When Katrina Fischer wants a quick break from work, she heads over to the Web site of her favorite radio station, WUSN-FM 99.5, and starts to score points.
For everything from rating snippets of songs to answering trivia questions, from knowing secret codes that are given over the air to viewing ads for sponsors, the 31-year-old Naperville woman can win points from the country station that she can use to enter in sweepstakes or to bid in auctions on such items as DVDs, gift cards and small appliances.
“I like the fact that I can pick and choose,” Fischer says. “And I feel like I’m not putting forth a lot of effort. But if I win something, that’s pretty cool.”
At an accelerating rate, radio stations around the country recently have started adopting similar tactics to embrace fans and to potentially boost their bottom lines. Add these reward programs and e-mail blasts to dating hotlines and other gimmicks, and it becomes clear that music stations aren’t just about the music nowadays (if they ever were) and that many stations are becoming comfortable with the Web.
It is also another area where radio differs sharply from television and print, where Web efforts are nowhere near as widespread. That may be because television viewers owe their allegiance to a set of programs more than, say, ABC, Fox or HBO, says Mel Taylor, president of Taylor and Associates, a Philadelphia Web-consulting firm that specializes in radio.
Taylor says that, with the implosion of dot-com firms, radio stations were reluctant to look to the Web for most of the last 18 months. But that’s slowly changing, he says. “We’re at the beginning of a long ballgame.”
Some in radio, however, are skeptical. Todd Cavanah, program director for WBBM-FM 96.3, says his station has an e-mail list and a database and is researching whether to adopt a more elaborate reward program. But he sees it as possibly being more trouble than it’s worth, especially becauseyounger people might not find something relevant and administering it might cause headaches.
“The bad thing about the loyal listener program is it’s adding another department to your radio station,” he says. “Look, we’re a radio station. We’re not Amazon.com.”
Finding a balance
But “the most successful radio stations have always been not just in the broadcasting business but also in the merchandising business,” says Larry Lichty, a professor of radio/television/film at Northwestern University. “That goes way back. That means giving people reasons to feel fondly about the station and the people on the station.”
Dave Casper, senior vice president/Internet services for the Radio Advertising Bureau, says that while virtually all radio stations have Web sites, no one has tracked how widespread listener programs are or how profitable radio Web sites have proven.
Still, he says, “It’s one of the hottest areas in radio right now. . . . The most frequent question I get when I’m talking to radio stations is `How do we do a loyal listener program?'”
Several radio stations in the Chicago area are reluctant to say how many people they had signed up in their databases, but say the figure numbered well into the tens of thousands.
While Web sites for radio stations are the latest way to establish interaction, Lichty notes that efforts to extend a station’s reach date back to the early years of the medium. For instance, he says, back around the 1930s, WLS-AM 890 used to have a chicken detective to help listeners track purloined poultry. Other stations had home economic shows and ministers to build a sense of community.
A big reason why Web sites are in vogue is the push by radio stations to find alternative sources of revenue, says Ron Rodrigues, editor in chief of Radio & Records magazine. There’s only so many ads stations can put on the air before listeners start to chafe, he says.
The inside track
Over the last few years, radio stations have evolved their Web sites so people can sign up to receive periodic e-mails. The correspondence features information about the station’s activities, upcoming concert information, and special promotions and contests never mentioned over the air. Some encourage listeners to fill out surveys.
“It gives us a real accountability,” says Steve Ennen, general manager of WUSN. “Radio stations need to interact with their audience as much as possible.”
In participating, listeners expose themselves to ads either on the Web page or in e-mails. For example, a recent missive for listeners of WKSC-FM 103.5 invited them to enter to win tickets to see Britney Spears courtesy of Chips Ahoy Cremewiches, complete with the Nabisco logo.
“There’s revenue opportunities in those names,” says Dave Santrella, general manager of WZFS-FM 106.7, a Christian contemporary station. “Regardless of what anybody tells you, that’s the [main] reason why they do it.”
But, he adds, it’s unclear how successful stations have been in making such endeavors profitable. “Really, I don’t think anybody has effectively made any money on it,” Santrella says. “It’s still in its infancy.”
Even so, Santrella and other executives also say they appreciate being more useful to their audience and value the feedback they can receive through such efforts.
Research takes a lot of time and money. Arbitron ratings are too slow and broad to answer questions like whether a song is in danger of getting too much play or if something new would be welcomed by listeners.
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“You can only answer so many calls on a phone line, and direct mail is very expensive,” says Greg Solk, vice president of programming and operations for WLUP-FM 97.9 and WDRV-FM 97.1. “[The Web] is a huge part of radio station marketing right now and it’s only getting bigger.”
A few sites feature a prize structure where various tasks add points that can then can be parlayed into raffles or auction bids.
Telling WUSN, for example, whether you liked that Lee Ann Womack tune is worth 200 points. Knowing such trivia as that a basketball referee is indicating a timeout when he forms a “T” with his hands is worth 500. And completing the title of “Spirit: Stallion of the Cimmaron” is worth 2,500.
An auction for a $25 Target gift card, for example, might have a minimum bid of 91,800 points.
For listeners and stations, some of the benefits of these various efforts are obvious.
A diversion
Naperville resident Fischer, who has listened to WUSN for six years, says she enjoys playing around with the site even though she has not won a sweepstakes. “I think it’s just one more thing they offer that’s fun,” says Fischer, a technical support specialist.
Some of the potential drawbacks for listeners might be less clear-cut.
To enter the listener programs, people generally have to turn in their name, age, phone number and zip code — information that could prove invaluable to marketers. If it gets into the wrong hands, people could find themselves deluged with offers for things they didn’t bargain for.
Radio executives say they wouldn’t turn their databases over to clients because the cost in goodwill would be higher than any profit they’d make.
“Our listeners come to us with the trust that we’re not going to sell them and they’ll just get more junk mail,” says Tom Lisack, station marketing manager for WXRT-FM 93.1. “That’s something we wouldn’t consider.”
Stations could also become over-reliant on such lists, some fear, and forget what their main mission is.
“I think there’s a lot of radio stations that think the way they’re going to win the ratings wars is by doing these contests or these new things, these tricks,” Cavanah says.
“But the bottom line is the audience has to like your radio station.”