Jack’s a Joke

Absolute Radio International won the Oxford/South Oxfordshire FM license earlier this month proposing the service marked Jack FM format for the 35 to 55 year old set. The format will be downloaded to the stations’ hard disc by March. The stations’ owner says it will be locally programmed but reality is in the fine print.

Big Sticks Broadcasting owns the Jack FM service mark and slogans. The licensing agreements are strict; all the better to protect the franchise. DJs are not to be used in the first few months after launch; all the better to protect the purity of the pre-recorded one-liners. Of course, the main selling point to radio station owners is no DJs.

ftm background

The Format Radio Brand The Format Radio Brand is a product with a name on it. Function and structure work together to define the benefit. The choice and placement of program elements is systematic and consistent. As competition for audience and ad revenue becomes fierce, producers adopt the Format Radio Brand to separate theirs from the vague General Radio Brands. Brands names and positioning become shorthand for consumers; saving time, effort and minimizing risk.

“Third Way” is New Direction for PSB Youth Channels
PSB youth channels typically follow one of two formats — the more program-driven “educational/alternative” option and the standard-fare contemporary hit radio (CHR), which competes more openly with commercial stations. A “third way” is developing; pleasing to pleasing to public broadcasters, upsetting their private competitors.

Radio Teddy: Another Stumble for German PSBs
A radio channel for children seems such a brilliant undertaking. It can be educational, entertaining. Just think of the possibilities!

Berlin’s First Private Commercial Radio Station Goes Bankrupt
Through the heady decade of the late ‘80’s and ‘90’s Hundert, 6 thrived. Competition and catastrophic ownership changes were more than it could survive.

Kiev Media Conference: Globalized Media Leads to “Adult Contemporary Music”
Council of Europe Ministers and NGOs met in the Ukraine capital exploring all the ills of big media and bad governments.

"We came up with the idea of a character called Jack who owns a radio station and decides, after years of playing other people's music, that he is going to play whatever he wants," said format originator and Big Sticks Broadcasting president Bob Perry. Big Canadian broadcaster Rogers Communications did most of the formats’ development, judiciously leveraging Perrys’ service marks into a new radio format, oxymoron notwithstanding. The DJ-free stations would play three, four or five times as many tunes as the standard North American formatted radio station, typically crossing several musical genres.

The format quickly moved south, literally and figuratively, as CBS Radio replaced DJ-laden formats in big markets with Jack FM. ABC, division of Disney, placed the format in smaller markets. Other broadcasters were quick to copy what appeared to be a raging success. There’s Mike FM, Max FM, Alice, Bob and now the Spanish version José.

And now it’s moving to the UK. In addition to the granted Oxford license, Absolute Radio has applied for a Liverpool Jack FM and Manchester Jack FM in partnership with Communicorp (Ireland) and UK radio luminary David Mansfield.

Mansfield was in attendance last year at the Athens NAB/Europe conference where Paragon Research VP Ken Benson pitched the format to a standing-room only audience. (see note below) Paragon has conducted listener research supporting the Jack FM formats’ development. Many European radio programmers left the presentation scratching their heads. “We already play 1500 tracks,” said one. “What’s the big deal?”

Managers, on the other hand, could be seen calculating better profit margins from DJ-free stations. Jack FM adds “personality” without the cost of live bodies.

For three decades radio station branding has extended the tail of the Long Tail theory, long before Long Tail was written down. Stations would succeed in smaller audience targets, necessary because of FM license over-supply, by strictly programming and marketing to identifiable and exclusive interest groups. Interests were entirely based on music preferences. Researchers were called in to hone the music selection to as few tunes as possible, limit chatter to reinforcing brand exclusivity and even choosing the appropriate colors for logos. Financial risk was low but marketing risk became extraordinarily high. Music preferences tend to change quickly, particularly among young people, and radio listeners tend to choose stations because of mood or time of day or the position of the moon.

Research from radio programming specialists is similar to push-poles done for political campaigns. As typical questionnaire item might be: “When you are choosing a radio station for music would you rather hear a wide variety of selections or DJs chattering about subjects of no interest to you?” It’s an important question for managers cutting costs, yes?

The famous Jack FM positioning phrases are a brilliant use of tried and true – if not a bit tired – Reis and Trout brand positioning, except turning the tightly formatted stations’ positioning on its head. Indeed the Jack FM positioning works to destroy the credibility of any niche formatted music station. Who cares, as Jack would say. We’re playing what we want.

This week marks the 5th birthday of Apple’s iPod. For radio broadcasters it has been a dreadful five years, watching all those young people shuffling among their favorite tunes, paying less and less attention to radio stations on the FM band. And in the US there was the buzz about satellite radio. With iPods, YouTube and MySpace all the rage advertisers began voting with their budgets two years ago. Station owners began adopting decline-phase strategies: get what we can get while we can get it, cut the costs, buy a website, look for the greater fool.

Jack FM solves all these problems, yes? The joke’s on the listener today…and the owners tomorrow.

authors note: I know Ken Benson. Ken Benson is a friend of mine. He's a good guy. We worked under the same nitwit GM several years ago.(jmh)

Jack’s a Joke

Yet another radio format sails across the Atlantic brimming with promise. It’s called Jack FM. The first stop will be Oxford in the UK in March. Liverpool and Manchester might be next if OFCOM is persuaded. Think of it as bird flu on a hard disc.