- A woman personality as the main entertainer and not the sidekick. Millennial women are the most powerful force and they are more than ready to embrace one of their own as a lead personality. Look no further than Ellen K who was pulled by iHeart from being second banana with KIIS-FM’s Ryan Seacrest to taking over KOST morning show in the same market against her former boss. Now, a year later, Ellen K is number one. Seacrest is #8.
- Less emphasis on outrageous and funny. Humor will work with the emerging in-demo audience as long as it is not at the expense of another.
- Commercials that are delivered in a more authentic way. Not easy because it will require stations to win the confidence of local advertisers to allow their top personality to also show the blemishes on their products or services. Sponsors may fight it but for the first adopters who trust you with this plan, their response rate to advertising will rise dramatically.
- No traffic reports. Research shows more than 50% of morning show audiences do not listen to radio for traffic choosing Waze, Google Traffic and emerging services like TrafficCarma instead. We know why stations run traffic – compensation. But audiences are turned off. Do deals with Uber and Lyft.
- A consumer feature that advocates for and helps listeners deal with their problems. A place for them to turn when they have been ripped off or misled. This feature can build strong loyalty – a station that will fight for them.
- A contest that is fun to play because it bridges some listeners with other listeners – dare I say, radio returns to being the original social media. And we’ve been looking in the wrong place to Facebook all these years!
- Music, maybe. Conversation, definitely. In-demo audiences now want conversations. They know where to get music (and often it’s not on the radio). Howard Stern has had a million careers morphing into many different people – talking all the way without music. So we need to have a conversation about how much music is needed and how to give them the discovery they want instead of the discovery repetition we think they want.
Let’s get into this and complete the list of what the morning show of the future will look like at the 2017 Radio Solutions Lab April 5th in Philadelphia because the future is now and radio morning shows are the best place to increase overall station revenue.
Join the discussion for new and better ideas, big positive changes, what’s ahead worth betting on and content that delivers premium rates and higher revenue.
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