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Over our years of programming at McVay and no doubt in your experiences we’ve all heard a number of assumptions and beliefs from programmers, researchers, and consultants. While some of them are probably valuable I rounded up 5 myths that really deserve a second look before you put too much faith in them let’s cover the first 2 here and the rest in Part 2:
1. Don’t Break on the Quarter Hours
This is one of the most widely followed rules of all times in every format. It stems from the late 70s as the widely respected programmer Buzz Bennet dug in on the way Arbitron credited listening. He found that if they write down 7 minutes for a station they get credit for the ¼ hour. So when he designed his clocks he made sure to place the spot breaks at :22 or :23 after the hour and avoiding any breaks in the 1st ¼ hour. The thought was you would get them sometime in the 1st ¼ hour and if they didn’t leave till :22 you would get credit for the full half hour with under 22 minutes of listening.
The only problem with this strategy is that people don’t fill out the diaries minute by minute. They also don’t have all their clocks set to an ‘exact’ time. 22 after the hour to you might be 15 after the hour on my watch. Most of the listening is recalled and written down at the end of the day or even the end of the week and most of it is rounded off to the ½ or ¼ hour by the diary keeper anyway.
This belief is so popular with programmers that we now hear a ‘standard’ in breaks across many formats. 22 – 37 – 50 are the common break times. In one on one wars we often try and advance the times a little to get in and out before the competitor but just punch around your dial – it often sounds like a conspiracy as all the stations break pretty close to each other. Are they opportunities to start using the 1st ¼ hour and even break on the quarter/half hour slots and be in music when everyone else is in spots? You bet.
2. Out of Spots Lead With a Power
The logic here seems obvious, after the commercials let’s make sure we have our strongest songs on – let’s make up for the lost ground. While the intention may be good here look at the reality of it. You’ve just played a bunch of spots and took the risk of tune out. The sensitive and trigger happy listeners have probably tuned out during the spots. So here after you’ve suffered some tune-out you pull out your best musical weapon and fire away. The group listening is likely to be your most loyal and least trigger happy listeners. If they sat through 5 minutes of spots they will likely be pretty content with a song that tests positive with 72% of the audience instead of one that test well with 80%. You probably could have used the power in other spots to build more TSL than out of spots.
Next week make sure to log in again and catch Part 2 as we cover myths on reaching the audience, building the brand and KISS.
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