If you’ve been eavesdropping on these Frost Advisories over past 800 weeks you’ve likely sensed some reoccurring themes. Hopefully you’ve seen some big ideas that can help transform a station.

Maybe you’ve read some insights on which strategic concepts are vital to success. Candidly, some are ideas that I didn’t fully understand as a novice to the format 25+ years ago. Experience is a great teacher.

This week’s Frost Advisory drills down into one of those key concepts.

I’ve learned that there is no music format that is as dependent on what happens between the songs to be successful. The foundation of every music format is grounded in two things; 1) hits and 2) stars.

Our format has neither, at least not from the perspective of a new listener. Assimilating new listeners is the only way a station grows its audience.

It could be stated this way: No hits, no stars, no growth. So, successful program directors must design in familiarity in other ways. Between the songs.

On next week’s show I’ll share a very simple idea about creating familiarity that I observed at the grocery store. Maybe Jeff Foxworthy is right.