Thanksgiving has always been my favorite holiday.  Over the years, I’ve come to refer to it as the National Butter Festival.  I think I love it because there are no real demands beyond food and family and friends.  No mandatory gifting.  No interminable build-up with parties you might not really want to go to.  No…

NuVoodoo founder, Carolyn Gilbert is not known for mincing words. About national callout, she has said, “National music research is great if you’re programming a national format. Regional music research works fine for programming a regional format. And to make the best music decisions for programming a local station, you need local research. Your market. Your listeners. The specific songs you want to…

In addition to “beloved,” the words “authentic” and “relatable” have been consistent across the many, many tributes to WMMR’s Pierre Robert in social media this past week. The words came up among media contacts, but also among “real life” friends here in Philly – people not focused on radio or media, just long-time listeners of…

(With apologies to the Bee Gees, of course.) Last week’s tragic loss of WMMR’s Pierre Robert is a timely reminder that the most valuable on-air hosts are difficult (some might say “impossible”) to replace. If you were a fan of Pierre’s or work in the radio business, your social media feeds are full of tributes…

Have you audited your imaging and promos lately? This year? This decade? With more responsibilities spread across fewer people in most station programming departments, it’d be completely understandable if the answer is “no.” Yet that’s exactly why it’s so important to make the time. With fewer people doing more work, radio risks losing the elements…

While Nielsen’s new 3-minute rules have lifted AQH, revenue remains challenging. It’s understandable to see programming personnel being trimmed back at many companies. It’s sad for the individuals involved and sad for the business as it works to compete with the onslaught of digital competition in the audio space. Managers are left with fewer bodies…

When we asked the 2,000+ nationwide respondents in NuVoodoo Ratings Prospects Study 26 what causes them to change stations, too many bad songs is at or near the top of the ranking among most format P1 groups. Even among the few formats where bad songs are the cause of tuneout for less than half the…

For the coming year in the radio business, you’ll again be asked to do more with less. If you’re a programmer or manager, you may be responsible for more stations in your market – or more stations outside your market. Research and marketing are always on the block as potential cuts. Yet we know that…

Spouses of program directors talk about it: PDs listen to the car radio wrong – they turn up the volume when a song is ending, listen for whatever happens between the songs … and turn the volume down. I haven’t programmed a station since 1999 – and I STILL listen to the radio that way.…

Advertisers are increasingly looking for proof that their campaigns are working. You can hear ROAS – Return on Ad Spend – talked about in podcasts commercials targeting businesspeople. John Wanamaker, founder of the long-gone Philadelphia-area department store Wanamaker’s, is often quoted saying, “Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I…