In today’s world, niche music stations are a powerful solution to endless listening choices. Gary Stein, Director of Audio at Bauer Media Audio, Gill Hind, COO of Enders Analysis and Nik Goodman from Bounce held a talk exploring different formats, strategy and genres.
Nik Goodman talked about the importance of niche and hyper focused formats. How do you take a niche concept and turn it into a thriving commercial one?
Gill Hind introduced attendees to the “explosion of choice”, talking about broadcasters that are both mass and niche on their own platforms. She gave the example of Netflix, the most successful streaming platform at the moment. Netflix thinks about content as many niches – they use concepts like “mood tags” to form “taste clusters” for viewers. She says: “consumers expect both broad and niche content”, and stations need to adapt.
Gary Stein, coming from the UK talked about serving niche audiences for radio. He thinks that “radio can curate better than any algorithm can”. Gary gave examples like decade-dedicated-stations (80s, 90s, etc.), country-focused-stations or the very niche Pop-Up “Bridget-Jones-Radio”.
How niche can you go? Gill says, you need a whole infrastructure around you to really lean into a niche group. It’s a difficult and expensive thing to do, but it pays off to find a gap in the market.
Passionate hosts and well curated, niche audio content make the perfect mix for a happy and engaging audience.
image © Hedda Axelsson
