MUST HAVE BALANCE

There are many factors that go into making a winning radio station. One of the most overlooked (and if broke, easily fixed) is balance. The music, imaging, spots, even on air content all need to be well balanced.

Let’s dive deeper:

THE MUSIC
Every fifteen minutes should be an overall sample of what the station is about. Look at your clocks and listen to your station to make sure you don’t have back to back currents, or back to back golds. Never clump the same genres or eras together. Listen to your station for fifteen to twenty minutes. Do you hear a balanced sample of all the categories, genres and eras? Always keep it balanced.

THE IMAGING
Keep all the elements that run between the songs balanced. Equally spread out the produced imaging, talk breaks, promos, and jingles. Don’t clump the same elements in the same quarter hour. Equally rotate them. Talk, sweeper, talk, jingle, talk, etc. Always keep it balanced.

SPOTS
If you take two commercial breaks each hour and are not sold out, make sure that traffic will equally balance the number of units in each break. If you only have six units in an hour, then do three units in each spot set. Eight units? Then four units in each. It sounds far better to keep it balanced than to have one stop set with six units and the other with only two. Always keep it balanced.

CONTENT
All the content you talk about on the air should be well balanced and focused on the target. It's not smart to only talk only about sports, or only about Hollywood gossip. Be mass appeal in your prep. Hollywood gossip, local, sports, kickers, artist prep, public service, etc. Always keep your content balanced.

Step back and listen to your station. How balanced is everything? Is every fifteen minutes an overall sample of what the station is about? If not, it should be.