Ten years ago, I was working at a major market leader that only ran eight minutes of spots per hour and we made money hand over fist. Today, I doubt that same station is breaking even despite having sliced payroll more than in half.
Until someone finds a way to turn a reasonable number of spots per hour into profit, nothing will stop the death spiral radio is in. The issue isn't ownership anymore - It's advertisers - and I'm shocked by how few people seem to understand that.
Higher ratings won't wipe out corporate debt.
Higher ratings won't undo fifteen years of greed.
Corporate greed devastated the media business model.
To suggest otherwise is ignorant.
In the old days, you could flip a station, build ratings and sales could go out and sell it. Start with cume, then build TSL, blah blah blah, today's listeners turned into tomorrow's dollars. It was great because it was a fight people like me could win.
Win in the halls: make the staff believe!
Win on the air: make your listeners love it!
...and sales would take care of their end.
Then came the mega-mergers. Stations were bought or traded so fast it was hard to keep up. These fools thought they were building media empires, but really they were building financial black holes. A station that practically printed money before the mergers suddenly came with a pile of debt that was never going to be paid back. This brought us:
Greed and gluttony devastated the basic business model commercial radio was built on, and still, it wasn't enough. How could it ever be enough? The mountain of corporate debt is too high. Even if all of the debt were magically wiped off the books, how do you get advertisers to pay what the airtime is worth? Come to think of it, what exactly *IS* the airtime worth these days? Our stations aren't local, our content isn't compelling, and our listeners use us more as a utility than a passion. Oh, and by the way, nearly fifteen years of piss-poor radio has created an entire generation of passionless listeners.
If Clear Channel were to be broken up, how could any of this change? How would any of the individual stations even be able to afford to stand on their own?
]]>There's a lesson to be learned here, though I doubt many of the corporate brass at Clear Channel will learn it:
The way you run your business when times are good will have a direct impact on your business when times are bad.
]]> Or, to put it another way:How you run your business when times are good is directly proportional to how your business will run you when times are bad.
The seeds of Clear Channel's demise were sown years ago. Only the uninformed will blame the current state of the economy.
]]>Clear Channel is now owned by a private investment firm. The company will eventually be
broken up and sold off in chunks. Before that happens, its bottom line will be cut to the point where it costs next to nothing to run, thus giving perceived value to whoever buys whichever parts.
I used the term "perceived value" because I highly doubt there will be any real value in buying into the industry at that point. Today's private investors aren't buying into the industry though. They're just buying. And selling. For them, it's the selling that is the important part.
When I was in high school, my mother owned a local restaurant. It was more or less a neighborhood place for breakfast, but she also made dinners and her claim to fame (such as it were) was pies. She was a talkative woman, always chumming it with the people who dropped by. One day, one of her regulars figured out that he could make money by buying her restaurant, renting out the space to someone else and then selling her equipment. At the time, I thought "he wants the place for the ovens you make pies and doughnuts in?" I didn't get it.
Years later, I realized that what the buyer did made perfect sense from a monetary view. I thought it was a failure because the restaurant closed shortly after the sale, but I later learned than the buyer tore the place apart. He sold the huge ovens, sold the shake machines, sold half of her over-sized parking lot to a neighboring salon and he then he sold the restaurant and remaining parking space to someone else.
It took him a few months, but he walked away with twenty thousand dollars for his efforts, and my mother got to pay off her bills (management was never her thing... so for her to get out from under debt seemed like a great deal at the time... and, in truth, it was).
Fast forward............. A dear friend of mine designs children's clothes. She works for a company that has a thriving catalog business, plus maybe 25 stores nationwide. In early 2008, the company was sold to a private investment firm. The private investment firm is in the process of doing the exact same thing. They're buying apparel companies they can either sell at a premium or break up and sell in pieces for a premium.
Clear Channel is no different.
They're now owned by number crunchers who intend to pick the company apart for profit under the assumption that the parts are worth more than their sum.
My mother's restaurant was worth more for the value of its building, its ovens and parking than it was as a business. I was sad to see the place close, but everyone involved walked away with money.
...everyone except for her employees, that is.
My friend at the children's apparel company is watching her friends lose their jobs as the bottom line gets slashed. Her hope is that she can hang on until after the company is sold. Assuming they can maintain the quality of clothes they produce as well as the customer base they've built... they'll be sold in one chunk and survive this private investment group phase.
Who knows.
What's next for Clear Channel is anyone's guess. Surely the company will be ripped apart and sold off in pieces to maximize investor profit. The only relevant questions are:
Again, using my friend at the children's apparel company as an example... her company is pretty high end and they have a really healthy profit margin, even through the recession. Sure, there have been cutbacks, but overall, they've been kept together because they're highly profiltable.
On the other hand, another company bought by the same private investment firm has already been shredded and sold off for parts. Out of maybe 150 employees at that compnay, ten survived - if you can call it surviving. They still have jobs, but there is nothing left of the company they once worked for, and their resumes are shot since anyone in the business knows the brand they work for is now meaningless.
Am I saying the name Clear Channel is meaningless?
Not yet - but soon, it could be. Some of their properties have value beyond that of the group as a whole whereas some do not. Ah, but once cutbacks sink in, the bottom line will drop. In theory, they'll be more profitable as a whole... but will the individual stations retain any sense of individual value?
Will it even matter?
Will there be buyers waiting to get into radio as a business, or will the entire industry have been sucked dry to the point where the signals have more value as repeaters for internet providers, or maybe cell providers?
Terrestrial radio is only special so long as the content on terrestrial radio is special. Once it isn't... it isn't. And that's it.
Internet radio will never beat terrestrial radio. Period. But once the owners of terrestrial radio allow their properties to become losers, it's game over.
Will Clear Channel be sold off in bits and pieces? Absolutely. Anyone who suggests otherwise is a fool. The question is: will the pieces be worth a damn?
Anybody want to buy a newspaper? How about you Mr. Zell?
Keep your eye on the rate card. When that goes, so goes radio.
...forever.
Most of us came into radio during the days when we fought for the top. We all waned to be #1.
What's coming next for radio will be a battle for the bottom. Who can push their rates the lowest while still being able to afford to keep stations on the air.
None of this has anything to do with the current recession. It's all corporate greed eating itself alive.
Deregulation will always lead to uncontrolled capitalism that leads to a monopoly that collapses unto itself.
]]>Clear Channel built an empire by forcing sales of countless radio stations and entire radio companies. Simply put: they forced owners to sell by drastically overpaying.
Let's say you own a car that's worth roughly $27,000. It's an SUV, actually. A 2003 Lexus Gx 470. Regardless of how much you like your Lexus, if someone comes along and offers you a quarter of a million dollars for it... hell yes you're selling.
Let's say you've got a junker sitting on blocks on your front lawn. A 1972 Cevy Nova that's worth maybe 200 bucks if the right buyer came along and stripped it for parts... but the same guy who just paid $250,000 for your Lexus sees it and says "I'll give you $5,000 for that one too if you'll sell it to me by the end of the day."
DONE!
So... the mystery buyer now has a piece of junk but he's also got a damn good vehicle too, just as Clear Channel bought some out of market signals along with some pretty sweet grandfathered-in 100,000 watt boomers. Regardless of the prices paid, that's what they own.
One could argue that the only reason Clear Channel is still in the game is because they overpaid for the signals they bought. I worked for Secret Communications the day Frank Wood sold the company to SFX, who then sold to somebody who then sold to somebody, blah blah Capstar, blah blah Chancellor, hello Clear Channel.
Yes Clear Channel built a mountain of debt, but they managed to stay in the game whereas countless other owners folded their hands and walked away.
As Kenny Rogers once said:
You got to know when to hold em,
know when to fold em,
Know when to walk away and know when to run.
...Grin.
Let's address that bit about winners and losers.
Have you ever walked into a new gig and kicked the reigning market leader to the curb? Have you ever worked at a winner past its prime when a new competitor signs on and kicks YOUR ass to the curb? I've done both and I wouldn't be surprised if you have too. We've all seen stations rise and fall, with some fortunate enough to rise again.
Every station's a winner and every station's a loser.
The issue isn't so much what Clear Channel bought or even how much they paid. It's what they did with the stations they got.
They started flanking radio stations, sometimes throwing away entire signals in order to take out a competitor. The infamous Wall Of Men or Wall Of Women strategies where they'd line up the formats of three rock stations in a single market even if there was only enough audience for two. Or they'd sign on a no-budget AC to try and hurt the competition's Hot/AC in order for their own CHR to thrive.
The philosophy of programming to harm a competitor rather than programming to entertain an audience resulted in a lot of dull radio for listeners.
And how about those 7 minute stopsets in the late 90s. Remember those? Adding more units than the clock (or the audience) could handle. Yeah, that was brilliant.
One might think driving down the rate card while building massive debt would be the most ignorant of ignorant decisions... but Clear Channel saw the ignorant hand they'd dealt themselves and raised the entire industry a stupid.
Commercial radio is nothing more than selling an audience to advertisers. As long as Clear Channel was going to damage itself, sales wise, they must have figured "why not damage audience loyalty as well."
The voicetracking.
And multi-market promotions.
And multi-station PDs.
And multiple layers of corporate oversight.
And slashing of research budgets.
And slashing all of the other budgets too, frankly.
And so much other garbage.
Sadly, it's the staffs and the audience that are reaping the seeds of arrogance and stupidity Clear Channel and others have sown. As Clear Channel crumbles, so do all of the other corporations who followed in their wake.
]]>PPM is teaching programmers how to create programming that isn't an interruption. Air talent are becoming audio wallpaper as talk breaks become anything but. For radio, these micro breaks are death in tiny increments.
Just this week, a friend of mine was telling me about a great break he did. He's a jock in NYC. The break was under ten seconds long, and in it, he tied in the dismay over the Giant's ended season with a song and maybe a promotion too... I don't remember. I should remember, because that was the point of him telling me about the break. He was explaining how the PPM was making him such a better jock, but I was left speechless.
How do you tell a friend "it's not making you a better jock. It's making you disposable." In and out, tight and bright, on and gone.
Gone.
]]> Don't get me wrong... the break was perfect. It was the sort of break truly great music jocks whip in between records without even thinking about it - but it isn't content, and it doesn't connect with a listener. Hell, it's less relevant than weather, because at least that lets me know if I need a heavy jacket when I head out.I was so excited about PPM before it became a reality. Now I see what I should have suspected all along. The same people who misinterpret the old research are
misinterpreting the new research.
10 second breaks are PPM friendly, but are they emotion? Are they even human? They're fine for a tease but they're not the show.
If you're on a date with a woman and you realize she's nothing but a tease, are you going to bother seeing her again?
Why would we want our radio stations to become the embodiment of a bad date?
That's not intended to suggest a woman is expected to put out on a date. No. The same is expected of her that is expected of her companion on that date: Be funny. Be personable. Be interesting. Be herself. Be real. A little bit of a tease can be a good thing... it could even be fun... but if it's everything? Who wants that?
Apparently, program directors do. Many of them are misinterpreting the research generated by the PPM to the point where they honestly believe anything between the records is an interruption. And it's a big step in the wrong direction. A colossal leap, even.
P.S. Apologies to my friend if he reads this. You know I've been your biggest fan for nearly a decade, and I know your show is a hell of a lot more than :10 breaks.
]]>The hosts are, for the most part, real people.
For years, TV fell into the same trap radio fell into: the trap of smooth talking slogan sayers. People who were all shine and no substance. The radio DJ talked about how great every record was as he nailed the post of a stiff. And TV had people like Dick Clark and Ed McMahon.
Remember how every performance on Starsearch was amazing? That's what Ed would tell us as each singer left the stage, anyway... but here's the thing. A lot of them sucked.
And here's the thing about Idol: they've got their share of performances that suck too. Plenty of them sucked last year and plenty more will suck this year.
Never forget: it was American Idol that brought us William Hung. And Sanjaya, who is currently trying to stretch his 15 minutes of whatever it was into a book deal.
But on Idol, the hosts do what real people do. If a performance was great, they say so, and if one sucked, they say so... and if they can't agree, they sometimes fight about it.
...and so do the viewers.
]]> I'm blown away by how little radio has learned from the success of reality TV. Radio learned how to slash budgets (we all know how cheap reality TV is to produce in comparison to a typical hour of prime time TV), but the lesson radio really needs to learn is drama and showmanship. Radio needs to relearn how to take the same old same old and flip it on its head.If you'd told me ten years ago that the finale of a Starsearch ripoff show would generate Superbowl like ratings, I'd have never believed you.
What greatness is radio creating today that we'll be talking about ten years from now?
The vast majority of people who would bother to read this are programming geeks, and I mean that in the best sense. We love radio and geek out over great things heard on the air. We grew up listening to night jocks battling it out on the air. We grew up hearing (and often being exposed to) so much great music on the air. We grew up with great entertainers and great entertainment. And we turned that love of radio into a career similar to how a great cook turns a love of food into a career in the restaurant biz - maybe first as a short order cook, and then climbing the ranks until either working as a chef at a fine restaurant or maybe owning his or her own restaurant.
But in radio, the economics of scale took over through deregulation, and the best of the medium was pushed off the air. I'm not just talking about people. I'm talking about the very essence of radio itself. The local stations are now corporate pawns. In their quest to grow in size, they destroyed the very thing that made the business worth owning in the first place.
...Passion.
American Idol is back on TV for another season and it's better than ever. Radio, on the other hand, is becoming a fallen Idol. But it doesn't have to be that way. All we need to do is allow ourselves to learn the lessons that are all too obvious.
]]>31 years ago? It was a Tuesday. I was most likely savoring the last moments of summer because I knew my very first day of school was just a few weeks away.
I was nervous, excited and scared.
I'd heard a lot about what school would be like, and I had high hopes. Though my family was very poor, my mom bought me a brand new box of crayons.
Seriously - I had a brand new crayons! And I was going to SCHOOL - just like the big kids. Kindergarten was gonna rock!
Sadly, it did not. Those f#cking crayons were a bribe.
Many years would pass before I'd realize there were lessons to be learned on that fateful day.
Lesson #1: Beware Any Gifts You Have Not Earned.
Lesson #2: Never Trust Old People.
And with that comment, we return to where this post began. I suspect we've reached the point where it gets either interesting or offensive depending on your point of view.
"What were you doing 31 years ago today?"
The question was intended to be about what I was doing when I got the news that Elvis had died (August 16th, 1977). Instead, it served as a dividing line between generations: his and mine.
]]> Last week, I wrote about sexism... but since radio is a business mostly run by men, nobody cared.Not. Their. Problem.
I wonder how many old men will suddenly care when the issue is ageism? Men don't think sexism exists, but they sure can spot ageism. Go figure.
Here's a tip: Don't ever wear your age as a badge of honor, because, believe me, it isn't. Of course ageism exists, just as sexism and racism do. And it's equally wrong - yet, it's equally unavoidable.
When applying for a gig, or when marketing yourself, always remember the reality of the business (and of business in general):
Old = bad.
So.... don't be old! Figure out what other attributes define who you are and choose to be those instead. Surely there's more to you than your age, right? Right. So... choose to be the 'more'.
Be Smart.
Be Clever.
Be Wise.
Be Talented.
Be Dependable.
Be In Touch.
Be An Easy Hire - because you're so damn good at what you do.
Be anything you truly are, but for the love of whatever god you do or don't believe in, don't be 'old' because nobody prefers that.
Tide laundry detergent was introduced in 1946, but the last time I checked, the box still says "New And Improved." Yeah, yeah. That's just a cheesy piece of marketing and we both know it. So what? People like new and the business world loves improved - because improved means better. You probably can't be new - but, no matter how much you've done, and no matter how good you are, you can always do better.
You can always be better.
You can always improve until the day you choose not to.
And on that day
regardless of your age
you will be old.
And no one will care.
...no.
I've worked at plenty of stations where the majority of promotions interns and promotions staff were women. I've worked at plenty of stations where traffic and accounting were almost entirely women.
...but a mostly female air staff? Not once.
...what about management? Not once.
Out of all of the PDs I've worked for, only one was a woman. Out of all of the GMs I've worked for, only one was a woman.
IT MUS BE SEXIST!
...no. I don't believe that to be the case. Granted, there is some sexism in radio, but the greater issue is human nature.
A friend of mine taught a broadcasting class at a local community college, and I lectured there one day. The moment I stepped to the front of the class, I noticed two things:
#1: the class was almost entirely made up of men.
#2: the few women in the class were all sitting together.
I'm willing to bet that if the class had been theatre instead of radio, it would have had the exact opposite proportion of students. They'd have been mostly women, and the few men would almost certainly have been sitting together in a group. I'll address that second point in a bit - but first, let's just consider the problem inherent in the numbers.
Since we start with fewer women interested in pursuing radio as a career, we end up with fewer women in entry level programming positions, leading to fewer women in higher level programming positions, not to mention a smaller talent pool of women period. The smaller the talent pool, the fewer exceptional candidates there will be within it. That's just basic math.
As radio becomes more and more impersonal, I believe even fewer women will be attracted to the medium as a career. By impersonal, I'm referring to radio becoming less local and less live.
]]> The numbers are easy to understand: fewer women entering the ranks which leads to fewer women rising within the ranks not to mention the smaller talent pool. The social aspect is far more challenging. I'm talking about discrimination - both intentional and unintentional.There is a certain amount of discrimination in radio - as there is in any career. I don't believe it is extensive, but it exists, especially (but not exclusively) in smaller markets. Some GMs don't see women as management material. Some PDs see women as middays and morning sidekicks, nothing more.
Further complicating the problem of too few women in radio is our own human nature. There's a reason I mentioned how the women in that broadcasting class were all sitting together, and how, in a class of mostly women (theatre, for example), the few men would almost certainly sit together.
For better or for worse, it's just human nature. People enjoy the company of people similar to themselves.
Here's an example:
Do you know an asshole? Come on. I bet you do! Did you ever notice how assholes tend to hang out with assholes?
Ever notice how hippies tend to hang out with hippies?
And how geeks tend to hang out with geeks?
Find a Trekkie and I'm willing to bet you'll find a few more.
Find a Libertarian and I'm willing to bet you'll find a few more.
Find an over-acheiver and I'm willing to bet you'll find a few more.
People like people like themselves.
Here's an example of how random it can be. I'm sure it wouldn't surprise you to learn that I'm a strategy junkie. I love strategy-based board games and such, and I meet up with other board games fans now and then at a local pub. We're mostly strangers other than that we meet twice a month to drink beer and play games. As the group keeps meeting, smaller groups within the group start to form. The other night, somebody whipped out a few decks of cards, and just about everybody who'd been seated in the far side of the group started playing some game I'd never heard of. It's called Euchre and it's apparently popular in the midwest.
What are the odds that among a group of strangers, all of the people from the midwest would end up sitting together?
Pretty good, actually.
People like people like themselves. We seek people we have things in common with.
...but isn't it odd how people will move from the midwest to the west coast and end up hanging out with people from the place they left? Not at all, actually. Look at how many of our older cities have Polish neighborhoods, or Jewish neighborhoods, etc etc etc. People like people like themselves.
All of this is psychology 101. The problem is that it can lead to discrimination - often unintentional - because not only do people like people like themselves, people sometimes choose people like themselves.
I don't think discrimination is as common as it was years ago, but I believe it still exists, and sadly, I think it always will. But I also believe that by discussing it, we make ourselves more aware of it, which will hopefully lead to less of it in the future.
...only time will tell.
]]>I also had "The Missing Link." Remember that one? What about the pyramid-shaped thingamabob? There were others, and I owned every one of 'em.
I never solved these puzzles, mind you. I only bought them because they were fun.
Dominoes were another all time favorite of mine during childhood. My father owned a pool table which he rarely used, so I had plenty of space to set those little buggers up and knock 'em down.
I must have had thousands of dominoes.
It got to the point where I had a domino taped to string which was taped to the ceiling. When knocked down, that domino would fall off the table and swing across the room to trigger another set of dominos.
]]> In many ways, building a website reminds me of childhood days of puzzles and dominos. The process of bringing text, graphics and ideas together with html to create something new can get intensely frustrating at times... but when everything comes together just right... aahhhhhhh!It's like a favorite toy, except this time - when I'm done - I want people to touch my stuff rather than leave it the hell alone.
...hang on. Something about that last sentence doesn't sound quite right. Ahh well. You know what I meant.
As you read this, I am updating the site design of This Is The Box to version 3, with this entirely new look. It should be done within a day or two. DONE!
This is technically version three and a half for this site. I scrapped an entire 'new' design due to the fact that Microsoft's Internet Explorer is a bug riddled piece of web feces. If you're using Safari or FireFox, you can see what that design was going to look like had I finished it.
In case you're curious, here's an archive of the designs I've created for this website:
Cheers!
]]>All of this equipment is functioning perfectly. 100% A-OK. Trust me. I checked.
Sure, the medium has more challenges and challengers today than ever before, but the fundamentals of radio are sound. Listeners may be less passionate about radio today than in years past, but that's because we're giving them less to be passionate about. These are issues of content. Issues easily overcome through creativity, passion and hard work, and I don't see any lack of talent dying to provide that.
I'll say it again: There is absolutely nothing wrong with radio.
What's broken is the business of radio.
Once upon a time not so long ago, your typical radio station was a balancing act: a seesaw of programming and sales. Programming created entertainment to build an audience. Sales used that audience to generate revenue. Want more money? Create better programming. Build a bigger audience.
It doesn't work that way anymore because the business of radio is broken. There is no balance of programing and sales when there's a pig on the seesaw.
]]> Take, for example, Clear Channel's KHKS FM in Dallas. They celebrated a return to market dominance by slashing the budget. Is it really a fact that the highest rated English language station in a major market can't afford to staff the midday airshift? Really? ...Please... That decision was made in San Antonio and enforced via Pittsburgh, which I find odd since KHKS's signal can't be heard by people who live in either of those cities.While we're in Dallas, let's consider the fate of another major player in the market: CBS Radio. They own six stations, four of which were rated in the one shares this past fall, yet CBS did Jack squat about it. The most offensive of these embarrassments to broadcasting is the ironically named "Movin' 107.5", a successful heritage smooth jazz station flipped to the latest flavor of radio snake oil. Though Movin' is ranked in 24th place overall in Dallas/Fort Worth, this station is actually out-performing some of the Movin' stations in other markets, many of which have little more than decimals for ratings. Come on now - let's be honest... if a full market signal can't even muster a one share, clearly it's not Movin' at all.
The decision to put the Movin' format on the air in Dallas and Los Angeles had nothing to do with entertainment. It was a get rich quick scheme and it failed. The way to fix either of these stations is simple: go to the market, find an under-served sellable demographic (people!) and entertain them. These are major markets! Hire talented PDs, compelling air talent and build a winning team, one station at a time. But the days of doing radio that way are quickly coming to a close because large corporations don't view individual properties individually, and that's a key reason why they're not willing to do more to get more.
Years ago, you'd blow out an underperforming jock. Today, you blow out the entire shift and track it regardless of how well the jock is doing.
Years ago, you'd blow out an underperforming PD. Today, you blow out the entire station and replace it with a gimmick. Worry about it again in '09, eh?
The old way: Grow the budget. Make more money.
The new way: Slash the budget. Take more money.
And the worst part is, the business of radio was destroyed while the economy was strong. Imagine the pressure to slash budgets further when this recession really takes hold.
The business of radio is broken.
]]>
The downfall of radio can be blamed on:
#1. Freaking Flanking.
Remember the LMA? The Local Marketing Agreement was never about marketing. It was about turning frequencies into pawns, and it was the beginning of the end.
Imagine if car companies started running other car companies as shells to produce cars NOT for consumers but instead to HURT other car companies.
That's what the LMA was all about. Station A more or less owned Station B and used it NOT to entertain, but instead, the primary goal was to take audience away from Station C. If they couldn't beat 'em, they got a flanker to hurt 'em.
In the days of the LMA, I lived in a small market where the local rock station LMA'ed another frequency and flipped it Hot AC to take audience away from the adult-leaning CHR that owned the market. They used the flanker to take out the market leader, but not by better programming. The Hot AC never had to be any good. It just had to hurt the CHR as much as possible on as little budget as possible.
It all sounds like harmless strategy until you consider that it meant a lowering of the standard of quality for radio stations, which was bad for radio as a whole.
When Mix couldn't play certain songs because they'd take audience away from B107, the real loser was the Mix listener who couldn't hear her favorite song on her favorite station.
Sounds trivial, eh? Well, it might have been trivial if it had been the exception to the rule of radio. Instead, it become the norm thanks to deregulation. Deregulation was really the LMA times a thousand. It's hard to win in a market when you first have to fight within your own building. Then again, winning isn't even about listeners anymore, is it? It's about stock.
The downfall of radio can also be blamed on:
#2. The FCC.
When did the FCC become a government version of a take out window? "You want how many stations? That'll be XXX dollars. Please pull up to the next window to receive your order."
Far too many stations were added to the dial, not to mention how many were shuffled from city to city - which, by the way, completely contradicted the reason those licenses were granted in the first place!
And then there's the sheer comedy that is FCC fines.
Opie And Anthony held an on-air contest where people had to fuck in St. Patrick's Cathedral to win a prize. When that stunt didn't cost WNEW its license it became pretty obvious that the FCC was a joke without a punchline. Oh, sure, people were fired, blah blah, but the owner didn't lose the license. In fact, they were fined less than half a million dollars, which is what to a company the size of CBS?
...please...
The FCC is a joke.
And speaking of initials we can blame for the downfall of radio...
#3. The NAB.
Broadcasters have no advocate in the legal or regulatory process. If the FCC is a joke, the NAB is a face-painted clown. The NAB is the National Association Of Broadcasters - yes, BROADCASTERS - yet their organization does little but harm broadcasters and harm broadcasting. Instead, their ambition is to benefit owners at the expense of broadcasting.
"Hang on" you say. "Aren't owners also broadcasters?"
No.
Most of today's broadcasting owners are no more broadcasters than plantation owners were farmers. Let's talk about the man busting his back in the fields during the early 1800s. He deserves the recognition because he was a farmer, and probably a damn good one. He knew the land. He knew the crop. He tilled the soil. The guy sitting in his mansion drinking wine was just a farm owner.
There is a difference.
Even in the days of 7 AMs and 7 FMs in 7 markets, many of the station owners weren't really broadcasters. Not really. But they were so closely connected to the point where sales and programming met that they understood the symbiotic relationship required for each to prosper. Also, there were so many owners back then that you at least had the opportunity to use your talents to find a better station with better ownership. It's true that there were plenty of bad owners back then, but there were exceptional owners too. Don't like Wilkes? OK, that's fair. How about a gig with Nationwide? Or Secret. Or Susquehanna, or Chancellor... or JACOR (the noise you can't ignore), if it suited your personality. Grin.
And that brings me to the fourth thing the downfall of radio can be blamed on.
Grade School Math.
Let me see if I've got this right... some genius thought it was a good idea to buy radio stations at ten or twenty times what each frequency was worth while also dropping the price of ads being run on said frequencies so he could undercut the competition... and then a whole bunch of other geniuses - seeing the brilliance of such a strategy - decided to do the same.
They increased cumulative debt while decreasing individual revenue.
"BRILLIANT!!!"
...no. Not so brilliant, as it turns out.
"OK THEN! Let's cut costs."
You mean fire people?
"Yeah. That."
...but those people create the product that IS your radio station. They give your listeners a reason to listen.
"Well they're not doing a good job, are they? Ratings are down!"
...that's because you took away their tools in your last few rounds of cost cutting. Remember the research they used? You slashed that part of the budget already. Oh, and remember the songs you wouldn't let them play because you were trying to protect your other stations? And remember the guests you wouldn't let the morning show book for the same reason? Oh, and remember the air talent you already fired during the last round of cost cutting... when you replaced live shows with voicetracking? Oh yeah... and remember when you...
...right.
Which brings me to the fifth thing the downfall of radio can be blamed on.
Your Local Planetarium.
Let's talk about time and space.
First, there were carvings in stone. Then came ink and paper, followed by the telegraph. And then AM radio. Then TV. Then FM radio. And Satellite. Etc. One might go so far as to claim that the media universe is ever expanding.
...or is it?
]]> I happen to think this pattern of massive expansion in all directions is eerily similar to another pattern we all learned about in science class many, many years ago: the Big Bang. I'd go so far as to call it The Big Bang Media Theory: an initial explosion of information came with the birth of human language, and that explosion has been expanding in all directions with the growth of technology. Cave drawings led to ink and paper, which brought us the printing press, the telegraph, radio, and so on. But the big bang theory also suggests that everything will eventually contract. I believe the same will be true of media. Media has been expanding into more and more forms - but then came this thing called the internet, which may very well be the point where all media collapses unto itself - which isn't necessarily a bad thing.It's just change.
Been to Amazon.com lately? They're selling digital books. Kindle, they call it. Hell, radio news websites are really just an evolution of magazines like R&R, FMQB and Gavin, not to mention those daily fax reports.
It's just change - not to mention an example of various forms of expanded media eventually collapsing into a singular form. Bring on the ones and zeros.
Radio has two options.
Eventually, radio will either be wiped out by the internet or it will merge into it. The determining factor will be the strength of each individual radio station's content at the point in time when AM and FM radio listenership truly collapses.
That last bit is important.
Radio today is swirling in a sea of cost cutting chaos. If our stations are stripped to the bone, to the point where they aren't the most entertaining option when listeners seek something to listen to, radio is doomed. Today, radio relies on convenience: it's with you on your way to work... but what happens when something equally convenient comes along? Will some other form of entertainment become the thing to listen to once the internet reaches the car? We're already seeing other forms of media taking over so much of the listening radio had in the home. Traditional at work listening is crumbling as we speak and the car will be next to go. Without compelling content, it's just a matter of time.
I would think corporations that have invested so much money into radio ownership would protect their investments by making sure the product that *IS* their radio stations would be compelling enough to survive these hard times. But I would be wrong because...
Greed trumps common sense.
I've always thought of radio not as a medium, but instead as individual brands. We're in a time of great change, and many of our individual brands - our stations - won't survive when the internet surpasses the airwaves.
"Oh, who are you kidding... that's so far into the future."
Hardly.
If you thought FM changed the face of AM, wait until a simplified interface is created to bring the internet into your car. And remember this: it's already been done once.
Did you surf the internet in 1985? I doubt it, but I bet you were starting to by 1995.
The change in your habits was born out of a change in the internet's interface. It's too hard to remember a number like 64.236.29.120 so a system of domain names was created to simplify the process of taking us to a website such as cnn.com.
In other words:
http://64.236.29.120 = http://www.cnn.com
Similarly, a system will eventually be created to take us from some crazy set of numbers to an online stream of what we now know as 95.7 FM in Houston, or 92.3 FM in Honolulu.
Again, the question is, how many of our AM and FM signals will be worth a damn when that time comes? It's not as far off as you may think, and there's only so much budgetary stripping to the bone that can be done before the bone of entertainment is broken entirely.
I'm not a doom and gloom guy. I've always believed one person can change a radio station, one station can change a market, and one market can change the entire medium. It's happened before. We all know who the legends are in terms of stations and talent. But will there be future legends for radio when the medium becomes too constrictive for talent to develop?
With each passing year, my doubts grow.
The downfall of radio is the downfall of man: It's greed.
]]>It's worth looking into how the Japanese treat their auto factory workers, and how their actions from decades past are still shaking the U.S. auto industry today.
They paid their workers ten cents a day and forced them into submission, right?
No.
The Japanese empowered their workers and created a business culture that was (and all too often still is) the opposite of ours.
It's a long story, but the short version is this - and it directly applies to radio:
The Japanese wanted a piece of the worldwide auto market, and their initial attempt was typical. They tried to win on cost. They implemented a system of "lean production" where they stripped the cost of production to the bone. Gee, doesn't that sound familiar?
What they got for their effort was a very affordable car that wasn't worth the metal it was made of. Garbage. But, let's be honest... cheap sells. And their cars did sell. And they broke down. As George Bush once said, "Fool me once, shame.... shame on you. Fool me twice, I won't get fooled again." (...Grin)
The Japanese realized the strategy of cheap would lose in the end as competitors built more reliable cars.
This is one area where I believe radio is dead wrong today. Cutting costs to the bone is a short term strategy that will lead to long term failure as competing forms of media become either more entertaining, or equally entertaining with fewer commercials.
Radio can't win by cost cutting. But radio can win by outperforming... and that's exactly what the Japanese auto industry realized they needed to do to compete with the U.S.
]]> Their next attempt at taking on the U.S. auto industry was through a system of what they called "optimum-lean" production.Optimum-lean didn't mean even more cost cutting. Instead, it meant running appropriately lean and investing in their workers. It meant doing a better job of hiring the best people to work in all areas of a factory from management all the way down to the worker on the line. It also meant teaching their workers and above all - this is the most important part - it meant empowering them.
In a Japanese factory, a lot more is expected of a worker than to just make the product. The worker is expected to become an expert at their job to the point where he or she can find and implement better ways of making the product, be it through eliminating waste or through innovation. I'm talking about individual creativity, and, even more importantly, empowerment.
To this very day, a Japanese auto worker is expected to literally stop production of the line if quality is threatened.
The Japanese approach was the exact opposite of ours, and by the 1990s as their cars overtook ours in terms of quality, style and reliability, it was pretty clear whose approach was superior. Even today, for American workers right here in the U.S. of A., there's a difference between how it's done at the auto factory making American cars in Detroit and the auto factory making Japanese cars in Kentucky.
Obviously, the auto industry is far more complicated than that, and there were plenty of other advantages and disadvantages on each side. My post is only intending to address how workers are treated, what is expected of them, and how the differing approaches had a direct effect on the level of creativity and quality.
I'm not saying the Japanese are better. I'm saying a system of top-down management is worse. And that is exactly what deregulation brought to radio.
Deregulation brought us huge radio corporate structures that govern their properties like a factory, and the approach isn't working.
Deregulation brought us a system where a jock in Baltimore can come up with ideas for a better show that won't air because they don't fit the Clear Channel operating procedure. Deregulation brought us a system where a program director in San Francisco can't change the course of his or her station to fit the market because it's not what CBS deems appropriate.
Deregulation is turning a creative medium into a factory with an outdated business model. Might as well be building Pintos, eh? Or maybe you're at more of a Chevy Nova kind of station.
Detroit isn't the only place where we're learning the hard way that a top-down management strategy doesn't work.
]]>TV viewership on the major networks is down, but that doesn't stop American Idol from grabbing an average of 30 million pair of eyeballs before the contest even heats up.
These are tough times for radio, but I wonder what Seacrest's numbers are like on Kiss in LA, or Kraddick's on Kiss in Dallas. Look what happened to K-Rock when Stern left.
Content is king, but since people can get music anywhere, radio needs its content to be about a lot more than just playing the hits.
The suits controlling radio have been allowing the quality of its content to plummet thanks to cost-cutting, piss-poor sales strategy, corporate dictated programming and lazy gimmickry. All of that garbage needs to stop, but I doubt it will since the business of radio has been so wrecked that it can hardly afford to create the content needed for its own survival.
]]> It's common to talk about using promotions to create appointment listening. We need to be talking about using air talent to create appointment listening. Not just in morning drive either.I had a friend who made his entire career through ballsy job interviews and delivering results. He'd drive into a market for the interview, assess the competitive situation and then, when interviewing for the PD gig, he'd say something like "Hire me and I'll double your 25-54s in 2 books. If I don't, fire me." He'd usually get the gig and then turn the so-so station into a market leader through a combination of focusing the playlist and empowering his jocks.
I used to help him build clocks from time to time and we'd look at Bs as if they were a problem. Bs are solid and safe, but they're not where the passion is. You can use that mentality to assess everything else going on during an airshift, from what the jock is talking about to how you promote your own promotions.
Passion records.
Passionate jocks.
Passion programming.
The idea of turning around a station that way isn't possible these days because everything from song adds to how long a jock's break can be is dictated by some clown in a different state.
The funny thing is, I'm not anti-corporate.
I'm anti-crap.
By the way - speaking of "Build it and they will come" - I always thought that would be a great slogan for a company that makes vibrators.
]]>It's time to enter into a new age of superstar air talent, where program directors are creative geniuses rather than fixtures in board room meetings. It's time for radio to become fun again, before it's too late.
Personally, I think satellite radio is doomed. And I think HD radio as a compelling medium is doomed.
Terrestrial radio, on the other hand, has a relatively easy fix for it's problems. No, really.
Put the keys back in the hands of the person driving the car. Then demand, and reward, results.
I'll use Movin' in Dallas as an example. The gimmick landed with a thud in the fall, and the rest of the market kicked it in the winter. This makes sense, being that the format is radio's version of a poor man's get rich quick scheme. I'm sure glad they didn't wipe out a heritage station to put that thing on the air!
]]> Oh, wait...Still, the solution is simple. Throw out the gimmick. Lose the cheezy imaging. Kill that embarrassment of a website. In its place, launch a unique Dallas radio station, targeting the same 25-44 women in Dallas that Movin' is failing to reach. Unless aliens came down from outer space and abducted every woman in the metroplex, I think there's plenty of room for a 25-44 female station to succeed there.
Hire superstar quality air talent. Staff it 24/7 with air talent who have something to say. Air talent who will live, eat and breathe Dallas. Create fun viral marketing type promotions that get listeners talking - and enjoying radio again. Hire someone who creates imaging that has intelligence and wit. Inspire people. And for the music? To hell with formats. Research those 25-44 women and play their favorites, regardless of format. Hire an MD who longs for the old days when music was king, and have that person build playlists by demographic, not by industry expectations. I remember working with an MD who nit-picked every aspect of his logs. It was his art.
Most importantly of all, corporate needs to empower people at the station level. If those people fail, fire them. If they succeed, reward them with even more freedom.
I don't envy the position record labels find themselves in as music becomes increasingly disposable. These days, consumers treat music like cheap beer whereas previous generations treated it like fine wine. Then again, corporate radio is treating it's talent like cheap beer rather than fine wine.
]]>It needed: Must. Have. Content.
Ah, but that's precisely what satellite radio didn't have.
Using cable TV as an example: in the old days, fuzzy TV via UHF/VHF was good enough. Sure, it was annoying to adjust the rabbit ears to catch an episode of Three's Company, but whatever. It worked.
Then, one day, MTV came along, and the only place to get it was on cable. Hello subscribers!
Remember the first commercials for MTV? They were advertising something brand new - a channel of non-stop music videos. I bet you still remember the ad's slogan over a quarter century later ("I want my MTV!", as if I even had to remind you).
For far too long, satellite radio was like cable before the birth of MTV. There wasn't a compelling reason to pay for it.
Do you even remember any of the early commercials for satellite radio? The commercials were about as compelling as the product itself. The only commercial I remember talked about a guy driving coast to coast without ever losing the signal. Great, so satellite radio is cool to have once every few years. True, satellite radio is mostly commercial free, but a lack of commercials does not equate to compelling content. It just means less interruption of the same old content people were already getting for free.
]]> Oh, right. Satellite radio offered up channel after channel of unique music mixes. Yawn.Until Sirius and XM started picking up programming like Stern and O&A, there wasn't really any must-have content to justify buying special equipment and then paying a monthly fee. And now, the geniuses at the satellites are allowing some of the only unique content they have (Opie and Anthony, for example), to be broadcast on terrestrial radio as well.
INSANITY!
The sad thing is, terrestrial radio is walking the same path of lackluster content with HD. I realize that, unlike satellite radio, HD is free once you buy a new radio, but so what? Where's the must-have content that makes a listener's current radio not good enough?
Oh god, some bozo is going to mention a music mix again.
I can't believe that in this age of instant gratification we still have broadcasters stupid enough to believe that waiting to hear a song you like on a playlist is a form of compelling entertainment. Honestly, I find that mentality shocking and downright sad.
A mix of music is no more compelling than borrowing someone's iPod. In fact, it's less compelling. At least, on someone else's iPod, a listener can search for songs he or she prefers.
Satellite radio did not fail.
The programming on satellite radio failed.
That's a big difference.
The programming on satellite radio wasn't compelling. This makes me wonder how any broadcaster with even half a clue would think the future of HD radio will be any different.
In fact, with the direction terrestrial radio is headed (Jack, Movin', seven-second talk breaks, every piece of imaging sounding like a production library demo), it's future isn't much brighter.
For satellite radio to be successful, it needs...
For HD radio to be successful, it needs...
For terrestrial radio to remain successful, it needs...
...compelling content that is unique to it.
Music isn't enough.
]]>