Radio Nova Helps Ad Agencies Learn the Radio Business

When Finland's Radio Nova realized that advertising agencies had a lot of new people who were working with radio advertising but had little or no experience of radio, the radio station decided to do something to help. The station, which is owned by Bonnier and has offices adjacent to MTV3 in Helsinki, started up a special program in 2009 aimed at changing this. "We wanted these very important people to get a deeper feel of Radio Nova and its people by spending a morning with them," says Arja Suominen, who runs the program at Radio Nova.

What started out as a simple plan to get new advertising agency account managers up to speed on radio campaign planning, especially if they had customers who had radio as part of their advertising mix, has become a carefully planned program called Nova College. "There are three levels - Nova College I for beginners and Nova College II for those who already have some experience on radio campaign planning. These two courses are related to campaign planning whereas the focus of Nova College III is on radio work itself," says Suominen.

So far about 30 participants have gone through the one-day Nova College program - including several who have gone through all three levels of the course. The newest level, Nova College III, was first held in January 2010 with two participants - one from Happy Mindshare and the other from Pool Media International, both in Helsinki.

"The day starts very early, at 6 o'clock in the morning at the same time when the morning show starts," says Suominen. "We want them to see how the program starts and what happens in the studio first thing in the morning. First they get to know the morning show team and the producer and chat with them for a little while. After that they do different kinds of tasks that team gives them. For example the first visitor had to come up with some questions for a quiz we have every morning. The second visitor had to answer the studio's telephone."

Radio Nova has a very broad organization compared to its competitors, Suominen points out. "That is why we want the participant to see as many functions as possible. So, they get to know our sound producers and hear some examples of what they do and how carefully every jingle is chosen. Because music is a very important reason why people choose the radio station they listen to, participants also spend a while in our music department. They'll hear how the songs are chosen and what kinds of research we use to determine our selection of music. The goal for all this is to highlight the fact that everything we do here in Radio Nova is based on careful studies and not on subjective opinion. The visitors also attend the weekly meeting with everybody who works with the programs."

So far, the response to Nova College has been great, Suominen says. And Nova College III has gotten the same reviews that the previous courses have gotten. "The feedback has been very good and the two participants were very satisfied with the day's content," she says. "They have been very excited and even wanted to change their jobs and come to work for Radio Nova."