Introduction

T
here are a number of radio stations in Singapore existing on the limited bandwidth available. English, Chinese, Malay and Indian stations can be tuned to, with the first two types of stations being the commonest on the waves.

Besides Radio Corporation of Singapore (RCS), the main radio media network on our tiny island, there are a few other enterprises that own radio stations. Examples will be National Trades Union Congress (NTUC), National Arts Council (NYC) and SAFRA.

For the purpose of this assignment, I managed to engage the program director from NTUC Radio Heart 91.3FM, Ms. Christina Caroline Dirpin, for an interview. With Radio Heart, we see a successful uplift of old format to a daring new one. Through this transformation, we see how stations can be programmed to compete with others in the market. Before I proceed into the question proper, it is necessary to understand some terms and the jobscope of a program director.

Jobscope of Program Director

The program director lies on one of the highest rung in the radio hierarchy, thus, the amount of responsibilities correspond accordingly. Although a key-decision maker, He/she is not a lone worker, as it is absolutely necessary to cooperate and coordinate with other people on the management team. Some of these personnel include the music director, the sales manager and news director.

Most importantly, the director sets the direction of the station to create a consistency, or flow, in the programs. Besides, deciding on the format the station is to adopt, the director has to monitor the station's sound and evaluate its competitive edge with regards to rival stations and earning potential.

Keeping in tune with the changing tastes of audience is another important aspect of the job of the director. Always on alert about the programming efforts and moves by competitive stations, the program director holds the main key to the development of program format for his/her own station.

In charge of the administrative handling, he/she has to hire and supervise staff, handle the budget etc. While pinpointing the format best suited for the station, he/she has to ensure that the programs are carried out in an appealing manner to attract and retain the audience. The bulk of the creative work comes from the actual radio programming.

This summation of the duties affects the director's choice of a particular program format.

Bytes on Radio Heart 91.3FM

Radio Heart is owned by NTUC. Aiming to be the "preferred media provider offering more effective products and services to reach target markets of our clients at affordable money", Radio Heart is an infotainment station which has changed its radio format since the past year. Its 24-hours broadcast is divided into two segments: English from 2am to 11pm, and Malay from 2am to 11pm. The target audience is within the 25-44 year old range, with teenagers as the secondary target. Broadcasting is brought 'live' to the public in their Takashimaya Shopping Centre's satellite studio for selected programs.

Christina Caroline Dirpin

A veteran in the radio industry, Chris (as she is known to her audience) has been working as a deejay since she graduated. She has recently been promoted to senior producer, while retaining her status as a presenter. She is currently the acting director with another producer/presenter, Jason Chow, for Radio Heart 91.3FM. Her nine years of experience in the music and radio arena has molded her character into a very dynamic and confident person. She knows her 'stuff' well.

Chris's job

The Radio Heart family is small and close knit, so they work very closely with one another. Together with other associates, she helps determine the 'movement' of Radio Heart and its direction that suits it best. Working with the deejays and personalities to plan out their individual programs, they contrive programs, inclusive of the various sponsored shows, commercials, marketing gimmicks and so on, which are both appealing and substantial to their target audience.

Instead of practicing the rigid system of the director deciding on everything, she and Jason allow much room for creativity and freedom for the presenters to best express themselves, though approval by the two of them is still required.

Aside from these heavy duties, she is also in charge of loads of 'mundane' administrative work. Deciding the format for the station to follow is another of her duty.

The CHANGE

To set the tone for itself and remain highly competitive, Radio Heart underwent a major change in 1999. Chris and her colleagues revamped Radio Heart's radio program format from its original music based Pop CHR to the present Dance CHR (or 'Hip' as she calls it) as Radio Heart moves towards being a dance station. With effect from 9th September 2000, four of its weekend radio shows that play music other than dance -- Zach's Trax, Black Market, Got to be Heart and Global Beats - will officially end. The move is to complement the change in line-up.

Why the switch of format? "What we wanted to do was to tighten broadcasting, to enhance our position as a dance music station," said marketing manager of NTUC's Media Cooperative, Mr. Bernard Law. "It is part of the larger scheme of things in targeting our audience better."

…A peek into the Local Bandwidth

What is a radio format, one may ask. It simply refers to the 'type of music featured on a typical programming day' (Adams, M & Massey, K. 1995). Across the airwaves, there are three broad categories of radio formats, namely the music, information and specialty formats.

The music format shelters the most sub-formats within its umbrella.
¨ Contemporary Hit Radio (CHR) - Airs the current best-selling chart music with audience from the 12 to 24 age groups.
¨ Adult Contemporary (AC) - A mixture of older songs, current hits, music trivia etc. A broad base audience comprising 24 to 40 years old are usually targeted.
¨ Album-Oriented Rock (AOR) - Draws rock audience. It targets a narrow group of men from 18-30 years old.
¨ Easy Listening (EL) - Slow, instrumental music with little interruption is the main attraction.
¨ Middle of the Road (MOR) - A cross between contemporary rock and easy listening, with targeted audience 35 years and above.
¨ Classical - For discriminating listeners (usually from higher income group and education levels), this format plays concerts, orchestra music etc.

The information-based format includes:
¨ All-News - An obvious category, stations adopting this format offers high quality and current news to its listeners.
¨ Talk - The goal is to let the audience do the talking. Voicing of opinions and forums are common.
¨ News-Talk - A merge of the first two forms.

Lastly, the specialty program format caters to groups that are more distinctive in nature. The following are the two commonest ones.
¨ Religious - Normally consists of a number of church programs and play religious music.
¨ Black Radio -Retains soul, rhythm and blues, gospel etc.

In this report, only the local English stations are compared, since Radio Heart only compete for audience from a base of listeners that shares the basic demographic, i.e. language.

RCS
Perfect 10 98.7FM CHR in pop
Class 95FM AC in mostly oldies
NewsRadio 93.8FM All-News
Gold 90.5FM EL, usually oldies
The International Channel 96.3FM Specialized in French, Japanese and German programs
Symphony 92.4FM Classical
SAFRA
Power 98FM Mixed (CHR, AC)
NYC
Passion 99.5FM Art news, jazz etc

From the table above, it is clear that the local market is relatively saturated. The Singapore's public airwaves is very limited, and almost all formats existed on the radio waves, and it was going to be a difficult and daunting task to give the low performance station a facelift and a new lease of life. Radio Heart decided to go ahead with the change anyway. The operation took place last year.

"Because we want to create a niche for ourselves. We started out nicely with pop contemporary, but as RCS started to pick up the same format, we began sharing audience and our listenership fell," Chris says. "We're all fighting for the same piece of pie. Why don't we get out of the pie and start fighting on our own grounds?"

Prior the CHANGE

Most of the stations apply niche programming, i.e. programs that are narrowly focused. Perfect 10 deals with CHR in mostly pop, shrinking the area of influence to those who like both CHR and pop music. A special niche has to be found among the net of formats, already applying niche programming, that local radio stations employ.

Firstly, Chris considered the possibilities with the Radio Heart family, especially the music director. What were left to choose from were rock, jazz and dance. At that point in time, no such station exists. Considering the local community's tastes, interests, demographics and social characteristics, she feels that the local listeners are more dance, and less rock or jazz. Thus, dance ultimately became their choice.

Secondly, the issue of competition has to be addressed. Perfect 10 remains their closest rival, because the former changed its format to pop/hip, preceding Radio Heart, thus establishing a strong foundation earlier. The two stations also had almost the same target audience. However, they are also fighting at 'different frequencies', as only a subset of the two stations' audience overlap. Hence, there is still enough room for both to seek their loyal listeners.

Chris explained that the most captivating part of radio that appeals to the sense of hearing is the music. "It's a very old deal," she quipped. Gaining audience support will depend very much on the music. The other most important point to note will be the talk portion, which is another attention grabber. Once the music is decided, then the talk, like interviews and reviews, can be integrated into the program to complement and spice up the music.

Plunge

After deciding on the format to adopt, Chris had to pass through the Chief Operating Officer test and then the approval from CEO.

The format passed and Radio Heart took the plunge, seeking for greener pastures. They had their fair share of prohibitions. "It was dicey and scary at the start because it's like not everybody can take dance music," Chris said during the interview. It would mean the end should the change fail to take effect. However, all of them agreed to take the risk and jumped into the unknown.

The previous batch of audience who tuned in to Radio Heart for pop and contemporary was prone to shift loyalty. "Every time you try to create a niche, there's a risk of losing the old ones. You don't have to target yourself. Whatever out of the target, say bye bye la," Chris said.

Promotions

Promotions and publicity were essential to inform the public of the change in program format, and attract the dance-lovers. Radio Heart printed calendars, set up photo shoots, and organized road shows. Radio Heart also produced a collector's music compilation CD of dance music named Heart Attack 91.3FM. Constant reminders on their programs inject the idea into the public's minds.

Along the way, 'new' Radio Heart shifted their target audience from the younger ones of around earlier 20s, to the present target of working people aging from 25 years old to 44 years old. This was an unexpected turnout, as Chris thought they would probably attract the younger audience with the dance music's loud and pumping prowess. For Chris (and Jason), she would have to deal with unsuspected outcomes to ensure the smooth sailing of the programs.

Still under the umbrella of NTUC, Radio Heart often reports on the newest updates of NTUC related and labour movement news to cater to their important audience from the union members. For e.g. recently, NTUC Insurance was awarded best performance for the first half of the new millenium, and Radio Heart lost no time in interviewing the top executive from the management team.

In addition, the station also deals in a lot paid promotions via commercials and trailers. Revenue for the station is obtained from these companies. For some charitable organizations and Community Centre activities, Radio Heart does mention free of charge on-air.

Success

Success is measured by audience responses and rating reports. Radio Heart enjoyed a happy increase of listenership of 30% from the previous year.

It takes a lot of perseverance, and on the part of radio, i.e. the personalities like Chris, patience knowing that changes and appreciation takes time for the transformation to work.

Results are not immediate. It takes a long time due to the habitual listening of audience. "When you listen to a radio station, more often than not, you listen out of habit," Chris evaluated. When a station changes its format, it needs to give its audience time to adapt, and get them to retune their radio. One of the most daunting tasks, Chris projected that Radio Heart will be able to build a sizeable dance music foundation in three to four years. By then, they will be ready to hit it big time.

Conclusion

The radio industry is undeniably competitive nowadays, especially for Singapore stations where listeners are very limited. To be able to stand out, a cut above the rest, and generate a considerable audience base requires research on competitors, foresight and a nose for the ever-changing audience's tastes and preferences.

A major revamp of a station is not necessary if a niche has been found and worked on. For Radio Heart, the beginning of successful broadcast is just starting with the change of format. The program director's (and the rest of the directors') sharp analysis of the radio market and entrepreneur-spirited daringness of Radio Heart may just be the revival antidote for the once declining station.

Other nitty gritty details have to be taken care by the program director. From the selection of music, to commercials and sponsors, and to promotions, Chris works hand in hand with a variety of people from all levels to produce the best results, and help create a positive image for Radio Heart. Quick reactions and spontaneity are desirable in cases of emergencies.

The survival of the fittest is not necessarily true for a radio station, but to be able to stand on unique ground is definitely crucial.

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