At the NAB European Radio Conference in Lisbon, Portugal last month, Pinnacle's Ken Benson, and Zapoleon Media Strategies' Steve Davis presented a session called "The PD's Checklist: 60 Minutes to Better T.S.L." The standing-room-only session generated dozens of requests for copies of the Zapoleon Media Strategies "Programmers Checklist."

We hope you, our readers, find the checklist as valuable as the delegates in our session in Lisbon. And with the New Year less than a month away, now is a good a time to put your station to the test.

	The Best of 2004 "Zapoleon Media Strategies Programmer's Checklist"

"Zapoleon Media Strategies Programmer's Checklist"

Top of Mind Your station must be top of mind for listeners to recall you when they fill out their ratings diary or answer their ratings call. Are your station elements (station name, music position, and positioning statement) easy to remember? Time Spent Listening More TSL is about getting more P1’s or station “fans” in your audience. More than 70% of your share comes from P1’s, which represents around 30% of your cume audience. Time Spent Listening is also about winning the “usage war” -- getting more “times at bat,” more listening occasions per week for your station versus the competition. Target “Narrow Focus = Broad Results” Do you have a clear understanding of your 8-10 year demo cell and which music life group you need to win? Which key “narrow” music life-group drives your station (Pop, Dance, Rock, Rhythm, etc)? Players Is every member of your programming, marketing and on-air staffing the best they can be? Does every member of your air-staff have a second job that assists you and that serves to make them more a part of the station’s success? Does each player clearly understand the station mission? Does each player clearly understand their role and how they contribute to creating the product? Do you have a backup for each key member of your staff? Ratings What are your ratings share and rank goals? Do you have goals for each rating period and are they realistic? Do you know what numbers you need, both cume and TSL, to reach your ratings share goal ? Branding/Positioning Know your product category! (Top 40, Dance, AC, etc.) Does your station name and positioning statement clearly sell the station brand? How many times per hour are you using your entire positioning statement? Is your station brand being sold effectively in every single quarter-hour of the day? Are you wasting branding opportunities? Are you teasing and recycling all key elements in each daypart though the day? Are you hooking your listeners through every quarter-hour? Have you registered all your key identifiers with your ratings service so you get credit for your brand? Do you have a music quantity position? Usage Do you have an understanding of the needs of your target demographic and music life group? Do you know exactly how, when, and where your P1 listener uses you? Is there anything you can do on or off-air to create more usage? Is your brand as top of mind as it can be? Marketing and Promotion Have you addressed your quarterly ratings goals through external, database and event marketing? Do you know your marketing warfare position and appropriate actions? Are you in an offensive, defensive, flanker or guerilla position? Do you have all key promotions and marketing planned for the year? Is there room to seize a key market promotional opportunity when it arises? Does your marketing and promotional strategy contribute to the brand? Do you have too many messages on the station at one time to be effective? Make certain your marketing budget adequately provides for both tactical and strategic marketing. Focus your marketing on your key usage target. Are you marketing to the workplace? Mornings/Breakfast Show Is the Breakfast show the doorway to introduce all major benefits and events on the radio station? Do you know your morning position in the market (Are you the nice show, the funny show, or the outrageous show)? Do all your morning show players understand how they contribute to the show? Do they all have well-defined roles that they understand? Do you have vehicles to guarantee listener interaction? Do they promote listener interaction through phone topics, contesting, etc.? Do you have enough benchmarked features? Is there enough flexibility for the show to jump on big events? Competition Have there been competitive changes in the market? Be aware of changes that affect you. How do these changes affect you? Have you blocked all useful attacks and benefits of a potential competitor? Do you have the tools necessary to shore up your weaknesses or take advantage or your competition’s change? Audio Is your signal the best it can be? Are there any new engineering techniques or products that can be used to improve your audio? Are you playback systems and source material the best they can be? Your Company & Cluster Does each station in your cluster form an Age/Sex wall? (Example: Your cluster owns women 18-49) Do you utilize the brainpower among all the company stations to get as many good ideas as possible for your radio station? Are you networking with all the key people in your company to gain every competitive advantage possible? Music Is every quarter hour a perfect slice of your musical universe? Is the tempo and musical style delivering to the listener’s moods and the musical expectation for your product? Do you have a “double-check” system to guarantee balance without wasting a lot of time? Research – Knowledge is Power Remember that a listener’s music and cultural tastes change over time; are you doing enough perceptual and music research to keep up? Is your music research set up properly to reflect the core listener as well as potential listeners? Do you know whether or not you are fulfilling the needs of your target? Are you doing enough perceptual research to evaluate important changes in your target listener, station, and the competition? Do you know where analysis stops and intuition and experience takes over? Planning Did you take the time to get out of the office to listen to the radio station this week? Is your daily schedule effectively prioritized to accomplish the critical details of your plan? Do you have enough group and individual meetings with the staff to communicate key steps of the station plan, to delegate, to follow up, to critique performance? Are meetings short and effective or time wasters? Do you prepare a critical path of steps to completion? Do you take the time daily to be aware of all key sources of pop culture (TV, Movies, Radio, Print and the Internet)? Spirit Is the station spirit “positive” where the staff is protected from top-down stress so they can do their job effectively? Does your staff feel like they are a part of the mission or are they “lone-wolves”? Are there enough out of station get-togethers so the team can bond? Ken Benson, VP/International, Pinnacle Media Worldwide, kenbradio@aol.com Steve Davis, Consultant, Zapoleon Media Stratagies, sdavis27@aol.com