The Rodney Dangerfield of Radio

Adult Contemporary is the Rodney Dangerfield of radio. The now deceased comic who was famous in the 70s and 80s had a signature line, “I get no respect.” The line was usually delivered while he pulled on his shirt collar. It was a great line that mirrored the disheveled comic’s appearance. It was always delivered with a certain pattern and style that had audiences anticipating the delivery of the line. The same goes for Adult Contemporary.

The format for the longest time has been the media buyers darling. Media buyers continue to look for 25-54 year old listeners despite the fact there are bigger populous cell of 18-49 an echo boom that post war baby boomers have left behind. These heirs to the buying demos are not yet receiving the respect they deserve, but yet it is a savings ignored in radio circles. A large number of non-AC broadcasters tend to think that AC is the format you stick in the closet and as long as you play with, without a lot of talk, it can be successful. There is nothing that can be further from the truth. Adult Contemporary is a difficult format to program it requires a lot of time and attention in the scheduling of the music, marketing of the station’s usage in the medium because of its background nature has to be seen in the community and promoted to remain top-of-mind. AC is a format that has to cleverly jump out of the speakers without being so intrusive if it’s turned off in the at-work arena.

When the People Meter was first announced it brought fear into the hearts of AC programmers. Most of us, myself included thought the PPM (Personal People Meter) from Arbitron would herald the death of AC. After all we knew that we were receiving less than we deserved. The diary enabled listeners to draw a line with a pencil from 9am-5pm and show that they were listening from 9 to 5 whether they actually listened or not. I thought sure we’d see at-work fall off and TSL go through the floor. The People Meter proved that theory wrong. Cume went through the ceiling and despite TSL growing at a lesser degree there is greater listening in the AC format than was noted in the paper diary.

The cume numbers of AC grow very simply of the PPM picking up the P-3, P-4, and P-5, etc., listening to what the AC format receives. The reason is that it’s arithmetic. If there is a lot more people listening, for shorter periods of time, it stands to reason that you’ll see TSL drop as a whole. Does that mean you should market for cume because it’s now a cume game? I believe that external marketing has always been to build cume. That’s nothing new. The difference is that you should program for TSL and try to turn the P-3 individuals into P-1 and P-2 listeners by doing a better job of presenting compelling programming or serving to better entice the audience with great contests. Get the people coming in your store and get them to stay there and shop for long periods of time because that equals more money spent on your merchandise.

It should have been a surprise to no one that WBEB/Philadelphia, KODA/Houston, WLTW/New York and other such AC’s went through the ceiling with the PPM. The People Meter proved what we always knew what was correct. More people use Adult Contemporary and write it down, hence the need for the format to have marketing and promotion as well as being involved in the community and being seen everywhere so that we receive top of mind awareness.

A simple rule of the thumb for AC; 1) competing in the diary world means driving top of mind of awareness. 2) competing in the PPM world means market for cume and program for TSL. The AC format deserves respect. Don’t make it the “Rodney Dangerfield of Radio.” Make it what it is …. It is a low maintenance way to generate great big gobs of cash.