Bonus: Upping Your Radio Game | Guest: Harry Lyles

We're positioning companies for expansion and rapid development while helping broadcasters understand a better rating story to help generate a better revenue. Harry's standout programming career is marked by cutting edge strategy, stellar brand building skills, and achieving and sustaining, most important, market share by building inspired station teams. When programming concepts with your local audience happen and ratings and revenue follow, It's all about hiring Harry. That's what we say.

And he's with us today on Branded on Demand. We're proud to welcome the one and only Harry Lyles.

The music that should be played for that demographic, have a conversation with them about talent, have a conversation with them about their special programming, contest and promotion, and also community affairs and social media. But what's the foundation of any great radio station is going to be the music. I have learned through the years, if you can get those two things tied together and let them work together, you're probably going to have yourself a pretty good radio station.

I think one of the things, guys, that happens today, I've noticed there in some of the projects that I've done with clients and non clients, that there's a disconnect. And a lot of people want to say, well, It's a PPM situation. Disconnect. I disagree with that. And when I look at the Nielsen PPM numbers, I see a consistency from large, medium to small markets.

So when I first go in, it's important for me to do one thing, ask questions and then help them put those pieces together to help them move forward and meet that objective or vision that they have for the station. And it's not hard. Again, it's the basics. That are gonna take to do one thing and that's score in something called Nielsen. Yeah.

One of the questions I like to ask well, okay, you think you have a problem, but is there anything here that you would keep? Because I think that's a very important question. We can sit here and self reflect on all the elements and everything that ties a radio station together. But one of the things that I've noticed through the years is that a lot of program directors have a tendency to take their hands off the steering wheel.

And when you take your hands off the steering wheel, things, things will happen. Okay? Yeah, so all of a sudden the impact that was there, I just did a project two weeks ago. For a very large size market that used to be a dominant station, and they're now in the threes, but it was all self inflicted. In other words, musically, they have a problem. They have a talent issue. They haven't done any contest and promotion in over two years.

They downgraded their morning, their legendary morning guy left. And here's what happened. Instead of hiring his equal or upgrading, they downgraded. And the morning show has now lost 70 percent of their audience. My point being that didn't have to happen, but it happened. Now, can you fix that? Well, you know, when it comes to the self reflection of looking at what a radio station is doing from a talent standpoint, that's a mistake you really want to avoid making if all possible.

I want to share something with you guys because I remember when, when the Patriots won the Super, the last Super Bowl here in Atlanta on the CBS morning news. They had Bob Kraft and they were talking about to Bob Kraft, like, why are you, why are the Patriots so consistent in winning and you've been to the Super Bowl the past 10, 15 years, more so than anybody else, I never will forget his response. Here's what he said.

It doesn't matter if it's on the offensive side of the ball or the defensive side of the ball. Every time we have to replace a player, if we don't re sign one, we upgrade that side of the ball. Hey guys, that's, that's what we should do in radio, okay? But that doesn't always happen. When it comes to self reflecting, a lot of times, in, look, it, it, it starts right there inside that radio station. The ones who are closest to it.

Should be able to figure out what's happening, but again, when you take your hands off the steering wheel, she will go off the road. So the self reflecting part and the most important part of this is asking questions. What happened? Why did this happen? Is this going to be a revolution of change or an evolution of change? And usually, guys, it gets down to either an evolution or a revolution of change. When there's a ratings problem. And

Okay. If you can dominate two demographics, you can spread yourself out and become a pretty good radio station, regardless of format. I was just talking to a rock friend of mine the other day. And, uh, he was telling me about the appeal of his classic hit station, but he knew where the epicenter of his format was. That's the reason why he's successful. Great

And number two, what do you do when like half your air staff is coming in from other markets via voice track or whatever? How do you build that winning thing with people that you

I'm not a huge voice track person I think one of the things that's happened in radio is I consider all day parts important. Okay. I know some people say well We want to spend the money in morning and afternoon and we'll kind of Figure out what to do in the other day. Parts winning radio stations are consistent in mornings. They're consistent in mid days. They're consistent in afternoons and nights. Okay. And it doesn't work any other way.

There are no shortcuts to this and I, I have diplomatically had to tell a few people where I did some projects and they even had studies that there are no shortcuts. One of the things that when it comes to program directors. And, and, and I don't know why this is happening and I'm assuming it's a new day, new breed of program director. They don't know their market. They don't read and they don't sit there and invert the numbers and Nielsen to find out why they're losing audience.

Even when there's a research study in the past 8 months, give you just 1 example. I did 2 medium sized markets. They had done a research project. And both program directors thought that the epicenter of their audience was 18 to 34. Well, based on their own in house research, hey guys, one market, the audience started at 35, and the other market started at 40. Yeah. And so I pointed out, I said, here's your problem right here. Yeah. Somebody hasn't read your own study. Bingo.

But it happens, guys. It happens. Harry, for

Okay, even when my first job was at a country station in Evansville, Indiana, WROZ, Jim Emery, who was the program director, he came to talk to our class, and he offered some of us to cut an audition, and I did one. Great. I did one. And guess what happened? I got a job. Yay. And so, my job was, I got to run the Ralph Emery show, from that, that was on, on disc. So anyway, then Bloomington Broadcasting bought an old MOR station.

And so I applied there, and got the 10 2 position, and worked with two legendary guys that you guys probably know. Jim Wood, who later was the national guy at Mallwright. Oh yeah. And Buddy Scott, who worked at, uh, CBN TV. Right. B96, yeah. You betcha. I'll stop right there. Meeting those two guys in little bitty Evansville, Indiana, helped me start my career. I watched, I asked questions. I can remember Buddy and Jim said, Hey, you're asking too many damn questions, okay?

But guys, I did it because I wanted to know. And again, as Jim explained, hey, we're a new station. This thing will unfold the longer you're here. And of course, it was very tight, okay? Mm hmm. And I didn't understand at the time playing a record every 75 minutes at the time, right? Then all of a sudden 75 minutes went to 90 then 90 went to about 210 or 215 Yeah, I was like, oh, okay. So this is part of the chemistry of what how radio works So for anybody who is beginning I was lucky.

There's a lot of fool's gold out there nowadays, but at the same time, there are still some good broadcasters, program directors, operations managers and GMs who are interested in teaching the next generation coming up. I enjoy teaching the next generation. I get to Georgia State at least three times a year to talk to the broadcasting school there. I am noticing something though in the classroom when I was in Columbus, Miami.

St. Louis, Louisville, Columbus, and Cleveland, and would talk to college students and even some high school classes. Radios doesn't seem to be as sexy to them. As it was back when I was in the in the 80s and 90s. Okay. Absolutely. And there's a reason for that. Most of the questions come about streaming, podcasting. In other words, there's nothing wrong with that. But it has kind of diluted the interests of something called radio. Mm hmm. But I don't think that that has to happen.

No. And as I've told a couple of my friends. I think that everything that has happened to radio has been self inflicted by companies who own radio stations. There's a, there's a reason why some stations are successful and companies are successful and some are not. And again, I'll say it one more time. There are no shortcuts to this. We talked about Bill Belichick and Robert Kraft. There's a reason why those guys have been where they are.

It's the same thing as I've had to say to a couple of program directors who are into sports. There's a reason why the Golden State Warriors have done what they've done. They've got a good coach and they know how to put a team together. And so when it comes to our team in radio, I believe, you know, some people say, well, if you can get that morning engine, that guy, or that, that team in the mornings, good things will happen. What sure it does.

I think today we cannot take any chances in midday afternoons or night. So when you put those. pieces together, and when they are locked in together, guess what happens? You get attention, the pieces are working together, and I will tell you this, I think the listeners hear that. I know right here in Atlanta, when I go to get gas or stop by a quick mart or whatever, and somebody's got a radio on, I'll ask them, Why are you listening to that station?

And usually, nine times out of ten, it's a station that's a top three, top five. And they're doing a good job at doing one thing that's satisfying their audience great stuff And guys, it doesn't matter what format it is as I was talking to a rock friend of mine on the west coast last week It doesn't matter. You know, the basics are the basic when the pieces are working together good things happen A

And that's for that radio station to do one thing. Have, have listeners and those locals to wake up with it every morning, get in the car with it, eat breakfast with it. When, again, the station pieces are connected. From a music standpoint, talent standpoint, marketing, social media, you create an impact because that's called engagement and that's what listeners want. Terrific