Monday, June 22, 2015

With the year almost halfway over, it's time to take a fresh look at programming.

• Look at your ratings. Where are you in target demos? Compare year to year not just book-to-book.
• Go through the market with a fine-tooth comb. How are your competitors doing? Are they up? Down? Who's making real headway and why?
• Talk with your PD and your sales manager about how programming and sales are working together to drive revenue.
• Talk with your PD about your programming staff, by person. Who are you're A, B and C players? Can your Cs get to B or A? If not, start thinking about a replacement.

Have your PD do a thorough analysis of her music scheduling system.

• Actual vs. projected turnover analysis
• Category play analysis. Are the secondaries playing more than powers? Don't be surprised. I've seen it.
• Have her pull a sample hour from each daypart over a few days and go over them with you explaining all the nuances. I don't care if you're a sales GM. You are a GM, that means General Manager and if you default to "I don't know about programming," you are not doing your job as well as you should.

Like yesterday. Follow this path. There's much more and now is the time to take a good look.