Pat’s Point of View

Most people who know me are well aware that I hate radio. Can’t stand listening to the radio for any length of time, certainly not all day. But unfortunately at work we have Triple M on all day, every day, except when it gets too much for my colleague and she changes to Triple J (Mick Molloy’s show at midday, in particular, sets her off).

I can’t stand the stuff they try to pass off as rock, but hey, that could just be a matter of taste. What really shits me is the endless repetition; playing the same set of songs during every segment throughout the day, every day of the week. This goes on for months until the songs are no longer ‘hits’. And it’s not just Triple M, but all commercial stations.

I’ve figured out why. The stations aren’t catering for us long-term listeners who basically leave it on the one station all day. They’re chasing the ‘channel surfers’ who might keep skipping stations, or those who might only listen to the radio for a short stretch (in the car on the way to work for example). So they need to show how cool they are, at any point in the day.

In a way they’re a lot like banks. Most banks couldn’t care less about existing customers, they’re chasing the new customers. There’s and old direct-marketing mantra: “it’s more expensive to get new acquisitions than it is to service existing customers”. In fact, this is probably just a general business rule, and surely this applies to banks and radio too? They could stop spending loads of cash on advertising and new customer/listener tricks, and simply concentrate of keeping they’re existing customers/listeners happy. The good will and satisfaction would make it’s way to other people via word of mouth (and social networking, such as blogs!) and people would flock to them in droves. It’s just good business…isn’t it?

There needs to be a station suitable for those people with more than half a brain who listen to the radio for more than 30 minutes at a time. Oh, there is, it’s called iPod.

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