Stunting

[secondchoice]

Why?  If a station is going to flip, shouldn’t what ever the new programming is going to be, be aired at the start?  I understand the 10,000 songs for a music format, but putting on songs or tracks that are not going to be in the new format is IMHO dumb.  Some radio geeks get excited but how many have a log book or PPM?  When a station flips it is basically stating that it does not care about the “old” audience. They will go away on their own.  With social media and word of mouth, your “new” audience will find you quickly (hopefully!), and if you are stunting they might get the wrong impression. First impressions do tend to last a long time.  A lot if not most stations are ran on a PC, so most of the “programming” can be imported quickly.  If there is a need for a “new” studio or phone screening equipment this should be completed before the flip.  On air talent who are going to be unemployed, should work up till the end.  With a severance package, and encouragement to do their best work for their air – check, hopefully they will find a job and not draw a lot of employment which does cost the station in the long run. 

[RadioZack]

Simple: you build buzz and intrigue, and in a world where word-of-mouth (or tweet, or Facebook status) advertising is everything, you get people curious about the appointed listening time for the switch-flip. Then you do it, make a splash, and start with a bang. It's a marketing tool.

[Zach]

Alternatively, you alienate the previous listener base, who then swear off your station for a while.  Maybe that's good if you're going from country to alt. rock or R&B to to classical, but most formats have some listener overlap.  Why piss off a portion of your potential new audience?

[RadioZack]

You're going to lose them anyway, so why does it matter? And if you have to make a format change, there obviously aren't that many people left to piss off.

[lcook]

Each station in each market is different and will require it's own plan. I do think that you need to recycle all the listeners that you can to the new format. Stunting can be fun with a little thought and planning and if there is a chance that you can keep some or most of the listeners you have you need to address this idea. You can create a "buzz" with your listeners and get them talking about your station. How can that be bad? You should be doing this every break, every day anyway. You can make a "Date" with them so they will join you for the change. Really, any chance you get to relate to your target audience and involve them in your station is good. But, I guess if you have made a decision to blow off all or most of your current listeners, you have found a gaping hole in the market that you can cover and gain a much bigger share. At that point it may not matter. 

[johndavis]

I worked for a guy (now deceased) who set an edict at format change time to treat the audience with respect, even if we might do something to create buzz.

He'd cut a promo and run it every hour for a week. He'd introduce himself as the owner, thank you for listening, say that we're about to make some changes, so if you like the music we're playing right now, make sure you set a preset for (list the frequencies of the former format's competitors). He'd frame it as having needing to make a business decision, and we appreciate you listening to us and hope you'll give our new radio station a try on Friday afternoon.

Then we'd stunt for a little bit. He always tried to find a way to make stunts interesting enough to listen to - invite local celebs in for an hour and play whatever they wanted, that sort of thing. That also gave him a reason to sell an ad package for the stunt. I think this was the only place I ever worked where people paid a premium to be the last commercial played on an old format, and then a premium to be the first spot played in the new one. Very rarely did we stunt without spots. At one format change, they threw a client party at the station and auctioned off for charity the right to press the button for the first song of a new format. Total showbiz.

They don't make 'em like that anymore.

Where I work now, we just sweep straight into the new format, no muss, no fuss. If it's too different from the previous one, they'll be gone before the first chorus, and if it's similar to the old one, they might hang around. Trust me, when the last song is Juvenile - Back That Azz up and the first song is David Allen Coe - You Never Even Called Me By Name... you don't need to "cleanse" the audience.

[DToTheJ]

...when the last song is Juvenile - Back That Azz up and the first song is David Allen Coe - You Never Even Called Me By Name...

... you might be listening to college radio.

[chuckhixson]

Stunted one format change going from talk to all-sports by providing our own "play-by-play" of Dr. Laura. The new morning team commented on all of the things she was saying and talked about how she had to go. At the end of her show, we "blew her up" and went into ESPN Sports Center and the new sports format.

Had a bunch of VERY upset listeners - vast majority of which were female and we were losing anyway - but it was kind of fun.