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Author: Warren Kurtzman

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Winning Through Analytics and Intuition

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Tuesdays With Coleman

This is a very difficult blog for me to write. You see, I’m a huge English soccer fan who spends far too many weekend mornings in a pub watching matches with my fellow members of North Carolina Spurs, the official local supporters club of my favorite team, Tottenham Hotspur. To say that I have become a rabid fan since I began closely following the English Premier League more than a decade ago is a bit of an understatement; my wife and I even made sure to attend a match in London before they tore down my team’s ancestral home—White Hart Lane—to make way for its beautiful, new state-of-the-art stadium.

Tottenham Hotspur

Me with my wife Sharon at White Hart Lane, Tottenham Hotspur’s former stadium

And now I am going to write about a glowing New York Times article about Liverpool. I hate Liverpool—I believe it’s codified in English law that if you’re a supporter of one of the Premier League’s “Big Six” teams you have to hate the other five—but the piece supports a concept that is incredibly aligned with our experience of working with radio stations at Coleman Insights.

So why is this a challenging blog for me? This past Saturday, Spurs lost a heartbreaking 2-0 match to Liverpool in the final of the Champions League. For the uninitiated, the Champions League is an annual competition between the top clubs across Europe and is the closest thing the continent has—short of the World Cup—to America’s Super Bowl. It was amazing that my Spurs advanced as far as the Champions League final, but to get so close and just miss out on being crowned as the champions of Europe was also bitterly disappointing.

Even if you have no interest in soccer (or football, as everyone outside of America calls it), I encourage you to read “How Data (and Some Breathtaking Soccer) Brought Liverpool to the Cusp of Glory,” which ran in the Times about ten days before this past Saturday’s final. It talks about how Liverpool’s plan to rebuild after several less-than-successful seasons was not only based on luring away manager Jürgen Klopp from the German club Borussia Dortmund, but also on the hiring of a director of research named Ian Graham and using the data-based insights Graham produced for making decisions about the direction and strategy of the club.

Graham is but one of numerous examples of how analytics is revolutionizing sports. Sports executives, managers and coaches are increasingly making decisions—about what players to recruit, about where to position those players on the field, court or ice, about what strategies to employ, etc.—based on incredible reams of data that advances in technology have made readily accessible. It’s why Major League Baseball games feature more player shifts in the field than fans of the games have ever seen before and why three-point shots have become a much bigger factor in NBA games in recent years, even though they have been a part of the game since 1979.

The parallels to radio programming here are striking. Jürgen Klopp is the program director who is succeeding by blending together the science he is getting from his researcher Ian Graham and the art that comes from his instincts and years of experience coaching soccer. One of my favorite lines in the Times piece describes how “the tactics he chooses end up being a mix of the data-driven and the intuitive.” As a researcher, I can really relate to Ian Graham, who “wants the club he works for to win, but he also wants his judgments to be validated.” Very few things give me greater satisfaction that seeing one of our client stations enjoy great success because of things their management team learned from the data and insights we provided to them.

If a sports franchise can use insights derived from data to make consequential decisions on things like which players to attract and shots to take, radio stations should use the same advantages for decisions ranging from which air talent to attract to types of music to play and features to run. In fact, most successful radio stations do exactly that. The programmers that lead them possess great instincts and creativity; they put them to work within strategic frameworks that are supported by research.

May 15th marked my 24th anniversary with Coleman Insights; as I embark on my 25th year with the company, my belief that the best programmers know how to blend art and science is as strong as ever. Are you using high-quality data and research-based insights to make decisions about your strategy? If you are not, I strongly encourage you to do so if you want to remain relevant in a world that is increasingly reliant on data and analytics.

Even if all was right in the world and my Spurs—who also use analytics, but weren’t the Times article’s subject—defeated hated Liverpool, the fact that Liverpool has experienced a significant turnaround in its on-field performance since Ian Graham was added to its payroll is evidence of the value of high-quality research. With another soccer season over, now all I must worry about is that my fellow Spurs supporters don’t gave me too much grief about writing something positive about Liverpool.

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Bruno Mars is the Great Unifier

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Tuesdays With Coleman

This is the final blog in a four-part series from Coleman Insights, featuring findings from its Contemporary Music SuperStudy.

The study tested the most consumed songs of 2018 as measured by Nielsen BDSradio with 1,000 people aged 12-54 across the United States and Canada. This includes radio airplay, streaming and sales data.

A webinar featuring a deep dive into the results will be held on Tuesday, April 30th. Details to register for that webinar are below.

Can’t we all just get along?

In this week’s findings from our Contemporary Music SuperStudy, we take a look at the intersection between contemporary music tastes and politics. For example, is there a connection between how we feel about President Donald Trump and the contemporary music we like the best?

Generally speaking, yes.

COUNTRY MUSIC AND HIP HOP ARE DECIDEDLY PARTISAN

When it comes to contemporary music, no sounds demonstrate more dramatic political leans than Country and Hip Hop/R&B.

While Country makes up 21% of the test list, it comprises nearly half—46%—of the Top 100 songs among Trump supporters. As much as Trump supporters love Country, Trump detractors stay away. Country makes up only 2% of the Top 100 songs among Trump detractors.

The opposite is true for Hip Hop/R&B. Only 3% of the Top 100 songs with Trump supporters are Hip Hip/R&B, even though Hip Hop/R&B makes up 33% of the test list. Among Trump detractors, however, Hip Hop/R&B makes up 31% of the Top 100.

In our previous blogs we showed how Pop music over-performs across age, gender and geography. It does among Trump supporters and detractors as well, making up 43% of the Top 100 with Trump detractors and 30% of the Top 100 with Trump supporters, both far higher than the 19% presence of Pop in the test list.

BRUNO MARS IS THE GREAT UNIFIER

Despite the aforementioned differences in music tastes between supporters and detractors of President Trump, there is one song that is #1 with both camps:

“Uptown Funk” by Mark Ronson featuring Bruno Mars.

We can now confirm what wedding DJs have known all along. This is the dance floor non-partisan no-brainer.

POP DOMINATES THE TOP

Not surprisingly, based on its crossover appeal, Pop songs take up seven of the top ten spots in the Contemporary Music SuperStudy.

Perhaps an indication of the weaker Pop music cycle in 2018, only two of the top ten songs were actually released in 2018— “Africa” by Weezer (a cover of Toto’s 1982 hit), and “The Middle” by Zedd featuring Maren Morris.

The bottom song in the Contemporary Music SuperStudy? To satisfy your curiosity, it’s 2017’s “Gucci Gang” by Lil Pump.

Discover more findings from Coleman Insights’ Contemporary Music SuperStudy by visiting our three previous Tuesdays With Coleman blogs:

The Current State of Contemporary Music

There’s a Reason They Call it Pop Music and

What Shapes Our Music Tastes

Finally, join us for the Contemporary Music SuperStudy Deep Dive webinar Tuesday, April 30 from 2p-3p EDT (11a-12n PDT), when we’ll take a close look at all our findings and answer questions.

 

 

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What Shapes Our Music Tastes

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Tuesdays With Coleman

Coleman Insights is releasing findings from its Contemporary Music SuperStudy in a four-part blog series, followed by a free webinar on April 30th in which the findings will be covered in greater depth. Details to register for that webinar are below.

In the two previous installments of Tuesdays With Coleman, we shared two primary findings from our Contemporary Music SuperStudy:

1)            Hip Hop/R&B was the most consumed genre of 2018 and is the music style that invokes the most passion. On the other hand, Hip Hop/R&B is significantly polarizing.

2)            Of the six genres of music represented in our study—Hip Hop/R&B, Pop, Country, Alternative/Rock, Electronic/Dance and Latin—Pop is the one sound that is highly popular with fans of every other genre.

This week, we’ll dig into demographics and reveal how age, gender and geography impacts music tastes. In addition, you’ll see the difference between daily streaming listeners and daily radio listeners—a finding that will illustrate why the radio airplay and streaming charts look different from one another.

POP OVER-PERFORMS WITH ALL AGE GROUPS, WHILE COUNTRY AND HIP HOP/R&B HAVE HEAVILY SKEWED AGE APPEAL

As we illustrated in our previous blog, Pop is the “glue” of contemporary music. Pop over-performs with the younger and older listeners in our study. Although Pop makes up only 19% of the titles we tested, it represents 42% of the Top 100 songs among 12- to 34-year-olds and 37% of the Top 100 with consumers between the ages of 35 and 54.

The appetites for Country lean significantly older; in fact, only one Country song—“Meant To Be” by Bebe Rexha (featuring Florida Georgia Line), a song that clearly straddles the Pop line—finishes among the Top 100 titles with 12- to 34-year-olds. In the 35-54 demographic, however, Country is very strong, making up 37% of the Top 100 songs, much higher than the 21% presence of Country titles in the study.

Conversely, Hip Hop/R&B is much stronger with younger listeners than with older listeners. These titles represent 33% of the test list and slightly over-perform with 12- to 34-year-olds, making up 35% of their Top 100 songs. Among 35- to 54-year-olds, however, Hip Hop/R&B’s Top 100 presence stands at only 7%.

Neither Dance/Electronic or Alternative/Rock demonstrates significant age skews with similar presences among the Top 100 songs with younger and older listeners. Latin titles are not significantly present among the Top 100 songs with either age group.

MEN MORE LIKELY TO LOVE HIP HOP/R&B, DANCE/ELECTRONIC AND ALTERNATIVE/ROCK; WOMEN MORE LIKELY TO LOVE COUNTRY

The most significant difference in contemporary genre appeal between genders is with Country. While Country represents 21% of the test list, it represents only 8% of the Top 100 with men. But Country actually slightly over-performs with women, representing 22% of their Top 100.

Hip Hop/R&B underperforms with both genders, while Dance/Electronic significantly over-performs with men and Alternative/Rock looks solid with men and women.

Which genre do men and women love equally? You guessed it…Pop. In fact, Pop’s 41% and 42% presence in the Top 100s of men and women, respectively, is more than twice the 19% presence of Pop titles in our study.

HIP HOP/R&B, DANCE/ELECTRONIC AND POP OVER-PERFORM IN URBAN AREAS, WHILE COUNTRY DOMINATES AMONG RURAL CONSUMERS

Hip Hop/R&B shows the most passion with those who live in urban areas, and least passion with those who live in rural areas. Meanwhile, the appeal of Country is dramatically rural. Country represents 21% of the test list, but 36% of the Top 100 titles with rural residents. Dance/Electronic over-performs with urban and suburbanites. Two genres over-perform with residents of all three geographic areas—Alternative/Rock and Pop.

THIS IS WHY STREAMING CHARTS ARE SO DIFFERENT FROM RADIO AIRPLAY CHARTS

Programmers often ask us, “Why are streaming charts so different from radio airplay charts?” The answer is simple: Consumers who use streaming frequently are more likely to be big Hip Hop/R&B fans, while the appetite for Country music is much stronger among daily radio listeners than it is with those who use audio streaming every day.

This helps explain why there’s so much Hip Hop/R&B and so little Country on the streaming chart.

Despite this finding, it is noteworthy that Pop is the only contemporary music genre that substantially over-performs with daily streamers and daily radio users. In comparison to the 19% presence of Pop titles in the study, they make up 43% of the Top 100 songs with daily streaming users and 40% of the Top 100 songs with daily radio listeners.

MORE FROM THE CONTEMPORARY MUSIC SUPERSTUDY

Next Tuesday, we’ll reveal the Top 10 songs in our Contemporary Music SuperStudy. And of course, we’ll also tell you which song brings up the rear.

We’ll also demonstrate for you the huge contemporary music taste differences we observe between those who have positive opinions of Donald Trump versus those with negative impressions of the President. Don’t fret, however, as there is hope in our finding that the same song is number one with Trump supporters and detractors. Check out our blog next week to learn what “the great unifier” is!

Register now for our Contemporary Music SuperStudy Deep Dive webinar, Tuesday, April 30 from 2p-3p EDT when we’ll provide an extended version of our Worldwide Radio Summit presentation and further insights into the current state of contemporary music.

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There’s a Reason They Call it Pop Music

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Tuesdays With Coleman

Coleman Insights is releasing findings from its Contemporary Music SuperStudy in a four-part blog series, followed by a free webinar on April 30th in which the findings will be covered in greater depth. Details to register for that webinar are below.

In part one of our four-part blog series covering the findings of our Contemporary Music SuperStudy, we shared that Hip Hop/R&B was the most consumed genre of 2018, and was the genre that invoked the most passion. But we also learned that high negatives tend to drive down overall evaluation numbers for Hip Hop/R&B, which is why Pop is the overall evaluation leader.

Each of the six genres represented in the study—Hip Hop/R&B, Country, Pop, Dance/Electronic, Alternative/Rock and Latin (based on heavy new music consumption)—have a certain number of fans. To be considered a genre “fan” in this study, respondents had to rate a verbal descriptor of the genre with a “5” on a one-to-five scale.

Contemporary Music SuperStudy

This week, we’ll look at some of the test results with each genre’s fans. It’s unsurprising, for example, that Hip Hop/R&B performs very well in the test with Hip Hop/R&B fans. But how did songs in the other genres test with Hip Hop/R&B fans? If I like songs in one genre, am I more or less likely to like songs in another? This gives us a measure of compatibility. Let’s start with Hip Hop/R&B.

HIP HOP/R&B AND POP OVERPERFORMS WITH HIP HOP/R&B FANS, WHILE COUNTRY, DANCE/ELECTRONIC, ALTERNATIVE/ROCK AND LATIN SIGNIFICANTLY UNDERPERFORM

While Hip Hop/R&B songs make up 33% of all songs tested, 63% of songs in the Top 100 average for R&B/Hip Hop Fans are Hip Hop/R&B songs. This is a significant over-performance compared to the entire list.

Hip Hop/R&B

We can also see that Pop is the only other over-performing genre with Hip Hop/R&B fans. They are fairly format-centric—only eight percent of songs in the Top 100 of Hip Hop/R&B fans come from genres outside of Hip Hop/R&B and Pop. Country is the big outlier, representing 21% of the overall list and only one percent of the Top 100 of Hip Hop/R&B fans.

COUNTRY FANS BEHAVE IN A SIMILAR FORMAT-CENTRIC WAY AS HIP HOP/R&B FANS, BUT POP IS THE COMMON THREAD

Just as Country songs significantly underperform with Hip Hop/R&B fans, Hip Hop/R&B is the big underperformer with Country fans. Though Hip Hop/R&B makes up 33% of the test list, it represents only four percent of the Country fans’ Top 100. Dance/Electronic, Alternative/Rock and Latin all underperform compared to the total list, just as they did for Hip Hop/R&B fans.

And just it is for Hip Hop/R&B fans, Pop is the one other genre that over-performs for Country fans.

Country music fans

THERE’S A REASON WHY THEY CALL IT “POP”

While the fans of other genres show varying degrees of interest in different types of music, there is one popular genre that fans of every contemporary style of music can agree on—Pop.

Alternative/Rock titles overperform in our study among Dance/Electronic fans, but Pop is the big over-performer.

Dance/Electronic fans

Much as Alternative/Rock titles overperform with Dance/Electronic fans, we observe “cross-compatibility” below, as Dance/Electronic titles are overrepresented among the Top 100 titles with Alternative/Rock fans. Nonetheless, Pop is a far bigger over-performer among Alternative/Rock fans.

Alternative/Rock fans

We see the same pattern emerge among Latin music fans, with Pop as the dominant over-performing genre.

Latin music fans

Finally, we see the expected over-performance of Pop with Pop fans. Note, however, the significant presences of Hip Hop/R&B, Country, Dance/Electronic and Alternative/Rock titles among the Top 100 of Pop fans. Not only does Pop perform well among the fans of other genres, its fans also express high interest in other genres of contemporary music.

Pop music fans

MORE FROM THE CONTEMPORARY MUSIC SUPERSTUDY

Next Tuesday, we’ll take another look at our findings from the Contemporary Music SuperStudy, when you’ll learn how age, gender and geography shape contemporary music listening habits.

Register now for our Contemporary Music SuperStudy Deep Dive webinar, Tuesday, April 30 from 2p-3p EDT when we’ll provide an extended version of our Worldwide Radio Summit presentation and further insights into the current state of contemporary music.

Blog

The Current State of Contemporary Music

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Tuesdays With Coleman

Coleman Insights is releasing findings from its Contemporary Music SuperStudy in a four-part blog series, followed by a free webinar on April 30th in which the findings will be covered in greater depth. Details to register for that webinar are below.

There’s no shortage of song data for today’s radio program directors.

Radio airplay data, Shazam data, streaming counts and sales figures can often tell different stories, leading to confusion. Which data should you rely on more for programming decisions? When, for example, the streaming chart is so different from the radio airplay chart, how can you truly be sure what’s going on with consumer tastes?

Some programmers are fortunate enough to have access to music research customized for their stations. High quality library tests, such as our FACT360 Strategic Music Tests, are usually conducted with high degrees of focus in terms of the audience measured and the songs that are tested. The age range is usually narrow, between ten and 20 years. One gender and/or one ethnic group is often focused on depending on the station’s strategy. A certain percentage of the station’s P1s are usually included. And, generally one format’s music is focused on – the one of the station doing the music test.

Wouldn’t it be interesting to take a much broader look at the appetite for contemporary music?

Just how strong or weak is Pop music in the current music cycle? What do Country fans think of Hip Hop/R&B? As mentioned earlier, why is the streaming chart so different from the radio airplay chart?

These are just some of the many questions we’ve been asking about contemporary music, and this is what led us to create the Contemporary Music SuperStudy.

Contemporary Music SuperStudy

The song list was comprised of the most consumed songs of 2018 as measured by Nielsen Music – BDSradio. This includes radio airplay, streaming and sales data.

We then focused on the six major genres with heavy new music consumption, Hip Hop/R&B, Country, Pop, Dance/Electronic, Alternative/Rock and Latin. We made sure the 25 most consumed songs from each genre were represented in the list. Finally, we eliminated any song that was more than five years old. (As it happens, the only song more than five years old on the 2018 most consumed list was “Bohemian Rhapsody,” obviously the result of the smash hit movie of the same name.)

We tested the songs with 1,000 people ages 12-54 across the United States and Canada.

Over the course of the next few weeks, we’ll share some of our findings with you in our Tuesdays With Coleman blogs. First, let’s examine the landscape of the most consumed music of 2018.

HIP HOP/R&B WAS THE MOST CONSUMED GENRE OF 2018

We know that Hip Hop/R&B has permeated the music cycle over the past couple of years, and this genre was the most consumed of 2018, representing 33% of the songs in the study. This was followed by Country (21%,) Pop (19%,) Dance/Electronic (10%,) Alternative/Rock (9%) and Latin (9%).

Most consumed contemporary music of 2018

POP HAS VERY HIGH PASSION, AS DOES HIP HOP/R&B

While Pop only represents 19% of the test list, it represents 33% of the Top 100 Like a Lot scores (those who rated a song 5 on a 1-5 scale.) Hip Hop/R&B and Alternative/Rock also over-perform compared to the overall test list with passion scores, while Country, Dance/Electronic and Latin underperform.

Contemporary Music Like a Lot

WHILE HIP HOP/R&B HAS HIGH PASSION, IT ALSO HAS HIGH NEGATIVES

While Hip Hop/R&B has the highest percentage of songs with Like a Lot scores in the Top 100, it is not the genre with the most songs in the Top 100 with overall evaluation average. That crown goes to Pop, which features a dominant 42% of songs in the Top 100 with evaluation average, more than double the percentage of Hip Hop/R&B. So, why does Hip Hop/R&B lead Pop with Like a Lot scores, but Pop dominates with average?

Hip Hop/R&B can be a polarizing genre. When you add in the negatives, the average comes down significantly. This explains why deciding which Hip Hop/R&B songs to play on Pop formats can be a tricky proposition. A programmer has to determine whether strong passion as well as factors like streaming data outweigh the negatives, which can be a high percentage of Dislike A Lot scores.

Contemporary Music Evaluation Scores

MORE FROM THE CONTEMPORARY MUSIC SUPERSTUDY

Next Tuesday, we’ll take another look at our findings from the Contemporary Music SuperStudy, including digging into the tastes of the fans of each genre.

Which other genres do Hip Hop/R&B fans like? Which song was one of the top Country testers overall but near the bottom with Country fans? How do tastes differ between casual listeners and the fans of each format?

Register now for our Contemporary Music SuperStudy Deep Dive webinar, Tuesday, April 30 from 2p-3p EDT when we’ll provide further insights into the current state of contemporary music.

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Adapting to Audience Research Disruption

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Tuesdays With Coleman

If you’re a regular Tuesdays With Coleman reader, you likely consume large amounts of information like me. One of my favorite aspects of reading is encountering material that really hits home by reminding me of something I’m dealing with in my personal or professional life.

That was certainly the case two weeks ago when Politico ran a piece entitled “Pew: Phone Polling in Crisis Again,” exploring the ramifications of the record low number of Americans willing to participate in telephone polls. This was followed last week by an excellent blog post called “Everything’s Being Disrupted—Even Audience Research” by my friend and one of the industry’s leading programming consultants, Fred Jacobs.

I won’t regurgitate the two things I read; if you’re interested in this topic in depth, I encourage you to follow the links to both provided above.

Today’s gadget-obsessed consumers pose new challenges for audience research

As you might imagine, I read both pieces thinking that someone was standing in my shoes for the last few years, as they described many of the factors that have resulted in dramatic changes in the business I oversee. Coleman Insights makes its money by advising clients on how to build strong brands and develop great content based on the consumer research we conduct on our clients’ behalf. Quite simply, if we can’t get consumers to share with us their opinions and perceptions, we don’t have a business.

That’s why we have radically changed the way we do most of the research we complete for our clients. All the music research we do—our FACT360SM Strategic Music Tests and the new music research conducted by our Integr8 Research subsidiary—is collected online from samples created through landline, mobile phone and online recruitment. Most of our Plan Developer strategic studies are based on ratios of in-depth telephone to online interviews that are appropriate for the goals of each project.

I am quite proud of what our team has accomplished in response to the disruptive forces reshaping market research, believing that we have been appropriately ahead of the curve without overreaching by using approaches or methodologies that are untested. When I read in the Politico piece referenced above that an organization as highly regarded as Pew is beginning to blend online and telephone interviewing, my pride in our organization grows further, as we began that process more than five years ago. I’ll also add that we’re not standing still; as I wrote in a blog last August, ten of us traveled to Canada to participate in a two-day summit devoted to data quality with our primary fielding partner and we are still working on initiatives that came out of that trip.

Great Data Quality Summit

The Coleman Insights and Integr8 Research teams with our fielding partners at the Data Quality Summit in Canada

Whether you are a Coleman Insights client or not, I leave you with three suggestions about how to be an educated research customer:

  1. Work with research partners who are “methodologically agnostic.” The days of conducting all strategic research through landline telephone interviews and music tests solely in auditoriums are over, as there is no one right way to conduct research. Different segments of the population respond to opportunities to participate in research differently; the best research companies understand this and utilize multiple techniques to engage consumers. If a research company you’re considering hiring makes claims like “no one uses telephone interviews anymore” or “online music research can’t be trusted,” end the conversation.

 

  1. Simply moving online is far from a panacea. While there is little doubt that the ability to survey consumers online has revolutionized market research, it has also resulted in the creation of some truly awful research. That’s because the range of quality in online research varies widely. Make sure that the research providers you hire to conduct research online utilize samples from only high quality sources.

 

  1. Understand that research must be tailored for each collection platform. Take a moment and think about how you may word something in an email or a social media post and how you would do so differently if you were telling someone the same thing in-person or on the phone. That difference also needs to be reflected in how things are asked in telephone interviews versus online questionnaires. When you hire a research company that utilizes multiple methodologies, make sure they have the expertise to design surveys for each platform they may use for collecting data.

If you grew up in the New York area in the 60s and 70s, you’ll recall an advertising campaign for Syms, a men’s clothing store chain, that featured the legendary tagline, “An educated consumer is our best customer.” Those seven words are just as true today when applied to the fast-changing world of market research.

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Sports Radio and the Margaritaville Problem

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Tuesdays With Coleman

Ask any experienced music radio programmer and he or she will be able to tell you about numerous situations where “something big” was happening in their format that just didn’t feel right to them for their stations. Classic Hits programmers will try to deal with the fact that 20,000 people are going to see Jimmy Buffett in concert in their market when “Margaritaville” is the only song of his in their library. Similarly, a song will “blow up” in local market streaming data but finish at the bottom of the ranker in the station’s weekly new music research.

It is in these situations that programmers earn their salaries and bonuses; the talented ones know—often thanks to strategic research they have conducted—how to respond in situations like these.

These scenarios are not, however, limited to music radio. Sports radio programmers deal with them as well and currently the changing landscape of sports consumption poses major challenges. I would argue that the rise of eSports, mixed martial arts (MMA) and legalized sports gambling represent the sports equivalents of the Margaritaville problem.

With eSports competitions selling-out arenas, MMA generating massive pay-per-view revenues and more states legalizing sports gambling like the new California online poker law, there is little question that all three of these are important parts of the sports landscape that are growing, especially with the younger consumers that advertisers covet. Does that mean if you program a sports radio station you should devote airtime to these topics?

The answer, of course, is “it depends.”

It depends on the interest level in these topics relative to the interest levels for “the big four” professional sports plus college football and basketball. It depends on how compatible the appetites for this content are with the appetites that exist for the other sports that are at the core of your station’s strategy. It depends on whether you’re the only local sports radio station in your market or if you have a direct competitor. It depends on how much you know about the specific content sports fans in your market look for your station to cover.

This last point is critical and is the one on which less-experienced programmers often get tripped up. Just because something is popular does not mean that it is right for your station. Jimmy Buffett may have a lot of fans who love going to his shows, but that doesn’t mean that they want to consume his music when they listen to your station. We repeatedly see in research that what people want from radio stations and what they want when they’re not listening to the radio do not necessarily align perfectly.

Coleman Insights clients and frequent “Tuesday With Coleman” readers are well-acquainted with the concept of “Outside Thinking,” the ability to look at your radio station from an outside, real-world perspective. Sports programmers who are Outside Thinkers don’t just react to the rise of eSports, MMA and sports gambling and add shows that focus on them to their stations’ line-ups and push their hosts to cover this content. They consider whether such content has strategic value for their stations and program accordingly.

Fortunately, we at Coleman Insights have numerous sports radio clients who think this way and have had us research the role that content focused on eSports, MMA and sports gambling should have on their stations. A summary of our findings will be a major element of the Programming Strategies for a Changing World presentation I will be delivering on Thursday morning at Barrett Sports Media’s BSM Summit in Los Angeles.

If you’re fortunate enough to be attending the conference, I hope to see you at my 9:45 AM session. I promise you’ll walk away with insights that will help prevent you from ending up on a beach somewhere searching for that lost shaker of salt.

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Can Video Make the Radio Star?

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Tuesdays With Coleman

Now that the US midterm elections are—mostly!—behind us, we can look back at some of the marketing techniques candidates and their campaigns used and consider their implications for the radio industry.

Fortunately for many of our clients, many of these campaigns continued to recognize the value of radio to engage consumers and target audience segments efficiently. Some groups (i.e., Entravision) even reported more revenue from the midterms than they generated during the 2016 presidential election cycle.

Yet what I think is worth noting is that the rise of new competition for radio can also provide the industry with a great marketing opportunity. It’s not a new phenomenon but observing how political campaigns used it may provide important lessons for radio managers.

The marketing phenomenon I speak of is the viral video.

We’re all familiar with viral videos. They started in the 90s with memorable items like “The Spirit of Christmas” and “Dancing Baby,” became more prevalent through the ubiquity of YouTube and are now shared extensively via social media. We’ve been through The Lonely Island’s many viral videos, the “Kony 2012” documentary and—of course—”Gangnam Style.”

What has changed in recent years, however, is how viral video has become central to the success of many marketing campaigns, perhaps most notably in the political space. This was documented in an excellent September New York Times article, “Viral Videos Are Replacing Pricey Political Ads. They’re Cheaper, and They Work.” If you haven’t read it yet, I encourage you to take a break from this post and do so; then come back and read the rest of my thoughts.

My colleagues and I often lament at the limited or non-existent external marketing budgets with which some of our radio station clients struggle. We still strongly believe in traditional advertising via television spots and outdoor advertising for radio stations, but we recognize that many stations do not have the financial capacity to utilize them.

This is where viral video can help. It can be used to tell the story of your station, your morning show, your key personalities, your contests, your station events, etc. and if executed correctly can have a big impact for limited cost. Some morning shows—iHeartMedia’s “The Breakfast Club” is perhaps the best example, with nearly three million subscribers to their YouTube channel—have figured this out already, but it strikes me that as an industry radio has barely scratched the surface of telling its stories via video.

The Breakfast Club Power 105.1 New York

In a future post, we will share some of the more impressive efforts that radio has executed in this area, along with suggestions for how to make viral video work for your station. Please comment with any radio industry viral videos that you think we should highlight.

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How’s Radio Doing in Australia and New Zealand?

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Tuesdays With Coleman

I recently returned from Australia and New Zealand, where I had the pleasure of meeting with representatives of most of the major radio groups in both countries. If you’ve ever visited either country, you know that—thanks to breathtaking scenery, friendly people and excellent cuisine—it’s next to impossible to come home with anything but positive perceptions. But as I reflect on my meetings, I am struck by how positive my perceptions are of the radio industries in both countries.

Sydney Harbour Bridge

My wife Sharon and I atop the Sydney Harbour Bridge

In the simplest terms, radio is killing it in Australia and New Zealand. Revenue is strong, the major groups enjoy solid financial positions and the medium’s share of the advertising pie is higher than it is in North America.

In fact, an executive with one of Australia’s largest groups—a very smart guy who I have known for more than a decade—challenged me to convince him that “US radio still has something to offer to Australian radio” and to help him “fall in love with US radio again.” Fortunately, after acknowledging the difficult period our industry went through following The Great Recession, our discussion about the impact of two of our three major groups emerging from bankruptcy, the increased investments companies like mine are seeing in research and the industry’s embrace of podcasting and other new platforms led him to agree that paying attention to developments in radio on our side of the Atlantic could still be a good idea for his company.

If I had to boil down why radio is going so well in Australia and New Zealand into three points, they would be as follows:

  1. Radio in Australia and New Zealand is embracing change. The radio groups there do not look at the introduction of new technologies as threats but embrace them as opportunities. For example, Commercial Radio Australia—the trade association representing Australia’s radio broadcasters—partnered with Amazon before the introduction of the Echo smart speaker to ensure that any of the country’s 300 AM, FM or DAB+ digital stations can be easily accessed by name or frequency.

 

  1. Radio in Australia and New Zealand is investing in nonmusical content. While streaming and other platforms for consuming music are not yet as prevalent as they are in North America, most music stations in both countries’ major markets feature prominent personalities in morning and afternoon drive. Furthermore, the use of syndicated morning shows is much less common than it is the US.

 

  1. Radio in Australia and New Zealand does a lot of research. Given what I do for a living, it is refreshing to have conversations with radio groups about what kinds of and how much research they should be doing, as opposed to discussing whether they should do research in the first place. There is plenty of room for the art of programming in Australia and New Zealand; however, radio programmers in both countries get to create their art with objective knowledge about what listeners want and perceive they’re getting from radio.

Each country faces unique challenges, and I want to stress that I am encouraged by the progress I’m seeing on all these fronts by radio groups in North America. Many companies that are embracing new technologies and investing in their brands are seeing their efforts pay off.

Auckland, New Zealand

A picturesque backdrop of Auckland, New Zealand

While radio professionals around the world can certainly learn best practices and new ideas from North American radio, I think we can all be inspired by what Aussie and Kiwi radio is accomplishing. I absolutely found the 40 hours it took me to travel there and back was well worth it!

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The Great Data Quality Summit

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Tuesdays With Coleman

Recently a great, long-time client of ours disclosed to me that they fielded a research project with another company. This is not unusual; we often encourage our clients to get other perspectives on challenging situations.

In this case, however, the client told me that they were no more than two or three PowerPoint slides into the presentation when they realized something was amiss. There were numerous red flags in the data the other company began presenting that made our client question the credibility of the entire study. Before the presentation was even over, our client decided to set aside the research project.

I must admit that a part of me was pleased that this experience provided our client with a strong reaffirmation of the quality of the data they receive from us. As an advocate for research in the designing of strategies for media properties, however, I was angered that our client was so badly let down and how such an experience could taint the reputation of the research industry field in general. In addition, I was reminded how important it is that media companies understand as much as possible about what goes into producing high quality data for use in making decisions about branding, positioning, marketing and content execution.

At the heart of a good research study is that the respondents who participate in it appropriately represent the population you are trying to measure. In the “old days” this was relatively simple because we could easily reach virtually the entire population by conducting interviews on the phone. Today, when we conduct most of our interviewing online (although continue to conduct telephone interviews to reach some segments of the population), the process has become vastly more complicated.

This is why nine of my Coleman Insights colleagues—including representatives from our Integr8 Research subsidiary—and I spent three days north of the border a few weeks ago. The headquarters of our primary fielding partner is in Canada and we visited with their staff for what I like to think of as The Great Data Quality Summit.

Great Data Quality Summit

The Coleman Insights and Integr8 Research teams with our fielding partners in Canada

We tackled important issues with our fielding partner, including improving security to prevent hackers from infiltrating our surveys, enhancing analysis tools to identify and remove respondents who are not who they say they are and steps to improve the survey experience for respondents. Our meetings were an important reminder for our staff and our fielding partner that the process of collecting research data online—and correctly integrating it with telephone survey data—is a challenging and evolving one and only by staying on top of developments in internet-based research can we ensure that we continue to deliver high quality data to our clients.

Conducting research online requires more than buying access to an online panel—even a so-called “A”-graded panel—and sending survey invitations to its members. Getting the “right” people in surveys who represent the population you are trying to measure requires knowledge about the panel assets being used, extensive experience in survey design, advanced analytical tools and dedication to doing the work required to produce high quality data.

We had nearly half of our staff spend three days in Canada to make sure we are on top of our game. If you are a Coleman Insights or Integr8 Research client, I am confident that you will see the benefits of our ongoing efforts to do things the right way. If you work with another research company, I urge you to learn as much as possible about how they gather, analyze and tabulate the data they deliver to you.

While we don’t foresee challenges getting any easier, we do feel accountability is imperative to ensure your study accurately guides your brand’s strategy, now and in the future.