The Boomers and Millennials seem to get all of the attention. If you are a regular reader of this blog you know I have spent a lot of time writing about how imperative it is for the radio business to figure out how to entertain today’s under 25’s. The Boomers, partly because the of the sheer numbers they represent, still receive a great of attention. Hey, that’s OK. But unless something dramatic happens (like advertisers deciding that 45-54 is a demo they care about) Boomers will have all but aged out of the money demo in less than a decade. That sounds like a long time, but consider we are coming to the close of the first decade of the 2000’s and to me the new millennium feels like it began much closer to yesterday.
As GenX aged-in we experienced numerous changes in radio programming:
- Mainstream AC left “soft” mostly behind
- Hot AC was born with GenX women in mind
- Top 40 did what it always has done—play whatever is currently popular but now with three distinct blends: rock/pop/rhythm or rock/pop or pop/rhythm
- Urban radio saw Hip Hop take center stage
- Urban AC saw exponential growth
- Traditional Oldies died
- Rock radio splintered into Classic Rock, Active Rock, Alternative, Mainstream Rock, and Triple A
- Classic Hits format umbrella targets Oldies, Rock, and AC refugees (depending on station and market)
- Talk radio’s popularity exploded—largely conservative leaning and more recently expanding to the FM band
- Ownership rules changed—first expanded ownership and then unlimited ownership
- Consolidated local and regional clusters
- Group think within companies and clusters
- Clusters of stations see station pecking orders develop—the big stations, the secondary properties, and the weak signaled cluster mate
- Staff reductions
- Reduced marketing and promotion budgets
- Digital automation comes of age
- Voice tracking
- Expanded spot loads
- Expanded availability and proliferation of syndicated programming.
We are going to have to be sure we stay on top of the tastes, trends, and attitudes of GenX since they are our success or failure in the years to come. And of course, continue working overtime to develop some lasting and significant connection with Millennials since they begin crossing over the magical demographic line in just 3 short years.
I came across an article in the Harvard Business Review –The Top 10 Reasons Why GenXers Are Unhappy at Work and found a few of the top 10 insightful and useful in the context of radio programming and management.
3 comments:
Boomers love radio because it always superserved them -- at least in the 20th century
Xers hate radio because during their teen/young adult years it all but ignored them to superserve the boomers -- still better than Y, because at least they care
Anonymous wrote:
"Xers hate radio because during their teen/young adult years it all but ignored them to superserve the boomers"
The writer is correct about radio's Boomer obsession, however, in most cases Modern AC, Hot AC, and New/Alt/Modern Rock were all formats geared towards Xers. Whether all those stations were good and best fit their target is certainly up for discussion.
I can't help but think of the plot of the movie "Airheads" -- the Gen-X metal types trying to get their cassette on the air and turning to a hostage situation because the station was changing format to "The Rain" (takeoff on the KMET-Wave switch in LA). That movie sums up the whole Gen X relationship with radio in a nutshell. Interesting to note that all the "Rain" clones are drying up now around the country. All these years later, the Xers get their revenge...
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