Open Letter to Radio: It’s Time to Repatriate Lost Listening

September 1, 2022

An Open Letter to Radio (7^th Edition),

As we get set to embark on another Labor Day weekend, questions grow louder regarding audience erosion, declining PUMM levels and the corresponding impact on Ratings and Impressions.

Answering the bell is going to require working smarter and harder, both individually and as an industry.

PUMM was in steady decline long before the arrival of COVID.

What’s different in this moment is the growing awareness that although life has returned to normal, millions of workers have shifted to fully remote or hybrid work schedules and that looks to be permanent.

This reality is especially problematic for an industry that relies on commuters to drive consumption and benefits from traffic jams and congestion.

Let’s look at Apple as a cautionary tale. The tech giant built Apple Park, a luxurious $5 billion headquarters, which opened just 5 years ago. Yet, Tim Cook is having problems convincing employees to return to the office just three days per week.

It’s hardly an isolated case in corporate America. Kastle, the company that provides keycard security for 2,600 office buildings and 41,000 companies nationwide, has been closely monitoring office foot traffic.

The Kastle Back to Work Barometer notes that while TSA airport traffic and OpenTable reservations are nearly 90% recovered to pre-COVID levels, workers in high rises and office parks remain less than 45%.

This sustained shift to remote work also has a ripple effect on the radio friendly small businesses in the service sector located in downtown areas and near suburban office parks that exist to serve large concentrations of workers.

All of which begs the question, how do we get more listening?

Radio’s Q Score

For decades, Q Scores have measured the popularity of personalities and brands, but what about radio itself? How’s our consumer appeal and emotional connection these days? Not compared with other stations, but against platforms offering personalization and subscriptions such as Spotify, SiriusXM and/or Pandora?

You can’t see their impact in PPM because these platforms don’t encode, but in diary markets, it’s already being captured. 

In market after market, when you compare Analysis Total and Market Total in a Nielsen Ranker, what appears? ENORMOUS LOST LISTENING.

Here’s a typical example, an East Coast CDM market reports 11,800 AQH Persons, 3.3 Rating Points and 27 Shares of A25-54 listening in PRIME that no longer belongs to AM/FM radio.

Realistically, not all of that listening is recoverable from satellite and streaming, but there’s enough to make a meaningful impact on your ratings and revenue. Imagine your cluster recapturing 50% of that listening. That’s 6,000 AQH Persons, 1.7 Rating Points and 13.5 Shares, which is more listening than the Top 2 stations in the market combined.

It’s “game on” for radio in both diary and PPM markets.

For all of the ongoing concerns about PUMM levels and the permanent shift to remote work, help is within reach.

With limited marketing budgets, your first priority is correctly spent focusing on existing heavy radio listeners.

However, as you plan for 2023, there’s an opportunity to develop a one-two punch by also funding the marketing investments necessary to repatriate listening back to your key revenue brands. With a unique and sustained messaging strategy that targets select listeners who have drifted away from radio, there’s significant ratings and revenue growth potential.

The existing marketing messages that resonate with your current audience won’t carry the day with people who have moved away from radio. You need to understand the daily life of these listeners and develop a compelling and personalized value proposition that forms the basis of your marketing strategy to recapture lapsed radio listeners.

Individually and collectively, we’ve got plenty of work to do, which is appropriate as we head into this holiday weekend.

On behalf of Catherine Jung, Tony Bannon, Jen Clayborn and everyone here at DMR/Interactive, thank you for reading and working to drive radio forward.

This open letter is the 7th installment in an annual series that began in 2016 to coincide with Labor Day, radio’s unofficial holiday. Earlier editions are available here: 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021.

Onward,

Andrew Curran
President and COO
DMR/Interactive

Facing Online Competition and Pricing Pressure, Retail Pharmacies Pivot to Relationships

Retail pharmacies such as CVS, Walgreens and Walmart are going old school and doubling down on personal relationships in response to increased online competition and downward pressure on pricing.

For an industry dominated by large corporations with plenty of access to capital, it’s a move that’s making headlines, but it shouldn’t be a surprise.

According to Ashley Karpinski, director of behavioral health strategy and innovation at CVS Health, “We are trying to listen to what consumers want and need.”

In the midst of an ongoing pandemic, one thing consumers need is access to mental health services.

Over the past year, the number of people reporting symptoms of anxiety or depression has nearly quadrupled, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

In response to this surge in mental health cases since the onset of COVID-19, pharmacies are launching mental health counseling services inside their stores and clinics.

According to advocates, making mental health services more accessible and affordable, especially for short-term situations, is long overdue.

Many therapists in private practice do not take insurance, have a 30-60 day wait based on current caseloads and charge twice as much as the $69 per session fee.

According to reporting by Marketplace, when it comes to most health services, access and convenience are big factors.

“And so we’re meeting people where they’re at,” explained Cara McNulty, president of CVS – Aetna Behavioral Health. 

“Maybe you’re being seen for an ear infection and you started talking about some other issues. Our nurse practitioner could suggest you see the therapist,” McNulty said.

The social workers at CVS, the largest retail pharmacy chain in North America, are available during the day and also on evenings and weekends in the company’s MinuteClinics, which provide a variety of non-emergency health care services either via walk-in or by appointment. The hours are more flexible than what therapists might normally offer, and the social workers partner with the clinic’s nurse practitioners and pharmacists to give prescriptions when needed.

Retail pharmacies have been pushing deeper into healthcare to offset rising competition from online retailers and slower profit growth from prescription drugs. At the same time, more for-profit companies are looking to upend traditional mental-health models.

At the end of the day, building personal relationships is good for business.

According to Mickey Chadha, an analyst at Moody’s Investors Service, “pharmacies want to establish a more personal relationship with the customer. Filling a prescription is a very transactional approach. Now, you’re engaging with the person behind the counter.”

Pharmacies want you to pick them because they know you by name, not just because they’re closest to your home or work.

It’s similar for radio. It’s hard to play more music than a streaming playlist or satellite radio. Other platforms also provide highly customizable content that delivers instant gratification matching the mood of each listener in a given moment. We need to play to our strengths.

Throughout COVID, we’ve seen clients across markets and formats that have embraced and prioritized listener relationships reap the benefits. Not only by outperforming their local markets and direct competition, but also surpassing their pre-pandemic listening levels before the calendar reached 2021 or the first vaccine was ever administered.

If your listening levels and AQH Ratings still have not recovered, let’s talk about your marketing plans.

On behalf of Catherine Jung, Tony Bannon, Jen Clayborn and everyone here at DMR/Interactive, thank you for reading and driving radio forward.

Onward,

Andrew Curran
President and COO
DMR/Interactive

Open Letter to Radio: Listening Starts While the Radio is Off

An Open Letter to Radio,

Radio stations play a vital role in the fabric of the communities they serve, especially during this pandemic that most people thought was finally under control until a few short weeks ago.

The threads that make up this local fabric aren’t figurative pieces of cloth, but rather the individuals who live, work and play in the community.

With stations and personalities connecting audiences and advertisers, radio has a unique leadership role that can be seen in countless ways throughout the year including radiothon fundraisers.

When it comes to COVID-19 and working moms in key W18-49 and W25-54 demos, where is the tangible evidence that their favorite station has had their back in the same way radio celebrated healthcare heroes early on?

In the midst of this current Delta variant, there are unresolved issues such as childcare and mental health, which severely impact both employers and employees.

Have stations organized roundtables with business leaders and other experts to address the demands of childcare and related issues that continue to fall primarily on the shoulders of women, causing them to drop out or pull back from the workforce at disproportionate levels?

If we want their listening, we have to work even harder when their radio is off.

To borrow a phrase, “foreplay starts outside of the bedroom.” Therapists describe it as “being the person your spouse deserves” and ensuring they feel loved and supported throughout the day. In a similar way for radio, winning the next occasion starts with the radio off – typically as your audience is running out the door to start their commute.

Your best listeners and panelists spend 95% of their lives with the radio turned off. Stations that dominate the ratings have a strong brand image and consistently generate top of mind awareness off-air, which helps ensure they get the next tune-in.

As the audio landscape continues to fragment, the off-air strategies stations leverage to maintain and grow mindshare with their heavy listeners are critically important. As you know, these heavy listeners are employed and they commute, which drives daily cume.

When working moms are overwhelmed by the stress of trying to “do it all,” they aren’t looking to turn on your station using a new smart speaker skill. In fact, irrelevant messages in their daily lives don’t break through the clutter. This is demonstrated in the latest Infinite Dial data with station streams delivering a modest 12% of all AM/FM listening – two decades after Edison Research began crunching the numbers.

According to other consumer research, “about one-third of all mothers in the workforce have scaled back or left their jobs, or plan to do so, according to a survey by Seramount, a consulting firm that focuses on workplace inclusion. That’s roughly 8 million workers.”

What is it like to be a working mom during a pandemic? “It’s a bit like my brain is burning and so is my entire house and someone just stole the fire extinguisher.” Or, “You know, if I’m being honest, it feels like I’m juggling seven chainsaws, and oops, now they’re all on fire and I’ve been doing it for 18 months.”

When it comes to a gap analysis, you can drive a semi-truck through the hole that exists between a working mom “juggling seven chainsaws” and radio positioning statements such as “The Best Variety of the 80’s, 90’s and Today.”

Employed commuters are radio’s bread and butter. The pandemic has caused 8 million women to pull back at work, which impacts their available listening occasions along with millions more at their breaking point as COVID rolls on.

This crisis isn’t as obvious as power outages or flooding after a hurricane, but it’s there just below the surface as evidenced by this perspective – “To know that this many months later, with a vaccine, we’re still roiling in anxiety over another bleak autumn is heartbreaking. I’m frustrated, I’m angry, I’m so very tired.”

Serving in the “public interest, convenience and necessity” has taken on many forms since the early days of Marconi. As we start our second century, this is a moment to stand with our listeners by providing empathy and leadership on a set of issues that matter deeply to the communities we serve.

Just like radio’s reach, the ongoing mental health strain of COVID touches everyone. There’s an opportunity for your stations to dedicate meaningful promotional inventory to topics that are important to the audience and provide ongoing reminders that their favorite station always has their back.

It’s also a great opportunity to tie in advertising partners to promote mental health. For example, Walmart, CVS and Walgreens are rapidly expanding access to mental health services at their pharmacies and clinics.

As we know from natural disasters, radio is at its best when the audience needs us the most. COVID-19 will continue to be no exception.

On behalf of Catherine Jung, Tony Bannon, Jen Clayborn and everyone here at DMR/Interactive, thank you for reading and working to drive radio forward.

This open letter is the 6th installment in an annual series that began in 2016 to coincide with Labor Day, radio’s unofficial holiday. Earlier editions are available here: 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020.

Onward,

Andrew Curran
President and COO
DMR/Interactive