Radio Drops #9: Connections

There's this old music radio saying: It's what's between the records that counts.

Watch the video on YouTube: Radio Drops #9: Connections

Lost Dogs and Lunch Menus

Here’s a survey that found only 6% of artists are interested in signing with a major label. The quote: “Connecting with listeners, not making money or signing to a major label, is the most important aspect of success for a musician.”

Listen to those first three words: connecting with listeners. That’s what matters most to today’s musician, and it’s always mattered most to radio.

Of course, the music we play is the principal connection. If we’re not playing the right music, they’re not our listeners. But when they are our listeners, how else do we connect with them? That’s the thing.

When Radio Was Local

In the last century, before consolidation was corruptly allowed in the United States, radio stations were all local. We broadcast to our city, big or small. That was our community, and we did everything we could to connect with them with more than the music.

We had local news. Successful stations, even in small markets, always had at least one or two newsmen or newswomen. School lunch menus were a big thing to broadcast in lots of towns, even big cities. In smaller markets lost dog announcements were common, and sometimes even large markets did them.

We all love our pets. Hearing that someone’s little buddy is missing strikes a chord within us as human beings. It’s not our dog or our cat, but we can empathize. And that’s the point. It’s a connection.

Your favorite disc jockey stopped talking about music and told you about somebody else in your community, listening to your station just like you, who lost their puppy or their cat. You think about it for just a second, and that is a human connection. Your radio station is connected to real people.

There were all sorts of little things like that in music radio from the ’50s through the ’90s that, for the most part, aren’t in major market radio stations anymore. Not the ones I listen to, anyway, and I don’t listen an awful lot, so it may be different for you. Here in Austin, Texas, I click around the two formats I can listen to, country and what could now be called hot AC. The classic country station does have more of an Austin feel to it. The others, there’s very little Austin about them.

Contests Your Neighbors Could Win

Radio stations used to run contests all the time. I’ve given away cash, tickets of course, and albums. I’ve given away an MGB sports car. We’ve given away cruises. A station in Nashville once asked its listeners what would be their favorite surprise to win on a radio contest. The number one answer, surprisingly: home-delivered pizza. A little treat.

All those contests had winners, and they all lived in your town. Now you listen to iHeart and they’ve got a contest where you could win a gazillion dollars or get backstage with Taylor Swift. But it’s a national contest. Nobody you know, nobody in your town, probably nobody in your state is going to win it. There’s no real connection there.

Today’s listener has lots and lots of choices, other stations and streams playing pretty much the same music you’re playing. There was a saying from the last century I want you to ponder: if you and your competition are both playing the same songs, it’s what’s between the records that counts.