Tag Archives: Radio

Listenomics and why things are different this time

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I remember reading Bob Garfield’s The Chaos Scenario as an article in Advertising Age but I’m not sure I listened to the interview Mark Ramsey (Hear 2.0) posted to his website back in March. More on that in a moment. I don’t think the book is out yet but here’s a blurb from the web page:

“What happens when the old world order collapses and the Brave New World is unprepared to replace it…as an ad medium, as a news source, as a political soapbox, as a channel for new episodes of “Lost?” That is The Chaos Scenario.

In this fascinating, terrifying, instructive and often wildly entertaining book, Garfield is not content to chronicle the ruinous disintegration of traditional media and marketing. No, having established the problem, he travels to five continents for solutions.

What he discovers is the answer for all institutions who wish to survive – and thrive – in a digitally connected, Post-Media Age. He calls this the art and science of Listenomics.”

Mr. Garfield is Advertising Age editor-at-large and co-host of NPR’s On the Media. Looking forward to the book. If you spot it before I do, let me know.

“The Newspaper & Radio Bailout”

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I’m a little fuzzy on whether the following description of the newspaper business model should be attributed to Warren Buffett or Eric Rhoads (Radio Ink) but the point is the same:

“Write the news, cut down millions or trees for paper, build massive printing plants to print it overnight, have a distribution model that pays people to fold and bag hundreds of papers and burn thousands of gallons of gas to go house-to-house throwing papers out of their car windows so people can walk out into the cold or rain in order to read news that is 12-24 hours old.”

Well, if you put it that way… And I particularly liked the line: “Do they really believe the Internet generation can be convinced to sign up for home delivery?”

Uh, I’m gonna say no.

Ghost Studios

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When I got my first (and only) radio job in 1972, our FM station was mostly automated but the AM station was live from sign-on to sign-off. An "announcer" (or DJ if you prefer) was sitting at a control board, cuing up and "spinning" records, talking live into the microphone. It was the most fun I ever had and I'm grateful I didn't miss the opportunity.

This morning I'm wondering if there are still radio stations that operate this way. With 13,000+ stations, you'd think there would be at least one. Some hard-headed eccentric that just refuses to automate and cut staff.

If you know of such a station, leave us a comment.

Radio Rapture

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Jerry Del Colliano (Inside Music Media) on yesterday’s firing of 590 people by Clear Channel Communications and why radio “consolidation” turned into such a bad thing:

“I’m sorry that these virtual monopolies didn’t work, but the reason they failed is because their arrogant CEOs ran up the debt to buy stations at prices that were, frankly, never really worth what sellers pumped them up to. Now they can’t service that debt and even though they could probably survive an economic downturn (radio always used to in past recessions), the debt they ran up during the consolidation years is killing them.”

I think I might have run out of anything more to say about the challenges facing radio.

In my radio fantasy, everyone working in radio today is raptured up to heaven, leaving thousands of empty stations with the transmitters still on and records “chick” “chick” “chick’ing” on the still spinning-turntables. (Okay, I know they don’t use turntables anymore but it’s my fantasy.)

Listeners tip toe down deserted hallways, peeking into empty studios, wondering where Rush went.

Eventually, someone sits down at the microphone and figures out how to turn it on. What do they say? What would radio become? Would they hastily call a sales meeting and begin selling ads? Would they assemble a focus group and put together a tight playlist?

I have no idea. Maybe they’d just stick their ear buds in slip out quietly, locking the door behind them.

Radio needs to escape radio

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“Society needs the comfort of our favorite songs. We need the real-time connection to our community (however we define “community”). We need to know what to wear today and whether or not school is canceled.  We need to stay up to date or to revel in our past.  We need to be outraged and informed and soothed and amused.  We need to be told what to do in a crisis.  We need to know what’s on sale and where.  And we need these things wherever we are – at home, at work, in the car, and on our hip. As an industry, radio needs to recognize that its social currency is in what it provides, not in the manner it provides it.”

— Mark Ramsey

Hometown Radio

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A long-time radio pal shared this item from AllAccess:

DELMARVA BROADCASTING adds an FM partner for Talk WICO-A/ SALISBURY- OCEAN CITY, MD, flipping WXMD (MAX FM)/POCOMOKE CITY, MD to Talk as WICO-FM and installing separate programming from the AM side. The WICO-FM calls move from 97.5, which changes to WKTT, but retains its Country format and CAT COUNTRY slogan.

After a 5-6a simulcast of “AMERICA IN THE MORNING,” the FM carries syndicated QUINN AND ROSE, PREMIERE’s GLENN BECK and RUSH LIMBAUGH, TALK RADIO NETWORK’s JERRY DOYLE, MICHAEL SAVAGE, and RUSTY HUMPHRIES, and then simulcasts WESTWOOD ONE’s JIM BOHANNON and PREMIERE’s “COAST TO COAST AM” with GEORGE NOORY. Weekends feature music programming.

The AM side is carrying DIAL GLOBAL’s MICHAEL SMERCONISH, TRN’s LAURA INGRAHAM, DIAL GLOBAL’s NEAL BOORTZ, syndicated DAVE RAMSEY, DIAL GLOBAL’s CLARK HOWARD and TRN’s MICHAEL SAVAGE. Weekends include “best ofs” from LIMBAUGH, HOWARD and BOORTZ along with the syndicated KIM KOMANDO, CIGAR DAVE, TAMMY BRUCE, and CAR AND DRIVER shows.

My pal estimates that four major network syndicators provide 95% of programming on 80% of all talk stations in the country. Just a guess, he says, but not far off.

Phone call to the 14th century

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If you had 30 seconds to give advice to someone living in the 14th century, what you tell them? Great segment from recent This American Life.

“Sketch comedy troupe Kasper Hauser performs a radio game show, where a race car driver, a guy fluent in middle English, and a teacher take turns cramming all the 21st century wisdom they can into a 30 second phone call to the 14th century.”

It’s a funny bit but what could you tell them that they would believe? If you received a phone call from 500 years in the future, would you believe it? Could you buy that human and machine intelligence had merged, for example. Could you even believe it was possible to make a call back in time?

I, for one, am reassured that we are incapable of imagining the future.

Are radio commercials spam?

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A little preface here: Most of the food I ever put in my mouth was paid for –directly or indirectly– by radio commercials. My father was a radio guy and for many years I wrote and produced radio “spots.” Lots and lots of them. Some were good, some were just the right length, if you know what I mean.

So when Seth Godin –one of the keynote speakers at the recent Country Radio Seminar in Nashville– refers to radio commercials as “spam,” it’s a problem for me. I’m a regular reader of Mr. Godin’s blog and have purchased and read a number of his books. I think he understands marketing in the 21st century as well as anyone.

So what’s spam and what’s not?

When you get your hands on my email address and send me an unsolicited email trying to sell me something (or get me to give you money, or visit your porn site, etc) …without my permission, we call that spam. You invaded my inbox without my permission.

When I turn on my local radio station, I know there will be commercials. They pay for the music/news/weather programs for which I tuned in. I’m giving tacit permission for the the station to try to sell me something on behalf of their advertisers. Value for value. That doesn’t sound like spam to me.

And if every commercial I heard was talking about something I cared about, something of interest… I’d probably pay more attention and the commercials would be worth more to the advertiser.

This is how cable TV programs work. If I’m watching HGTV (House & Garden), there’s a pretty good chance the commercials will at least marginally relevant.

I’m sure a lot of radios stations attempt to do this when and where they can. But it’s tough. They’re trying to reach the largest audience they can and will sell a spot to damn near anyone (preachers and politicians pay in advance).

Given the choice, most of us will choose NOT to listen to a poorly produced or irrelevant message. Commercial or otherwise.

So are are radio spots spam or not?

Only the listener can answer that. And he or she does, every time they punch the button to another station. And keeps punching it until they find a song or talk show they like (at least more than the commercial). Or pull out the iPod.

Seth talks “Tribes” at radio seminar

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J. T. Gerlt (Program Director at KTKS, Lake of the Ozarks) recently attended the annual Country Radio Seminar in Nashville, where Seth Godin was one of the keynote speakers. From Country Aircheck:

“Best-selling author, entrepreneur and self-proclaimed “agent of change” Seth Godin delivered one of the best received keynotes in seminar history. Beginning with the premise that “ideas that spread, win,” Godin detailed the changing realities for mass media. “It isn’t ‘mass’ anymore,” he warned. And he laid out a new approach. “Music isn’t in trouble,” he said. “The music business is. The good news is, there’s a huge number of opportunities.” Those can only be met, however, by those willing to commit to innovation. “Timid trapeze artists are dead trapeze artists,” he joked.

The business model, Godin explained, is shifting to the point where the radio business will look a lot more like the magazine business. Fragmentation of mass media, in Godin’s view, means building strong and self-perpetuating communities he calls tribes. “More isn’t the point,” he said. “Tighter is the point.” The “television industrial complex” is being replaced by the “fashion/permission complex.” He suggested that stations will know they’re reaching their tribe with the crucial “anticipated, personal and relevant” messages when they get complaints from listeners when it isn’t sent out. Getting there means a break from the pattern of demanding success before making a full commitment.”

“Demanding success before making a full commitment.” We’re not going to try something new (risky) unless we’re sure we can make a lot of money doing it. Man, that sounds familiar.