The Radio Week That Was 10/28

Wall Mart 400% more Radio Usage: Over the last year the big box of all big boxes has really pumped up it's radio spending and now reports big returns. Big Box stores have ignored radio for the most part and usually spend on TV and Newspaper inserts. For years we've seen the local Stereo Shop close up as Best Buy hits and radio loses. Could the tide be turning? Let's hope so, but why did these national chain stores and restaurants blow off radio in the first place? I bet the lack of a simple way to buy radio on a national scale was more the reason than the reach or effectiveness of the media. We still need to find a way that's better the national rep and while there have been ideas nothing seems to be advancing in our economic and creative freeze. Still, this is a story your sales team should be armed with. If the most frugal - penny pinching - store around is advancing in a tough economy with radio so can many others.

Layoffs: Every day the list gets longer as everyone tightens the budget for 09. We've seen it nearly every year for the last 5 or 6 and the drought in our products is not getting any better with fewer people to create the programming and sell it. How can we expect to make progress with all the competition from new media and how can we make an impact in the new media world with no hands on deck to sail the ship? Sooner or later we need to make an investment here.

Rock Music Making Big Waves: With AC/DC's new CD topping the charts and the audience buzzing about the return of Guns N' Roses after 13 years Rock music remains in the fore front. Metallica is still burning up the charts and there are still lots of other rockers with strong showings no matter how you measure it. Managing the A and B current categories has never been more important than is is right now. Have you been to a Wal Mart in the last week? The whole store seems like AC/DC has taken over. There are posters all over the place, lots of AC/DC clothing and even non-stop videos on the TV screens. The only thing they left out was having the Greeters decked out in AC/DC gear - how about one of them in a 'Hells Bells T Shirt."

The Radio Week That Was 10/21

The story that stood out was all the changes in the creative teams in satellite radio as XM and Sirius began the meat of the merger. When you stand back and look at the 2 services XM really put up a lot more into the music channels than Sirius. Sirius really ramped up the expenses when they lured Howard away and paid tons for sports rights. The bidding wars for content were mostly to impress Wall Street at any cost and we all know the costs are rather high.

The music channels were really a bargain. Most just had a programmer and maybe a jock here and there. XM was more focused on trying to bring in some unique formats and building on Lee Abrams theory (a well founded one) on 4 types of programming that addressed listeners who were casual to rabid. XM spent a lot on imaging the stations, running special programs and profiles, having artists stop buy, covering live tours, and keeping the music channels pretty active. Sirius pretty much pressed play and ran with 1000 in a row on a group of stations that really just covered the basic format food groups we have in most major markets.

XM felt that the music channels brought in around 70% of the subscribers and a wide range of people. Sirius was a lot more focused on the talk side and 'Howard's World.' The one problems there is where is the growth? How many more Howard Heads do they expect to find willing to pay out for the service? Yes, lots signed up when he moved over, but the fans are either there or not by now. You don't see a bunch of 22 year olds with their first job and car jumping all over signing up for Howard.

The sports channels probably still have growth in them - they have all the major sports covered and there are plenty of fans. The talk channels are OK, but there aren't any big hosts here and in most markets the talk fans have a wide range of choices in many cases on regular radio.

The new programming order with the merged services is mostly living on Sirius' energy. And in the music side it's pretty much just the basics. The huge Washington HQ for XM is probably pretty much a ghost town as the world now revolves around just delivering the hits.

For the terrestrial radio side it's good news. There will still be 2 services to choose from for a long time splitting the effect and now we don't have much on the 'music side' to compete with. No doubt with the slump in car sales and the new opportunities for 'add on gadgets' from sync systems with I Pods to WiFi to navigation aids and more video options. It also looks like the next big deal in cars will be more centered on MPG than so much focus on the dashboard.

You also have the debt issues with the merger and Sirius/XM needing to raise a ton of money in 1st quarter. They really can't really move to just 1 audio service and then use the band width to venture more into video for a new revenue stream - you still have over 1/2 of XM people to service and the receivers are not compatible.

It all adds up to a very tough business model. While Mel may dream of being the leading content provider in audio as he claimed in one of the addresses around the merger - it's not going to happen without some creative people and unique programming.

While satellite radio's impact on terrestrial radio has gotten past the peak it's now going downhill. It's likely that these moves could steepen the slope. For 'regular' radio we still face lots of challenges, but it looks like satellite radio is in the rear view mirror. If you're looking for some really talented people there's even more to choose from.

The Radio Week That Was 10/14

PPM: While the economy continues to be a wild ride we also still have the PPM controversy with NY and NJ looking to stop PPM with law suits.

This past week we got the first look at some of the new PPM markets - NY and surrounding areas, LA and the vicinity, Chicago and San Francisco/San Jose. So let's take a look at a few markets to see what the big difference is when we compare the 12 plus shares from July, August and September in the PPM world to the 2007 12 plus averages over the 4 books:

• New York: The Hispanic stations are off around 2.3 shares and the Urban/Rhy station are really up around 1.5 shares 12 plus over their 2007 share averages. While the Spanish formats did fall over 20% the Urban's are actually UP. The other winners were N/T (up 3.8 shares), ACs (up 2), Rock (up 2) Classic Hits/Oldies (up 1.6) and CHR (up 1 share).
• Los Angeles: Hispanic shares were off just 1 share under 4% and urban shares were off 1 share which is around 10%. The gains were similar for the rest of the formats.
• Chicago: Urban was off 4 shares, Hispanic down 1.5 shares while Rock picked up 4.2 shares, AC was up 3 shares, and N/T was up 2.4 shares.

Yes there are some big moves here with so many of the NON-Hispanic and Urban formats gaining a lot of market share. But, outside of the Urban fall off in Chicago there isn't that much downward movement. In the high Hispanic world of LA they are only off 4%. In NY look at the gains for the Urban/Rhy formats! Consider that this summer was dominated by a huge political season the big N/T gains could roll off after the election, those N/T shares could stabilize a little more as we get into 09.

Perhaps I'm biased, but it seems like a lot of action to go to lawsuits and state motivated legal action over these comparisons. We've all had books that moved up and down 10% - perhaps we should have called the state AG instead of the Arbitron rep.

Economy: While these swings and the recession (yes we are in one even through the govt. won't admit it) can be tough times for the sales team as well as the budgets. But, keep in mind that radio has CLEAR advantages for advertisers:

1. Those who take advantage of the moment and market their product with a well targeted message can make huge gains in this economy. Just like those who bought when the market hit bottom last week made huge gains this week, the same happens in the market place.
2. Radio is a bargain: The rates and production are reasonable to low and you can reach HUGE audiences without blowing the bank account.
3. Radio is proven: This isn't some Internet gamble that may not draw business. The radio model has worked for years.

It might be time to revamp the pitch and re-tool the packages with these 3 facts as keys.

It's also time to take advantage of the opportunity to build your product. We all know the road to making great/entertaining radio will come from having compelling products that interface with the community and entertain beyond the music. Reach out and really enteratin the audience - they need it. It's also your opportunity to invest now and really make gains as the markets recover.

The Radio Week That Was 10/6

1. PPM and Cuomo: This saga continues as minority broadcasting groups try to kill PPM so their ratings won't suffer. But, to try and make it illegal in some way is completely stupid. The only valid issue here is sample, and yes Arbitron will need to work more on sample and cell phone only households to deliver more reliable results, but it's not an easy task. PPM is far more accurate in collecting the data and the only finding you are going to see in a court ruling will have to revolve around the in-accurate diary system which they are trying to keep? Anyone can see the motive here - politicians trying to build a career from a case/publicity, like Elliot Spitzer did!!! Mr. Cuomo 'don't waste you time and our industry.' Grab a power switch somewhere else.

2. Arbitron looks at 50 diary markets to implement more cell phone household coverage in samples. Great news, but we need to do this in all markets PPM and Diary. The land line telephone is over as a communication device. It would be great if they would at least let us know which 50 markets they want to start with.


3. ABC looks at a Youth Movement: The network releases last week that they are focusing on 18-49s as they look for new products. Our whole industry is so far behind on this issue and we all need to reach out to younger audiences. Now is the time - as we come out of this economy you can bet that the working youth will be the catalyst not the depleted resources of the boomers.

4. Economy: The 'bailout' passes but we are still in a big economic mess. The public gets this one even though they don't understand the 'naked short selling' or the 'derivatives' they do understand that a bunch of highly paid Wall Street types made off with huge bonus' and paychecks on their backs. A lesson for us - 'the audience is smarter than we sometimes think.'

5. Economy and Formats: We've all seen down turns in the economy trigger gains for Country, but Rock radio can also grow as times get tougher. While the country themes of overcoming adversity, living in tough times, and a generally positive outlook are often cited as reasons Rock also has some themes in the music that sync up with the times. The rebellion side, tough times angle and reality of the music often cuts through. Look at the early 90s downturn and the rise of grunge. Look at all the new bands like Linkin Park, Stained, Disturbed and others that grew in the post 911 downturn. The late 70s was also a tough time that brought a rise in rock's popularity. With Metallica heading up both sales and download charts, ACDC on the way, Guns/Roses out shortly, Nickleback out soon and lots of left over music from earlier releases in 08 it will be a banner year.

6. Your Stars: How well prepared are your personalities for their show? What are THEY really bringing to the listening experience? I bet if you took an air check and just cut out the positioning, call letters, simple music IDs, and things like weather/traffic you'd have very little 'personality' to show. Air staff members become personalities by what they bring to the party not just by hanging out at the station. We are a third of the way into the Fall ratings period - how entertaining are we?

The Radio Week That Was 9/29/08

Here is the weekly review of Radio and related news on September 29th.

1. Was Letterman Mad or what. After McCain blew him off and ended up on Katie Curic's news Letterman really took him to task. Who had the bigger audience? Probably Letterman by a mile and he also got more from the web and other media coverage of his reaction. While we can see that McCain didn't feel it was time for jokes he could have turned the bit serious - Letterman's done it many times with other guests.

2. Rumors of the new 'Cumulus' lead smaller market ratings system keep popping up in the trades, but who is it? What is the plan here? For sure it's a big job, but let's hope they don't drag this out to the point where it really doesn't matter when the news hits. More and more this is looking like a re-run of the Clear Channel lead effort that ended up dry before this one.

3. Paul Newman passes while that's sad news we all have to cover it in our morning shows. Next time you might look up Death Pool Dave (not related to me) at www.dpdave.com. A great site with actual death pool watch updates. There are also on-line death pools with points (sort of like fantasy football) - usually you get their age minus 100 in points. It's weird but also entertaining and Death Pool Dave is a great interview.

4. The Web: Notes from various stories:

• Your Stream: Bill Conway (PD at KOIT) noted at the NAB that he was disturbed with the sound of his stream with all the filler junk inserted int he spot breaks to cover over the 'voice over talent issues.' He noted that only 10% of the spot content in most streams needs to be replaced. As a listener to lots of streams I join Bill in asking- why do we rarely even hear any spots at all when only 10% of them really need to be covered. The stupid PSA, goofy instrumentals (some sound like the came from old porn movies) and long winded promos are annoying to say the least. It's time we demand more from our streaming providers in substitution software. Surely we can find a way in our digital studios to mark the spots that need to be replaced and let the rest run. If we are going to go head to head with all the web based stations we need to make this work!!!
• Pod Casts: An idea of the week - how about a 2-4 minute summary of your morning show for the week? Great download of the best moments all quickly edited together.
• Are all our Web Efforts ignored at the buyer level: John Hogan was addressing a gathering of buyers in NY last week and noted that Radio has done a lot with the web and the buyers continue to act as if radio is sitting on it's hands. He's right - look at all the CC, CBS and other group efforts with lots of content and many experiments with lots of new ideas.

The Radio Week That Was 9/22/08

Thought I'd add a weekly feature to the blog and review some quick highlights from the past week in our radio world. Last week was pretty dramatic:

1. Economy Hits A Wall: From the coverage on CNBC it looked like last week was as near to a Wall Street meltdown as 1929. It looks like some of the storm has passed, but like IKE we have a huge expense cleaning up the mess. For Radio we didn't need this news as no doubt capital for business will be in short supply and the American economy will likely be in a funk for quite a while to say the least. We all know this will make the going even a little tougher as Radio looks to evolve into a lot stronger platform in the midst of so much new media competition. We're all going to have to get bold and creative and quick.

2.AFDI: Clear Channel wraps up their radio group meetings with an appeal to the troops to Actually F*** Doing It. While some criticize the CC team for using the language and a phrase that Lee Abrams used in his blog a few years ago the spirit is right. Gotta quit talking and start doing.

3. NAB: The convention is over, but is anything going to evolve or was it just another hang out convention?

4. CD's May Be Replaced by Micro SD-Cards? Wal-Mart and Best Buy are teaming up with Sony, Universal, EMI and Warner Bros to use the Scan Disk Micro SD cards and put CDs/Albums on them. Art and liner notes will return (yeah) and there will be plenty of room for you to store your songs on the memory cards also. They can plug into phones, MP3 players, your computer and are not copy protected. Sounds interesting, but will the current downloaders buy in?

5. PPM: The recent legal attempts by 'we like the inaccurate and outdated diaries because we looked OK in it' groups continue to hold PPM back. It's time for these folks to accept the reality and get out of the way of more accurate and reliable ratings data.

6. Looks Like Rock Radio Ratings are improving: Maybe it's the wealth of good new music, better sample return in both diaries and PPM panels, or maybe it's the Guitar Hero/Rock Band video games. Whatever the reason Rock Radio is mostly up in ratings across the country. Unfortunately Arbitron has discontinued their national format trends report due to the problems related to combining PPM and Diary data. So we really don't have any nationwide data to trend on here, but going through the top 30 markets I see 5-6 that are close to flat, 5 or 6 that could be ruled down and the rest are UP. For the stations I work with in both the U.S. and Canada nearly all were UP this past Spring. It's a good time to ROCK.

Authenticity Part 4 - The Wrap

We wrap up being Authentic with the audience with 3 tips:

1. Be Viral: When things happen in unique and unexpected places they can look more authentic. Showing up with a integrated presence in the streets and on the web woven into the event/site can get your message across around the hype filter.

2. Use your audience: They believe themselves. Having the audience spread the word in their own style and words is a lot more authentic than the big voice guy. Just make sure the audience says what they want - not 'which station rocks your town.'

3. Be Unique: Stand out in your words and presentation and surprise them. Think way outside the box and you'll hit 'authentic' a lot quicker than using the same old tricks.

Lastly remember that Image IS the Key and you build that image one sweeper, promo, billboard, and impression at a time. Lose the focus on the image just a few times with the audience and all your hard work can be lost. Once you grow that authentic image work with it carefully to make sure it sticks. Once you lose it you see that the audience doesn't forget.

Living Up - Authenticity Part 3

As we move through a series of thoughts on Authenticity In Radio the key for part 3 is LIVING UP. I don't mean living beyond your means but actually the opposite. Living Up to what you claim.


Once you pull out the hype and quit making statements and claims that you can't live up to you have to find selling points and claims that you CAN live up to. Also keep in mind that longer claims usually set off the Un Authentic Meter.

While there are many stations that stand out with high Authentic scores one great example to listen to is The Drive in Chicago. The main claim for the station is basic and simple - The Sound Track of Our Lives. Notice that they use 'our' not 'your' - which would assume that somehow they knew Your life.

The presentation is also low key. There isn't a big voice booming announcer making sweeping big balls statements. The avoid the laser shot gimmicks in the production and often rely on classic song hooks to showcase the 'soundtrack.'

And when you look at the results the Drive has pushed past the legendary Loop complete with Brandmier. They have also run past WXRT which likely had the 'authentic' Q-score before the Drive signed on.

Another tactic that works - a sense of humor. You can make big claims, but make it obvious that it's a joke. Just remember that humor has a limited shelf life.

Repeating it over and over is also a way that we often rely on the 'drum it into their heads' that often backfires. The more we bang the drum the more often their BS meter goes off. When you do hype it up or use humor watch out - don't overstay your welcome. Keep track of how many times you've run a sweeper or promo and consider that with most stations that have a TSL around 30 1/4 hours a week it only takes 40 plays of the sweeper to get over 60% of your cume hearing the message 3 or more times a week.