Radio Station Innovation and Risk Taking: A Survey of Programmers and General Managers

We conducted a survey of radio station program directors and general managers to explore the perception and role of innovation within radio programming and the key factors that influence this perception. In the study, we found that, in general, programmers and general managers perceive little innovation in programming except at their own stations. Results also indicate perceptions that more risk taking is needed in radio programming, that risk taking is essential for the financial health of a station, that increased artist diversity and an innovative music rotation influence the perception of innovation at the station level, and that too many commercials are being placed within an average hour of programming.     

The Internet as a Small-Market Radio Station Promotional Tool

The combination of radio and the Internet has been solidly documented as a cross-media success for many advertisers. However, to what extent does the medium itself share in this success as it utilizes the Internet as a promotional tool? Even less is known about radio and the Internet in small markets. Based on a survey of industry experts located at radio stations in markets ranked loo+, this paper examines current promotional executions as well as explores possible future opportunities that small-market radio stations are considering as the Internet continues to grow and change.     

Tuning In to Radio: Promoting Audience Transference During Frequency Shifts

This investigation explores the interaction between radio listenership, station attributes, branding and promotional strategies, and their impact on total audience and target audience transference during frequency switching. A multistation, single market switch in frequencies serves as the focus of this case study analysis. Although the enhancement or deterioration of signal strength is a primary contributor, stations whose formats had the greatest competition within the market and who had highly accurate and accessible Web sites did the best job of product differentiation through station branding and were most effective in maintaining and, in some cases, increasing audience share.     

Radio as a Successful Local Storyteller in Los Angeles: A Case Study of KKBT and KPCC

This case study examines the local storytelling practices of two radio stations in Los Angeles: one a commercial hip-hop station, the other a public radio station managed by Minnesota Public Radio with a news-talk format. Interviews with station staff and direct observation of station practices provide data that reveal specific practices showing how stations can apply communication infrastructure theory in attempts to forge the connections between the media, community residents, and the local organizations that bind neighborhoods. Obstacles to sustaining these practices are noted, including commercial pressures and journalistic principles that may hinder advocacy.     

Radio's influence in the Alaska Bush: Cultural transmission or diffusion?

Isolated radio stations serve predominately Native American populations in the Alaska Bush. This study sought to ascertain radio's influence on local cultures and its ability to serve local needs. Issues relating to control and staffing of stations were also examined. Clearly there is a growing push for Bush radio to help preserve Alaska's native cultures and languages. Stations differed in their approaches to some common problems, but all appeared to be moving in the direction of increasing native involvement in station operations.     

“Openness through Sound”: Dualcasting on Irish LGBT Radio

This article explores how Ireland’s first LGBT radio station, Open FM, attempted to offer LGBT radio in a heteronormative media landscape. It uses semi-structured interviews with two of the stations founders as well as posts from online LGBT message bulletin boards to argue how Open FM ultimately became ambivalent about its LGBT status and adopted a dualcasting strategy. Despite its ambitions to be a community-led radio station for Ireland's LGBT community, the dualcasting strategy of the station framed many of its endeavors between the mainstream standards of radio broadcasting and the community of interest that their licence claimed to serve.     

Local Radio Audiences in Iran: An Analysis of Ardebilian People's Trust in and Satisfaction with “Sabalan” Radio

There are numerous local radio stations across Iran. Considering the ethnic, linguistic, and cultural characteristics of their audiences, local stations endeavor to produce and broadcast diverse programs. One local station is “Sabalan” situated in Ardebil province in northwest Iran. Since the audience of this station speaks the same language as the inhabitants of the neighboring countries of Azerbaijan and Turkey, whether Sabalan can attract and satisfy its audience becomes significant. The paper is the result of a research project done in relation to the extent to which the Ardebilian audience is satisfied by Sabalan and trusts its programs. The findings reveal that the audience is less than satisfied with Sabalan and has almost no trust in the news, information, and programs. The reasons they mention for their attitude are: censorship of the news and little reflection of reality, lack of respect for indigenous culture and language, and broadcasting too many programs in Persian.     

Individual differences in on‐air television and radio personalities

This study examined on‐air television and radio newscasters' traitlike communication dispositions. Television and radio personalities were found to be less apprehensive, less shy, less responsive, more assertive, more willing to communicate, and more extroverted than the average individual. The study also indicated that individuals working for higher paying/ranked television or radio stations/ markets are more willing to communicate, more extroverted, more assertive, less responsive, and less shy than those in the same field working at smaller, lower‐paying/ranked stations.     

What Makes a Good Radio Remote: Factors Leading to Perceived Cost-Effective and Well-Received On-Site Radio Promotional Sales Events

In the US., the on-site radio remote is commonly used to generate listener interest in the station and the client. Factors that were most important to stations, businesses, and audience members were studied in five radio markets. Investigators attended 30 remotes, collecting usable responses from 432 attendees of remotes, 31 radio station personnel and 74 businesses. Results suggested that Location, Product, Giveaways, and Station Personalities were most important to having a successful radio remote.     

Brick,Mortar, and Screen: Networked Digital Media,Popular Music,and the Reinvention of the Public Radio Station

ABSTRACT

This article details the various forces that shaped public radio station KEXP’s evolution from the 70s to today. It addresses the ways that Seattle’s specific cultural, economic, and technological advantages enabled it to take on its current form as a key presence in global pop music curation and discovery. It argues that the station’s progression thus represents a potential model for other legacy public radio stations in an era of diminishing public and institutional funding. However, this approach’s viability will depend upon how effectively stations are able to leverage their local communities to compete in the networked digital media paradigm.     

Radio Reverb: The Impact of “Local” News Reimported to Its Own Community

According to recent data, more than 40% of radio stations now do news for stations outside their own market. This “outsourced news,” as one former Federal Communications Commission commissioner called it, raises questions about how local news decisions are made when removed from their local context. Using research on news conventions and decision-making processes, and data from field work in a small radio market served by news produced in a large market, this study frames issues of news selection and presentation within the context of a deregulated environment where the lines of what is “local” in local news are blurring.     

Interactivity on Traditional Media Web Sites

This study compares the radio industry's use of interactivity to that of other traditional media on the Web such as newspapers and television stations, along the dimensions of audience-oriented interactivity and source-oriented interactivity. A content analysis of 112 traditional radio station Web sites, 282 traditional newspaper Web sites, and 128 traditional television station Web sites found that traditional radio station Web sites provided more audience-oriented interactivity compared to other traditional media Web sites, and traditional newspaper Web sites offered the most source-oriented interactivity. A general conclusion of this study is that although traditional radio stations were more likely to transmit live and archived sound than other media, all traditional media Web sites have held back from developing interactivity beyond e-mail, and have limited the transmission of streaming media, as well as archived audio and video content.     

The Next Generation Platform: Comparing Audience Registration and Participation in Digital Sound Media

Some radio stations emulate mainstream formats in an effort to attract “niche” audiences, characterized by cultural determinants such as language or religion. This study analyzed stations that follow religious music subgenre formats. The most prominent religious music format. Southern Gospel, along with Country Religious and Black Gospel, was found almost exclusively in the Southern region of the U.S. The majority of stations that featured these formats were AM. In contrast, Worship, Soft Rock, and Rock format emulations were broadcast primarily on FM, with Soft Rock formats most evenly distributed around the country. Religious Rock formatted stations gave significantly greater emphasis to promotion and lowest emphasis to ministry. Findings suggest that niche formats' success in appealing to identifiable cultural groups may rest on the effectiveness of station promotion to the intended audiences.     

Remarks on Radio Localism

Radio stations regularly conduct music research to determine what music they should play. Programming belief is that if they play music that people like better, more people will listen and listen longer, and the station's ratings will improve. This project utilizes Radio &; Records' Callout America® callout research of the top 30 songs on its Contemporary Hit Radio/Pop chart and their published CHR/Pop radio station playlists to compile an average favorability score for the music the station played. These scores were then compared to Arbitron ratings. Analysis found a statistically significant direct correlation between music research scores and Arbitron ratings.     

Development of Radio in Kazakhstan

This article discusses how radio in Kazakhstan changed after the Soviet Union collapsed and market-oriented independent countries emerged. Since independence in 1991, the media, including radio, developed partly as a private enterprise and partly as a government entity with government radio operations controlled by the State Television and Radio Broadcasting Corporation. State radio stations in Kazakhstan are subsidized and operations do not depend on popularity or successful competition for audiences. Commercial stations have found support in advertising and continue to be successful. Although Kazakhstan has been independent for about 20 years and Kazakh stations are successful, the radio market in Kazakhstan is dominated by Russian radio. This article highlights the significant challenge for Kazakh radio as it continues to develop a uniquely Kazakh character that can promote Kazakh language and culture, and successfully attract a Kazakh audience.     

Visualizing a Non-Visual Medium through Social Media: The Semiotics of Radio Station Posts on Instagram

For decades, radio was primarily a hidden or unseen medium to listeners. In recent years, digital technologies have transformed radio to a medium that can both be seen and heard. In particular, visuals on social media have given audiences a real-time glimpse of broadcast operations and talent, while enhancing interaction with stations. This study examined how commercial stations across the United States portrayed themselves through posts on Instagram. Using a qualitative methodology and social semiotic theory, results of the study revealed two dominant themes of station posts—station promotion and community—that signified the essence of radio stations.     

Politicians and Media Owners in Greek Radio: Pluralism as Diaplokí

This research investigates why the government closed 70 Athenian radio stations in 2001 and explores the degree of pluralism able to develop in Greece since radio privatized in 1988. The results suggest a kind of pluralism emerged in which voices-independent of political or economic interests- are not cultivated or tolerated. The new media environment is dominated by wealthy businessmen with financial interests in shipping, telecommunications, and refining. The radio enthusiasts, who advocated free radio during the movement to privatize radio, are not being served. The station closings functioned to exacerbate the interplay between the media owners and politicians.     

Country Music Radio Part II: The Mid-Day Merry-Go-Round

From 1936 to 1961, this jingle alerted listeners to the beginning of the most popular local radio show in the history of Knoxville, Tennessee. For it was during those years that radio station WNOX aired the "Mid-day Merry-Go-Round." During the period when radio was king, stations produced a variety of programs in addition to those available through network affiliation. These local programs connected radio with their audiences, but the influence of the "Mid-day Merry-Go-Round" extended far beyond the listeners in Knoxville. The purpose of this paper is to explore the evolution and influences of one such locally-produced show, the "Midday Merry-G0-Round."     

Self-Dealing or Market Transaction?: An Exploratory Study of Vertical Integration in the U.S. Television Syndication Market

This study explores the programming relationship between vertically integrated station groups and their affiliated syndicators in the context of two frameworks associated with the advantages of vertical integration: the transaction cost and vertical foreclosure theories. The programming sources for various stations that are vertically integrated with syndicators were assessed. The results indicated that leading television station groups had purchased relatively more products from their vertically integrated syndicators. The pattern of internal transfer through vertical integration was especially apparent in the acquisition of newer first-run products that are associated with uncertain quality and less audience information. The findings generally support the transaction cost theoretical perspective. However, the data did not paint a picture of market foreclosure in this industry.     

KVOS in the Local,Public Interest: Early Broadcasting and the Constitution of the Local

This article contributes to scholarly literature on local stations in early radio broadcasting history. Taking KVOS in Bellingham, WA as a case study, it attends to how regional geography in conjunction with station operators, broadcasting policy, and audiences helped to define localism in relation to broader national, regional, and international identities forming at the beginnings of early radio and between 1930–1953. KVOS’ history demonstrates how radio was always bound up with the production of locality and how local identity was constituted in and through its relation to broader collective sensibilities taking shape at the time.