Episode 1003

Bonus: Upping Your Radio Game | Guest: Harry Lyles

Harry Lyles is an accomplished multi-format programmer and is widely recognized as the foremost expert in all forms of Hip Hop, R&B, Rhythmic, Rhythmic AC and Gospel.

As president of Lyles Media, Harry has been the programming partner for some of the most prominent broadcasting and media companies in the business. He’s well known for positioning companies for expansion and rapid development while helping broadcasters understand a better ratings story to help generate more revenue.

Harry’s standout programming career is marked by cutting-edge strategies, stellar brand-building skills, and achieving and sustaining market share by building inspired station teams. When programming connects with your local audience,  ratings and revenue will follow.

In this episode, Harry shares insights to help radio people UP THEIR GAME for 2022, by focusing on some of the basics sorely overlooked in our era of consolidation,

Key Takeaways You Won't Want to Miss

[01:58] Harry discusses the very first signs he looks for to see whether a radio station is likely to succeed or not, and what to do about it.

[04:02] Breaking some complex concepts into bite-sized doses, Harry offers some pointers from his Radio Ratings Problem Solving Method, and how “A Self Reflection” can be a good, easy and free starting point for anyone.

[08:59] Harry reminds us of what Radio's first job should be, and provides some pointers on how to make sure your station is doing it. (Spoiler: Many are not!)

[11:04] As a radio veteran who works with many stations in a wide variety of markets, Harry is consistently baffled by one key thing most broadcasters don't do. He shares how it can happen, and reminds us of a secret that will correct this and grow your career!

Read Dave Martin's ONE-MINUTE MARTIZING on "INTENTION" HERE

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Transcript
Harry:

What happened?

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Why did this happen?

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Is this going to be a revolution of

change or an evolution of change?

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Welcome to Brand With On Demand,

your guide to rebooting radio.

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One of the things I've noticed through

the years is that a lot of program

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directors have a tendency to take

their hands off the steering wheel.

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And when you take your hands

off the steering wheel, Fades.

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Yeah.

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Fades will happen.

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Okay.

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Yeah,

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VO: BRANDwidth on Demand.

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Rebooting radio with a different

take on all radio can be.

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Now your guides through the metamorphosis.

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David Martin and author of

the book, BRANDwidth, Media

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Branding, coach Kipper McGee.

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Dave: Harry lyles is an accomplished

multi format programmer.

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He's widely recognized as the foremost

expert in all forms of hip hop, R&

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B, rhythmic, rhythmic AC, and gospel.

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He covers the base.

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As president of Lyles Media, Harry has

been the programming partner for some

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of the most prominent broadcasting

and media companies in the business.

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He's been named to the National Black

Radio Hall of Fame and is well known.

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We're positioning companies for expansion

and rapid development while helping

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broadcasters understand a better rating

story to help generate a better revenue.

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Harry's standout programming career is

marked by cutting edge strategy, stellar

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brand building skills, and achieving

and sustaining, most important, market

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share by building inspired station teams.

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When programming concepts with your local

audience happen and ratings and revenue

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follow, It's all about hiring Harry.

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That's what we say.

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And he's with us today

on Branded on Demand.

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We're proud to welcome the

one and only Harry Lyles.

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Harry: Glad to be here, guys.

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Thanks a lot.

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Kipper: Well, we are so

glad you're here, Harry.

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Harry: Thanks.

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Kipper: So, first question.

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You've been doing this for a while.

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You're advising a lot of

different stations and companies.

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So, when you first walk into a

radio station, what do you look for?

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And how can you tell if they're

probably doing okay, or if they're

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gonna need a lot of your attention?

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Harry: Great question.

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The first thing I do, I have a one

page questionnaire that I send in.

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And that questionnaire is Is basically

asking them, what is your objective

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for the format or vision of the format?

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And of course, when you do that, you want

to make sure that they have some kind

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of an understanding of the demographics

that they're going to go after.

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The music that should be played for that

demographic, have a conversation with

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them about talent, have a conversation

with them about their special programming,

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contest and promotion, and also

community affairs and social media.

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But what's the foundation of any great

radio station is going to be the music.

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I have learned through the years,

if you can get those two things tied

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together and let them work together,

you're probably going to have

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yourself a pretty good radio station.

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I think one of the things, guys,

that happens today, I've noticed

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there in some of the projects that

I've done with clients and non

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clients, that there's a disconnect.

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And a lot of people want to

say, well, It's a PPM situation.

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Disconnect.

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I disagree with that.

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And when I look at the Nielsen PPM

numbers, I see a consistency from

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large, medium to small markets.

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So when I first go in, it's important

for me to do one thing, ask questions

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and then help them put those pieces

together to help them move forward

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and meet that objective or vision

that they have for the station.

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And it's not hard.

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Again, it's the basics.

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That are gonna take to do one thing and

that's score in something called Nielsen.

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Yeah.

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Dave: Yeah, one of the great things we've

noticed about your method, Harry, is you

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have an uncanny ability to break things

down into little bite sized pieces.

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We were intrigued by your very

special radio ratings problem solving

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method, which starts with what you

call a self reflection, can you?

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Expand on that for

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Harry: us.

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Yeah, one of the things that I've noticed

from station to station to station, the in

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house situation is a little bit different.

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Even sometimes, guys, when I ask a

program director, operations manager, or

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general manager, well, what do you like

about your, especially if, maybe the

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station's, you know, off a little bit, or

they think that it's off a little bit and

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they think that they're having problems.

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One of the questions I like to ask well,

okay, you think you have a problem, but is

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there anything here that you would keep?

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Because I think that's a

very important question.

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We can sit here and self reflect

on all the elements and everything

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that ties a radio station together.

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But one of the things that I've noticed

through the years is that a lot of

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program directors have a tendency to

take their hands off the steering wheel.

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And when you take your hands

off the steering wheel,

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things, things will happen.

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Okay?

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Yeah, so all of a sudden the

impact that was there, I just

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did a project two weeks ago.

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For a very large size market that used to

be a dominant station, and they're now in

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the threes, but it was all self inflicted.

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In other words, musically,

they have a problem.

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They have a talent issue.

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They haven't done any contest

and promotion in over two years.

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They downgraded their morning,

their legendary morning guy left.

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And here's what happened.

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Instead of hiring his equal

or upgrading, they downgraded.

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And the morning show has now lost

70 percent of their audience.

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My point being that didn't have

to happen, but it happened.

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Now, can you fix that?

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Well, you know, when it comes to the

self reflection of looking at what a

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radio station is doing from a talent

standpoint, that's a mistake you really

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want to avoid making if all possible.

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I want to share something with you guys

because I remember when, when the Patriots

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won the Super, the last Super Bowl here

in Atlanta on the CBS morning news.

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They had Bob Kraft and they were talking

about to Bob Kraft, like, why are you, why

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are the Patriots so consistent in winning

and you've been to the Super Bowl the

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past 10, 15 years, more so than anybody

else, I never will forget his response.

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Here's what he said.

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It doesn't matter if it's on the

offensive side of the ball or

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the defensive side of the ball.

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Every time we have to replace a

player, if we don't re sign one,

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we upgrade that side of the ball.

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Hey guys, that's, that's what

we should do in radio, okay?

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But that doesn't always happen.

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When it comes to self reflecting, a lot

of times, in, look, it, it, it starts

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right there inside that radio station.

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The ones who are closest to it.

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Should be able to figure out what's

happening, but again, when you

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take your hands off the steering

wheel, she will go off the road.

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So the self reflecting part

and the most important part

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of this is asking questions.

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What happened?

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Why did this happen?

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Is this going to be a revolution of

change or an evolution of change?

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And usually, guys, it gets down to either

an evolution or a revolution of change.

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When there's a ratings problem.

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And

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Kipper: hopefully not dropping our

salary cap any more than we have to, huh?

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Harry: That's right.

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Right.

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See, the thing is this.

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I'm amazed at some people who are

confused about their objective.

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I've run into a couple of situations

where you still have some general

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managers and program directors

and even operations managers.

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They want, they want to take a format

and be all things to all people.

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Well, I had some pretty good teachers.

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That's not the way it works.

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Okay.

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If you can dominate two demographics,

you can spread yourself out

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and become a pretty good radio

station, regardless of format.

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I was just talking to a rock

friend of mine the other day.

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And, uh, he was telling me about

the appeal of his classic hit

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station, but he knew where the

epicenter of his format was.

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That's the reason why he's successful.

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Great

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Kipper: word.

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And one of the things too, that

you're always talking about is

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really, in addition to knowing who

you're talking to is knowing who

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you've got on board and really.

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Building that encouraging kind of winning

attitude like Belichick has done, but

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you want that throughout the station.

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So question number one is what are

some of the best ways for, say, a

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new program director to do that?

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And number two, what do you do when like

half your air staff is coming in from

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other markets via voice track or whatever?

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How do you build that winning

thing with people that you

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Harry: never see?

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Well, I'm going to be up front with his,

if you and Dave were clients, Kepper,

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I'm not a fan of voice tracking, right?

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I believe that one of radio's

biggest problems is we have

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taken the companionship.

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Out of the business of radio

and I think listeners are smart.

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I give them credit.

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I can't remember the last time I heard

somebody screaming because of a contest

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where they won something it needs

to come back Something else again.

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I'm not a huge voice track person I think

one of the things that's happened in radio

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is I consider all day parts important.

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Okay.

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I know some people say well We want

to spend the money in morning and

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afternoon and we'll kind of Figure

out what to do in the other day.

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Parts winning radio stations

are consistent in mornings.

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They're consistent in mid days.

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They're consistent in

afternoons and nights.

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Okay.

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And it doesn't work any other way.

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There are no shortcuts to this

and I, I have diplomatically had

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to tell a few people where I did

some projects and they even had

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studies that there are no shortcuts.

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One of the things that when

it comes to program directors.

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And, and, and I don't know why this is

happening and I'm assuming it's a new

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day, new breed of program director.

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They don't know their market.

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They don't read and they don't sit there

and invert the numbers and Nielsen to

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find out why they're losing audience.

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Even when there's a research study in the

past 8 months, give you just 1 example.

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I did 2 medium sized markets.

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They had done a research project.

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And both program directors

thought that the epicenter of

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their audience was 18 to 34.

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Well, based on their own in house

research, hey guys, one market,

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the audience started at 35, and

the other market started at 40.

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Yeah.

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And so I pointed out, I said,

here's your problem right here.

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Yeah.

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Somebody hasn't read your own study.

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Bingo.

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But it happens, guys.

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It happens.

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Harry, for

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Dave: somebody just starting out,

maybe in their first or second job,

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what advice would you give them?

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What suggestions would you have

for them when they're ready

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to take that next big step?

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Harry: I will use myself as an example.

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For that person that is starting out,

I want them to know that used to be me.

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And I was lucky.

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I was very lucky.

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I worked for some winning radio stations.

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First off, I worked at...

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Three winning radio stations in my

hometown of Evansville, Indiana.

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Great, great management,

great program directors.

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But again, I want to say this

and I say it respectfully.

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That was a different day in radio.

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Okay, even when my first job was

at a country station in Evansville,

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Indiana, WROZ, Jim Emery, who was the

program director, he came to talk to

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our class, and he offered some of us

to cut an audition, and I did one.

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Great.

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I did one.

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And guess what happened?

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I got a job.

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Yay.

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And so, my job was, I got to

run the Ralph Emery show, from

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that, that was on, on disc.

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So anyway, then Bloomington

Broadcasting bought an old MOR station.

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And so I applied there, and got the 10 2

position, and worked with two legendary

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guys that you guys probably know.

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Jim Wood, who later was the

national guy at Mallwright.

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Oh yeah.

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And Buddy Scott, who

worked at, uh, CBN TV.

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Right.

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B96, yeah.

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You betcha.

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I'll stop right there.

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Meeting those two guys in little

bitty Evansville, Indiana,

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helped me start my career.

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I watched, I asked questions.

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I can remember Buddy and Jim

said, Hey, you're asking too

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many damn questions, okay?

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But guys, I did it

because I wanted to know.

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And again, as Jim explained,

hey, we're a new station.

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This thing will unfold

the longer you're here.

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And of course, it was very tight, okay?

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Mm hmm.

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And I didn't understand at the

time playing a record every

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75 minutes at the time, right?

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Then all of a sudden 75 minutes

went to 90 then 90 went to about 210

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or 215 Yeah, I was like, oh, okay.

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So this is part of the chemistry of

what how radio works So for anybody

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who is beginning I was lucky.

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There's a lot of fool's gold out there

nowadays, but at the same time, there

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are still some good broadcasters,

program directors, operations managers

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and GMs who are interested in teaching

the next generation coming up.

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I enjoy teaching the next generation.

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I get to Georgia State at least

three times a year to talk to

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the broadcasting school there.

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I am noticing something though in the

classroom when I was in Columbus, Miami.

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St.

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Louis, Louisville, Columbus,

and Cleveland, and would talk

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to college students and even

some high school classes.

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Radios doesn't seem to be as sexy to them.

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As it was back when I was

in the in the 80s and 90s.

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Okay.

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Absolutely.

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And there's a reason for that.

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Most of the questions come

about streaming, podcasting.

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In other words, there's

nothing wrong with that.

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But it has kind of diluted the

interests of something called radio.

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Mm hmm.

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But I don't think that that has to happen.

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No.

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And as I've told a couple of my friends.

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I think that everything that has happened

to radio has been self inflicted by

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companies who own radio stations.

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There's a, there's a reason why some

stations are successful and companies

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are successful and some are not.

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And again, I'll say it one more time.

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There are no shortcuts to this.

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We talked about Bill

Belichick and Robert Kraft.

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There's a reason why those

guys have been where they are.

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It's the same thing as I've had

to say to a couple of program

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directors who are into sports.

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There's a reason why the Golden State

Warriors have done what they've done.

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They've got a good coach and they

know how to put a team together.

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And so when it comes to our team in

radio, I believe, you know, some people

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say, well, if you can get that morning

engine, that guy, or that, that team in

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the mornings, good things will happen.

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What sure it does.

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I think today we cannot take any

chances in midday afternoons or night.

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So when you put those.

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pieces together, and when they are

locked in together, guess what happens?

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You get attention, the pieces are

working together, and I will tell you

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this, I think the listeners hear that.

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I know right here in Atlanta, when

I go to get gas or stop by a quick

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mart or whatever, and somebody's

got a radio on, I'll ask them, Why

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are you listening to that station?

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And usually, nine times out of ten, it's

a station that's a top three, top five.

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And they're doing a good job at doing one

thing that's satisfying their audience

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great stuff And guys, it doesn't matter

what format it is as I was talking

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to a rock friend of mine on the west

coast last week It doesn't matter.

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You know, the basics are the

basic when the pieces are working

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together good things happen A

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Dave: terrific guy.

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Harry Lyles.

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Hey, somebody you'd like to hear from.

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We'd love to hear your suggestions.

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Email

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Harry: them to show at brandwithondemand.

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com.

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Kipper: And we've got some new

social media platforms to check out.

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Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn.

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All you have to do is

look for Brandwith Plus.

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That's Brandwith P L U S.

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One word and we look forward to seeing

what you have to say when you're there

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Dave: coming up Harry share some

opportunities that many including

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us may find hiding in plain

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Spot: sight Music master less stress more.

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Yes.

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Hi, this is Jerry Butler for the team

at music master One of my favorite

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tips for classic format programmers

is to use the breakable one day,

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one hour offset rule for artists.

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Keywords.

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It's not just for songs.

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That way your listeners won't

have the same sampling of

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artists each time they tune in.

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And we turn the variety knob

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Harry: up to 11.

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Spot: Music master music

scheduling the way it

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Harry: should be.

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musicmaster.

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Spot: com.

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Kipper: Hey there, Kemper here.

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So You want to have some great merchandise

for your radio station, but the

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budget says, uh, we've got a solution.

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Radio swag shop.

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It's simple.

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You select the items, give them your logo.

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They create a store for you.

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You link to it, you promote it, and

you sit back and collect the cash.

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Budget short.

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Radio Swag Shop is your answer.

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Just go to radioswagshop.

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com forward slash kipper.

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My name, radioswagshop.

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com forward slash kipper.

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Your ratings and bottom line will

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Spot: thank you.

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Opportunities

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VO: hidden in plain sight.

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Bread with on demand.

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Dave: We are with one of the

best and brightest, Harry Lyles.

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Harry, thinking about traditional

radio, What's the one opportunity?

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that you see that many station

people, no matter market size,

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might find hiding in plain sight.

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Harry: Well, what's hiding in plain

sight is something that you can hear

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with your ears, and it's called the

overall essence of the radio station.

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Once you grasp what your vision,

I'll say it one more time.

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The vision are the objective of the

station, and you know what's happening.

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You don't know what's happening, but

you should know what's happening.

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And some program directors say,

well, I might know what's happening.

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But the question is, you must know

what's happening for one thing to happen.

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And that's for that radio

station to do one thing.

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Have, have listeners and those locals

to wake up with it every morning, get in

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the car with it, eat breakfast with it.

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When, again, the station

pieces are connected.

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From a music standpoint, talent

standpoint, marketing, social media, you

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create an impact because that's called

engagement and that's what listeners want.

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Terrific

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Dave: guy, Kipper.

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Harry Lyles, links to his websites

and more in the show notes,

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just scroll down on your phone.

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Kipper: Also, we've got a special handout

going out the first quarter of this year.

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It's Seth Godin's 22 quotes that

every radio person should know.

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For 2022, just check the show notes

as always, thanks to executive

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producer, Cindy Huber for putting

this all together and our associate

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producer, Hannah B for handling the

guest bookings and coming up next.

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Spot: Hi,

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Erica: I'm Erica Mandy with

the newsworthy podcast.

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I'm going to be sharing how you can

make your newscasts more objective and

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gain more trust from your audience.

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That's coming up next

on brand with on demand.

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Harry: That's a wrap Kipper.

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Heritage,

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Dave: history, all that good

stuff in the rear view mirror may

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help you next week or tomorrow.

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We'll talk about it.

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One Minute Martinizing in the

show notes at brandwithondemand.

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com.

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I'm Dave Martin.

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And I'm

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Spot: Kipper McGee.

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May all your brand with be wide.

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Brandwidth On Demand
The 15 Minute Podcast About Making Great Radio

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About your host

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Kipper McGee