Does Your Station Need A Wrecking Ball? A Strategy for Getting Country P-1’s to Switch from a Competitor to You

I was presenting the results of an A&O&B partner station’s Roadmap 2019 (our company’s annual online perceptual study) when we paused on a slide about switchability. We talked a good bit about the difficulty of getting Country P-1’s to switch from a competitor to your station.

As the above slide shows, a mere 13% said it would be “fairly easy” to get them to switch while three times that many said it would be “pretty difficult.” The remainder said “not easy but possible.”

These are sobering statistics for any country programmer tasked with getting Country P-1s to switch from a competitor to your your station. It’s really difficult!

What Happens in Vegas Doesn’t Apply Outside of Vegas

Of course we’d all like to imagine ourselves imploding a radio competitor as if it were an aging hotel on the Las Vegas Strip.

But in reality, the process of dismantling a heritage competitor is less like using dynamite and more like using a wrecking ball.

It takes time and it takes repetition.

And the taller the building and stronger its foundation, the more time and repetition will be required to knock it down one chunk at a time.

Demolition Demands Focus

The demolition process requires both short and long-term focus.

The short term focus is to establish the first and best attack point.

The long-term focus is keeping the end result in sight while pounding away, day after day, month after month, damaging the structure blow by repeated blow.

Focus, Dust and Noise

Demolition expert Juan Rodrigues writes, “Wrecking ball demolition creates a great deal of dust, vibration, and noise.”

Obviously this won’t be good if you’re trying to sleep late while the building next door is being turned into debris by a ball of steel.

But, if you’re a radio station trying to take down a well-constructed competitor, dust, vibration and noise are bonus byproducts.

A great (if tedious and patience-requiring) strategy for getting Country P-1’s to switch from a competitor to your station can be summed up in three words:

Swing. Smash. Repeat.

Related:

Tagline Thinking: Five Ways to Create a Competitive Advantage

Switchability: Seven Ways to Keep Listeners from Switching

Photo credit: Flickr.com  Photographer