{"id":6201,"date":"2024-07-26T13:13:17","date_gmt":"2024-07-26T03:13:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bprworld.com\/?p=6201"},"modified":"2025-12-05T13:24:20","modified_gmt":"2025-12-05T02:24:20","slug":"game-theory-revisited-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/bprworld.com\/de\/news\/game-theory-revisited-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Game Theory Revisited"},"content":{"rendered":"

By David Kidd, BPR<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve written about the importance of Game Theory previously. But given recent events in the US I thought it timely to have another look at the concept and its importance to a radio station\u2019s overall strategic plan.<\/p>\n

The Republican Party was pretty sure that Joe Biden would be facing off Donald Trump in this year\u2019s\u2019 Presidential election. A lot of planning and expensive marketing had gone into that belief. But then all of a sudden it\u2019s not Joe Biden but Kamala Harris who the Democrats have all but anointed as their nominee.<\/p>\n

Now one would be na\u00efve to think that the GOP hadn\u2019t already planned for such an event, well before the President\u2019s performance in the first debate. This is what strategists do\u2026\u2026.they don\u2019t just look at what is currently sitting in front of them\/what the current state of play is\u2026\u2026they consider all the scenarios\u2026\u2026the what ifs\u2026so they are prepared just in case the \u201cwhat if\u201d becomes reality.<\/p>\n

It is no different in radio when it comes to strategic planning.<\/p>\n

The success of a radio station\u2019s strategy often depends on the strategies of its competitors.<\/p>\n

As a result of this interdependence, the ability to anticipate your competitors\u2019 strategies is essential. And this highlights the importance of strategic-planning tools such as Game Theory and Scenario Planning.<\/p>\n

How many times in a strategy meeting do you ask: what if a competitor station changed format? What if we changed format? What if we lost our successful morning show?<\/p>\n

Knowing what you<\/em> would do in a certain situation is one thing.<\/p>\n

But the other key aspect of Game Theory is correctly defining what your competitors<\/em> would do.<\/p>\n

This is not easy.<\/p>\n

You need the ability to reverse-engineer the moves of competitors and predict what they are likely to do, what they will avoid doing and what they are actually capable of doing.<\/p>\n

Getting inside your competitors\u2019 heads is difficult because radio stations (and their decision makers) are usually very different. They often have different cultures, different theories on programming strategy, different budgetary pressures and always\u2026..different talent in their line-up.<\/p>\n

To really play Game Theory you have to think like your competitors<\/em>\u2026\u2026not think like you would in their situation.<\/p>\n

You must think like your competitors\u2019 decision makers, which will usually be the Group Content\/Program Director or CEO but don\u2019t rule out majority shareholders either. And station programmers will also have a voice in the room.<\/p>\n

This approach moves you into a thought process that helps turn competitive intelligence into competitive insights.<\/p>\n

Too often when a competitor launches a direct attack, a station will formulate a defence strategy after <\/em>the event. In an ideal world, the defence strategy would already be prepared and ready to be implemented immediately<\/em> so as to blunt the competitor\u2019s attack.<\/p>\n

As Sun Tzu said: \u201cIf you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.\u201d\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By David Kidd, BPR I\u2019ve written about the importance of Game Theory previously. But given […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":7097,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","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":[1,19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6201","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorised","category-featured"],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/bprworld.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/pexels-jeshoots-com-147458-1040157-scaled.jpg?fit=2560%2C1707","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/bprworld.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6201","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=6201"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/bprworld.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6201\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7100,"href":"http:\/\/bprworld.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6201\/revisions\/7100"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bprworld.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7097"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/bprworld.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6201"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bprworld.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6201"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bprworld.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6201"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}