More Vs. Better

A lot of incorrect assumptions come from asking questions but failing to fully understand the answer given.

An example from a CHR battle I was part of a while back: The heritage CHR across the street had a library of around 200 records. The station I worked at was a sign on. We whittled our playlist down to under fifty records total. And we kept our playlist that tight for a few months.

At one point, I remember our entire library being 42 records!

When the research came back, we were shocked. Listeners said the heritage station kept playing the same songs over and over again. But we were the ones hitting our powers every 70 minutes!

How could this be?

Listeners weren't really complaining about hearing songs they liked over and over. They were complaining about hearing songs they didn't like over and over. They were complaining about the worn out gold in our competition's library.

Like I said, a lot of incorrect assumptions come from asking questions but failing to fully understand the answer given.

The move towards HD is based on the notion that listeners want more choices. People usually do think they want more choices, but what they really want are better choices.

Better, not more.

It's no secret that these aren't the best of times for terrestrial radio. The fact that we're now referring to it as 'terrestrial' radio hammers that point home. What can we do to insure a brighter tomorrow for the medium we love? Focus on Better, not More.