Blog

You Can’t Buy Your Way Out of Poor Programming

By David Kidd, BPR

Here’s the hard reality: if your station’s content is weak, no amount of cash giveaways/international holidays etc will fix it.

Contesting doesn’t build a brand—it borrows attention.
A big prize can create a spike in cume. People sample. They show up for the chance to win. But they’re not showing up for you. And when the contest ends, so does the relationship. If the station underneath isn’t compelling, there’s nothing to hold them.

You train the audience to be transactional.
Run enough big cash promos and you condition listeners to ask one question: “What’s in it for me today?” The moment the answer is “nothing,” they’re gone. You haven’t built loyalty—you’ve built a habit of leaving.

It masks the real problem.
Contests are often used as a substitute for fixing fundamentals: unclear positioning, inconsistent music, unfocused shows, weak execution. The danger is the illusion of success; short-term spikes that look like progress while the core product remains broken.

It’s expensive churn.
Acquiring listeners who won’t stay is one of the most costly strategies in media. You’re effectively paying for traffic that has no lifetime value. Meanwhile, competitors with a sharper product convert fewer people—but keep more of them.

Great stations use contests as an accelerant, not a crutch.
When the content, music and talent are aligned, contesting can amplify momentum. It gives people a reason to sample a product that’s already worth staying for. But it can’t create that value on its own.

Here’s an example. Sydney’s Smooth 95.3 runs the lowest amount of big money promotions in the market year on year. And guess what, it’s the #1 station in Sydney on cume and share!

You can buy attention, but you can’t buy attachment. Fix the product first. Then, and only then, give people a reason to come faster—not a reason to leave later.