Create Powerful Content! To Get, Keep and Grow Your Audience!

Valerie Geller

A while back, while helping a friend clear out her aunt’s estate, (her aunt being a woman who never threw anything out, including old magazines from the past 70 years!) I unearthed an old article, an editorial, from the 1950s, written by an executive in the film industry, back in the time when television was brand new, expressing concerns about the new medium, and the future of the movie industry.  In the article, he posed the question:  "Who will ever pay to go to the movies, if they have the TV coming in free to their living rooms?"

Of course what ultimately happened: Both mediums successfully learned to co-exist and thrive, side-by-side.  Film makers innovated.  Movies developed and grew.  Through trial and error, film makers found and did what the movies could do best: The Big Story (guns, blasts, explosions, semi-nudity, deeper stories and high degree of intimacy) and TV did what TV did best... serial programming, soap operas, daily news, short and long form comedies, game shows, etc.  In the 1950s and 60s, each had original programming unavailable elsewhere to the audience and both thrived. 

Perhaps radio could learn a lesson from this model?

Right now we're in an industry seemingly overly concerned about delivery systems...

That's a WRONG emphasis.  While it's important to embrace and use the new technology, does it really matter to a listener or viewer if the content comes out of your radio, your phone, your Dick Tracy wrist watch OR the fillings in your TEETH?  In focus groups, listeners say what they care about is CONTENT.

Listeners also tell us they want to spend their time with people they care about,  on air personalities they connect to and feel they know, who are saying relevant, interesting, informative, fun, entertaining things,
The answer to the survival of our medium:  NEVER BE BORING.  Serve your listener/audience by offering something that person cannot get elsewhere!

Reacting to a bad economy by cutting staff, risks, costs and cutting creativity does not work to grow audiences and increase profit for radio stations. Innovation is not born of being a sheep, cutting back and curtailing risk or fear of originality or genuine creativity.  Fear based management is not the answer.  And overworked, pressed or burned out, demoralized or exhausted employees tend not to innovate.  They just want to hang on.

The Internet isn’t going away, the computer is here to stay.  Broadcasters need to learn to embrace this new medium and use it.  These mediums can co-exist and thrive. 

Most successful companies in the world have research and development departments.  Without R&D many companies or businesses may succeed for the moment, but they are not building for the future.
To grow our business, perhaps it’s time to think in a new direction.  To build.  Build on creative programming.

It can be a challenge to embrace, particularly if you are a more traditional broadcaster, or are of an age to have come to the new technology as an “immigrant” rather than a “native.”  But you will win if you invest in quality content.   Hire creative, innovative people who want to do this work.

Find those who can work across all mediums, and pay them well.  Find, hire, develop and bring in people with energy, enthusiasm and talent.  Find people who are excited about careers as broadcasters and communicators and have ideas. Don’t just hire the kid who drives the promotion van to be your webmaster.  Find experts who understand how to maximize the benefits of the new technology.  Take some risks.

What listeners want:  All audiences are story junkies.  Stories always work.   Find and develop powerful storytellers, story seekers and those who are curious.  Find people who want to hold up a mirror and reflect what is happening in life…or get ahead of and lead an audience to new ideas, by introducing characters an audience can care about and solutions instead of always presenting problems.  New information is great and humor always works.

Radio, TV, internet, HD, satellite can all survive, together to get and grow audiences, but only if we work hard to always remember to serve the audience… by creating powerful, relevant content... and offering powerful personalities to deliver it!

· Change and progress are inevitable. 
· Don’t be a "steamboat captain when the railroads came in!"  -  Adapt and embrace the new, use it to strengthen what you do.
· Hire the best - find great people who are experts in the new technology...people who know what they are doing, and pay them well. (Too many stations lose by hiring the kid that drives the promotions van to handle your website/podcasts)
· Innovate, don't be a sheep.  Take risks.
· Face challenges.  Don't come from a place of fear. Fear does not incubate creativity.
 
THE POWERFUL RADIO PRINCIPLES, excerpted from VALERIE GELLER’S PRINCIPLES OF CREATING POWERFUL RADIO (Internet, Podcasts, HD, Satellite, & Broadcast!)

·         Tell the truth
·         Make it matter
·         Never be boring
·         Speak visually, in terms listeners can picture.
·         Start with your best material.
·         Storytell powerfully.
·         Listen to your station but also check out other media – know what’s out there and what the audience is listening to and how they get their information and entertainment!
·         Ask: Why would someone want to listen to this?
·         Talk to the individual.  Use “You.”
·         Do engaging transitions & handoffs.
·         Promote, brag about your stuff (and other people’s stuff!)
·         Stay curious, relax, allow the humor to happen.
·         Be who you are on the radio.
·         Take risks, dare to be great.

Excerpted from Creating Powerful Radio – Getting, Keeping & Growing Audiences by Valerie Geller – published by Focal Press.  Copyright 2007.  Do not reprint without permission. 

Valerie Geller is President of Geller Media International, broadcast consultants, working with more than 500 stations in 30 countries to help build audiences.  A noted workshop leader and conference speaker, Geller is the author of Creating Powerful Radio – Getting, Keeping & Growing Audiences from Focal Press.  For more on the book, www.creatingpowerfulradio.com

Geller can be reached at 212 580-3385.  For more on the The Creating Powerful Radio workshops and seminars or to learn more about Geller Media International, visit: www.gellermedia.com