The knee-jerk reaction is to come up with STUFF! We pay far less attention to whether that STUFF makes a difference.
“In the share of every station there are two numbers, the number to the left of the decimal point and the number to the right (e.g. 6.0, 6.3, etc.). The number to the left is affected by the big things that a station does, like what it is known for and the big benefits the listener gets from the station. The number to the right is based on the tweaks and minor modifications that the station does to the music, the commercial sequencing, etc. You can make a mediocre station only slightly better by working on the number to the right all the time. You can make a mediocre station great by working on the number to the left of the decimal.”
~Michael O’Shea
I first stumbled over this thing called STRATEGY when programming a Smooth Jazz station in Dallas in the late 80s. After twenty years in the business, well, I knew how to make the station sound slick and smooth and all that stuff, but until I met Alan Mason I didn’t know how to make a station matter.
I’ve come to learn that EVERYONE lives in the world of TACTICAL. The tactical approach is “what things can we do?” That’s the world of Jack in the Box, Radio Shack, and probably your station.
The world of STRATEGY is a different kind of thinking. That’s the world of Apple, Starbucks, and Tom’s Shoes. That’s the world that asks, “will this stuff make a difference?”
