by Gill Moodie (@GrubstreetSA) Power FM is set to shake up the already contested radio market in Gauteng not only in the battle for listeners but also in its approach to its target market.
Power FM – which is owned by a consortium led by Given Mkhari’s MSG Afrika Investment Holdings – was a successful FM applicant amid a group that also saw Smile 90.4fm, which is backed by SA’s pre-eminent film producer Anant Singh, launch in Cape Town in March this year.
You might have noticed that amid the Power FM launch build-up that its team has been talking a lot about inclusivity and developing the nation – that the new radio station is about getting South Africans to work together to improve our lot.
This is a significant and interesting departure from the usual script of pushing a specific target market – from move from demographics to psychographics – and we’ve also seen this in The New Age and in the magazine industry.
I put this – and other questions – to Power FM station manager Ferdinand Mabalane recently:
Grubstreet: It seems that the core brand values of the station are to be inclusive – to be a station for ALL Jo’burgers – and 
nation-building, to be proudly helping to connect South Africans to develop our community. Am I right about this?
Mabalane: Spot on. These are nation-builders who care a lot about this country and they are always finding ways to connect with those like them. They are confident enough to engage in any constructive conversation, offer advice and empathetic. They are in touch with their emotions and thoughts. These people have existed as a result of the 1994 outcome but nobody ever talks about them, but they exist and they want this country to succeed. They don’t find any voice for themselves in the current plethora of stations so this POWER gives them hope as it resonates with them and where they’re at. So this is the station that carries that last hope for them and we are determined to prove them right, providing them with the platform through which they can share their experiences, thoughts, fears and aspirations without fear of being judged or ridiculed, find one another so that together they can try change the course of history in a positive and fulfilling way.
Grubstreet:Who do you see as the quintessential Power FM listener (e.g., the Daily Sun sees the man in the blue overalls as their quintessential reader)?
Mabalane: The POWER listener is curious, alert and has opinion about where this country is going. He/she influences decision in their different areas of their involvement. They are smart but not arrogant. They are in touch with their history and its people and would do anything to get their point of view across. These are typically your today’s South Africans, who harbour no anger about what happened but are curious and informed enough to know what is missing in South Africa, Africa and the world, to make it a better place. They define themselves not by demographic profile but psychographic characteristics that make them comfortable with who they see themselves as they are pro-South African, progressive and informed.
Grubstreet: Which stations do you see as your chief competitors?
Mabalane: Frankly, I see 702 as the only station we will be competing with formatically as the only commercial talk station in Gauteng. As for competition for audience it has to be Kaya and Metro, but please note that POWER intends shaking the tree to its roots for all broadcasters, forcing their audiences to take notice as we plan to usher in compelling listener-centric programming and approach to radio.
Will the media planners and advertisers buy this, we wonder, who seek to reach specific target markets defined in terms of age, income, gender and race?
Is this a kooky approach doomed to commercial failure or is it path-finding? Can you define a target market by a turn of mind and outlook on life?
Well, the answer is that you can if you can bring the advertisers along with you. And this is already happening.
The New Age newspaper, for instance, defines itself in its rate card as: “…where the news, like life, is not black and white, but full colour. This is a newspaper that is proud to be South African. A newspaper that believes in the potential and opportunity of our beautiful country. A newspaper for all South Africans – “One Paper. One Country”.”
It’s debatable if this approach is working for The New Age, which launched in 2010, as we don’t have ABC-audited circulation figures for the paper and its pages seem dominated by government advertising. This doesn’t mean it’s not commercially successful – just that we are unsure of how to compare it with its competitors.
However, I’ve also encountered this approach with Good Housekeeping magazine – which is published in this country by Associated Media – and it’s worked well for them. After launching in November 2011, the magazine reached 40 000 single-copy sales and 65 000 total circulation within a year – which it has sustained – and it’s packed with advertising.
To get an insight into how the magazine defines its readers psychographically, here is editor Sally Emery’s response when I asked her about the target age group at the launch:
We’re not actually pinning Good Housekeeping on to a specific age. What we’re marketing it more as – and what we’re going to be using ourselves in generating content – is a woman who’s reached a certain stage of her life and reached a comfort point: if she’s just moved out of home and this is her first apartment or if she’s recently moved in with her boyfriend or recently married with kids – or someone like myself, who’s in her 40s and feeling quite settled in life and content and not seeking anything in particular… Or it could be a woman whose children have just gone off to university and she and her husband are downsizing or a woman in her 60s and she’s moving into a retirement village. It could be anyone who is seeing their home as their core.
Isn’t that an interesting and textured way to think of your audience?
I think South Africa is ready for this more sophisticated approach that also demands that editors and station managers interrogate their brand values more rigorously.
If you’re going to target someone with a particular world view then you have to filter your content constantly through the brand values that will really speak to them.
The magazine industry is very successful at this because its tends to be more niche and, therefore, more focused. Let’s see how Power FM will do as it goes after a broader market.
As for Power FM’s main rival – Talk Radio 702 – we can certainly expect it to lift its game as Power FM ventures into the market.
Terry Volkwyn, the CEO of broadcasting at Primedia (which owns 702), told Grubstreet recently that the station lost about 10 staff members “at different levels and expertise” to Power FM. (The most high-profile being Eusebius McKaiser.)
She said that Smile 90.4fm had not had a discernable impact on 702’s sister station in Cape Town, Cape Talk 567.
“We do not underestimate any of our competitors,” Volkwyn said, “and we look forward to any challenge that Power FM would mount.”
Grubstreet: What do you see as the biggest challenge of the first year of Power FM?
Ferdinand Mabalane: Certainly dispelling most of the pictures being painted about it – convincing people that as a station, POWER is able to rise above superficial stuff and meet its obligations without fear or favour.
It will also have to convince people that it is here for the long haul despite the many challenges it is likely to encounter on its journey to fulfil the wishes of those who believed in it since Day1.
The station will have to prove to be decisive enough not to be cowed into submission by those who may not really agree with the voices using it as their sole platform and finally, to have these believe that it is a station to laugh and cry with them, challenge and push for change like no other radio has ever done before on behalf of those without a voice – but join hands when goodness is achieved.
– SA’s leading media commentator, Gill Moodie, offers intelligence on media – old and new. Reprinted from her site Grubstreet.
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