Track record

Numbers before adjectives.

Three engagements, the recommendations they led to, and what operators said when the work landed.

“He’s the only adviser I’ve hired twice for the same question. The first time he told me no. The second time he told me when to move.”
CEO, European audio group · 400+ stations

Case 01 · Leadership positioning

Leading news-TV network.

Speed scored 8/10. Trust scored 5/10. The gap was the strategy.

Three 24/7 news channels in the same market, rated interchangeable by viewers. Three consulting firms had already pitched set design, tone, and brand refresh. The CEO wanted the strategic question answered first: what would “uncontested leader” actually require, and what would viewers notice?

What I did. A 300-viewer panel split evenly across the three rival channels, stratified by daypart, background, and consumption mode. Two sessions with the CEO and editorial leadership; one briefing with the chair; one action plan with named owners.

The recommendation. Keep the speed lane — it’s a moat. Build a visible Method layer (verification codes, timestamped corrections, sourced chyrons) and a Service layer (regional field reporting, concrete life-and-wallet coverage). Pull one stacked-debate hour; replace with dense 5–15 min explainers.

Decision study, 3 weeks. Panel simulation on MediaDatak; the strategy work — framing, team sessions, recommendation, action plan — was mine alone.

300viewers, balanced across 3 channels

3 layersSpeed · Method · Service

18 dayskickoff to signed action plan

“Short memo. Every line mattered. The three moves he named became our roadmap.”
CEO, European news-TV network

Case 02 · Format discipline

Urban-music radio.

Most P1 loyalists also had the rival as their #2.

A youth urban-music station was leaking tune-out to a slightly older, more “street” rival. The CEO’s instinct was to tilt the playlist toward the rival’s sound. The data said the opposite: the retention problem wasn’t format identity — it was flow. Over-rotation, ad stacking, long talk breaks.

What I did. A 400-listener panel balanced between P1 loyalists and P2 dual-listeners — isolating what would lift loyalty vs pull switchers. One working session with programming to rebuild rotation depth, ad-pod density, and talk-break discipline.

The recommendation. Hold. The churn isn’t a music problem — it’s rotation depth, ad-pod density, and talk breaks at the repetition wall. Rebuild the clock; add a “trending now” micro-slot and a Spotify mirror in the app. The station’s distinct sonic territory is the asset. An operational fix, not a musical one.

Decision study → 90-day program. The study locked the format discipline; the program ran three rotation and ad-load experiments. Panel simulation on MusicDatak; the strategy and action plan were mine.

400listeners, P1 · P2 balanced

1 clockrewritten with the programming team

0playlist tilt toward the rival

“Samuel made the case for not copying the competitor. That was the entire value.”
CEO, urban-music station in Europe

Case 03 · Talent diagnosis

CHR morning show, 20-year flagship.

Share decline without a smoking gun is the most dangerous kind.

A flagship CHR morning-show personality — 20 years at the top of his market — was losing share survey after survey. Internal debate had split into “refresh him”, “replace him”, and “wait it out”: three irreversible answers to a question no one had asked the audience.

What I did. 500 morning-daypart listener personas across P1, P2, and lapsed-P1 segments. 57 questions on memory, energy, music-vs-talk, co-host chemistry, segment recall, irritants, lean-in vs tune-out.

The recommendation. None of the above — not yet. The drift was in the format around him, not the talent. Tighten the co-host configuration, reposition the two highest-friction segments, recalibrate music-vs-talk in the 7:00–8:30 window — and re-measure across the next two survey waves before doing anything irreversible.

Decision study → 90-day program, with a 90-day retention dashboard tied to the next two survey waves. Panel simulation on MusicDatak; the strategy and action plan were mine.

500personas, P1 · P2 · lapsed-P1

57 questionsmemory · energy · chemistry · irritants

90 daysretention dashboard, two survey waves

“We were one survey away from doing something irreversible to a 20-year asset. The work told us what was actually drifting — and what to leave alone.”
CEO & Group PD, CHR network, Europe

What’s in the memo

Each study ends in a short memo. Here is the first question each of the three boards asked — and where the memo had already answered it.

“Will this cost us the politics viewer?”Case 01. Answered on page 5, panel split by consumption mode.
“What do I tell the programming lead who’s been pushing for the tilt for six months?”Case 02. Answered on page 7, with the P1/P2 delta by music bloc.
“What does it cost us if we’re wrong about the talent?”Case 03. Answered on page 8, with the lapsed-P1 lean-in moments.

More situations

Five more decisions on the desk.

Revenue plateau — luxury FM station in Europe.400 buyer personas mapped across agencies, luxury CMOs, hospitality, banks. Repackaged the rate card around event bundles, audited affluent reach, shipped a QR/VIP attribution kit. Decision study → 90-day program.
Regulatory scrutiny — public-service broadcaster, bilingual Northern Europe.300+ representative respondents with demographic and linguistic quotas. Three-workstream plan: ad-load reform plus paid ad-lite tier, practical-talk slate plus second-language stream, podcast packaging overhaul. Decision study → advisory retainer.
Brand or editorial bet — public-service radio on YouTube.300 loyal audio-first viewers simulated. 7-point plan: chapters, subtitles, sourced descriptions, 10–15 min condensed cuts, use-case playlists, weekly native series, Shorts vs long-form guardrails. Decision study.
Monetization pivot — B2B media brand.400-profile panel across tech, automotive, healthcare, e-commerce, luxury, finance, streaming, consumer goods, pharma. Convergent objection taxonomy; pitch revised with objections pre-answered, not discovered in the first ten sales calls. Decision study.
Sensory decisions — luxury hospitality pre-opening.300 UHNW profiles across 10 archetypes. Strong convergence on restrained instrumental jazz, chamber music, tasteful downtempo. Sonic charter: volume curves, genre guardrails, culturally-specific playlists. Built on MusicDatak.

Speaking & press

Recurring speaker at Radiodays Europe — Europe’s largest radio and audio conference — and Radiodays Asia, on audience research, music programming, and AI applied to broadcast. For speaking invitations, panels, or trade-press interviews, use the fit-call slot below — bring the angle, the audience, and the date. On-site in Europe with notice; remote anywhere.

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