Inside Music MediaJerry Del Colliano

What to do?

Is it worth a radio station betting the future on 75 million remaining baby boomers or do you just discard them for younger demos.

Do you get younger and blow off the things boomers loved about radio.  (This may be a moot point because most of the large consolidators and their smaller followers have already cutback on these things).

That hasn’t worked out so well.

That’s radio’s dilemma and a solution is now becoming evident.

There is a way to engage younger audiences – Millennials who number 95 million and also serve older audiences who have been the staple of radio.

Ironically radio’s big mistake is to program to baby boomers at the expense of Millennials.

When creating content in the digital age, it is always preferable to create content for the change makers who are in fact the younger Millennials.

I’ve isolated 7 specific strategies that can easily be implemented by any radio station, any format in any market and I’m going to get into this at my Philly conference three weeks from now.

The problem well-meaning radio stations have been having with maintaining their money demos and acquiring new listeners is that they are afraid to alienate older listeners.

As you will see these concepts – the ones Millennials value most – will never alienate baby boomers although oddly enough some of the things baby boomers still want from radio will drive Millennials away.

One of the seven requirements to meet the needs of the next generation is to be authentic.  Almost nothing about a radio station is authentic.  It’s full of hype, commercials, promos, and noise.

That can be fixed.

The other 6 things that younger demos now require are just as important and we’ll go through them one by one.  This is so vital that I use all 6 in the work that I do.

This is going to be a fruitful dialog because without spending a single dime, smart radio stations can fine tune their strategy for not only satisfying their loyal core older listeners but for the first time have a chance to win the hearts of younger ones.

Here are the other 7 critical issues at the March 26^th meeting:

1. Disrupting what consolidators have turned our radio industry into.  We can’t do this by just changing formats.  It’s going to take a nuclear option and I’ve got one for you that is so big it will push your consolidated competitors back with no option to compete with you.
2. Master digital.  Digital isn’t a product.  It’s a technology.  Every radio broadcaster needs to start a second stream of revenue separate and apart from radio.  Let’s create some content.  There are some dazzling possibilities out there.  I will share.
3. Create your own social media.  If you tie yourself to Facebook, Twitter or even the current rage, Instagram, you’re going down with them.  There’s a better way.  Make your own social network and drive it with content and revenue possibilities.  It’s being done under the radar by some smart people right now.
4. Reinvent radio.  Stop thinking of it as hourly hot clocks and redesign it to be compelling to the very audience we can’t seem to attract – 95 million Millennials.  They dislike radio but they like some things we’re not currently doing.  Interested in providing this content for younger money demos?  It takes an open mind and some creativity.
5. Video. Video. Video.  We’re wasting valuable time.  You must be in this business but it is not what you think it is.  Let me show you real success stories including one entrepreneur who makes $3 million a year by doing a free 5-minute weekly video.  No commercials, banner ads, product placement or subscription fees.  I’m going to play it, talk about it and answer your questions.  This is ingenious.
6. The key to attracting Millennials.  There is basically nothing radio has to offer right now that Millennials can’t get somewhere else.  The secret to attracting Millennials is to build your station for them.  I know, that sounds awful, but Steve Jobs didn’t design Apple products for later adopters.  He mastered the early adopters by finding out the “radical” things they couldn’t resist.  We can do this and here’s the plan.
7. Time-shift radio.   Look, if you get nothing else out of this learning session you must become skilled at time-shifting content.  Binge watching is the rage.  Broadcasting is out.  It doesn’t mean the end if we know how to time-shift our content.  I’ll tell you everything I know about this.

A day of information and inspiration where we work together.  I’m putting more time aside this year for questions.

This event will not be available by stream or video – only live and in person. 

I can’t wait to share my enthusiasm and knowledge with you in person.

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