Thought: While the average American listens to the radio nearly 2.25 hours per day during the week but 5.2 hours on the weekend, why do so many stations play their C-list talent and shows on the weekend? I have a competitor in the market that just plays iPod style radio all weekend on all of their FMs... songs and liners, nothing live. The talk stations in the market play reruns of guys like Hannity, as if we need to hear a show we heard again... or some shows on Healthy Living, Supplements or car care.
For anyone running talk formats, what do you program on the weekends? Are you satisfied with it?
Remember when the average daily listening figure was nearly 4 hours? ...back when "live" and "local" meant that someone was actually sitting there, talking to listeners, taking their phone calls, etc. all day, every day. Then we started getting better advice from the bean counters.
Sigh.
If weekend listening is spread more or less evenly between the two days (which I suspect it is not), we're talking 15% more time spent listening on weekends. Not overwhelming, but worth noting.
Holland Cooke has written and talked extensively about how to make money on weekends. He marvels that so few stations are seizing the opportunity, especially since the type of content he advocates is the most likely to remain relevant in local markets.
Anyhow, those are two great questions, Chris. Maybe we should make it a Friday Poll topic and find out more...
Thanks Rod... always good things to think about. I still believe it is about local relevance. I heard a station a while back with a local announcer who talked about the Kardashians, the pres... nothing at all "local". What does that say. You and I Rod are old enough to remember the old ways. I think the ideas are still relevant today, but the methods have to change.
Lets do it on a Friday or two. I'd like to see what others are doing especially because I am in the middle of adding stations to my group. I'm always up for something new... as long as its fun! And I still want to look closer at weekends. We do very well money wise on the weekends, Saturday on two of our stations being HUGE days. But I also still want to keep improving some of my station offerings to the public..
PS: Don't kille the "bean counters". I'd like to thin k I didn't waste all that money I paid Wharton!
