1994 witnessed revolutions in Chinese Taiwan's radio broadcasting. Since the first station established through application - Zhengsheng Taipei FM Radio - started its broadcasting, Chinese Taiwan's airwaves have been bustling with different voices. Chinese Taiwan had only 33 radio stations before but since then started to accept applications for operating new stations. Now Chinese Taiwan has 35 new local stations with medium transmitting power, 67 new community radio stations and 67 underground stations with low transmitting power. A small place as Chinese Taiwan is, it boasts of altogether 187 radio stations! The number of Chinese Taiwan's radio stations has multiplied and is continually increasing. Chinese Taiwan's airwaves seem to be bursting, with so many radio stations.
In these two years. some new stations have successfully opened up new prospects while others are facing difficulties. What remains constant are the fierce competition and the over-changing marketing techniques with which every station tries to get a bite of the "advertising pie", to enlarge their airwaves scope and attract the huge listening audience, gaining an upper hand over their competitors. I am very honoured to be a witness of this Warring State era of Chinese Taiwan's radio broadcasting and I would like to share with you my personal observations in the following five sections:
1. The ever changing marketing techniques:
Market campaigning is the best way for radio stations to gain publicity. Coming out of the studio to communicate face to face with listeners will enhance the listeners' understanding of, and devotion to, a radio station.
Some stations cooperate with satellite TV, newspaper or even the Internet. Others make use of I.S.D.N. to connect ongoing programs with out of studio activities - a marketing technique of networking enterprises often used to beat their more powerful competitors.
As for publicity drives, apart from such basic ones like organizing listener fan clubs, pop star fan clubs co-sponsored with record companies, anti-drug campaigns co-organized with the local government, travel forums co-operated with travel agencies, radio stations also launch such publicity drives as "dancing with the DJs", distributing "station passports" to listeners so that they can take part in station-organized activities and get a discount when buying station-related products and all these have proved to be innovative marketive campaigns.
A latest report submitted by a rating survey company (Runli Company) indicates that the percentages of listeners in the north, middle and south of Chinese Taiwan who are impressed by the new stations are respectively 14.9%, 9.1% and 17.1%. This leads us to believe that the listeners attention is still on the stations which are good at market campaigning. New stations still have a lot to improve in their overall marketing packages. We can also see that although all stations stress the importance of publicity drives, problems remain as to how to organize creative, effective activities, how to gain publicity in other media like newspapesr and leave a deep impression on the general public, how to incorporate marketing campaigns with local affairs, public sentiments, images of the stations and content of the programs as well as how to make the marketing campaigns long-term projects.
A small place as Chinese Taiwan is, every county has its local flavour. Moreover, every age group has its unique likes and dislikes. Marketing campaigns will fail to be effective if the organizers are not alive to the special needs and favours of the listeners. The conclusion of a campaign is not the end of everything but the beginning of a new friendship. Fans' names should be entered into catalogues and what is on their minds should be kept track of, as reference for further activities. Only by doing this, can radio stations achieve the most in their publicity drives.
2. Playing the "celebrity card"
In the past, radio stations employed professionals to produce and present radio shows. Nowadays, many new radio stations operators prefer to play the "celebrity card" because they believe in the dynamic power of celebrities. As a result, TV presenters, radio news presenters, film stars, pop stars and even political figures all cross the border to host radio shows. To hear their voices, all the general public have to do is to turn on the radio. But there are other station operators who think otherwise. They believe radio is a medium whose success relies on long-term managing on the part of operators and continual listening on the part of listeners. Only well-trained professionals with humanistic ideas are qualified to produce and produce and present radio programs.
Other ways of playing the "celebrity cards" include packaging the radio presenters as "radio idols". Some stations organize their own cultural companies to publish collections of their hosts' presentation of radio programs in book form, which can be a way of developing market potentials.
3. How to cut the "advertising pie"?
Advertising is the blood vessel of the media. Due to the economic depression of Chinese Taiwan in recent years, the amount of advertisements did not increase together with the increase of radio stations. There is only one "advertising pie" there, how to cut it, or rather to share it needs pondering.
It goes without saying that radio advertisements have the advantage of rapid information transmission, easy listening and memory reinforcement. But to many clients, radio advertisements still lack the competitive edge. This can easily be seen in network advertising. Some clients admit that the advertising budget does not increase regardless of the increase of local stations.
As far as local advertising is concerned, stations with medium transmitting power converge upon the needs of the clients. Advertising campaigns on such stations are usually an unexpected success, especially when there are other publicity drives accompanying such campaigns. Some clients state that the cost of launching advertisements on local stations is relatively low. The same amount of money can let your advertisements appear in more channels in local stations that in network stations. It is really a bargain when you take economic benefits into consideration.
So network advertising has become saturated while local advertising is still a virgin land waiting to be ploughed. Take a record company for example, some management personnel believe that they will spend part of their advertising budget on those new stations as long as they are convinced that such stations have the right marketing edge and can organize activities to gain publicity for their singers. Many singers prefer to do interviews on local stations because they are under less pressure, and also because they like the easy approach of conversation and the many activities in which they can be a part.
So, to increase commercial opportunities, radio stations have to present to clients and customers a more clearly defined identity, apart from enhancing overall marketing power.
The latest listening rating chart indicates that the second and third positions are occupied by new local stations with their other network counterparts falling behind them. The new stations' strength is fully reinforced. As long as operators run their stations with great effort and the right approach, they do not have to worry that the advertising budget will "slip into other people's pockets".
4. The shocking "call in" topics:
Last year, in a new Taipei radio station, a host in her night show discussed such sexually explicit topics as "one night stand", "nasty peeping Tom", "homosexuality", "male prostitute", "what I did with my girlfriend (boyfriend) in a hotel room", "my Mom(Dad) had an affair" etc. which triggered a storm of discussion and full newspaper coverage. The host shot into fame overnight. This caused chain reactions. Across the island, programs explicitly discussing sex topics proliferated almost at an alarming rate. This phenomenon is something Chinese Taiwan broadcasters have never witnessed and it caused two sharply different reactions from the general public. Some social personalities and parents worried that social modes would be destroyed and children's soul contaminated. Others insisted that since the media had been constrained for so long people are bound to overreact when faced with the sudden liberalization of the media.
The News Bureaus by no means looked away. This June, the so-called "pornographic programs" were recorded and evaluated by a censorship group. Some programs were fined while others were banned. This again triggered a huge debate in the radio broadcasting world. After all, radio broadcasting is by the people and it should have social and moral consciousness. In the future the News Bureau have to decide on the degree of censorship while the media have to learn to discipline themselves.
5. The prospect of establishing format stations:
At the moment, the well-operated stations are all those local stations with medium transmitting power which have distinct features. The Voice of Taipei and Radio Gaoxiong are stations which create a modern atmosphere while Taipei Philharmonic Radio Station plays mainly classical music and strives to create a stressless listening ecology for its listeners. Experts agree that the only chance a local station with medium transmitting power has to succeed is to establish a format station.
In the past, there was little competition between radio stations due to the scarcity of channels. What everybody did was to contract out air time and get easy income. This practice of the agricultural era can no longer maintain competitiveness in the present radio broadcasting ecology. Radio stations ran in the traditional way can survive but not succeed because they can only get a share of the present market, but can not develop new resources. Obviously, the more channels there are, the more importance market division becomes. A format station is what the station operators should keep in mind when they define the features of radio station.
Concluding remarks:
Chinese Taiwan is not a big place, but the radio broadcasting airwaves are enormous. What happened in the two years after the ban on the media was lifted prove the truth of "survival of the fittest". The successfully operated stations have a monthly income of nearly twenty million new Chinese Taiwan dollars while those poorly operated ones have to sell their market shares at a low price. The reason why one succeeds while the other fails seems beyond explanation.
It is not a totally bad thing to have an airwaves traffic jam in this Warring State era of Chinese Taiwan's radio broadcasting, because competition brings progress. Also it will be a blessing for the listeners if they can hear exciting and innovating programs anytime they turn on the radio.