Knowing your audience

Target audiences
A common concept in radio marketing is the target
audience. This means the types of listeners that
you are trying to reach: not just the listeners you
already have, but also the listeners you should
have, if only they can discover your station and
realize what great programming it has.
Target audiences are usually described in
demographic terms - the type of information
collected by a Census: age group, sex, education,
occupation, and so on.
As most variation in radio listening is related to the
age of the audience, target audiences are most
often expressed in terms of age groups.
Sometimes education level is a secondary target. If
several stations in a market are already aiming at
the same age group as yours, you could consider
targeting, say, people with above-average
education in that age group. For this to work, of
course, your programs have to be designed for that
group.
Of course, some specialized stations have built-in
targets. If your programming is in a minority
language, your target must be people who can
understand the language. Similar rules apply for
classical music stations, jazz stations, sports
stations, all-news stations, and so on. These types
of station usually find that their target audience is
not evenly spread across all demographic groups,
but is concentrated in particular age and socio-
economic groups. Differences between the sexes,
however, are usually small.
Choosing your target audience
An internet-only radio station should be more
specialized still. There are thousands of these, and
as they can cover everybody in the (rich) world, an
internet-only station can best succeed by being
very specialized .Listeners to these stations who
tire of the monotony will need to find other
stations for their other listening needs.
For example, if you broadcast a children's program 
for an hour each day, I can almost guarantee that
most of the listeners will be adults. The only
exception would be if no other radio station culled
be heard in your area, and the program's timeslot
had not been changed for many years.
How large is your target audience?
target audience in terms of type of people who
listen, a station should also specify the size of its
target audience. Many stations express this in
terms of audience share. (This is the station's
percentage of all hours spent listening to radio .
The simplest way to set a target audience size is an
equal share. If three radio stations can be received
in your coverage area, each station might expect to
get a one-third share of the total audience.
If your audience share is less than the average of
other stations in your market, and there is no clear
reason for this to be so (e.g. a narrow target
audience) you could try to enlarge your audience.
If your target audience is only people aged 25 to 39
and two other stations are competing for the same
audience, you should begin by expecting a one-
third share of the 25-39 year old audience.

Audience goals
A common question for any radio station that is
trying to increase its audience (as most are) is
"Which measure should we try to maximize?"
community stations are better served by expressing
their target audience size in terms of reach, rather
than share. There are several reasons for this:
  Maximizing reach matches with what most
community stations are trying to do: that is,
"we'd like as many people as possible to listen
to our station, even if they don't listen for long"
rather than "we're trying to attract a small
number of people who will spend many hours
listening to this station."
 A station with high reach should be able to
attract advertising more easily than a station
with high share (but the advertisers will need
to be educated about this).
 Reach is easier to measure than share: a simple
survey will measure reach, but to measure
share requires a complex and expensive diary
survey.

audience research?
Audience research is a systematic and accurate way
of finding out about your audience. There are two
main things that audience research can do:
(1) estimate audience sizes, and
(2) discover audience preferences.
Radio and TV stations are unique in having a special
need for audience research: this is the only
industry that cannot accurately count its audience.
A factory will always count the number of products
it sells. A newspaper will (or could) always know its
paid circulation. An organization that provides
services rather than products (e.g. a hospital) is
able to accurately count the number of people who
walk through its doors. But radio and television
programs are given away free to their audiences,
and there is no way of measuring how many people
tune into a program - without audience research.
Since those days, audience research has moved far
beyond radio and television. The current growth
area is internet audience research. And, though
printed publications have readers rather than
audiences, the same methods apply.
Methods of audience research
The most common method of audience research is
the survey: a group of people is selected, they are
all asked the same questions, and their answers are
counted. But as well as surveys, there are many
other methods of audience research, including
observation, mechanical measurement (people-
meters) and qualitative research. The first part of
this book deals with surveys, and the second part
covers most of the other methods.
 Developing your style
 have excellent presentation and performance skills
 be able to generate original ideas, and to think
creatively about how to communicate them to
audiences
 understand how to use the voice effectively for radio
 be able to learn how to use a variety of recording
equipment and to operate different radio studios
 be able to present while operating studio controls and
co-ordinating a range of simultaneous technical
activities
 be able to communicate knowledgeably and
engagingly with audiences
 have excellent communication skills and be able to
draw information from people
 be able to work calmly effectively under pressure,
react quickly, and meet tight deadlines
 have knowledge of the law, ethics and industry
regulations around radio production
 understand when it is necessary, and how to acquire,
the relevant clearances and licences, including
copyright and music clearances
 understand the requirements of the relevant health
and safety legislation and procedures
 have strong IT skills, including word processing and
data handling - and, ideally, audio editing and image
manipulation software
 have knowledge of the radio market, different station
and programme styles, and audience demographics