<\/p>\n
In a recent interview with NOVA Entertainment\u2019s Paul Jackson<\/strong>, the Group Program Director discussed the success of Smooth FM and how it was achieved through their focus and emphasis being, mainly, on weekend air play.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Conventional radio wisdom dictates that a station\u2019s success flows from its Breakfast show. If your station is the first one they listen to when they wake up, have breakfast, go to work or take the kids to school, chances are they\u2019ll hang around for much of the rest of the day.<\/p>\n But that was not the pathway to smooth FM\u2019s success.<\/p>\n “It was a matter of reverse engineering,” <\/em>says program chief Paul Jackson\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n ” When\u00a0you\u00a0go\u00a0right\u00a0back\u00a0on\u00a0the\u00a0start, it was all about weekend, because if you looked at breakfast shows, you weren\u2019t going to come into a market\u00a0 such as\u00a0Sydney\u00a0or\u00a0Melbourne,\u00a0as mature as they are, and suddenly change the dynamics\u00a0at breakfast\u00a0time.”<\/em><\/p>\n “We\u00a0always\u00a0knew\u00a0if\u00a0we\u00a0put\u00a0a\u00a0show\u00a0up\u00a0against\u00a0Amanda and Jonesy,\u00a0we’d get smashed. It\u00a0had to be a\u00a0different\u00a0offering from\u00a0their\u00a0light\u00a0entertainment\u00a0kind\u00a0of\u00a0show.”<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n “So,\u00a0we\u00a0went with weekends\u00a0with<\/em> Richard\u00a0(Wilkins)<\/strong><\/em> and<\/em>\u00a0David\u00a0(Campbell)<\/strong><\/em>, primarily\u00a0as\u00a0the\u00a0‘names,’\u00a0and\u00a0then\u00a0we\u00a0added the likes of <\/em>Lionel\u00a0Richie<\/strong><\/em>\u00a0and <\/em>Michael Bubl\u00e9<\/strong><\/em>\u00a0to the weekend shows.”<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cWe thought\u00a0that\u00a0that\u00a0could\u00a0have\u00a0the\u00a0possibility\u00a0of starting a\u00a0conversation that\u00a0we’ve\u00a0aligned\u00a0ourselves\u00a0with\u00a0people\u00a0like\u00a0Michael\u00a0Bubl\u00e9 and\u00a0Lionel\u00a0Richie\u00a0to\u00a0carve\u00a0out\u00a0a clear\u00a0position\u00a0of ‘stuff that\u00a0no\u00a0one\u00a0else\u00a0is\u00a0doing’. \u201d<\/em><\/p>\n The weekends soon started to rack up some healthy cume\u2019s but instead of using that interest in the smooth brand to promote weekday Breakfast, they promoted workplace listening instead.<\/p>\n \u201cWe were\u00a0saying that\u00a0if you enjoy this on the weekend, you can put us on at work \u2013 that very quickly got traction. There are\u00a0big\u00a0numbers to\u00a0be\u00a0gained from weekend and workplace listening. So, you start off as people\u2019s second, third, or fourth station and then you grow and go on and make that into stronger drive numbers and night time numbers.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n In the almost seven years since Smooth FM was launched atop the ruins of Vega, it has exceeded all expectations. In Survey 1 released last week, both smooths in Sydney and Melbourne posted a 9.7 share overall in their respective markets. In Sydney that 9.7 was good enough to make smooth the number one station on the FM band and number two overall behind 2GB.<\/p>\n In Melbourne, smooth 91.5 is number three in the market behind 3AW and FOX. And while<\/p>\n the other shifts have higher shares, Breakfast with\u00a0Mike Perso<\/strong>\u00a0and\u00a0Jennifer Hansen<\/strong>\u00a0nonetheless returns a respectable 7.8 making it 5th<\/sup>in that market ahead of its sister Nova 100.<\/p>\n In Sydney, smooth 95.3\u2019s\u00a0Bogart Torelli<\/strong>\u00a0and\u00a0Glenn Daniel<\/strong>\u00a0managed an 8.5 share in Breakfast, also slightly trailing the other shifts. But any station would be happy enough with an 8.5 that places it 4th\u00a0<\/sup>in market ahead of the formidable pairing of Jonesy and Amanda on WSFM.<\/p>\n “We’ve\u00a0worked\u00a0on\u00a0the\u00a0musical\u00a0offering\u00a0at\u00a0breakfast\u00a0to\u00a0be\u00a0slightly\u00a0different\u00a0to\u00a0all\u00a0the other day parts and we really do move the station around, \u201csays Jackson, \u201c We\u00a0have\u00a0a\u00a0uniqueness\u00a0still\u00a0in the marketplace among the stations. You\u00a0can\u00a0play\u00a0some\u00a0of\u00a0the\u00a0records\u00a0that\u00a0we\u00a0might\u00a0have chosen over the years that no one else is playing but that doesn\u2019t quite create the same sort of feel or environment.”<\/em><\/p>\n Having said that, Jackson then adds,\u00a0\u201cThere\u00a0are\u00a0lots\u00a0of\u00a0different\u00a0ways\u00a0to\u00a0do\u00a0to\u00a0deliver\u00a0a\u00a0show. There’s\u00a0a\u00a0lot\u00a0of\u00a0stations that provide a\u00a0slightly\u00a0different\u00a0offering.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n We’ve\u00a0got\u00a0to\u00a0keep\u00a0evolving\u00a0and\u00a0changing.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Read original story here<\/a> at Radioinfo<\/a><\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In a recent interview with NOVA Entertainment\u2019s Paul Jackson, the Group Program Director discussed […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1434,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1437","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorised"],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/bprworld.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/smooth-fm.jpg?fit=1200%2C600","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/bprworld.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1437","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/bprworld.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/bprworld.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bprworld.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bprworld.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1437"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"http:\/\/bprworld.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1437\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1476,"href":"http:\/\/bprworld.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1437\/revisions\/1476"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bprworld.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1434"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/bprworld.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1437"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bprworld.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1437"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bprworld.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1437"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}