Tag Archives: Radio

New tech continues to gnaw at radio use

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That’s just one of the findings in the latest State of the News Media annual report from the Pew Project for Excellence in Journalism

“Fully 236 million Americans listened to at least some radio in an average week in the fall of 2009, a number that has been basically static for the past five years, and news/talk/ information remains among the most popular formats. NPR’s audience in 2009 rose slightly, up 0.1%, from 2008. But new technology is encroaching on the amount of traditional radio use. More than 4 –in 10 Americans now say they listen to less terrestrial radio due to iPod/MP3 use, and nearly 1in 3 now say they listen to online radio.”

Traditional broadcast radio experienced an 18% drop in ad revenue in 2009 compared to 2008. Internet and mobile radio revenues are growing (a projected 9.4%), but they do little to alleviate the pressure – counting for less than one fortieth of total. In satellite radio, SiriusXM in 2009 increased its revenue 3.7%, compared with a year earlier, to 2.5 billion compared to 2008. The company, however, both before and after the merger, has continued to report net losses in each of the last three years. In 2009 SiriusXM posted a net loss of $441 million.

The number of stations identified by Arbitron as news/talk/information rose in 2009 to 1,583, up from 1,533 in 2008. This category is broadly defined and includes a large amount of talk programming. But all-news stations make up a much smaller category. In 2009, there were just 27 commerical stations around the country that listed themselves as all news, down from 31 the year before. And even here the label is self-defined and may include talk or other less news-oriented programs. In commercial radio, local all-news stations now tend to be limited to only the largest markets.

Why radio news guys don’t do social

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Papper: Radio News Does not Make Use of Social Media from Poynter Institute on Vimeo.

From Mashable: “Although Facebook and Twitter are popular with TV stations, only 27% of radio newsrooms use Twitter and 1% have a Facebook page. The survey’s conductor, Robert Papper of Hofstra University, said the contrast in usage is due to staff size. “If you had a staff of three or more, you were involved in a number of social networking things. If you did not hit that magic number you were not involved.” He explains why radio stations do not participate more in social media in the video clip above.”

Steve Safran on RTDNA@NAB 2010

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“The future of broadcasting” is the title or subtitle or subtext of nearly every panel here. But I’m not seeing a lot of the future. I’m seeing and hearing people who want to keep a hold onto the past. They want to do it in some futuristic ways, sure, but using a template that has passed its expiration date.”

“…as the RTDNA winds down its relationship with NAB, I’m a little sad. When I first started coming to this convention in the early 2000s, the discussions were about “the future.” The discussions are still about “the future” except it’s all Back to the Future. 3D. Protecting journalism from the hoards of camera-toting iPhoners. Broadcasting television in a slightly different way. Fundamentally, the discussion may be about the future, but it’s not nearly futuristic enough.” — Full post here.

How Adam Carolla Became a Podcast Superstar

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This article at Fast Company is more about Adam Corolla and podcasting than radio but this bit sort of jumps out at you:

“Radio has a lot of rules that are set up to protect the foibles and weaknesses of the host.” He names names: “Mark and Brian, Opie and Anthony are, like all radio guys, comedically second tier. I’m not putting these guys down; I’m in that group.” But you’re not going to find a Jon Stewart, a Stephen Colbert, or even a Jimmy Kimmel telling anybody the time during your morning commute. The rules enforce a sameness that eliminates any chance of something original happening. “Radio’s about guys with subpar intellects killing four goddamn hours…

As a former radio guy, I also enjoyed this:

“I’d rather have 10 smart people than a billion retards listening to me.”

I thought we couldn’t say retard.

I enjoyed Carolla when he and Jimmy Kimmel hosted The Man Show. (I think that was what it was called) I’ll sample his podcast and report back.

What does “Being Local” mean, anyway?

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“I think the term “local” dates to a time when communities could only be served by media which originated within them – the local newspaper, TV, or radio. Today, communities continue to have local pride, interest, and concern, but their means of expressing and sharing in those things are no longer limited to the media which so happen to be around the corner.”

“There is no longer any such thing as “local” as we traditionally use the term. The definition of “local” is both expanding (interests are broader than geographies) and shrinking (I am the ultimate “local”) at the same time.”

“If the Internet makes the world “local,” then what’s is your (radio) advantage?”

— Mark Ramsey at Hear 2.0

The Tower of Power

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This week I ran into a long-time broadcaster I called on back in my affiliate relations days. We chatted for a few minutes and the subject of towers came up (I have no idea). He mentioned that he had tried to sell his AM tower but got no takers. Then he tried to give it away. Nope. Now he’s paying someone to take it down and haul it off. As far as I know, that is nothing unusual. But it struck me as somehow… foreboding?

A radio station tower is …iconic. Usually the tallest structure in small towns throughout America. You didn’t need much of a studio but you had to have that transmitter and a tower. The bigger the better.

Every radio guy I know has at least one tower story.

Like the DJ who pulled his UHaul truck into the parking lot of the station where he was to start working the next day. In the downpour, he didn’t realize he’d snagged the truck’s trailer hitch on a guy wire and pulled the tower down. And he didn’t get fired.

Or a story about the insane guys who did tower maintenance, climbing four or five-hundred feet to paint or change a bulb.

[Momentary aside: If someone drops a wrench from 400 feet above you, is it better to remain still or to run? Discuss]

What once took studios filled with control boards and tape decks and cart machines… can now be done with a couple of laptops.

The equation once was:

Good programming (content) + big transmitter + big tower + good frequency = big audience

Now it’s:

Good programming (content) + big transmitter + big tower + good frequency = big audience

I’m sorry I never interviewed one of those tower guys.

Mel Karmazin interview: “Fucking with the magic”

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Mel Karmazin is the CEO of Sirius Satellite Radio. Before that he was head of CBS Radio. For most of his career he has been known as a “Wall Street darling” for his ability to drive up the price of his various companies’ stock. Don Imus frequently referred to him as the Zen Master. Let’s just say he knows a lot about radio and advertising. I was struck by his description of advertising and frank assessment that Google was “fucking with the magic.”

“I loved the model that I had then. At that point I had… I was the CEO of  CBS and I had a model where you buy a commercial… if you’re an advertiser you buy a commercial in the Super Bowl and, at that time, you paid two-and-a-half million dollars for a spot and had no idea if it worked. I mean, you had no idea if it sold product… did any good… I loved that model! That was a great model! And why …if I can get away with that model… if I’m in the business where I can sell advertising that way, why wouldn’t I want to do it?

No return on investment. And you know how everybody looks for return on investment? We had a a business model that didn’t worry about return on investment and then here comes Google. They screwed it up. They went to all these advertisers and said, we’ll let you know exactly what it is.”

Oooh. Reminds me of the old saw, “I know that only half of my advertising works, I just don’t know which half.” The full interview is worth a watch and confirmed my feeling that a real sea change (in advertising) is taking place.

AP Mobile

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During my “on air” days (the ‘70s and early ‘80s), the AP teletype was our station’s connection to the world. During the late 80’s and early 90’s, I spent a good bit of time trying to create a low-cost alternative (mostly for radio stations) to the AP’s wire service. This morning I downloaded AP Mobile to my iPhone.

I have a feeling it will become my default app for news. Text, photos, video… it’s all there. I can flag topics of interest and AP Mobile will “push” those to me. And if I see a story and want to “report” it to AP, the app makes it easy.

Associated Press used to be pretty protective of it’s stories. Perhaps they still are, I would have no way of knowing. The old radio guy in me can’t help thinking of this is a tiny version of the old teletype. And my next thought is, “How could the AP police all of the broadcasters and keep them from using AP stories without paying for it?”

The answer is, I’m afraid, they don’t care. Would I rather have the full-featured, on-demand experience offered by AP Mobile… or hear my local “announcer” read it to me?

“Radio Days: the celluloid afterlife of real radio”

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“In the movies, radio is a mythic force: local, rebellious, life-changing. This hardly describes the reality at commercial radio stations today, but it does tell us something about how radio was—and about how we want it to be.

The Clear Channel consolidations of the 1990s and the streaming revolutions of the last decade have given us change and innovation, but they haven’t forged the kind of cultural radio that thrilled and united 20th-century audiences. Sure, we’ve got talkers who excel at dividing us. And we’ve got little machines that let us become our own DJs. But we haven’t replicated the “real people” kind of radio that speaks and sings to us better than we can speak and sing to ourselves. Our new broadband-powered landscape hasn’t empowered that level of talent—yet. But don’t worry. It will. Until then, see you at the movies.

I stumbled across this piece by Matthew Lasar on ars technica. It brought back many fond memories from my days at KBOA (’70s). We said pretty much anything within reason and the same went for the music we played (on turn-tables). And I loved movies about DJ’s and radio stations. I’ll be forever grateful I didn’t miss “real radio.”