Tuning in to female tastes

By CATHRIN SCHAER

Everyone wants girls. And in particular, young girls.

Should you ask the programme directors at some of Auckland's biggest radio stations who their target audience is, you'll get some very similar replies.

"Aged 18 to 24 with a female skew," says one.

"Between 10 and 29 with a female skew," says another.

Basically girls, girls, girls. Why, you may wonder?

It seems radio stations want to target women because they are considered the household shoppers. They decide which brand of bread to buy and which shoes the children will wear to school.

Traditionally, these are the people most attractive to advertisers, says Paul Kennedy, editor of the Median Strip radio industry magazine and website.

"They are the most lucrative audience. There's a higher proportion of females listening to the radio than there are males, and they tend to listen to the radio more during the day."

As the older adult contemporary market is pretty much sewn up, the youth market is where many commercial music stations are looking. They know something you don't - that even younger women have more influence in the home than their brothers.

"Essentially [at 91ZM] we programme our music for 18- to 24-year-old females," says David Brice, director of programming at the Radio Network, which owns ZM.

"We call it a mother-daughter station. For instance, we find that secondary school-age females tend to set the agenda for things like which radio station they'll listen to in the car on the way to school, or in the kitchen in the morning. And mostly the mothers can cope with - and even quite enjoy - the kinds of music we play.

"The other thing is that where the girls go, the boys eventually follow. Boys will say they listen to The Rock or Channel Z but they also like to listen to more mainstream hits."

Says another radio industry insider: "Girls won't listen to the overly Macho stuff on some stations. But guys will listen to mainstream pop, even if it is a little girly sometimes."

Clearly it's a theory that works. The biggest music stations in Auckland - meaning the country - are those catering mainly to women with a mixture of mainstream pop music and Top 40 hits. In the youth market there's 91ZM, The Edge, Mai FM and even More FM. In the older market Classic Hits dominates. More bloke-ish stations like The Rock, Hauraki and Channel Z are not doing as well.

Events in Auckland's commercial youth radio market make this pattern even clearer. Even with an ethnic and demographic mix that sets Auckland apart from the rest of the country, girls are still the audience that everyone is competing for. And about a month ago, a new, strong and hungry competitor arrived to find them.

The Edge started broadcasting in Hamilton in 1994 where it became a dominant force before it was networked first to Tauranga and into markets further afield, including Christchurch, Wellington and Palmerston North.

Playing a mixture of Top 40 hits with a dash of rock, The Edge has become one of the most successful radio stations in the country. While it has been broadcasting out of Auckland since last September, it wasn't until last month that Aucklanders had the chance to tune in.

For some time The Edge's owners, Radioworks New Zealand, had been wanting a strong Auckland frequency on which to place their favourite, high-achieving child. The solution once again demonstrates the importance of girls to the advertisers.

Channel Z, a more alternative, more male-oriented station, has been relegated from 94.2 to another frequency that's not as strong, 93.8. There are plans to pump up Z's signal and keep it commercially viable, but for now the station with the high-decibel contemporary rock playlist is wheezing into the city from Waiheke Island.

The Edge has taken over the stronger frequency to compete with gusto in Auckland's already crowded youth radio market.

The best rating youth station in Auckland is Mai FM, playing what many see as an urban mix of hip-hop, r'n'b and the odd dance-music-influenced track. It seems unlikely that The Edge will make any huge dent there.

"But what they will be doing is going head to head with 91ZM. Their playlists are really not that different," says Kennedy.

"Both play pop, ZM with a bit more of an urban edge, a bit of hip-hop and dance music. And The Edge with a bit more of rock in there."

One insider says that this has changed, with The Edge now playing more hip-hop in order to catch the ears of big-city kids.

So the two stations sound similar. Where there is a difference, Kennedy reckons, is in the marketing.

"The main thing [The Edge has] done is raised their profile through some really big, incredibly successful promotions that got them a lot of publicity right around the country."

For instance, they offered a couple of thousand dollars to anyone who could persuade Tom Cruise to do an on-the-air interview. Cruise called on the second day of The Edge's broadcast in Auckland and the station made headlines.

The Edge's stunts have included arranging a marriage between two strangers. That couple are still together and featuring in weekly gossip magazines.

A promotion now running called "Bank It or Burn" involves audience members writing to the station explaining why they deserve $10,000. Once other listeners have heard what they need the money for, they decide whether the respondent should bank the cash or be forced to burn it.

Market surveys - with 3000 Aucklanders keeping a diary of which radio stations they listen to - began this month. The results are due out next month.

So you've got to wonder, is Auckland about to see a radio war, a battle for the ears of the young women of the city?

One station staffer tells of on-air abuse by the competition, threatening phone calls off the air and all kinds of silliness, tricks and intimidation.

But if there are, then mild-mannered management are keeping quiet about it.

"Actually we would be lucky to rate at all in this survey," says Leon Wratt, programme director at The Edge. "After all, we're only just on air here. We're just going to keep doing what we do. We want to keep it fun and upbeat and we're pretty irreverent in terms of attitude."

Brice of ZM agrees."It's just business as usual for us ... We've been waiting for The Edge to come here for several years now and whether there's one more or less player in the Auckland market is, quite frankly, irrelevant.

He laughs at the suggestion of radio wars. "Every day in Auckland is a radio war."