New Radio Strategies

No matter the form of media, it’s all about aggregation. Aggregating the best content; aggregating the biggest audience, aggregating the “right” audience, aggregating the largest amount of hits and so on and so on. Obviously all these things are aggregated because it enhances the strength of whatever platform the aggregated content sits on with the purpose of (usually!) aggregating the most revenue.

Satellite Radio is a prime example. Each of the satellite radio companies has created or acquired numerous channels of music, news, information, sports and other content. All of this content is aggregated on the respective platforms and offered to consumers as one package that provides a wealth of various content appealing to various tastes and lifestyles. Each of the companies feel that the value proposition of the aggregation of their particular content is undeniable to potential and current subscribers.

But that’s not really the point of this post, it’s more about the creative benefits and creative freedom of having a platform such as those gives you.

The luxury of having 120+ channels, as both XM and Sirius have is that it gives them the ability to create some really unique programming. Specifically speaking, they have the ability to create the ultimate specialty programs – ultimately because these specialty programs that take the form of full channels. These channels can last for a few days, a few weeks or a few months.

I used to work at a powerhouse radio station in New York City – WCBS-FM. It was an absolute monster. It was the ’sound of New York City’ that played the ‘greatest hits of all time. It had all the legendary New York City jocks from back in the day, it had the heritage and it had “it.” There were many reasons for its success, but one of them was the emphasis put on specialty programming. Specialty programs ran every day of the week and throughout the weekend – artist and theme features, countdowns, request shows and theme weekends (British Invasion weekend, 60’s weekend, etc.) None of these were canned or syndicated features, they were programs that were created and packaged in-house and presented by the very familiar voices of the station. What these features did was provide an additional context to the music. To a large extent it was the same music that was played during the regular rotation (although it did provide an outlet for ’secondary’ hits that weren’t part of the regular playlist) but they were presented in a different context. When “Help Me Rhonda” was played as part of a 1965 countdown, it was surrounded by other hits from 1965 which presented the song in a very different context and provided people with a different way of hearing the song.

Anyway, the point is that specialty programming works! It works big time and it works for various reasons. The fact that XM, Sirius and us at WorldSpace can and do provide specialty programming not only within our individual channels but as full channels themselves, is a pretty great tool. A recent article in the Washington Post by Marc Fisher was talking about this very thing – so called “pop up channels” or “microchannels” that Sirius and XM have done which are dedicated to a very specific thing and can last anywhere from a few days to a few weeks to a number of months. Recent examples of these channels include Sirius’ Client 9 and XM’s Play Ball! Client 9 capitalized on former New York Governor Elliot Spitzer’s prostitution scandal and Play Ball! featured nothing but baseball songs and readings in celebration of the start of the Major League Baseball season (XM not coincidentally has the exclusive national radio rights for Major League Baseball.)

Musical examples of these channels include Sirius’ “Rolling Stones Radio,” “Grateful Dead Radio” and “E Street Radio” which is all-Springsteen all the time. Now being a Bruce fanatic I must say this is fantastic. Again, it’s the context. Being as obsessive as I am about Springsteen I obviously have all of his music and can listen to any of it at any time. But it’s easier to just turn on E Street Radio and listen. No thinking required. The serendipity and all that. And by listening I feel plugged into the “Bruce community.” And also since they are doing this in cooperation with the man himself, they have access to stuff I don’t even have. So when they play a full Springsteen show from Pittsburgh in 1999 when he played an incredible version of Rosalita, I get to hear it. And not only do I enjoy hearing that and tons of other stuff, like when they have guest DJ Tom Morello of Rage Against the Machine talk about Bruce’s influence on him, but it also validates the reason why I subscribe. This “specialty programming on steroids” fulfills the implicit promise of the satellite radio provider of providing unique, compelling and exclusive programming – this is great stuff you can’t get anywhere else!

And in addition to providing great content that keeps subscriber satisfaction and retention high, these “microchannels” serve another purpose – they serve as a marketing tool for the entire platform. Not only is the channel something to cross-promote across the entire platform, it’s also a great vehicle to promote to the “non-converted” folk outside the existing subscriber community. Think about it, even if you’re not a Bruce fan, when you hear this channel cross-promoted on the platform, it still provides that sense of “something exciting is always happening here” – it’s another piece of proof that they are indeed getting value for their subscription fee.

And that is what will keep satellite radio relevant in this ever evolving world of media and consumer preferences – the power of the platform and knowing how to use it creatively.

Tagged: Content, Creativity, Platform, Satellite Radio