Turn back the clock to the late 70’s. That’s about the time a few attentive radio programming folks started doing more than tracking listener song requests and record sales to figure out which songs were most known and loved by listeners. They started doing music research – playing segments of songs and asking normal listeners to “rate the music”.
And, a crazy thing happened.
Not only did they discover that:
- listeners took longer to become familiar with songs than they had guessed
- and, that listeners took way longer to become tired of their favorite songs than they had guessed
- and, that listeners often liked songs that weren’t necessarily chart hits and didn’t like some of the songs on the charts . . .
. . . they also discovered that if they played those higher-testing songs a lot and de-emphasized or didn’t play the lower-testing songs, they would get more listeners . . . a lot more listeners. Oftentimes, the one station in town that was researching/playing the hits had a two or three to one audience advantage over the next closest station.
It’s still true today. Researching which songs are known/beloved and then playing them results in more listeners.
The biggest difference today is that most folks in radio have figured out that asking listeners which songs they know and like . . . and then playing those songs more . . . is an idea that resonates with listeners.
If you’re not doing listener research, we recommend you start. If you can’t afford to do it, at least pay attention to the stations who are doing it. On either of these ideas – doing research with your listeners or following the stations who do – we at Finney Media Research can show you how.
