The Unsung Edge for Workday Listening

We believe that one of the driving forces behind male numbers leading female numbers in the ratings during the workday is the trusted worksite radio. If you’ve had a contractor doing work on your home, you’ve seen this radio. It’s often an old, paint-spattered boombox. The FM antenna is bent and may be duct-taped into one piece. But, it gets the job done and keeps its users humming along to songs or arguing with sports-talk hosts though the day.

When I had some renovations done on my home in 2017, I ended up with different crews working around the house – and playing separate radios. As a home-office worker, I detested the cacophony – but, as a radio person, I loved hearing all those quarter hours being consumed. In cases where I knew the PD of a station that was playing, I reached out and asked for shoutouts for the guys working. One of the guys actually heard his name and now has a strong personal connection to the station (I don’t think he ever figured out how they got his name).

2019 brings additional renovations to my old house and the first of the guys showed up shortly after the holidays. The two guys that day were both under age 35, so I wasn’t surprised to hear what sounded like alternative rock playing from across the house in my kitchen. After a while I wondered what the source was, since I hadn’t heard a commercial break. I wandered in to check on their progress and saw their music player: a portable Bluetooth speaker spattered in spackling compound and paint – streaming Spotify from one of their iPhones.

Needless to say, the local alternative FM can’t compete with the zero-commercial load of the guy’s Spotify subscription or its wide, customizable playlist. The guys said they used to listen to that station, but felt no connection to the hosts during the day. That human connection is often the last line of defense for terrestrial radio. Recognizing and connecting with those people who can spend so many quarter hours with stations becomes more and more critical every day.

While the workday talk profile on most music-driven stations has the on-air host pared back to minimal contributions, it’s important that those contributions be nearly perfect every time. Depending on format, that could include news about local concerts for in-format artists and other local entertainment options of note for the station’s target – along with names of people who are listening. Of course, to get those names, you’ll need to answer the studio line and pay attention to the station’s Social Media accounts – and that’s critical  in 2019 as well.

NuVoodoo Ratings Prospects Study XIII is coming out of the field now and we’ll be busy tabulating and analyzing the results in the weeks ahead. We think this new sample of over 3,000 listeners across all PPM markets responded to our best questionnaire yet, so we’re eager to see and share the results. We’ve dived deep to gather new information to help stations program and promote effectively for 2019 and beyond.