radioinfo caught up with rAWARD winning Metro Program Director Dan Bradley before his lunch break, for some tips on how to be a successful PD.
radioinfo: Congratulations on the rAWARD. Out of all the jobs a PD does (rosters, airchecking, motivating staff, surveying the audience, etc) which are the most important?
Easily lunch, without doubt.
radioinfo: Why?
As important as all the other stuff is, you wouldn’t have the energy without
lunch. And when you’re going from 10 till 2.30, that’s a full days work! I
can’t recommend lunch highly enough!
radioinfo: How often do you research your audience?
All the time, as do most stations, music research, tracking, perceptual
studies, Focus Groups, and LAB’s, they all have a place, particularly LAB’s
as there’s food provided.
radioinfo: What have you found to be the most successful methods of audience research
(focus groups, individual chats, phone surveys, internet groups, etc)?
You use them for different reasons, for example LAB’s are great for getting
‘listener words’, but it’s not a representative sample of the audience and
you have to view it in that context . I don’t think you can isolate one
methodology and suggest it’s the strongest, they all have various benefits,
it’s the interpretation that is important.
radioinfo: No doubt Nova 100 has been the most successful launch of any station in many
years, but it settled back down after a few surveys. Is this its proper
position or is there more room for growth in the future for Nova 100?
The launch was terrific, but the levels we reached early on were not
sustainable in the short term, we knew that, and we said that publicly.
Nova 100 is designed to be successful long-term, and just as we expected to
‘come off’ from the early levels, we expect that given time we will grow
from where we currently are. Having said that, we’re still well ahead of
where we expected to be after being on the air for 10 months.
radioinfo: What is the station’s primary demographic target? Is there further growth in that demo or will you have to expand it to get growth?
We target a ‘type’ of person, as opposed to an age group, however as you’d
expect from a contemporary station like Nova, the bulk of our audience falls
in the 18-39 group. We’re expecting further growth in time, but we won’t be
changing the essence of what we are to try and do that.
We’re a Melbourne focussed CHR station playing all music genres with a
killer breakfast show and bugger all commercials, that’s who we are and
that’s what we do.
radioinfo: What is the hardest thing you have to do as a PD?
Getting up so early, the alarm is religiously set for 9am, and after a year
I’m still not used to it.
radioinfo: What are your top five personal favourite songs on the Nova 100 playlist at
the moment?
Ben Lee – Something borrowed something blue,
Creed – One last breath,
Eminem – Lose yourself,
28 Days – What’s the deal,
Madonna – Die another day
radioinfo: Anything else you want to say?
When’s lunch?