What’s the Vector, Victor? Or Whose 4th was it, anyway?

These lazy days of summer are turning out to be anything but lazy for me.  One of the problems with writing a blog is keeping it up, and I’m so buried in the new American Music Festivals series that the blog has languished.  I did promise you some comments that were running on the AMPPR Listserv but they petered out and frankly were not very substantial, so I decided not to bother.

Thanks to Jeff Skibbe of KXMS in Missouri for writing a guest post on programming.   With apologies to the movie Airplane! here it is:

This past Fourth of July is a perfect excuse for an examination of what I call programming vectors and trajectories.  You may already be using these concepts without the strange appellations, which may seem unrelated to radio. But these labels may provide a new perspective on holiday programming strategies for some.

This year, the Fourth of July fell on a Sunday.  In the past, before computers, Independence Day may have called for a day of locally produced or syndicated programming with or without significant prior promotion.  In such a scenario, the vast majority of listeners were unlikely to have heard much, if any, of the holiday programming.  Some listeners may have caught a smidge of the promotional hype and said: “Yes, I know my classical station observed the holiday, it’s just that I was unable to be part of their celebration because of my busy personal schedule.”

For more industrious programmers and hosts, programming this past Independence Day was extended to Saturday 7/3, or even further back to Friday 7/2. This meant up to a 3-day vector, and, of course, a greater chance that more of your audience sampled your salute.

But whose holiday was it anyway?  Was it yours, Master Programmer, to decide on a vector of 1 to 3 days, with a trajectory that may have seen a steep ramp-up of American music, culminating in a ‘brick wall’ conclusion on Sunday night? Or, did this holiday belong to your listeners, with lives lived with long anticipation of “bonfires and illuminations,” as John Adams (the patriot, not the composer) foretold?  Was your station an actual participant in your audience’s Fourth of July?  

First off, your audience did not suddenly go into Independence Day mode sometime Friday.  They readied themselves, preparing for celebration (and maybe travel, like I did) the week before.  Some of them had to work some part of the weekend.  Others had a long, unencumbered 4-day weekend, with Monday the ‘perceived’ holiday.  Regardless, it is safe to assume that most probably did not maintain their normal radio listening habits. Even a 4-day vector, with special programming continuing into Monday 7/5, most likely escaped much of your audience’s notice. 

Factoring in these additional considerations, your programming vector could have been plotted back as early as the previous Monday, if you wanted to pull out all of the stops (organ metaphor intended), taking into account not just the holiday calendar, but also the holiday mindset.

“What, the whole week?” you ask. While this vectoring may seem extreme to some, your record library more than likely can provide a week’s worth of solid American music.  And more to the point, the chance that a significant number of your audience actually heard some part of your musical salute during their Fourth of July holiday would increase greatly.  Vectoring from Monday 6/28 to Monday 7/5, with a trajectory that arced on Sunday 7/4 and trailed away late into the next day, I contend, would complement the celebrations of your audience on their terms, factoring in the varied lifestyles of the totality of your audience.   

Vectors differ, of course, based on the day of week of the holiday and the number of days in the holiday. Here I am thinking primarily of Christmas and some Jewish observances.  While mid-December may have been a start time for Christmas fare for some radio programmers in the past, the pressure from non-classical, commercial stations that start Christmas programming on Black Friday, and temporary all-Christmas Sirius-XM channels, probably have compelled some classical programmers to stretch the vector from Advent Sunday (if not Black Friday) all the way to Christmas Day.

The trajectory of a Christmas season vector from Advent Sunday to Christmas Day might start with a few religious classical selections, increasing in number and morphing into seasonal, non-religious Christmas selections at the apex of the trajectory on Christmas Day (a brick wall for most programmers).  The closer you get to Christmas, the more you may want to accommodate those that associate Christmas with “White Christmas” and “Jingle Bells” (i.e., ‘Christmas Music of Your Life’) rather than a steady diet of classical Christmas music that can’t be easily identified as Christmas fare aside from their titles.  Yes, there are great Christmas works that only classical stations play, but there are many that also expect the radio to provide the soundtrack of their (Christmas) life.  And if that soundtrack is not broadcast by you, the IPod may do the job nicely.       

As I said at the outset, maybe you have employed these programming ideas without the labeling.  But without vectors and trajectories in service of the holiday mindset period (rather than the holiday calendar period), you may be proud of your holiday programming schedule and all of its special and clever nuances while leaving a large part of the intended audience out of your equation.