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Radio is Dead (and not just AM)
- Thread starter landtuna
- Start date
What is wrong with this picture (or why radio is dying). I was listening to a 'classic rock' station for about an hour while working in the garden. During that time there were two seven minute stop sets. With mostly the same commercials in both. The voice tracked announcer plugged the 'win free tickets to .. in 15 minutes' between each song. And then had the Lasik doctor who did his Lasik surgery on for not one but two 5 minute 'interviews' (or plugs, and I suppose there ought to be a disclaimer in there). When I got a chance to get my gardening gloves off, I put on an MP3 CD and never looked back. That is why radio is dying.
Sounds like that station is making plenty of money. Which is the point.
I disagree. Broadcasters should know that long stopsets are killers on music radio (and the younger the demo the worse it is) therefore it would behoove the suits to reduce the number and length of their stopsets and play more music. A station with long stopsets tells me it cannot charge very much per spot and therefore needs to play lots of them to pay the electric bill. The station might be making money but it will lose listeners over time unless there is some other compelling reason people listen.
That may be your experience, but it's not what the statistics say.
Radio stations are not in the music distribution business. Playing more music and fewer commercials is not the way the game is played. There is a cost for the service you enjoy, and that cost is measured in commercials. If you don't want to pay, that's fine, but expect that your favorite format will disappear. Which, in your case, it has.
As we've discussed in another thread, radio stations are looking for other ways to monetize their audience. Those that use the alternative systems may be able to lessen their commercial load. But to get back to the subject line of this thread, the quickest way to kill radio, or any other business, is to prevent it from making money. When a station has no income, it truly is dead.
You didn't quote any statistics.
In your own words the reason my favorite has largely (but not totally) disappeared is because I have aged out of the advertisers primary demo. In other words, advertisers cannot sell to me because I am out on my front porch yelling at the neighborhood kids to "get off my lawn!". Of course, we all know that is just an excuse because other advertising venues have found a way to address us old timers - look at all the subnets existing on TV airing classic shows and advertising directly to old farts. That's where your radio advertising dollars have gone.
Just the same as any other business. Deny it customers (or, in radio's case, advertisers) and it will die. And that is exactly what is happening. Only those stations that can attract enough local advertising can get away with playing classic pop music. Only those stations who have a compelling/interesting/entertaining drive time can sustain.
You keep using the "monetize" word to describe how radio is changing but I don't see it. What I see is the stations not making money (whatever the reason) are selling off or just shutting down. The ones being sold are changing into formats which have other means of sustenance rather than commercial advertising. Some flip to niche programming. A very few are being run by people with deep pockets and a desire to run a radio station. And those are not my personal observations as much as they are the observations written in these boards day after day by people who are/were in the business.
I continue to maintain that the fastest way for a previously successful music radio station to fail is to lessen its appeal to its audience and the quickest way to do that is replace what its listeners want to hear with something they don't.
I know. You & I have had this discussion before, and statistics don't matter to you. You know your experience. And that's fine for you. I'm not doubting your experience. No one knows it better than you.
I don't know about that. Radio has its share of spots for life insurance and drug products. There isn't a lot of money in it, and that's why we don't create formats for it. If there was, we'd all gladly continue to play music from the 50s. It doesn't cost us anything more to do it. Just doesn't make as much back. We've replaced the money from your demographic with money from younger people, and we're doing just fine. It's not easy money, but no one said it was going to be easy.
The other thing we find is that statistically (there's that word again) older people have less patience for commercials than younger people. Why? Younger people have the "ignore" button. Older people don't. I'm not a psychologist, so I don't understand that. All I know is that the minute someone turns 50, they start to get annoyed by commercials. Younger people seem unaffected by them, especially if they're not aimed at them.
I think that's true. AM radio is in deep trouble. There are a handful of powerful stations in major markets making money. The rest are boat anchors, weighting down the rest of the industry. Many of them are run by mom & pops or small businessmen. I know because I speak with them. They're very worried. They don't know what to do. And unfortunately, there is no solution for their problem that I know of.
However, FM stations that program to people in that core 25-45 audience group are doing great. The country music format is very healthy. CHR is extremely healthy. Urban is extremely healthy. And some parts of AC are healthy. As I said, statistically, listeners seem to be willing to put up with about 12 minutes of commercials, split in two or three blocks.
Yep, I agree, and that's why it's important for radio to change and adapt as the audience ages. And I think the people that I work with are doing that. I don't speak for the entire industry. Just the square foot I occupy.
The interesting part of this to me is that recently, for the first time I can remember, there have been discussions about the number of commercials in talk radio. That is something new. For years, one of the things driving profitability and high salaries in talk radio was the ability of stations to stuff the show with commercials, both in the breaks and within the show. Howard Stern and Imus were once running 20-25 minutes of commercials per hour. Then in the last year, there have been articles suggesting that the length of the commercial breaks is what's hurting talk radio. But my view is it was never a problem before. What has changed? First of all, the weariness on the part of the audience on the subjects being discussed on talk radio. People are just tired on the never-ending rant. That has exposed talk radio to other issues like the length of commercial breaks. Plus the fact that the audience for talk radio is now mostly age 50+, and as I said, that demographic is far more sensitive to commercials than younger audiences. So those same people didn't find the long breaks as objectionable until now. The third thing that's changed is the quality of those commercials. National agencies have been avoiding controversial talk shows. So the only advertisers with money who are aiming at the 50+ demo are drug companies, insurance companies, and other less entertaining advertisers. What does this mean for talk radio? If it means fewer commercials, it will mean more syndication, more centralization, and lower salaries among talk hosts. None of that is a good thing, but it's the only way to fix it.
Because my personal experiences differ so greatly from what the statistics say I do not believe them. If you ask 100 random radio listeners what their primary dislike is I will bet big money the majority will say some form of commercials - either too many or too long. And I will further bet that the younger the listener the less tolerance they have. I have seen that in spades with my five kids, their many friends and my many peers.
That's not what other posters are saying on these boards. Personally, I don't know the finances but observation tells me there are fewer listeners these days than in years past. Out of the 7 people in my immediate family (all but 2 are under 40) no one listens to the radio except my wife and she listens to a religious non-profit only. When we used to pile into the car there was always a big fight to choose the radio station. That hasn't happened in many years.
I once had a math teacher that taught me statistics could be published to convey virtually any message you wanted to send. That's why I really question this. After a literal lifetime of being bombarded by never-ending commercials in every medium present on the planet I can say I have reached the point where a commercial is just unconscious noise to me. Unless it is one of the above examples (a political ad being repeated several times in a row for instance) I couldn't begin to tell you just what was being advertised. When I was in my teens and twenties and a commercial came on the radio there would immediately be several fingers jostling for position to hit the pre-set. I have seen identical behavior in my own kids (when they actually listened to the radio which was years ago).
I am no statistician but reviewing the ratings posted on these boards generally looks like a very few stations are getting the lion's share of listeners (and presumably the ratings and revenue that go with them) and the rest are fighting for scraps (or exist in a niche genre and can exist on scraps). Virtually all the big money DJ's are gone as are the specialty shows they used to produce. There are no significant money makers in medium or small markets and only the big cap companies are making it in the big markets.
As for the commercial load, I've said it before.....if there was any kind of competition in a specific genre any longer you would likely see pre-set pandemonium when listeners figured out a long stop set was on the way. Obviously that does not necessarily hold true for certain formats. If you are being enthralled by Bigmouth Blabberpuss your irritation over a commercial set might be overridden by your interest in what he says next so no change of station takes place. But I was addressing music radio formats only.
I sincerely hope you are successful at turning it around but because I have watched it decline since the mid-80's I am pretty convinced it is a dead-end industry (and again, I am talking about popular music radio, not necessarily all formats). In any case I don't see a resurrection in my lifetime.
No one likes the cost of the things we enjoy, but that doesn't stop us from doing those things. Would people like to hear the music they like without commercials? Sure. But that's not going to happen. I spend a lot of time with record labels, and they are finding ways to suck money out of music lovers any way they can. Right now, it's indirectly through royalties on radio and streaming sites. But at some point, they will want to add a music fee to your cell phone bill. That's what I keep hearing them say.
What I find when I talk directly with those posters is they're all either in AM radio now, or they were before they were fired. And as I said, AM radio is like Detroit, and it's weighing down the rest of the industry.
The fact that no single format is getting the lion's share is a music issue that can be confirmed in downloads and streaming data. Musically, we've become Yugoslavia. That's just how it is. Radio owners have to program their clusters with that in mind. As for "big money DJs," you'd be surprised how many are making 6 figure salaries, and how many are being heard in multiple markets. In some ways, this is the second Golden Age for some DJs. The big story this past year is a guy named Bobby Bones, who went from a local host in Austin to a nationally syndicated personality heard in 60 markets. Just because you don't see something doesn't mean it's not there.
It's never going to go back to the way it was. That's a reality. Radio will never have the monopoly it had in the 60s and early 70s. But this is a business. It has to make money. Yes, we know people don't like commercials, but at some point, there will be no way to avoid them other than your own personal collection. And from what I'm seeing in download statistics, the trend now is people seem to prefer the trade-off of commercially sponsored streaming over paying for and storing music.
I fully realize that commercials pay for entertainment and I don't object to that. I object to extremely long stop sets, too frequent stop sets or sets that repeat the same commercial over and over again.
And good luck to the cell companies getting me to pay for phone music. I use my cell phone as a phone only. If I want to listen to music I fire up my mp3 player.
Although the specific genres have changed it seems the same number of genres are still around.
Here in Phoenix 20 years ago we had half a dozen very well paid DJ's/personalities, all local. I can think of only one left. Some are still around but not on the radio. That's what I meant by "big name DJ's" are largely gone.
And that is the exact reason I said earlier that (music) radio is a dying industry. Not this year. Perhaps not next year. But it will happen. The financial issues coupled with the poor quality of pop music is going to kill music radio. The only thing keeping it alive now seems to be the video/stage portion. Take that away and you have a semi-popular song that has just 15 minutes of fame. I don't follow current pop music much but can't think of a single song in the past number of years that has lasted something like six months on the charts as did many of the Oldies.
And why would I want to pay for commercially streamed music as opposed to listening to my own library? That makes no sense to me. I can plug in my player as easily as a cell phone and listen to my personal favs through a high end stereo or I can ear bud it. Otherwise I have a clunky phone with data caps and drop out issues and have to pay for a subscription on top of that. ???
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If you want to talk about chart performance, Imagine Dragons recently had a song that lasted almost two years and another that was well over a year! I don't think that ever happened in the '60s. That's more like I once heard Bing Crosby say, about long ago songs that would take about two years to become popular and remain so for another two years.
Musical dad-ism again. Order your Jim Nabors 8-tracks now, operators are standing by.
Billboard measures longevity, not quality. I have always maintained that quality is a function of talent and that can be measured by the number of hits a specific group accomplishes. Here are a couple of lists which illustrate that:
Most Hot 100 entries (6 of 10 "Oldies")
207 - Glee Cast (TV show)
149 - Elvis Presley - the individual leader is held by a singer who died 37 years ago!
122 - Lil Wayne
91 - James Brown - Oldie
82 - Jay-Z
74 - Ray Charles - Oldie
73 - Aretha Franklin - Oldie
72 - Drake
71 - The Beatles - recorded their chart hits over 5 year period, the last 45 years ago!
68 - Elton John - Oldie
Similar results for # hits in T-40 and # T-10 singles. Most of these singers and groups quit recording 35 or so years ago.
Jim Nabors had a voice that most modern singers would die for. But you knew that.
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Can't argue with that. The technology for listening to your own library of recordings is cheap and robust. In fact, you can even load a few days worth of your personal collection onto your cell phone and use it as an MP3 player, but with no dropouts or data caps.
Nabors had an incredibly rich baritone voice, with excellent tone and an excellent sense of pitch. It was incredibly well suited to standards or even light opera or musical theater. I wouldn't dispute that having his sense of pitch is something most modern singers would die for. But I doubt if any modern singers would want to be limited to his baritone range, not with modern musical almost exclusively calling for the range of a tenor.
But you knew that.
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Here's the choice: Two commercials in between every song, or 6 commercials every three or four songs. Which would you like? We've done hundreds of surveys, and we've found that by a huge margin, people prefer FEWER stopsets. We can do what YOU want, or what 90% of our listeners want. We choose to do what the majority wants.
I know a lot of local DJs in Phoenix. A lot of them on a lot of radio stations you don't listen to. Just because you don't listen doesn't mean they're not there.
I hate to break this to you, but we're not building our business around the habits of 70 year old white men. What you do is fine for you. Keep on doing it as long as you want. We're paying attention to what everyone else is doing. Right now, streaming is the growth area. Things are not going to stay this way forever.
You keep saying that and I keep disagreeing. I have never known anyone, with the exception of the pre-set pushers, who prefers 6 to 2. Perhaps, unmeasured, are those people who prefer 6 because they can then hit the pre-set. I cannot believe people will voluntarily sit through long stop sets.
Methinks you read that too quickly. I didn't say there weren't DJ's in Phoenix. What I said was there used to be a significant number of DJ's making the big bucks here, and most had been in the market a long time. To the best of my knowledge there is but one left on the air.
You are breaking my heart! But I have found a way to deal with my grief. Unfortunately it does not benefit radio. But as I asked at least once before.....how is music radio going to deal with the upcoming demographic that has never (or very seldom) listened to radio? It isn't me the industry needs to worry about. It is the millions of whatever-generation-they-are-calling-it that doesn't identify with radio (and no, I don't mean streaming). Cadillac, Lincoln and Buick found out what happens to a grand old brand when you don't focus on the next generation. Now all of them are playing catch up. What is going to happen to radio in several years when the desired demo doesn't know you exist?
What makes you think they're "sitting through" them? The question isn't what do they do during the stop sets. The question is which do they prefer? They choose fewer to more frequent. That's what they get. What they do during the breaks is their business.
I don't care who has been in the market a long time. That has nothing to do with whether or not they're popular or whether or not they make big bucks. I'm here to tell you that there are at least 6 DJs in Phoenix making 6 figure salaries right now. A couple have been offered bigger deals elsewhere, but they prefer living in Phoenix. A couple who are on the beach were offered jobs elsewhere, and they preferred being out of work in Phoenix that with a job someplace else. I'm not kidding.
That's OK...you fell out of the demo when Clinton was still President. Since then we've learned to live without you.
We have found that the desired demo discovers us when they need us. That's what's happening now. People want curated music lists for free, and we're the easiest and cheapest deal they can find.
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