Welcome to Spring, April and the start of the Spring ratings survey!

Is your Country Music Radio station shaken the doldrums of Winter, Christmas, bleak weather and the "can't do's?" Time to put on a happy game face and start making your April PPM and diary Spring 2011 happen big time. 51% of the respondents in the CRS P-1 study believe Country music is better than it use to be. 

If the programmers and air talent can urbanize the format by mainstreaming it with an imaged redneck appeal, it will gain more ground. In Fresno the combined Country share in the last trend 12+ was 6.1. That's what KSKS had alone when I first came into this market. Then you take a PPM market like Charlotte, both stations have a 14 share combined 6+. 

1. Morning shows need to make a mark with the audience and lose anything self-indulgent. They need to be talking to the audience and life group directly and STOP talking to each other. One of the hosts need to be the social media maven. Jessica had a great idea for morning shows, the third wheel can be the social media freak on the show and offer listeners follows and up-dates and celebritweets. 
2. Social Media needs to be a team effort. I remember when Kris Daniels and I were building MY SPACE followers at KHGE in 2008, we went looking for women 25-49 who fit our audience profile. You need to mine Facebook and Twitter likes and followers. (See yesterday's FTC for Twitter mining tips).
3. Community promotions and events, Feed The Hungry, Special Olympics, American Cancer Society, Susan G. Komen and more. Local schools need support, states and counties are cutting school funding and I read a teacher took a part time job to fund her class room. These are special community promotions that will cause talk about how your station helped out.