Hear 2.0

What kind of Broadcaster are you?

A manager or an entrepreneur?

From Alan Webber's terrific new book: Rules of Thumb (Interview coming soon to this blog):

Managers favor efficiency.  Efficiency builds freeways and parking lots.  Efficiency bulldozes neighborhoods and surrenders cities to automobiles.  Efficiency resists change because change introduces friction and friction adds costs.  Efficiency takes the same route to and from work every day - because it's simpler, easier, and eliminates the need to pay attention.

Entrepreneurs favor serendipity.  The same things that make cities fun, exciting, and vibrant places draw entrepreneurs to innovation and experimentation.  Entrepreneurs want to know, "What's around that corner?"  They don't want to take the same route to work every day; they want the freedom to explore new paths and discover new experiences.  Entrepreneurs [are] hungry for fresh encounters with daily life that offer the opportunity for moments of insight and inspiration or just plain joy.

Choose wisely.

A different perspective on the demise of R&R

Any time an industry loses one of its institutions, it's a time for grief and reflection.

But it's also a time for perspective.

Change does not come without pain and trauma. Check the fossil record and you'll see what I mean.

Change is neither good nor bad, it is simply inevitable and unyielding.

It's how you think about change that makes it either beautiful or ugly.  It's what you decide to do because of change that makes you ultimately succeed or fail.

Whether we're talking about an auto company or an industry trade paper or your favorite elderly uncle, always being there in the past may be comforting but it is no guarantee of always being there in the future. And this is not good or bad - it's simply what is.

It's obviously sad that so many good people - people we all know - are out on the street.  But many, many more people in our industry are already out on those streets - and who will write the blog post for them?

What's more, many people - people we all know - are recreating their careers in and out of what radio is and is becoming.  And they're doing it all around us every day.

There will be no shortage of news regarding radio.  There will be no shortage of news outlets.  There will be no shortage of news reporters.  There will be opportunities anew for fresh and profitable sources for all of the services we have come to expect from R&R.

R&R's function has not ceased - nor has the ability of their talented cast to perform it.

Only the newspaper and its website are gone.

R&R is dead - long live what R&R will spawn.

Did "Radio Heard Here" Work?

Now I have nothing against the "Radio Heard Here" campaign, other than the fact that it's a non-solution to a non-problem dressed in a bow.

Today I see a bonafide research study which "proves" the value of the effort.  Here are some of the statistics:

What we learn is that almost everybody responds positively to obvious radio positives, regardless of whether or not they recall hearing the spots.

No surprise there.

But we also learn that folks who heard the spots respond higher still than those who don't.

This suggests, the argument goes, that it was the spots that made folks respond more positively about radio.  That is, the effort presumably worked!

Or did it?

As anyone who knows anything about research will tell you, this data doesn't prove that case at all.  In fact what it really suggests is that people who recall the spots probably listen to more radio than folks who don't, thus explaining why they're more likely to remember spots others can't.

And what would you expect people who listen to more radio to think about the medium relative to those who don't?

You got it.  You'd expect them to be more positive.

So what this elaborate research stunt really proved is that folks who spend more time with something like it better than those who don't.

No matter what dumb and pointless industry branding effort they're forced to endure.

How to Attract Gen Y

You know Gen Y, right?

Those are the folks now in their teens and twenties who are doing their best to up-end every aspect of media we used to take for granted.  God bless them.

But do you get their attention for your radio brand?

Here's some advice from Gen-Y personal branding guru Dan Schabel:

 

- Listen to them carefully and analyze their behavior. 

- Ask them how they want to be contacted before sending out a mass mailing or poking them on Facebook. 

- Be creative with your marketing because that's the only way you will attract them to your product or company. 

- Reward them with incentives and they'll come knocking on your door because they were raised to feel special by their parents. 

- Develop content they can share because they are already active online and have their own channels of distribution. 

- Recruit them to help you with your marketing to other Gen Yers.

"Streaming - What is it Good For? Absolutely Nothing"

From the rumor mill:

Renda Broadcasting's WSHH-FM (99.7) and WJAS-(1320) ceased their online broadcasting feature on January 1, 2009 "due to escalating royalty fees for online streaming broadcasts." WMNY-AM(1360) remains online. You might recall that Renda Broadcasting was among the first to pull music from the internet a number of years ago when the RIAA challenged whether there should be further royalties incurred for broadcasting over the net.

Way to drive using the rear-view mirror, guys.

And make sure to shut down your electricity when that bill gets too high, too.

"Why Local Radio is No Longer Local"

 

Here's a piece I was interviewed for in a local San Diego paper, The Reader, that is a fairly well-balanced take on the local/non-local issue.

Check it out.

Why Radio doesn't get the great publicity we feel we deserve

"Why don't we get more positive publicity, given the vast scope of radio's listenership?" 

That's the question on the lips of most of our industry's bigwigs. More than one has asked me this, personally. 

After all, more folks generally listen to radio than ever before. There are an estimated 800 million radios in the U.S. alone - an average of five or so in every household.  What's more, surveys routinely show that folks are listening to radio, not abandoning it for whatever's new. 

But there's a problem with this argument. It doesn't only obscure the trends, it also ignores the difference between what folks do and what they're interested in. 

The trend we are ignoring is the one that Arbitron clearly demonstrates: While more folks may be listening they are not listening as much. With all the novel distractions available to them, why would they? Further, a rising U.S. population will, simply because it's growing, generate more radio listeners - if not more radio listening. 

That's the trend, but what about the difference between behavior and interest? This is where one of my favorite TV shows, Mad Men, comes in. 

It's the first basic cable show to win the Emmy for Best Drama. And while it's viewership is way ahead of its first season, an average episode is still watched by a mere 2 million folks per episode - including DVR viewing. Compare that to the 19 million people who watch an average episode of CSI, and you see my point. 

One show is a critical darling, a cult phenomenon, an award winner, a trend-setter and a style-setter. It's the DVD spotted under the arm of Barack Obama, the show starring the host of this week's season finale of Saturday Night Live. 

And the other show is one of the top-rated in television. 

It's not the biggest show that wields the most influence over the pop-cultural zeitgeist, it's the coolest one. 

As a result, it doesn't matter how many listeners radio has. It doesn't matter how ubiquitous radio is. 

What matters is not how big you are, it's how cool you are. 

"Big" and "cool" together are, of course, the ideal. 

"Cool" without "big" can be influential, especially when it comes to the influence such brands have over PR. 

But "big" without "cool"? 

Cue the sound of PR crickets.

Lessons from Tina Fey

Saturday Night Live is enjoying its best ratings in more than a decade.

It's not because the show is better wall-to-wall than it has been recently. It's because the show has developed a "hit" that dovetails with the zeitgeist.

The "Tina Fey as Sarah Palin" moments from SNL are watched and re-watched. Shared and Digged. Sought out and showcased.

At a time when the TV industry fears the Internet could be its undoing, we see how the bite-sized replay and community aspects of the net drive attention to SNL well beyond what it would otherwise be.

But it all happens because the bit is that good. It all begins, in other words, with the content. And that begins with the talent.

As some broadcasters strip the guts from their stations, they would be wise to remember that the moments every listener wants to experience again and again, the ones they share with others, the ones that represent bits turned into hits, are based on the extraordinary efforts of extraordinary talent.

Have you nurtured your talent today?

Must-hear for lovers of Radio

Interview from WBUR with the author of this new book about the birth of American Radio:

Click the "Listen to this show" link.

My favorite quote from one critic at radio's dawn:

"Who would pay for a message sent to nobody in particular?"

[Thanks to Tom Asacker for the tip]

End on a High Note

From MarketingProfs (registration may be required):

if consumers are listening to a mix of songs that are relatively similar (eg, all love songs from the same artist), they remember their experience as more positive when the songs are ordered from least- to most–liked. In other words, a positive memory is affected by whether the trend became more positive or negative.

In contrast, if they are listening to a mix of songs that are quite different from one another (say, different artists), their memory for whether the experience was good or bad is affected purely by how much they liked only the last song played.

What this means is that it's not just about the mix, it's also about the sequence.

So, for example, shouldn't you play the "best" song right before the break, since it's not likely that you'll program a progression from worst-to-best?

Wouldn't you always want the last song folks hear to be the best song you can possibly play?