Do Listeners Care About Local Content?

RADIO ONLINE | Monday, November 9, 2020

Randy Lane

Syndicated shows have proven that great shows can succeed with zero local content. Radio is experiencing another burst in syndication this year. Concurrently, we see the appeal of local content rising. Local farmer's markets have popped up all over North America and Apps like Next Door are gaining in popularity. The 2020 Jacobs Media Tech Survey revealed that local content continues to grow for the fourth straight year.

Don't force local content. The Randy Lane Company recommends that our clients use the same content filter for local as with all content. It must be relevant, entertaining, and/or informative.

5 Quick and Easy Ways to Be Local

1. Name and location: Introduce all callers with their first name and the part of the metro they're calling from. Hearing their location makes listeners in that area take notice, and it gives the audience more of a mental picture of the caller.
2. Air more callers: Caller interaction gives your station more emotion, dynamics, and localization. Yes, we know it's harder to get callers on-air because it's easier to text or post. Here are just a few of the ways to get more caller interaction:
   • Ask contest winners to go on your show's topic discussion.
   • Create a "Be on the show page" like the syndicated John Boy and Billy Show.
   • Ask listeners with entertaining texts and posts to go on-air.
3. Local trivia games are big: Games that listeners can play along with are scoring high TSL in Nielsen. Depending on your geographical market makeup, it could be "Battle of the Hoods", "Eastside vs. Westside", "Oregon vs. Washington", etc.
4. 24/7 call-in line: Promote a voicemail number listeners can call anytime about any topic. You'll get many entertaining and interesting callers to playback on your show.
5. Help Covid struggling families and businesses: Star 101.5 has helped many Seattle area businesses with their Operation Gift Card promotion. Now their Computers for Kids promotion is helping families without computers in this virtual school year.

This article is a special Radio Online contribution from Randy Lane of the Randy Lane Company.