by Tom Taylor | tom@in3media.com | 609.883.3321
Wednesday, May 19th, 2010
“A steady shift to digital”
 Ad budgets keep moving online, especially for newer companies.
BIA/Kelsey’s Tom Buono opened up yesterday’s Day 2 of the Digital Strategies conference here at the Jersey City Hyatt Regency with sobering numbers about old media and new media. (Later in the day, Triton’s Neal Schore would say that to him – “it’s all media.”) Buono says “certain radio groups are starting to get it” about having effective digital strategies. And if there’s one thing that sets this year’s BIA/Kelsey confab apart from other recent gatherings, it’s the sense that, as FlyCast’s David Kennedy put it, it’s time to “stop talking about this, and just start doing it.” You suspect that by the time the combined RAB/NAB “Radio Show” convenes in Washington this Fall, more people will be “getting it” – or feeling left out. A number of TRI readers emailed yesterday to say “thanks for taking me there” and “you made me feel I was there” for the BIA/Kelsey event. Let’s hit some of Tuesday's high spots -
  Fisher CEO Colleen Brown says it’s “time to tear down existing walls” inside the station – and even some walls with competitors.
Brown’s not necessarily ready to email her weekly sales figures to Fisher’s rivals in Seattle. But she used her morning keynote to push for the kind of knowledge- and methods-sharing that’s common in some other industries (automakers talk to each other more than you’d think). To Brown, collaboration is a matter of survival in a world where old media had better get a handle on new media, very fast. Also - Colleen relates how Fisher's 142 hyper-local neighbor/town-level websites "provide the super-service that the TV station [KOMO] could not." Example - after four cops were gunned down in Lakewood, Fisher quickly added a site for Lakewood. People are paying attention – “We’ve had people admit to crimes on these sites." As for the “walls” inside stations – she's in favor of tearing down the "silos" of radio and TV and thinking about their being multimedia companies instead. Finally, Brown says "the Internet world needs to recognize the staying power of traditional broadcast television” and presumably radio. While broadcasters need to get past unhelpful attitudes like “not invented here” and “we’ve got it covered.”
 Wall Street’s “last analyst standing” Marci Ryvicker says national business and auto spending are driving the ad recovery.
Ryvicker recalls that she was supposed to address last year’s BIA conference but couldn't make it at the last second. (I remember that her Powerpoint slides did make it, and were delivered by BIA’s Dr. Mark Fratrik.) She says, basically, “you would’ve hated” her insights last year, in the midst of a shocking ad recession. Things are better now, though Ryvicker’s still concerned about the twin drags of unemployment and housing (being propped up by tax incentives and artificially cheap mortgage rates). As for radio specifically – it’s still trying to push too many avails into the marketplace, and Marci pleads with broadcasters to correct the supply-demand imbalance that depresses rates. That item on her list of “challenges” for radio is the only one that’s in all-caps. Her other concerns – “high debt + no M&A = no equity value.” The increasing fragmentation of consumers and advertisers. The specter of a performance royalty imposed by Congress. And new competition (investors are now quizzing her about Wi-Fi). There are other analysts covering radio, but of the old-line firms that once backed extensive research operations and supported analysts, Wells Fargo is just about it. Ryvicker says Wells still believes in the business – and reveals that she’s about to take Cumulus Media CEO Lew Dickey out for a bit of a road trip, including a visit to institutional investors in Boston.
 Triton CEO Neal Schore says “2009 was a year to learn lessons from…but there is amnesia.”
Schore says “It’s a huge mistake not to take all the lessons learned from 2009 and apply them.” To him, “the winners [of] next year are already spending money to reinvest in their people and products, and thinking about 2011 instead of just the next quarter.” He fears that “some people are so influenced by the stock market price” that they won’t sit down with their backers and educate them. Instead of doing the usual convention speech from the podium, Schore opted for an “executive interview” with BIA/Kelsey’s Rick Ducey, and the format moved the session through a long list of topics. Ducey observes that Triton has many moving pieces (Dial Global syndication and services, Triton Digital, including the Ando Media online measurement services). He asks if Schore has now assembled all the pieces he needs or wants? Maybe not. Schore drops a hint about another acquisition to be announced in two to three weeks. Schore-as-CEO predicts a “significant move” in the M&A market in the next 18 months. And he predicts “there will be a lot of private equity interest” – just as Oaktree Capital and Black Canyon have backed Triton. He says “there are other similar groups that want to be in media.” Here’s one of Rick Ducey’s most provocative questions – What’s the listener experience going to be like in five years?
 “It’s gonna be The Jetsons.”
Triton CEO Neal Schore says “we’re not flying spaceships” yet, but the ways in which consumers will want their “media” will look pretty futuristic – like the classic Jetsons cartoon series. Schore predicts “it’s going to be a lot about IP delivery." That doesn’t minimize the local broadcast brand which "remains a critical component of the user experience.” But – “the user-experience device is different.” Meaning that “radio” isn’t just coming from a box on the table. Neal says kids today “don’t even talk to each other any more” because of texting, etc. Clearly their “form of communication is going to be different.” There’s a role for radio to play but it needs to stay on its toes.
How big can digital revenue get, for radio?
Gap West’s Erik Hellum kept asking that question from the floor at BIA/Kelsey, after hearing RAB leader Jeff Haley’s seminar-opening prediction of digital comprising 4.7% of total revenue in a couple of years. Yesterday, somebody else got the chance to ask Jeff that question. Haley says the 4.7% estimate comes from the three or four available sources for revenue estimation – and indicates he can imagine it going higher. Hellum certainly can. In an eye-opening afternoon panel on “reinventing radio”, he says the Gap West stations did an average of 6% of their revenue from digital in 2009 and should hit 8% this year. Neal Schore, whose Triton Digital Big-Box of Digital Tricks is the source of many of Gap’s tools, said earlier in the day that “if you listen to us, we can get you to 10%.” Hellum, Tom Davis of Virginia’s Tide Media and Jeff Haley made the “reinventing radio” panel sound like 10% is just a starting point – if you’re creative and tenaciously local. Let’s start with Hellum –
 “Did we want to be just a leading radio company with strong stations. Or a dominant local media company?”
Erik Hellum of Gap West bought into the top corporate plan to marry radio and digital andmake sweet (financial) music together, and here’s how it works. The goal is to “win the traditional radio game, extend our radio brand online and use the reach of our stations to build portals/traffic.” Those portals are proprietary to Gap – the community portal named “TheDailyYou” and the automotive-themed “SaveOnTheLot.com.” TheDailyYou “allows us to be a flanker to the daily newspaper” with entertainment and “what to do around town” kinds of information. Hellum says “we think we can be a Pepsi to the local newspaper’s Coke.” He says they’re already seeing 50% margins on one local site that’s just eight months old. And tackling radio’s largest advertiser category, SaveOnTheLot.com is pitched to local car dealers, who can adapt to it in a number of ways. Hellum says it takes a new structure to support the portals and digital, generally – “nearly 10% of staffing is now digitally dedicated”, including both at corporate and local-market. They’re re-thinking compensation schemes, bonusing the PDs on hitting database goals, and offering special digital commission rates for AE’s. “Database” is a word that looms large at Gap West. Hellum quotes creative thinker Seth Godin - “Your database should be at the center of your strategy.” Fellow panel member Jeff Haley of the RAB was drinking it all in, appreciatively. So was the third panelist, Tom Davis of Davis Media/Tide Radio. And he has some electrifying stuff to report –
  “It took us two years to beat a 175-year-old newspaper” with a new online paper.
Tom Davis and his two stations are all about Williamsburg-Yorktown, VA – and so is “WYDaily.com”, staffed by savvy local journalists. (“Don’t hire radio people for this”, says Davis). He says they’ve beaten the local printed paper in a short time by reaching 54% market penetration. They’re blowing through sales goals, "pacing up 27% this year, and we have already reached our third quarter goal.” Furthermore, he insists that WYDaily “has not cannibalized one dollar from our radio stations.” Davis clearly agrees with Fisher CEO Colleen Brown that it’s good to “share” with others, and here’s part of what he’s got – Davis cares about “TSC, not TSL.” That’s “Time Spent Connected” to any of the Davis/Tide properties, whether broadcast or Internet (“we don’t care” which one). He believes that “digital platforms require a driver, and radio stations are a perfect driver...Want to know more about the news story you just heard on the air? Go to the online newspaper. We say that over and over.” But Davis warns that you can’t phone it in – “you have to be local, do it local, have local people.” Would this work other places? “You can do it in any market where the local daily newspaper is under siege, which is…all of them.” WYDaily even links to Craigslist, the newspaper classified-killer. By the end of the panel, the RAB’s Jeff Haley, situated between Davis and Erik Hellum, says “if we could bottle” what they’re doing “that’s at least $1 billion in incremental revenue for radio.”
 “It’s only radio executives who say ‘I’m going to get tired of Pandora.’”
Larry Rosin of Edison Research has heard it too many times – supposedly, folks will get tired of the all-music jukebox that is Pandora and will yearn to return to local radio. But he tells the day’s final BIA/Kelsey Panel that “when people tire of something, they don’t move backward. They move forward.” And besides – Pandora continues to improve its service. Rosin remember that years ago, he recommended that radio people buy Pandora and thus control it. But the radio execs thought Pandora wouldn’t work and said it wasn’t worth worrying about. Today – people are asking if Pandora might some day buy radio stations. Larry just shakes his head. Day 3 of the BIA/Kelsey conference coming in tomorrow’s TRI Newsletter.
 The latest “Radio 3D” newsletter from Radio-Info.com – the digital side of the BIA/Kelsey conference.
Daniel Anstandig, sitting 15 feet from me here at the Jersey City Hyatt Regency, not only takes better notes than I do, he also has a keen ear for the important quotes about digital and new media. In "Radio 3D", he has a quote from Sinclair Broadcast Group’s Rob Weisbord that to truly get going with digital, you need to change the culture inside the station. He also picks up FlyCast CEO David Kennedy’s plain-spoken advice to “stop talking about this, and just start doing it.” (Kennedy’s got credibility from his years of running tech-pioneering Susquehanna.) He’s also got “Heard in the Hallway” quotes from Day 2 of BIA/Kelsey. It’s easy to start getting “Radio 3D” with a quick no-charge signup here.
 Latest “Stark Country” newsletter – Here’s why a country/rock blend works in Anchorage on “The Wolf.”
No Taylor Swift on this country station, nossirree. As Phyllis Stark, executive editor of country here at Radio-Info.com, observes – the country/rock thing is tantalizing and has been tried plenty of times, but with “limited success.” But New Northwest Broadcasters top programmer Tom Oakes explains why Alaska’s oil industry-heritage has made country/rock/Americana for 30-60-year old guys a winning formula in a crowded market of 33 stations. They image “96.3 The Wolf” KXLW as having “no rules, no boundaries…Alaska’s untamed radio.” If country is your thing, start getting “Stark Country” from Radio-Info by email – here.
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» Buzzing on the Boards
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Why no oldies station in Nashville? A recent "Ross On Radio" sparks a discussion on the Nashville Board. Tuesday’s Ross On Radio led with the puzzlement about why Nashville, which seems like such a natural market for the format and once supported a viable oldies station, no longer does. More on the Nashville Board of Radio-Info.com. 
» Sound Bites
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After 15 months, CBS ends “Commercial Free Mondays” on L.A.’s “Amp 97.1” KAMP-FM. Sometimes you just don’t need the sign-on stunt, once the station takes hold – and LARadio.com quotes CBS programming guru Kevin Weather saying the CHR’s ratings for Mondays arena’t much different from Tuesdays or Wednesdays. He says with Carson Dally in mornings “and a cume that’s approaching three million, we are ready for Phase Two of our evolution."
SupeRadio fashions an unwired “Advocacy Network” of mostly progressive talkshow hosts, for sales purposes. Ed Schultz, Thom Hartmann, Stephanie Miller, Alan Colmes and Doug Stephan together reach close to 15 million listeners. Even though they’re associated with various syndicators, Access.1-owned SupeRadio can aggregate them, using Media Management Group, with the objective of creating sponsorship packages. SupeRadio President/COO Jack Bryan says “advocacy groups and national organizations [can have] a one-stop shop that offers great national reach to the younger and more vibrant segment of the overall talk audience.” MMG’s Scott Elberg, who joined just recently, says the new “Advocacy Network” is a “powerful and creative” tool.
» Faces on the Radio
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The latest from Washington talker WMAL (630) – it goes with “The Grandy Group” in mornings, followed by Chris Plante. The Citadel station has had more starting lineups than an injury-riddled baseball team – though in this case some of the injuries (to the station) are self-inflicted. But it does appear that Fred Grandy – half of the erstwhile Grandy and Andy [Parks] morning show – is the building block of a new team to handle 5-9am. It will be Fred plus newsman Bryan Nehman. Grandy’s previous limited partnership with Chris Plante is over. Plante is re-potted to host 9am to noon, returning to what Citadel calls “his natural habitat, to provoke, amuse, enlighten and always entertain.” As DCRTV.com observes, this is the work of brand-new PD Drew Hayes.
Tex Meyer previously managed in North Carolina in Greensboro/Winston-Salem, and has just joined Curtis Media in Raleigh as the new GM at oldies WKIX-FM (102.9) and WKIX-AM (850). Tex is also known for running stations in Pittsburgh (the original CHR "B94"), Tampa, Nashville and Roanoke-Lynchburg.
 Josh Darrow and Lee Feldman take new positions at Beasley in Miami. Josh is the cluster’s first-ever “Program Director of Digital/New Media.” He’ll continue to be part of the broadcast team for the University of Miami Hurricanes. While Lee is the new ops director at sports WQAM, Miami (560), advancing from promotions director/APD. Both Darrow and Feldman report to cluster manager Joe Bell.
Dave Pawelek finishes up four years at station manager for the Radio Disney outlets in both Chicago (WRDZ/1300) and Milwaukee (WKSH/1640). But as Robert Feder reports at Vocalo.org, Pawelek stays on the Walt Disney payroll and he’ll even remain in the Chicago area. He’s the new director of sales for the Disney Vacation Club sales center at Woodfield Mall in Schaumburg, IL. Disney hasn’t revealed his successor at the stations.
 Damien Fahey is the host of MTV’s trend-setting after-school “TRL” and also a guy who built a radio station in his bedroom when he was 15. He later went to work for hometown CHR “Kiss 108” WXKS-FM in Boston, and just possibly, that’s where John Ivey became aware of him. Ivey’s now programming Clear Channel’s KIIS-FM (102.7) in Los Angeles, and he sneak-announced Damien’s hiring at KIIS-FM during last weekend’s massive Wango Tango concert. He had Damien on stage Saturday night – and now he’ll have him doing some weekend airwork on the station, plus full-time fill-in.
Richard Rene must have used up all the “stamp here” space in many passports by now, doing international affiliate work for Premiere and Westwood. Now he’s recruited by Dial Global to run its International Affiliations desk, repping both the Dial Global lineup and the TM Studios product line (jingles, production music, etc.). Speaking of TM Studios – Michael Capozzoli is going to focus on its product lines such as Microjams, Short Bus Radio, Audio Architecture and its jingles, as the former Premiere rep latches on at Dallas-based TM Studios.
 Valerie Geller “represents the essence of The Conclave’s Rockwell Award”, says Board Chair Mark Bolke – someone whose “lifetime professional achievement” in radio is inspirational. Rockwell winners are supposed to be people who “teach and mentor” – and that describes veteran talk consultant and programmer Geller. She’ll be honored with the Conclave’s highest honor at the Summer Learning Conference, July 15-17.
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