Surf reports, tide warnings and safe sun-tanning tips will sound wacky on inland radio stations. It is hard to imagine a Johannesburg motorist stuck in the morning traffic, listening intensely to an ocean report. But as soon as he takes the N1 to Durban, radio shows on where to surf and what to do when it rains during the holidays suddenly become very relevant.
”KwaZulu-Natal is South Africa’s biggest domestic tourist market. Over holiday periods, we tweak our programmes to cater for the influx of holidaymakers,” says Trish Taylor, managing director at East Coast Radio, one of the most profitable stations in the country.
For coastal radio stations, holiday periods should mean more listeners and therefore more advertising. But many station managers believe they do not take enough advantage of the sea and sand factor.
”The coastal stations are in the unique position to be able to offer something special to national advertisers that I do not believe has been extensively exploited,” says Gavin Meiring, station manager at Heart 104.9 in Cape Town.
The Eastern Cape’s Algoa FM programme manager Alfie Jay agrees: ”The bottom line is, we don’t take advantage of it. I think there are far more opportunities out there but one needs to team up with the right people. If advertisers don’t see it with you, you can only do so much.”
KZN’s East Coast radio seems to be one of a few profiting from the holiday market.
”There’s no doubt that our audience numbers swell in peak seasons— and we are now creating a vehicle to enable our advertisers to take advantage of that market,” says Taylor who has overseen a 200 percent growth in weekly listenership since East Coast Radio was privatised in 1996.
”We made the bold decision to go after a cross-cultural market and many marketers thought it was a huge risk but those early decisions have paid off,” says Taylor.
The station’s white listenership rose from 300,000 to the current level of two million.
Not only has East Coast radio attracted listeners from different cultures but it also lures visitors into tuning in.
”We are really positioning our brand as a KZN lifestyle brand— We’ve also recently started to really exploit those peak times of the year to cater for the influx of holidaymakers.”
Their shows keep the needs of vacation goers in mind, Taylor says.
”We are saying to advertisers, the market is down in KZN. They have time to spend their money because they are on holiday. We have beach promotions, promotions in shopping malls, on-air competitions.”
However, Algoa FM’s Jay says he finds it hard to convince advertisers to get on board since radio listenership is never measured in December and January – because everyone is on holiday.
”We can show advertisers photographs of beaches filled with people, but they will ask: ‘How good are you on RAMS?’ ”
”From a seasonal perspective, I think that coastal radio holds its own. If one considers what happens summertime; everyone wants to go to the coast and that’s when the opportunity exists for radio to put up a good show. It’s also a commercial opportunity to put sponsors on board. Retail is big in the summer period.”
The South African Advertising Research Foundation (SAARF) says it is complicated to measure RAMS during holidays.
”The problem is – and that’s a worldwide custom – that we don’t interview in holiday periods because you get a biased outcome. Part of the listenership sits in KwaZulu-Natal and the other part sits at home,” says SAARF chief technical officer Piet Smit.
”On the other hand, if I knock on your hotel room door and ask for an half hour of your time to keep a diary for seven days, you will kick me out because you are on holiday,” says Smit.
Heart 104 in Cape Town changed its name from P4 Radio in February this year in an attempt to attract more listeners.
”There was still a perception by people who did not listen to the station that P4 was a purely jazz station. This was of course limiting for future growth of P4. Research also showed that there was more affinity with the pay off line ‘The Heart and Soul of Cape Town’,” says station manager Meiring.
”It is a fact that during the summer periods there is an exodus of people out of Gauteng and the central South African areas to the coast and yet we do not see the shift in radio advertising following this pattern,” Meiring says.
”During this period it is obvious that the coastal stations should be receiving the lion’s share of the radio advertising spend.”
However, Good Hope FM station manager Helen Graham (who has recently been promoted to station manager at 5FM) says their target market is purely ”Capetonian”.
”We don’t have a seasonal rate card for Good Hope FM – our target market is made up of Capetonians who are not necessarily affected by the holiday seasons,” says Graham.
KFM and Cape Talk station manager Colleen Louw says both these stations offer listeners – Cape residents and visitors – a reflection of life in the Western Cape but she would rather focus on catering for listeners who remain loyal all year round.
”There is an impact of the holiday season on our content – predominantly because there’s a lot more going on in the city. And we’re all about the lifestyle of the Cape, so we reflect that. But we always remain true to the listeners who are with us throughout the year – ensuring we deliver first on the music they love to hear,” says Louw.
Heart 104’s Meiring complains that commercial radio stations in Cape Town have another problem to deal with – community radio, which takes some 27 percent of market share.
”In the Cape market the community stations enjoy a much larger market share than in other regions and I think this is due to the strong bonding and affiliation some of them have with religious groups, who support these stations.
”It would be hard for commercial stations to compete at this level without alienating the majority of their audience, so there will always be a captive and fairly large audience for community stations to reach,” he says.
However Zane Ebrahim, managing director of Cape Town community radio station Bush Radio, argues that the two radio types cater for different markets.
”If any commercial radio is being threatened by community radio they shouldn’t be in business because they don’t have a clue what they are doing,” says Ebrahim.
”Commercial radio exists for no other reason but to make money. On the other hand, if we’re competing with commercial radio then we are doing something wrong. We must compete with ourselves. We have no other mandate but to make the community a better place.”
Radio Tygerberg, is more aggressive in its stance – not only offering better rates than commercial stations, but also trying to cash in on the holiday market.
”Obviously summertime is a very busy time for any coastal town,” says CEO Hardus Zevenster.
”From a business point of view, you will find it is far more cost effective to advertise on community radio than commercial radio. You reach thousands of consumers for far less money. The unique opportunities we have are to play an informative role in what is happening during peak seasons,” says Zevenster.