Crisis Coverage for Music Stations

You’re sitting in your office working or worse yet you’re at home, and the news comes in that we have a crisis. It’s a terrorist attack...or foiled attempt like the Times Square bombing. Maybe it’s the recent shootings in Texas. Maybe it’s a serious plane crash at a nearby airport. If it’s NOT a weather crisis, then we should either a) go 100% news or b) send the audience away to television. I would rather you take your station to 100% News coverage, but if that’s an impossibility, then you should send your audience away from the radio to TV.

You read correctly. In this day and age of the People Meter, we must either cover the news or send the audience away from the radio, or accept that the news/talk stations in your market will dominate the ratings. Obviously, if you have a news/talk sister station, send the audience there. If you do not have your own N/T sister, then the way for us to handle these types of disasters is that we must tell people about them and then “suggest” that if they need more information, go to CNN. This is not an endorsement for CNN (or another network) as much as it is to sound as if you’re doing a service for your audience and directing them to a network that has on-going and continuing coverage.

Example: “(Insert Crisis Here) has just been reported. Here’s what we know so far … (details) … The CNN TV Network (or your own News/Talk station or a TV station where you have a relationship) has video of the crisis now. You can hear and see more details on CNN and keep checking back with us as we’ll continue to update you on this situation.”

The goal of this strategy is to have interested parties’ leave you and come back to you without giving a ratings advantage to a news-heavy competitor. This strategy will be judged by some as being unrealistic, and they may be right, but it makes sense to try to disallow the unfair advantage of the news/talk station when a crisis become their “ratings promotion” for the sweep.