These notes are courtesy of KMPS's Tony Thomas:
Radio used to be “perfect.” So was the music business. It used to be all so clear. Scarcity used to be the reality for radio and records - no longer true. In 4 years, every Ford pickup will ship with Wi-Fi included. For radio, how many competing stations will there be then?
Seth outlined the concepts from The Long Tail relating to music choice. As for the music business – “the strategy of suing your fans didn't exactly work out.”
“Timid trapeze artists are dead trapeze artists.”
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The Country Radio Seminar is celebrating its 40th year, and for this year’s momentous gathering, Radio-Info.com has created a special publication for the Country Community titled “Country Radio’s Survival Guide.”
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First Listen: The CHR Battle For L.A.Entry by Sean Ross Feb. 24, 2009 Permalink When former FM talker KLSX Los Angeles debuted as Amp Radio 97.1 last Friday (20), it wasn't the tween format that CBS had run for a year on L.A.'s KCBS-HD-2. It wasn't exactly the "all the hits" mainstream CHR that 48 hours of advance publicity had suggested. It was, instead, aimed squarely at Top 40 rival KIIS with an elbow also extended toward Hip-Hop KPWR (Power 106). Amp's music was Rhythmic Pop (Britney, Lady Gaga, Justin Timberlake) and the pure pop on its immediate right (Katy Perry, Pink, Kelly Clarkson, Taylor Swift), Hip-Hop/R&B (Beyonce, T.I.) and a smattering of teen punk (All American Rejects, Paramore). What's missing is the handful of Modern AC songs that KIIS has successfully sat out in recent years -- Jason Mraz's "I'm Yours" or the Fray's "You Found Me."
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There is disturbing new research out that confirms what we have all feared -- that as consolidators move away from purely local radio, listeners become more dissatisfied.
I say disturbing because the study I am about to mention was taken before the recent move by radio consolidators to further blur the line between local personalities, shows and news and national syndication ("Repeater Radio").
Michael Saffran, one of our radio brethren and an adjunct professor at Rochester Institute of Technology conducted the research with 830 in-tab respondents in Binghamton, Buffalo, Dallas-Fort Worth, Ithaca, Middlesex-Somerset-Union (NJ) and Rochester.
Keep in mind that over 50% of the sample was between 35-54 years old -- presumably a group of "available" radio listeners not easily lured away by an iPod or smart phone.
Almost 40 percent of those surveyed expressed their satisfaction with local radio programming as "not at all" or "very little". Some 14.8% expressed satisfaction "to a great extent". And remember, these are older "available" radio listeners.
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The clichés of PPM took hold almost instantly. When the meter became ratings currency in Philadelphia, programmers were all but handed a "must" list:
* You must limit the number of times the jocks crack the mic;
* You must clamp down on the length of the jock breaks - 44-year-old programming wisdom that somehow was treated as a new revelation;
* You must reduce the length of your sweepers - preferably to four seconds or less;
* You must boost your listening occasions by constantly setting appointments with listeners, as well as trying to extend this visit through constant teasers;
* You must return to two commercial breaks an hour - thus overturning another recent industry-wide dictate for shorter stopsets, even if you had to run three commercial breaks an hour instead of two;
There wasn't complete agreement. Some PDs felt that exact contest times were the best appointment-setter. Others said that would encourage contest players to listen less. And if Urban AC's travails were somehow connected to having a talk show in afternoons, as many did, why did Alternative KROQ Los Angeles add an hour of its morning show highlights to afternoons?
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Do you remember the scene in the 1951 classic A Christmas Carol, when the Ghost of Christmas Present tells Ebenezer Scrooge that, while he sees Tiny Tim's chair empty in a corner, "these are visions of things which may be, not things which will be."
Here are ten predictions for Radio's next few years - visions of things which may be.
1. Radio will recognize that to be more attractive than other sound-alike alternatives - to retain more of its existing audience – it must count on more than habit, convenience, familiarity, ease of use, and the often-proclaimed almost-universal reach of the medium, since all those advantages are transitory.
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Earlier this week, our executive news editor and all-around romantic-kind of guy, Tom Taylor (you might know him from his daily e newsletter Taylor on Radio-Info), asked readers if anyone had met their loved ones at the radio station where they worked. Well, the response he got was overwhelming. Who knew there were so many amorous relationships sprouting off the mike!
Here are some of the many, many responses we received. From all of us at Radio-Info – Happy Valentine’s Day!
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Okay, the reported pending Sirius XM Radio bankruptcy filing is a reorganization, hastened by a potential struggle for control of the company, it's not a liquidation. But you can be sure it's already inspiring no amount of wishful thinking on the terrestrial radio side. "Satellite radio crashes," reads the headline in this morning's Inside Radio. So there are undoubtedly broadcasters this morning licking their chops and wondering, "Well, what if Sirius XM does go away?"
That one isn't hard to answer. If Sirius XM suddenly ceased to exist tomorrow, it would in no way "solve everything" for terrestrial commercial broadcasters, who have already gotten way too excited about satellite radio attracting "only" 20 million subscribers. Local stations will not automatically repatriate all those listeners. And here's why:
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I am really disgusted by the radio industry's latest bout of self loathing. I will never understand why there are so many in our industry that think we are on the brink of collapse, regardless of the fact that the amount of radio listening has never decreased. I have been in radio for 12 years now, and every single one of those years I have heard the latest expert reading radio's last rites. But since the latest economic downturn, it seems that those in the actual industry have started to believe them! Layoffs have gone into the double digits, slashing long lists of sales and programming. Every trade publication and consultant firm has created special web pages, creating a walls to the fallen. Its not just those who are under performing. Its people who have large ratings and bring in buckets of revenue. Radio companies just slash without any consideration for the quality of the product, insane with panic because the industry will never be the same.
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"On-Air with Ryan Seacrest" is a microcosm of what's wrong with radio right now. The problem has nothing to do with the show being created in Hollywood and syndicated to local radio stations across the country. The trouble is the show's content. It's ordinary, average, and forgettable. Mindless, soulless, lowest common denominator stuff the media, including most cookie cutter morning radio shows, are saturated with -- vacuous interviews with celebrities hyping their latest projects, a steady stream of superficial celebrity news and Hollywood gossip clipped from the pages of People, Us, and The National Enquirer and read breathlessly with much manufactured enthusiasm and amazement by Ryan and his cohorts. This is sad stuff.
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An idea for [alternative] rock radio...
CURRENTS and lots of them.
Am I crazy? I don't think so. [You, of course, are free to think what you want.]
How many currents? How does 70% of the clock sound? WHAT?!? Yup, 70% current/recurrent. Why not? It's way more than most than most Alternative stations play but still less than a typical CHR would offer. This station is all about today's alternative music. Don't like today's music, that's OK, but this station is probably not for you.
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National radio was supposed to offer something that local radio couldn't match, something more than just the potential for cost cutting. Instead, as it spreads across the dial on a weekly basis, much of the programming available is unable to pass for local, but not offering the bigness of being national. And yet, with most of us having grown up with something besides local programming - whether it was MTV, "American Top 40," Howard Stern or Tom Joyner, national radio ought to be better. In this week's Ross On Radio, Edison's Sean Ross lays out a vision for "What National Radio Could Be."
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Turnabout is fair play.
Consolidators have screwed employees out of their jobs. Now, advertisers are screwing radio stations out of previously agreed upon rates.
What do you expect when there is only one rep firm for the entire radio business? And that rep firm is owned by Clear Channel, the largest radio group.
And Clear Channel is owned by a group of clueless private equity companies named Lee & Bain. What you get is radio advertising anarchy.
And that's what is happening -- chaos, disorder. Perhaps you've seen or heard. GEICO, one of the largest radio advertisers, negotiates its lowest possible rate with Katz for station buys across the country.
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When KDLE Los Angeles changed format to Regional Mexican last week, relegating its Indie 103.1 programming to the Web, it left a note behind. On its site, the station announced, "Because of changes in the radio industry and the way radio audiences are measured, stations in this market are being forced to play too much Britney, Puffy and alternative music that is neither new nor cutting-edge. Due to these challenges, Indie 103.1 was recently faced with only one option - to play the corporate radio game . . . We have decided not to play that game."
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Sam Weaver is a radio talent coach, www.radiocoach.biz and veteran programmer who has worked in Dallas, Chicago, San Francisco, Kansas City, Pittsburgh, and Charlotte, among other markets. In his new career, Sam is a personal trainer for personalities looking to improve or maintain their air work. Here, he breaks down the new ratings data service, the Portable People Meter, so that anyone can understand what it is and how it works.
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Sam Weaver is a radio talent coach, http://www.radiocoach.biz and veteran programmer who has worked in Dallas, Chicago, San Francisco, Kansas City, Pittsburgh, and Charlotte, among other markets. In his new career, Sam is a personal trainer for personalities looking to improve or maintain their air work. Here, he breaks down the new ratings data service, the Portable People Meter, so that anyone can understand what it is and how it works.
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This edition of The Strategy Session features an article written by consultant Alan Burns, who shared these thoughts with his clients, and now we’re fortunate to be allowed to share them with the Radio-Info.com readers. While times are tough (and it seems we’re getting more bad news daily), I was inspired by Alan’s thoughts and advice, and I hope they may inspire you too. In fact, there’s good advice here for anyone, whether you’re in radio or any other industry, or in your life in general. Read More...
In November, I posted two blog entries detailing my predictions for 2009. I would not have guessed that many of my predictions would come true within 60 days of making them.
I shouldn’t be surprised. It took six years for the U.S. economy to collapse in the 1930s, but it only took six weeks in 2008. It took radio decades to earn the country’s trust, but it only took a few short years to undermine that relationship.
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It didn't start out as a bad year for format innovation at terrestrial radio. In fact, 2008 started out as the year that major group broadcasters gave both New York (WRXP) and Los Angeles (KSWD [the Sound]) full-signal Triple-A stations, and a hard-rocking, eclectic one in New York at that. It started out as the year that New York got a current-based dance station again, even if WNYZ-LP (Pulse 87) had to find its place on the FM dial via a TV frequency. It started out with an actual new CHR battle in Houston and a challenger (KKHH [Hot 95.7]) playing powers as close as 45 minutes together.
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"I don't want to send people to my station's website."
So say many program directors at many radio stations in the US. Even today. Shocking as it may seem.
Evidently, in this imaginary world there are only two things one can do: Listen to your radio station and visit your website - and doing one takes directly from the other. Ludicrous, but so goes the fear.
What's not imaginary in this world is that many PD's are not incentivized to grow a station's web traffic, they're incentivized only to grow a station's ratings.
This is dumb, dumb, dumb.
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My old mentor, the radio program director Paul Drew, used to tell me about an idea he had where a campus would be built for a national radio company in Southern California -- he cited the weather and abundance of talent for his choice of the location (not in that order).
PD (as I called him) believed that great radio could be done in one location allowing for many economies of scale and yet providing customized local programming to individual stations in their markets.
I understand he took the idea to a couple of CEOs at the time -- back in the 1990s -- and received no traction for the concept.
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In recent years, large-market stations have gotten the attention for breaking records. But as we salute the songs that changed the radio landscape in 2008, we found that not only the sound of radio but the route up the charts had changed (at least for a few songs). In our final "Ross On Radio" column of 2008, we single out the "Songs That Made A Difference In 2008."
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The best way to avoid the doom and banish the gloom is to do what you do really, really well.
Here's some advice from my friends over at Neutron:
1. What makes you different?
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Less Is More is getting ready for the next phase.
Any day now -- and certainly within weeks -- don't be surprised to see your number one radio group, Clear Channel, give radio a glimpse of the consolidated future.
Again.
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In a year of radio tumult, some of the most candid talk about the state of radio was found in the comments that followed each week's "Ross On Radio." In our next-to-last column of 2008, we recap the year with the help of Bill Conway, John Gehron, Jaye Albright, Bill Tanner, Jim Owen, Patti Marshall, Tracy Austin, Gregg Swedberg, Ed Salamon, and many more. We also hear from some heavily vocal listeners. And we recap some highly charged discussions on the history and future of Country radio.
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