Hear 2.0

The one where I get to lecture the Wall Street analyst about Howard Stern

From Inside Radio:

Lazard Capital analyst Barton Crockett believes Stern will stay put, although he could take a pay cut and sign for $80 million a year. Crockett tells investors, “That represents a fair compromise between the view that Stern is worth less now than he was in 2004, and the fact that he still has a loyal subscriber base that could walk if he doesn’t renew.” ...Crockett notes the self-anointed King of all Media ... has “less influence” since leaving CBS Radio in 2004. “One sign of this is the drop in Google searches for ‘Howard Stern’ since he left terrestrial radio,” Crockett writes. He calculates Stern’s worth about one million subscribers and an estimated $74 million in cash flow a year to Sirius XM.

I never thought I'd be in a position to lecture a financial analyst about finance, but here goes nothing.

The value of Howard Stern is not a function of his Google search volume. Nor is it a function of the subscription revenue tied to some fraction of Sirius XM subscribers. What is it the analysts say, "past performance is no indication of future performance"?

The value of Howard Stern is equal to the net present value of his future revenue streams across any and all distribution channels where his content will be found.

In other words, Stern is worth the current value of the future dollars he can earn for the largest terrestrial broadcaster if, in fact, he were providing content for such a broadcaster (as he may one day do).

A financial analyst valuing an asset like Howard Stern based on his Google searches is like an MD diagnosing your illness by asking your astrological sign.

Come on.

For everyone who thinks good ideas are hard and expensive....

Did your station email something like this to your audience this morning?

And if not, why not?

Opportunity comes to those who are smart enough to recognize it.

Hopefully, the link goes to a page where I can do what I'm offered and not the home page.

Video IS the Radio Star

No, video didn't kill the proverbial radio star, but video can BE the star of radio.

As media meld into each other the question of "who's in the moving picture business" and who isn't becomes irrelevant.

Thanks to the digital soup of media, EVERYONE is in the "moving picture business," including radio.

Of course, you can post your video using one of the many free tools, such as YouTube, or you can use a platform that you can more effectively control and monetize.  It seems to me that a station with a large audience would be better served to do the latter, especially since it doesn't preclude distributing content to freebie channels like YouTube, too.

Mike Glickenhaus is the head of VMIX, one of the leading companies providing such "you-control" video platforms to media companies worldwide - including radio, TV, and newspapers.  

We talked about the importance of video to radio, and what the best strategies are to make it happen. Watch this:

Here, for example, is a VMIX application for radio fully sponsored.  And here's another.

If you are a "local media company," then it's time to face the fact that you're a video company, too.

Radio is Shrinking as a Source of News

As the Internet becomes a more important source of "news when you need it," all traditional media - including radio - are becoming less important sources.

So says this survey.

This is another way of saying that if you're in the news business, you are necessarily in the business of getting the news to your audiences their way, not yours.

Thus, any news-oriented station really needs to assess what fraction of its resource commitment is devoted to its digital strategy versus its over-the-air strategy.

Make sure you allocate with your future in mind, assuming you intend to have one.

Note, of course, that news needs and the needs fulfilled by Talk Radio are not the same. Does this suggest that Talk stations can be online powerhouses for news while still over-the-air powerhouses for Talk?  

Why yes, yes it does.

Does Radio Make the Hit? Or Does the Hit Make Radio?

Do hits rise to the top of the public's consciousness because they're good?  Or is it strictly a chance phenomenon?  And to what degree are we all sheep who "follow the leader"?

And where does radio come in?  That is, can radio "make" a hit, even if the song isn't "good" (i.e., inherently likable by audiences)?

The answer is most likely a little bit of all of this, or so says this article from WIRED which summarizes the research of Duncan Watts and others on the subject.

Watts experimented on different groups of people with the same roster of songs.  Some songs became "hits" every time, but mostly the hits were different in each group (i.e., chance).

Respondents were able to rate each song (and see the rating) and a distinct "follow the leader" impact was noted.  That is, folks tend to like what other folks like, largely because other folks like it.

Interestingly, when Watts faked the rating scores so the high-scoring songs appeared low and the low-scoring songs appeared high, some of the "follow the leader" impact persisted, but ultimately some of the "hits" began to percolate back to the top.  The broader effect, however, was that less music was consumed in this upside-down topsy-turvy world (lie about the merits of your product, and you may turn folks off to your category altogether).

So, concluded Watts, about half of a song’s movement could be attributed to intrinsic appeal. The rest was luck. As WIRED writes, "Rerun history, it seems, and Madonna could be working as a waitress."

It seems to me that radio's role in all this is profound.

Radio enables the "good" songs to rise to the top quickly.

Radio gives "chance" hits the best chance of success by exposing them to the most ears at once.

Radio facilitates a "follow the leader" effect by being the leaders - and picking the leaders - listeners are likely to follow.

Put that in your pipe and smoke it, music labels.

Presenting the "Ed Wood Award for the Worst Radio Station Website"

What's the worst website for a radio station you've ever seen?

I mean something so mind-numbingly bad that it threatens to tear at the very fabric of space/time.

Here's your chance to nominate some candidates.  Just make sure you provide your reasons (i.e., don't assume those reasons are self-evident).

This is not intended as a deep-dive into a bubble-bath of negativity. Rather, it's a learning opportunity.  Sometimes the best way to go right is to see what it means to go terribly wrong.

So what's the worst (and please provide the link)?

The tension is building!  Oscar-schmoscar!  Who will win the Woody?

Nominate by comment below.  If we get some worthy candidates, we'll vote later.  And please don't email me the toxic URL's directly.

Discussing the Future of Public Radio

I haven't written much about Public Radio lately, and I should.  Not only are Public Broadcasters among the most faithful and thoughtful readers of this blog, but they're also in many ways that segment of the industry best positioned for the cross-platform future.

Why has Public Radio so embraced the term "media," (as in "Public Media"), while commercial radio is only beginning to warm up to the notion that "radio" is now "media"?

Watch this video of my conversation with John Decker, the Program Director of San Diego's well-regarded KPBS radio and television.  We discuss that topic and more, including a new model for monetizing Public Radio content via digital distribution.

I'll write about this model more later, but it seems to me to be inevitable that in the long run paying station affiliates for programs when you are listening for the programs, not the affiliates, is an outmoded construct.

Station affiliates should be orbits of local cultural consequence, not simply distribution points for national content.  And national content elements should have their own universes, their own "tribes," which allow me to join and contribute directly.

In other words, I should be able to patronize both or either - for their own reasons.

Like I said, more on that later.

We also talk about the much ballyhooed NPR mobile app, which bugs me for a few reasons I'll share in the video.

This video is a brief edit of the complete conversation.  If you want to watch the full 27-minute conversation, go here.

Thanks to John Decker at KPBS for sharing his time and providing such thoughtful answers!

As usual, you can subscribe to all these videos on iTunes here.

The Lines between Media are Blurring...

In a post about the face-off between Amazon's Kindle vs. Apple's iPad on the book-reading front, a point is made about the "fuzzying" of lines that relates to radio as much as it does to print.

Nick Bilton argues: "If you look at the way many of us consume content online, it's shifting from just reading words to consuming multimedia ... We view images, watch videos and add our own commentary to the content we ingest."

What Bilton is describing is a blurring of the lines separating media - ALL media - from each other.

When lines blur it's not the different flavors of media that matter, it's the content expressed in those forms that matters.  And the reason is that the ubiquitous expression of content can be assumed.  It's what you express that separates the proverbial men from the proverbial boys.

The challenge becomes creating unique and compelling content.  Then going to town on the media possibilities of that content, regardless of platform.

This is a major transformation in the way broadcasters need to think about their industry (which now actually becomes industries joined at the hip called "content").

Needless to say, as this content is grown and nurtured and exposed, it may look very little like what we today call "radio."

And it may not even come from what today we call "broadcasters."

In Praise of "Average"

Being "average" doesn't mean being mediocre.  It means being like most people and liking what most people like.

And wrapped up in that is one of Radio's key advantages.

So embrace it.

What the iPad means for Radio...really

Now comes the inevitable time to ponder the implications of Apple's new iPad - and the category of devices it will soon include - for the world of radio in all its shapes and sizes.

First off, it doesn't matter whether this device is a boom or a bust.  It is part of a techno-trend whose directionality is clear, regardless of who trips or stumbles on the path.

On the surface, this has no impact at all on radio.  The device doesn't include a radio per se and doesn't add any radio substitution opportunities that aren't already available in various other gadgets.

There will be those in our industry who begin the tiresome drumbeat to "add a radio to the iPad."  These good-hearted souls will be missing the point.

And that point is wonderfully expressed in this device, just as it was verbalized to me some time ago by my friend and a keen observer of marketing trends, Tom Asacker.

"There is no such thing as radio anymore," said Tom.  There's no such thing as radio or TV or newspaper or magazines or even ad agencies.  There is only media.  And all media is now in competition with all other media because the firm lines once separating audio from video from print are no more.

A "newspaper" on an iPad is video and text and interactive and audio and personalizable and more.  It is, in other words, almost completely unlike a "newspaper" and almost completely like all other forms of media rolled into one.

The same will be true of TV and radio and the rest.

What will separate one from the other will be the degree to which the leaders in each sub-industry understand this reality and the degree to which they perform accordingly.

At its heart, the media tentacles for any brand are limited only by resources, imagination, and inspiration.

Oh, and by content.

Now, more than ever, the importance of content couldn't be clearer.  And by "content" I don't mean having stuff to share, I mean having stuff that's worth sharing and sharing in a multiplicity of media forms that is different from what other folks likewise share.

If you're thinking the iPad is good for radio because you can get your app on it, you're missing the point, too.

When you are not radio anymore but are instead "all media," then what makes you unique from all other media becomes that much more decisive.  

It's not about having the app.  It's about why having the app makes consumers' lives better.