Using Talent to Win on the Radio

A couple of stories have popped up this week concerning the power of talent to drive radio station successes.

Over in Australia, ARN managed to snatch the number 1 breakfast show in Sydney from 2Day FM. The talent were so important that ARN junked its Mix brand and created a new format that better suited Kyle and Jackie O - the pair they grabbed - KIIS.

The big question in the market was whether listeners would move up the dial. Were the draw of K&J big enough, or was much of 2Day's success in their own brand?

Well, the results came out this week and K&J became joint number one in the market and they took their station from the least popular FM music station (7th) straight to number 1. Meanwhile 2DayFM went from number 1 down to the bottom, the 7th and least favourite FM music station.

This a storming result for KIIS  shows what an essential part of 2Day that show was. I don't, however, imagine they'll stay in that position for long. Their own new show will get better and some of the excitement about the change will likely fade a little.

Grabbing talent at the top of their game though, backed by strong marketing and distribution paid off for them. It's also something that's paid off for the BBC quite a bit here - see Evans joining R1/R2 etc.

K&J's success has created a 'the only way is talent' mantra in  lots of Aussie radio discussions. However that tends to skip over the other success story in this ratings round and that's Smooth FM. Paul Jackson (ex-Capital, Virgin and Richard Park's son) took hos company's perennially under-performing station Vega/Classic Rock and re-branded it 18 months ago as Smooth. Basically think Magic London. Whilst it has the occasional name, it is very much a music-driven radio station. The result has been a rapid rise to the number three FM music station in the market and I imagine there's still some growth their yet.

The other story that caught my attention was Fubar Radio. It's a predominantly comedy/entertainment speech station that emphasises its "we're on the internet we can say anything" position and is a subscription service - £2.99/month to tune in.  It's basically a comedy 6Music. They've got shows from people you've heard of - Mark Dolan, Richard Herring and Jarred Christmas and have just added a daily show from Justin Lee Collins and a weekly show from Sean Hughes to the line-up.

You get a 7 day trial and I've had a bit of a listen - it's a good listen and an entertaining station.

I think their positioning is probably off though. I'd concentrate on the entertainment angle rather than "ooh, we're naughty". Most of what I heard would  actually be absolutely fine on a terrestrial station. What's interesting about them is that they're speech-led with good talent.

I'm also not massively sold on the way the subscription works - I don't think they're maximising the opportunity they have there. It's also a tough model to make work in the UK. The choice of UK stations is pretty good, it'll be difficult to make someone not only switch from a station they love, but also pay for the privilege too.

However, more power to them for having a go. Just as there's always more than one way to win, I'm sure there's also more than one successful commercial radio model too.