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A research based approach
An introduction into why research and being able to understand your audience is so crucial for working in radio.
I think everyone can agree that the purpose of any radio station is to maximise the number of potential listeners within the targeted market and then make sure those people listen for as long as possible. Of course, the simple way to do that would be to offer £1m for every person who listens (and even I could just about sit through a Celine Dion album for £1m), but that isn't possible; so added to that statement has to be that it has to be achievable with the limited resources and budget.
So without the ability to bribe people to listen, the next most achievable way of getting listeners is to do what they want and play what they'd like to hear. It might sound a simple philosophy, but already I can think of certain stations, and definitely certain presenters, who have not even realised this.
It is not rocket science to work out what a particular individual, or a particular demographic, would like to hear. For no other reason, we can base our assumptions on existing stations, and realise the younger you are the more likely you are going to be to want to hear faster paced music. We can base our assumptions on what we see at the church Christmas disco or family wedding - where the kids will dance to Britney, their parents to Abba and the grandparents to Elvis or the Beatles. A benchmark is the music you'll always enjoy was the music you heard at the age of 23.
And yet it is not nearly as simple as that. Young kids will dance to Abba, grandparents will listen to Travis, and dare I suggest that the 40 somethings who should know better are as likely to have Oakenfold blasting out their car stereo as the Osmonds.
I think there are two key reasons why I will always argue for research. Firstly, it justifies your decisions. Until you have something written down on paper that says your audience would like to hear such-and-such you've no real right to tell people who disagree with you that they are wrong. You might know that programming Groovejet on a station aimed at 35+'s is a good idea, but you may well come up against a school of thought that says anyone old enough to have teenage children certainly wouldn't appreciate anything with a beat. With research you have prove them wrong; and you can make your decisions in confidence.
Secondly, it focuses everyone on why they are there and who they are intending to serve. Most research is what I call "pre-guessable" in that before you even hit the streets with your clipboard you have a pretty good idea of what your results should look like. But it is because you are doing that research that you start to understand your listeners and their needs. I wouldn't disagree with you if you think that doing research is a pointless exercise if you can already predict the answers, what I would say is would you have even considered the results had you not intended to do the research in the first place?
There is some ideas on research methodology elsewhere, but for the meantime let me add a health warning: You should never live or die by research. In order for it to be successful you have to interpret research properly and not be a slave to the results. For example, weather will normally come up as the thing listeners want most from the radio station, but I would never programme a weather bulletin more than once an hour - as it becomes dull after the first time you've heard it.
And one of my many anecdotes to end this section: I was working with a community station once and telling them the value of research. The reason that the management committee gave for not doing any research was it would mean getting rid of several presenters because no-one listened to them. Perhaps the only reason you are scared of research is that it will tell the truth.