April 27, 2009
It's Not A Target Demo: It's A Family Reunion
by Jaye Albright - www.albrightandomalley.com
Once upon a time, there was one country format and one country audience target, and country was the format which refused to fragment. No more. Now, there are many successful approaches to winning loyalty and audience shares. This panel will dissect various approaches, based on evolving expectations of our broad potential demographic.
This Thursday, 11-11:50 am panel started as "The Marince Family Reunion," as ARB exec Gary Marince revealed that he turns 54 this year and his daughter Sarah is 18 and shared a video of their personal perspectives on the country music brand story. For Gary, it goes back three decades, whereas Sarah is working on a career in music today, has a MySpace page to share her music, inspired by Taylor Swift.
This fast-moving and entertaining panel discussed the issues surrounding the question of whether one format is wide and deep enough to encompass their tastes with two researchers, the consultant who helped create "Hank" in multiple markets and two experienced programmers who have faced various flanking attacks in markets with huge country shares.
Larry Johnson of Paragon Media Strategies: "There are two formats that defy the usual research approach: Country and Urban. You're either in the Country or Urban Lifegroup or you’re not. There are some interesting research nuances to watch for within these two formats.
"People of all ages constitute the Fan base of both Country and Urban formats. The age range for Country is remarkably even, depending on the market composition. In most formats we're able to segment music styles. Not so with Country. The best stab has been to see how audiences respond to eras rather than music styles when researching Country Urban & Country.
"The same wide age range is apparent with Urban formats. The trend to watch in Urban in 2009 is how much formatic deference to age is given.
"Country usually defies the attempt to assign a strong Age/Gender category to the format. The age range goes from 18+. This is unlike nearly any other format.
"Usually we're able to segment music styles to maximize audience by building the most advantageous coalition of styles.
"Country doesn't lend itself to segmentation. If you like one Country style, chances are you like them all.
"I've come to the conclusion that aside from the old/new differentiation, that head-to-head competition among Country stations comes down to a marketing battle.
"Occasionally, you can spice up the imaging by claiming to be something like the station that plays "Texas Country", but that's just a sprinkling of songs by which to position the station."
Topeka PD for WIBW-FM Keith Montgomery played a fast-moving composite of his highly interactive and community involved 25-54 leading station, noting that they compete with two other country approaches, classic/legends KTPK, which actually ranks #1 12+ because of its strong upper demos over the age of 55 and Cumulus-owned US-103.
Amarillo is another market where more than one in four radio listeners spend time with country radio in an average quarter hour and KGNC-FM PD Tim Butler showed a audio-video presentation of his very active station, which has outlasted and beaten numerous attempts to chip away at its position. Before Clear Channel sold their cluster to Gap West, they used two stations - one new country KMML and the other classic Cat Country - to attempt to demo-middle KGNC-FM. Now, Gap West is using KATP, attempting tp attack more directly head-on.
Kroeger Media consultant and innovator of the variety hits format Howard Kroeger talked about how he positions his "Hank" format and stated that he thought there would be ample room on the radio dials of both Topeka and Amarillo for a male-leaning country variety station as well.
Jeff Vidler, Angus Reid Strategies: "It won't be easy, but Country radio will need to fragment if it hopes to grow its footprint. Especially if it's going to grow among younger listeners who will make up the larger proportion of the 25-54 demo in the next 5-10 years as the baby boomers grow out of the money demos.
"The Country format faces a lot of the same challenges facing the Republican party. If, like the Republican party, Country Radio continues to focus strictly on older, white & rural listeners, the format will end up on the wrong side of the demographic divide. This is the same demographic divide that helped the Democrats win the recent Congressional and presidential elections. And it's going to take more than another "new country" makeover to bring these younger demos aboard.
"Three possible 18-54 variants that we see from our recent research:
1.Mainstream Country
o Core demo: 18-44 females
o Musically: mostly recent, but including occasional gold from the Boom years
o Core values: uplifting, regular folks/women struggling against adversity and winning
1 Guy Country
o Core demo: 35-54 males
o Musically: emphasizing the gritty side of currents and recurrents, but also going back to the 80s or earlier. Includes a lot of Rock-leaning Country
o Core values: rugged individualism, patriotism
2 Truly Young Country (may only be viable in the biggest markets)
o Core demo: 18-34, mostly female
o Musically: very current, high rotations, recurrent/2000s gold only
o Core values: party, rebellion, authenticity"
Whether you're contemplating a launch of a brand new country station or think you might be defending against one in the coming year, if you missed this panel, you'll want to listen to the recording of "18-54, it's not a target demo, it's a family reunion."
Click Here For the Handout
