Want To Be Popular? Play Hits

In the practice of reaching significant audiences,  regardless of medium,  there are basic elements that are obvious but not always locked into the programming DNA in News/Information.  

Among THE most important is:

HITS

On radio you play hit songs,  magazine covers and newspaper headlines show hit topics,  Networks and streamers seek hit shows. It only makes sense for news operations to do the same.     

Air hit stories.   It has zero to do with technology,  AI or usage patterns.  Hits work.  

I recall some frightening scenarios at newspapers where the editorial meetings were people throwing out ideas.  Fine.  But there was no research into the hottest topics.  They were wingin it.  Balance that emotion with science. 

Yes,  you can make hits via investigation and discovering hot topics first.  And that’s a great thing.  A scoop.  But I’m referring to day in and day out storytelling… the general flow of stories.  

The hit stories like songs need to be targeted based on your design. Competitively,  you can have a point of view—- it’s truth and reality within that point of view that matters

Then there’s:

TOPIC TESTING.   Using modern survey techniques to “throttle” stories based on importance on a day part by day part basis.  Throttling refers to powering up or powering down a story’s visibility and guide it through the breaking,  ongoing and wind down segments.  

Reasons for testing:

-Unlike most editorial meetings where ideas are thrown up,  testing delivers a secret tool to pinpoint the right stories for our target. Producing the right stories at the right time.  Focusing resources on what really matters by having a research tool in our pocket to better inform our human story decisions 

-The pace of the world is too fast to not be armed with ongoing specific story data

-Helps eliminate “News ego” that isn’t always in sync with our mission.  

-Insures minute to minute topic superiority. 

-Helps isolate stories that are bulls eyes to YOUR target

It’s all about balancing journalistic instincts with organized input from YOUR street which results in a simple but bullet proof component in your arsenal:   HITS!