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“I wonder what our station listeners are thinking about us”?
That question has always been with broadcasters. So,
eventually, we all began audience RESEARCH to help us find
out. During the past five years I have interviewed a few
thousand individuals from every part of the US inquiring as
to not only what they liked or disliked about radio, but
also probing them to find out their favorite colors, where
they thought the economy is headed, who would win various
music or movie awards, the latest clothing styles, etc. With
an adequate sample size and reasonably balanced demographics
it is not difficult to project their thoughts into good
programming and station promotional activity.
I have met a lot of outstanding researchers in the past
decades. I’ll mention just a few. While attending a radio
convention in Los Angeles decades ago I was seated next to
famed researcher Marshall McLuhan. We talked left
brain/right brain for hours. I asked him, “other than
yourself who is the best researcher you know”? He paused for
a second, and said “the best radio researcher at the moment
in this hemisphere is John Parikhal”. I knew John and his
partner David Charles. They worked out of Canada at the
time. Some of our consulting company people had said great
things about John when we co-consulted a few Canadian
stations. We entered into a loose partnership agreement to
sign John to work with some of our USA clients. In other
words, he was to do research for some of our clients. John
and I were asked to speak at a Cox management meeting for
THREE hours. He was fabulous, and for those of you who have
heard him speak you know what I mean. KFI in Los Angeles,
one of our consulting clients, asked John to do a
perceptual. I was with him in LA when he made the
presentation of his findings. It was really good stuff. He
was and is excellent.
Another researcher I worked with was Owen Leach. He was
introduced to our consulting company by Jim Phillips, a
former college classmate, who owned two stations in El Paso.
Owen was living and working out of the southwest at that
time. (He is at Princeton now.) I flew to El Paso to meet
him. He was fabulous, and his unique research technique was
in layman’s language. We entered into a two year agreement..
I introduced him to one of our clients, Carl Brazell,
president of Metromedia (who was in the process of buying it
from John Kluge). Owen and Carl hit it off big time, and
Owen brought a lot of valuable, customized research to all
of Carl’s markets….including some in Europe. Owen is really
smart.
Not all researchers are as smart as John or Owen, but most
are very competent. However, every now and then I run into
some faulty research. I was buying a station and examined
some music research the seller had ordered and implemented.
This was an area of the country that I knew VERY well. The
ratings had decreased by a third or so. The music research
was flawed, and I knew it within minutes after reviewing it.
So, after we bought the station I took it back to the
original music, put in a new rotation, and the station
became number one 12 plus. All this station needed was a
better rotation.
And, research doesn’t have to follow the same old q and a
format. For example, while consulting WSB in Atlanta years
ago I asked management to let me do an unusual type of
morning show research. They said OK. Tom McClendon, research
chief for Cox at the time, hand selected the morning show
sample of about 75 people. We asked all 75 respondents to
listen to WSB on a certain morning (they were already
constant WSB morning listeners), and then meet at 5:30 PM in
a ball room of a local hotel for three hours. We had
sandwiches and soft drinks. I was the MC. I played certain
taped parts of the morning show, and walked and talked to
the respondents listening carefully to their comments…then I
probed them for even more. The GM and PD of the station sat
in the audience and acted as though they were respondents. I
wanted them to really feel the respondents. We found out
three items that definitely helped the WSB morning show. Tom
said “now that was some good research”.
So, imagination in research is good!!! John, Owen and the
WSB project proved it. And I know because I WAS THERE.
Next week: PROGRAMMERS.
e-mail Kent
kent@kentburkhart.com
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