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Why Smooth 95.3 is #1

By David Kidd, BPR

Sometimes the smartest strategy in radio is simply knowing exactly what you are.

Smooth 95.3 is a very good example.

The station is the number one station in Sydney, Australia’s largest market.

And let’s look at the demographics in the most recent GfK survey.

Smooth 95.3 is:

• #2 10-17
• #2 18-24
• #2 25-39
• #1 40-54
• #1 55-64

And a clear #1 25-54.

Now that is a station with broad appeal!

Its success isn’t built around constant reinvention, complicated promotions or desperately trying to become younger every six months. It is built around something much simpler: clarity and consistency.

Turn on Smooth and you know what you’re going to get.

Familiar songs. Familiar artists. Warm personalities. Limited clutter. A relaxed environment. Very few surprises.

And that’s precisely the point.

Some programmers become frightened by predictability. Listeners often love it. They have enough unpredictability in the rest of their lives. They don’t necessarily need it from their favourite radio station.

Smooth also understands an important difference between liking a song and loving a radio station.

Individual songs matter, but the overall feeling matters more. Smooth isn’t really selling a collection of songs. It is selling a mood. It is selling an environment. And for their partisans, it is a very welcome environment.

Smooth 95.3 is extraordinarily consistent.

While parts of the radio industry remain obsessed with chasing younger listeners, Smooth has built a powerful brand around adults who still listen to lots of radio…. and advertisers still want to reach.

Perhaps the biggest lesson from Smooth is that it doesn’t try to be everything to everybody.

It has a very clear promise: More Music, Less Talk.

But what that promise should be interpreted as is this: More of the Music You Love, Less Irrelevant, Boring, Self-Serving Talk. 

And then it delivers that promise relentlessly.

In an industry increasingly focused on disruption, transformation, innovation and the next big thing, Smooth demonstrates something far more important:

Know your audience. Know what they want. Give it to them. Then don’t screw it up.