They would get to come on the air and share their story with listeners. Also, they would be treated to a special lunch/dinner and spend their day with their favorite radio personality from the station.

As you can see I have great ideas. Hope it gives you inspiration.

Answer 2

i enjoy music quizzes and used to love dlt years ago.the music being varied is good too. songs get played to death on most stations.

Answer 3

adverts do my head in on the radio along with sport and world news, i want local news and story's, more of todays music not blast from the past and less talking on the show

regards x kitti x

Answer 4

Radio is a business. After 25 years of it (far junior to Duh's experience) I agree with everything he wrote.

You can't expect an untested, unproven format to work and going backwards has NEVER worked. Listen to today's Oldies or Adult Hits stations and compare them to what were oldies stations even into the early 1990s. The music is much different. Did you ever expect to hear Madness or George Michael on an oldies station? You do now.

People gripe a lot about classic rock stations but miss the point. Classic rock serves their audience, attracts high dollar advertisers and maintains a consistent audience niche from market to market. In some, such as the Twin Cities, it's the number one station (granted KQRS leans toward Adult Hits as a flanking maneuver).

The same goes for A/C. Despite what you may feel, nobody turns on their radio to be educated. They want to be entertained. So, large doses of Lionel Ritchie, Gloria Estafan, Neil Diamond and others fill their listening wants.

Answer 5

Usually the radio stations that have the most listeners are listener-oriented. They let the listeners play quizzes and games to give the listeners a chance to win money and prizes. Sometimes they offer trips. These are the best radio stations because they do things that get the listeners involved.

Answer 6

DJB has an excellent answer for this. Now let me interject some reality because this is what I do for a living.

First, I'll assume you are talking about an over-the-air station in the US, not internet. What market are you in? DJB mentions Chicago - a major US market where radio stations would sell for tens of millions of dollars, well over $100 million for one of the bigger signals. So someone is investing a lot of money on your dream station.

Have you done any research to determine what your audience's dream station would sound like? After all you have to attract thousands of people to your station - not just you. It may not be what you imagined.

So, are you willing to invest millions and millions of dollars in order to "test" a new dream format? Let me help with that answer, because it wouldn't be your decision. The answer is no.

The owners would have to go with an established, CONSISTENT format that has been tested eslewhere and for which an opening (we call it a "format hole") in Chicago has been determined.

Just the research, before you play the first song, would cost hundreds of thousands of dollars.

And, of course, good thinking, you'd need to advertise the station. What do you use? TV, Billboards, Direct Mail? A combination of several advertising vehicles that would target the group you'd decided to program to?

What are you advertising? A big expensive contest to launch the station?

Add in another couple million. So, back to the beginning: you've been in the business a while, built a good reputation as a programmer and the new owners of WNUA hire you to program their station. Now what do you do ;<)?

Just some things to think  about (and we're just getting started). Good question, though, and a star for you.

-a guy named duh

PS: I know some of the people at WNUA and this station was chosen because the person asking the question used them as an example. Thats what I'm doing here. None of this has anything to do with the actual WNUA - one of the most respected stations in the country.

Answer 7

So what trying to get some ideas to steal?... I know of a few clear channel employees that steal ideas from radio forums.... (true story)

While Duh and the others love major market signals, I personally are more like broadcasters like Gap broadcasting that are upcoming.. These are broadcasters that buy in small to medium markets and while it's harder to make that buck... Usually small town product will beat big town production hands down.

What I want on a radio station.. (this would be small markets I am interested in)

Play the hits,the regular recurrants, the classics but also play the songs you haven't heard from in a while... small town radio does this alot..play songs that no one has heard from in say a year or two (but may be 5 years old and completely forgotten by big town radio with their surveys)

This would work for a country and rock formats which I would love to do.

Another thing is to actually have a MD who loves and knows the music. Music selection programs set up by bad MDs or by some consultants can sound like train wrecks and need frequent bumpers for the transitions.... I say make it like a flow..You can do this with the program but someone knowledgeable about the music may find something the computer selected may be a little off and can correct it

Listeners will be willing to listen if they have that oh wow factor in my opinion.. like Oh wow what is coming up next

I feel the commercials, bumpers and such even for a small market station for a sizeable community (say like 50-100k people) should sound as professional as possible. Small town radio is the training grounds and I beleive training those people to be comfortable and not go uh the next record is uh would help...

Also the owner or GM needs to go in the community and find out what people are listening to and why. I got some secrets on that but until the Personal People Meters came around, lies were rampant in what people listened to.

I sat one time with a MD who had a listener come up to him and said that she loved the show he did and the radio station cause the other sounded so canned. that is what you need.. go to a bar and see what people play

Ad campaigns I would have to think about.. I know a lot of country stations run the god,apple pie,our station type advertising a lot... I think it would have to be market specific.. the trips and such are cool and cheap. There is a local Americana station to me that gives away a small car or small truck every year at their station's birthday party... Basically a reward for listening.. but instead of just people who call in and win, everyone who shows up get the chance to win.

So to me, I would have to run what I feel from the area

Answer 8

My radio station would feature old Top 40 jocks and presentation style, reverb on the mic, and play 'oldies' from the 60s, 70s and early 80s. It would have customized Pam jingles and the overall 'sound' would be like WABC 77 New York sounded in the 1960s.

Answer 9

I wouldn't play the same song like every hour.

I would have different ways to win money pertaining to music.

And I would have a D.J. whom I think is very suitable to my music listeners.

Answer 10

I assume your talking about a UK STATION as we're on answers UK.

(Couldn't resist that, re; previous answers!)

My opinion of our local 'independent' (yeah, right!) station is; commercials, commercials, commercials, overprocessed sound to the point of becoming wearisome to listen too and a total loss of dynamics to the sound.

Same old (current) tunes repeated over and over.

Same old oldies.

No innovation, no balls, no maverick element, no bounderies pushed, not enough late-night specialist music shows.

PIS5 poor on the whole to be honest.