…I’d have paid more attention to what I wrote, to paraphrase the great philosopher Groucho Marx.

Malcolm Gladwell suggests that if you do something 10,000 times you’re an expert.  I’m not quite sure how 300 of something stacks up but I’m honored to know that I may have helped some folks along the way with my 5.769 years of insights, allegories, and umlauts into the fascinating world of strategy and programming and stuff like that.

Frost Advisories have been penned in the middle seat on Delta and the back seat of Uber; on mission trips to the Dominican, and poolside at the Motel 6 in Denver.

Since I can’t think of something worthy of this historic milestone I’ve tapped into the talent of my friend Nelson at The Fish in Portland.

Enjoy!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mppDhpvrLo4

Click here for the video edition of Frost Advisory #300!

It was a rude awakening.  How could they not know something so familiar to all of us at the radio station?  A tour of schoolchildren made their way through the production studios, the FM control room, and down to where the AM stations are located.

We then heard the words.  “AM station?”, one youngster inquired.  “What is that?  A station people listen to in the morning?”

Perspective.

On the recent 9-11 anniversary my friends Ellis and Tyler at Z88.3 shared how the University of Central Florida displayed American flags all over their campus.  But the reason why is what amazed me!  They shared because incoming freshmen are too young to remember the events of September 11, 2001.  They would have been only 3 years old.  Do the math.

What’s your listener’s perspective?  What do they feel at their core?  What makes them stand and cheer?

At a recent Houston Rockets’ game the loudest ovation – a standing ovation – wasn’t for the home team or their bearded superstar James Harden.  No, the loudest ovation was for the six airmen that walked to center court during halftime.  And it had nothing to do with basketball.

When was the last time your station did something worthy of a standing ovation?  Perhaps your station needs to stand for something they care about.

*Next week’s Frost Advisory is #300, a milestone perhaps, and a surprise, no doubt, to my 5th grade English teacher and anyone that worked with me at my first few radio stations.  It’s also the debut of my first video!  (That’s a tease, don’tcha know).

My, the lessons we can learn from this remarkable time in political history from a certain Donald John Trump, Sr., and Bernard “no middle initial” Sanders.

This tip of this political iceberg can start with the notion of common ground.  Both the Donald and the Bernie have tapped into values that already exist, not that which Madison Avenue has to concoct like the Super Bowl commercial that showed three dogs hiding under a trench coat to buy Doritos.  Not that there’s anything wrong with that, as Jerry Seinfeld would say.

Donald Trump has created common ground by creating a common enemy – Washington insiders with perceived failed promises.  In 2004 Barack Obama created common ground by proclaiming “the audacity of hope.”  Ronald Reagan created common ground in 1980 by asking, “Are You Better Off than You Were Four Years Ago?”

Our format’s shared values run two thousand years deeper than any other format, and yet I find stations frequently miss the opportunity for common ground by defaulting to the smallest possible audience – those who are already fans of the Christian music industry.

If the answer to your quiz is “Building429”, guess who will participate?  Those who know and love Building429.  If you talk about a Christian music industry cruise, guess who’s interested?  Those who are already fans of the Christian music industry.

BREAKING NEWS: Most of your listeners can’t name their five favorite songs, much less name the individual members of Hercules and the Chicken Fat People.  (It’s what the songs mean to them that matters, but that’s a Frost Advisory for another week).

“Where you consistently begin and what you consistently assume determine who consistently shows up.  Why?  Because your assumptions create the common ground for the journey.”
– Andy Stanley

This just in: We’re just a couple of weeks away from Frost Advisory #300 (a milestone unimaginable to my 5th grade English teacher and the guys in the fantasy baseball league) and the world premier of my first video!  Yikes!  That’s a tease, don’tcha know!

Is local TV news like this where you live?

I see promos with four young, attractive people either right out of college or right out of the health club, nattily attired with ever so white teeth.  They nod at each other like kids having to pose for home movies, packaged inside captions like “we’re here for you”, “depend on us”, or “news bulletins first”, “severe storm coverage first”, or “bowling scores first.”  (Can everything be FIRST?)

But if you actually dare to WATCH their newscasts… it’s wall-to-wall car wrecks, 7-11 robberies, drug busts, people doing bad things to people, and escaped killers with funny looking noses.  Jeepers, there is hardly any time for cute, witty repartee between these manicured men and women of the press.

What’s going on here?   Do they think we won’t notice that they are claiming to be something they aren’t?

Well, before we throw our TV brethren under the proverbial phony bus, perhaps we should check the log in our own eye.

Christian music radio is now inundated with stations that zip zap over bongo music that they’re Positive, Encouraging, Uplifting, Inspiring, Invigorating, Exhilarating, Energizing, and Revivifying.  But when one tunes in they sound about as positive and encouraging as Donald Trump talking about the Pope.  (I actually heard one station do a “Positive Thought” about the wrath of God.  I’M NOT MAKING THIS UP, as Dave Barry would say).

C’mon, kids.

It’s not against the law to smile and sound likable.  Last I checked it wasn’t a sin to laugh and love on your listeners.

Recently I was a part of a research project where “Fun to listen to” was the one of the top needs of the audience and a top attribute of the station.  Their listeners really like them because they’re likable.  Of course, any good idea can be done poorly and I’m not suggesting you hire Bozo the Clown for afternoon drive, but as those wacky Latins used to say,

“Abusus non tollit usum”

(the abuse of a thing does not invalidate the proper use of a thing)

Here’s my suggestion:  if your station claims to be positive, uplifting, and well-groomed, then maybe it’s a good idea to actually be that.  Which brings to mind me a riddle I heard as a kid:

How many legs does a dog have if you call a tail a leg?

Answer:  Four.

Calling a tail a leg doesn’t make it one.

There are only two reasons they call.  Either something is not working the way it should, or the organization has a vision to go beyond where their own experience and expertise can take them.

It’s more fun if it’s the latter.  When it’s the former I often find it is self-imposed limitations that are holding people back.  Fear of change.  Self-doubt.  That kind of stuff.

It’s time for my first clever circus elephant parable of the year.  You know the one.  As a young ‘un the elephant is tied to a small stake and isn’t strong enough to break away.  As he grows up he never tries to free himself because he doesn’t think he can, even though that was a long, long time ago and now he is now as strong as… well… an elephant.

In my big time disc jockey days I once had a program director get me out of an on-air slump by having me listen to a “best of” tape every day on my way to work.  He knew that if my “best” was the my own reference point it would build my confidence.  After all, it’s difficult to doubt your abilities when you actually hear yourself doing it right. (My golf coach tried doing the same but couldn’t find any “best of”!)

“People always say their newest album is the best they’ve ever made.  That should be the case.  You should get better at this.”
~Vince Gill

Consider ordering a couple of anchovy and kumquat pizzas and inviting your on-air team to play their best break of the week.  It may feel a little creepy at first but it will quickly become an exercise in craftsmanship and team-building, particularly if you make it a regular monthly thing.  Who knows, they might even start cheering each other on!

Vince Gill is right.  We should get better at this.

The “leaky bucket.”

That’s PPM-talk for stations losing listeners by tuning away or turning the radio off.  The traditional thought is that it is easier to keep listeners than to get them back.  And darn logical that is, no doubt!

But that’s only half the story.  Or, should I say, one third.

A recent study of 37 million listening occasions conducted by Coleman Insights and Media Monitors found that

“nearly two-thirds of radio listening occasions are the result of turning on the radio, listening to a station and turning the radio off.”

That means we as managers, programmers, and talent need to focus not only on minimizing tune-outs, but in creating TUNE INs, or what Mark Ramsey refers to as “winning moments”!

“A great morning show isn’t the show that holds listeners longer, it’s the show that has the winning moments that compel listeners to come back later or tomorrow.

A great radio station isn’t simply the one with the fewest tune-outs, it’s the one with the turn-ons listeners want to experience again and again – the moments that remind you to come back and listen again for more moments just like them.”
-Mark Ramsey

Perhaps the best example is the Super Bowl, or should I say the Super Bowl commercials!

Just for the heck of it I googled “best Super Bowl commercials” and got 50,900,000 results.  That’s over 50 million web hits for reasons to TUNE IN!

The very thing that most consider a tune out – commercials – has been transformed into a huge TUNE IN because of creativity, investment, and talent.

Here’s another way to look at it:

Consider a highlight reel of the listening occasions on your radio station in which people simply didn’t tune away.  It wouldn’t be a highlight reel at all.  It would be a compilation of the bare minimum necessary to keep people from tuning out.  You and I both know of stations designed with nothing more in mind.

But programming that simply avoids the “leaky bucket” doesn’t drive emotions, build relationships, inspire loyalty, or add value to someone’s life.  That’s why superb talents like Wally, Brant Hansen, Lisa Williams, Keith Stevens, Beth Bacall, Frank Reed, Rachelle Renee, Steve and Amy, Kevin and Taylor, and the remarkable storytelling of Keep The Faith are game-changers by creating TUNE IN, the very thing we appreciate about Super Bowl commercials.

50 years ago no one even thought of tuning to the Super Bowl for the commercials.  But that all changed when some talented someones created something worth tuning in for.

Watching the last few presidential debates reminds me of being in Mrs. Lay’s 5th grade class.  We had that know-it-all that nobody liked, that smart science-brain kid that was painfully shy, and that loud-mouthed bully that picked fights on the playground with a girl named Megan.  Or was it Kelly?  (I don’t think I was considered one of those three, but I did achieve the distinction of being the first to get zits.  And the last to get rid of them!)

“Nobody will listen to you unless they sense that you like them.  If a person senses that you do not like them, that you do not approve of their existence, then your religion and your political ideas will all seem wrong to them.  If they sense that you like them, then they are open to what you have to say.”  Donald Miller

They say that Ted Cruz has a 43 percent unfavorable rating, and that’s even after adding a few jokes in the last debate to improve his likability.  43 percent!  Jeepers, that’s higher than Larry Musselwhite in my fifth grade class!  And Larry didn’t smell very good.

By the way, Jeb Bush, Rick Perry, Rand Paul, and Donald Trump all have a similar favorability gap, according to www.areyoumorepopularthanlarrymusselwhite.com.

Think of the last few presidents.  Obama (when elected).  Clinton (even after you know what).  Reagan!  Jeepers, he was like a movie star.  They were all likable, at least to enough someones.

“We resist being influenced by people we don’t know or don’t trust.  We are open to the influence of those whom we trust or whom we perceive have our best interests at heart.  Trust requires common ground.  Trust requires empathy.”  Andy Stanley

If being likable and sounding friendly are the starting points for being effective, shouldn’t we in Christian radio pay more attention to connecting emotionally and relating to people’s lives?

I recently heard a promo for a daddy/daughter dance that shared the date, time, and location, but little else.  Nothing about the impact of a dad on a daughter’s life, the importance of spending one-on-one time with your kids, and the power of a role model.  Downright unfriendly, you could say.

Consider this:

Buy some pizza and gather your teammates to build a “friendly” vernacular for your station’s brand.  Then make sure every recorded promo, every live mention, and every digital thingamajig on your website utilizes those words to help make your station friendly and more effective.

After all, not everyone can be as funny as Ted Cruz!

To tease, or not to tease. That may not be the question.

Most teases I hear are self-indulgent attempts to manipulate un-seen passive consumers to do what you want them to do.  That, my friends, is a waste of time.  Your listeners are not simply consumers, but people with real life and real hopes and dreams.  We would do well to consider their lives as our frame of reference.

Rick Warren’s “Purpose Driven Life”, the best selling non-fiction book of all time other than the Bible, begins with these four words:

It’s not about you.

Offering your listeners something relevant and compelling for which to stay tuned is a noble quest.  Trying to manipulate listeners for an additional PPM meter-minute is a waste of time.

“More Neil Diamond facts coming up next hour.”  I actually heard this on the radio. I’M NOT MAKING THIS UP, as Dave Barry would say.

We in radio have a lot to learn from social media, which has the algorithms and nifty-difty cyber brain power to monitor what entices people to “click through”.

Just in the last hour on social media I’ve seen:

“We’ve selected a group of people for a brief survey.”  Nope.

“Your marriage is doomed without this three minute conversation.”  Yep.

“Three easy ways to help keep your kids from getting sick this winter.”  Certainly.

Here is a practical idea:

Consider having your air personalities keep track of the social media posts that entice them enough to “click through.”  Then discuss why and how they can emulate that on the air.  Bonus tip: It’s easier to get people to do something again than it is to get them to do it the first time.  That’s why tuning in for “the next time to win” in a contest, or tuning back tomorrow at this same time for more ways to keep your family healthy can be effective ways to create additional listening occasions.

As my brilliant friend Tommy Kramer says, “Radio stations keep trying to manipulate or monopolize the listener’s time against his/her will.  But the listener is in charge, and growing more used to the ‘on demand’ part of life every day. When you only promote things that actually matter to the listener, believe me, you’ll stand out in the crowd.”

The scoreboard can tell us a lot.  We look to see the inning or the quarter.  Perhaps to see who’s at bat or who’s ahead.  Sometimes the errors or the fouls.  But no one considers the scoreboard important enough to take its picture.

Unless of course…

…you see yourself on it!

Your station is like that.

The music is nice, but Spotify and Mortify have it in major doses.  Traffic reports?  It’s on the 4’s, the 10’s and the 12’s up and down the dial.  Weather?  I have an app for that.

No, your radio station has to offer something else.  Something unique.  Something your listeners value.  Something that screams, “That’s me!”

Listeners may push the button because of a song they don’t like or irrelevant chit chat…

But people don’t push the button on their values.

*Inspired by my talented friends Kevin Isaacs and Dave Arthur.

Odd, isn’t it?  In a format that MATTERS more than any other, we spend so much of our time talking about stuff that doesn’t.

Recently I’ve heard…

The tour dates and future music projects of an artist I’ve never heard of.

The details of a traffic problem that I wasn’t in.

A contest where if I text them the thing (twenty words or less) and I’ll be put in a drawing with all the other people that have texted them the thing (twenty words or less) and they’ll do a random drawing at 7:20 in a few weeks with Flip and Flap of the Flip and Flap Morning Show to determine the finalist that will be in the subsequent drawing for the thing.  Jeepers!  Who wrote your promo?  The IRS?

A company’s sales accomplishments with no connection of how it mattered to their customers.

Deejays that talk incessantly about things that happened in their lives that listeners can’t relate to.  Newscasts with stories that sound newsy but aren’t relevant.  Stations that position themselves with mindless slogans that are all about the station, not about what is meaningful to the listener.

Here is a challenge for the new year:

Listen to another radio station in the format for one hour and write down the things you hear that don’t matter.  You’ll be amazed!  (This exercise is impossible to do with your own radio station because it’s too familiar to you.)

When Michelangelo was asked how he created the statue of David, he supposedly responded, “I just took away everything that didn’t look like David.”

So, if you want your radio station to matter… you can start by simply taking away everything that doesn’t.