High Resolution
			Background: Basic definitions
			Background: Intermediate level
			Background: Full Treatment
			Format Flavors
			Operative Affinity

Appeal, Affinity, And Other
Programming Considerations

This sidebar is excerpted from a "Radio Intelligence" series that first appeared in CURRENT in 1993. This series remains the most complete single treatment of appeal and affinity to date. It can be downloaded in its entirety – formatted and ready for printing – from ARAnet.(Click here for download)

Every minute of radio programming offers an attraction for a certain type of person. This attraction – the quality that brings listeners to it – is called appeal.

People listen to programming because it appeals to them. They choose one station over others because it is the most appealing at that time.

As a verb, to appeal means to provide a service that attracts certain types of listeners more than others; as a noun, appeal is the intangible attribute of the service that attracts these listeners.

The appeal of a program is inseparable from those who listen. The program creates the audience, and the characteristics of that audience define the program’s appeal.

Programs that serve very similar audiences – i.e., programs with highly congruent appeals – work better in combination. The degree to which the appeals are congruent is called affinity.

Programs that serve the same audiences have high affinity. Programs that serve moderately different audiences have only moderate affinity. Programs that serve different audiences have no affinity.

Appeal and affinity can inform the decisions of programmers faced with many programming options. This knowledge can lead to improved public service.

Program Type

A common mistake is to equate appeal with a program’s type or genre: talk or music, news or entertainment, serious or whimsical, jazz or classical.

Program type and appeal are not the same. A program’s appeal, and subsequently its affinity with other programs, is determined by the qualities of listeners it attracts, not the type or genre of the program itself.

There’s no guarantee that any two programs of the same type or genre will have high affinity and work well together. Indeed, the appeals of programs of the same type can differ dramatically.

This is evident even at public radio’s "all news" and "all classical" stations, where programs that are "in format" don’t serve core listeners as well as other programs. The example from AUDIENCE 88 was opera – one type of classical music with precious little affinity with most other classical music.

Similarly, programs of wildly different types attract and serve the same people. A Prairie Home Companion and Car Talk entertain the NPR news audience; their appeals are the same as Morning Edition's and All Things Considered's.

Variety

In the study of appeal and affinity, it’s critical to distinguish between two types of variety.

Program variety is the contrast in the types of programming on a station. All Things Considered, Marketplace, and Car Talk are different programs; they offer programmatic variety.

Audience variety is the contrast in the types of persons served by each type of programming on a station. Programs that appeal to younger persons are different than those that appeal to older persons.

Program variety has to do with program type or genre. Audience variety has to do with the types of listeners caused by various programs.

Audience variety weakens a station’s public service. Changing focus for short periods of time results in serving few, if any, listeners.

Program variety can enhance public service. Indeed, the more program variety a person hears on a public station, the more value he places on the service; the more important it is in his life; the more likely he is to support the station.

However, program variety is often at odds with consistency of appeal. Program variety contributes to public service only when varied programs appeal to the same listeners.

This suggests a hierarchy of scheduling strategies.

• High affinity (consistent and congruent appeal) among diverse program types constitutes a highly effective and highly valued service.

• High affinity without program variety also constitutes a highly effective service, but one that is less valued.

• Low affinity among programs offers the weakest public service, regardless of any consistency among program types.