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A sad observation
- Thread starter Nairda
- Start date
S
scmidlapp
Guest
I think you missed the whole point here----what was being said, and correct me if I'm wrong---is that radio is no longer "inviting" people to listen. They are finding other alternatives and are leaving in droves. The Wal-Mart thing was only being used as a point of example or comparison.
Thats funny, I've heard Wal-Mart ads on the radio.....network buys but they're on there
Yes that is exactly the point I was making. Wal Mart is far from the only major US corporation that has decided not to use radio. Do you blame them? What separates so called local radio from XM or Sirius or any of the multitude of music formats available from the likes of Dish Network and cable? Unless they make an effort to be a live and local part of the community there is no difference. Voicetraking; satelite; and the likes; was never designed to replace live local recognized personalities that can identify with the local audience. They are tools that can be used to supplement programming but not replace it. When a carpenter buys an air nail gun does he then get rid of all of his hammers? Is it any wonder then that people are abandoning radio in favor of ipods and other sources of entertainment? There is a whole generation that has grown up exposed primarily to corporate radios cheap approach to get anything on the air that they can then sell. They fail to realize that you can only rely on tradition for so long then you have to actually have a product to sell. There is painfully little product left on the shelf. Advertisers are now seeing it and they are reacting by placing buys elsewhere. When will corporate radio see it or maybe the question should be when will they admit that they see it? If I'm not mistaken someone on this board once said that if your station sounds like an ipod you are screwed. That pretty much says it all.
It would indeed be interesting to learn if there was a time or event that "killed" radio for Walmart, or did it never get started.
If you are a "disciple" of that Midwestern broadcaster of a generation ago, Jerrell Shepherd, then you assume that success in radio advertising for the retail merchant is built on the foundation of "price and item" commercials, or as I think they phrase it today: Transactional copy vs. image copy. Print advertising, particularly in small towns were Walmart took off has always been highly 'transactional copy' so maybe there was no great emotional event in the life of Sam Walton. Maybe for him print worked and voice didn't.
But getting back to the original post that kicked off this thread: I had a whirlwind career in broadcasting for a few years and they got out for a number of years. When I traveled for business reasons and when I traveled for personal reasons, I still followed radio as I went. Spend a day or two in a town and I'm all over it: listening, checking out listings in the phone book, watching for billboards, paying attention to radios being played in small restaurants, and in some cases when I had time, doing a drive-by to size up the facility of a station.
I go back to the premise of the original post. Radio does not invite people in. Radio invites it's regular listeners to come in and participate... but radio HIDES from people who are not already part of the listening family.
I drive past transmitter facilities that do not have a sign out front to identify who they are.
I was in a small town a few years ago that had a station. From a distance I listened to it from time to time. Sometimes they would do a remote broadcast from the town where I lived. (You would only know that if you listened to them.) I stopped for coffee at a convenience store and caught a local policeman in the parking lot: "Where is the radio station?" His response: "Mister, I grew up in this town. There ain't no radio station in this town."
I came back a couple of days later after going to radio-locator and I found the station about two miles from where I had the conversation with the policeman. That, my friends, is a picture of radio today. As long as our salesman can sell SOME advertising, we don't care if anybody knows who we are or where we are.
If you are a "disciple" of that Midwestern broadcaster of a generation ago, Jerrell Shepherd, then you assume that success in radio advertising for the retail merchant is built on the foundation of "price and item" commercials, or as I think they phrase it today: Transactional copy vs. image copy. Print advertising, particularly in small towns were Walmart took off has always been highly 'transactional copy' so maybe there was no great emotional event in the life of Sam Walton. Maybe for him print worked and voice didn't.
But getting back to the original post that kicked off this thread: I had a whirlwind career in broadcasting for a few years and they got out for a number of years. When I traveled for business reasons and when I traveled for personal reasons, I still followed radio as I went. Spend a day or two in a town and I'm all over it: listening, checking out listings in the phone book, watching for billboards, paying attention to radios being played in small restaurants, and in some cases when I had time, doing a drive-by to size up the facility of a station.
I go back to the premise of the original post. Radio does not invite people in. Radio invites it's regular listeners to come in and participate... but radio HIDES from people who are not already part of the listening family.
I drive past transmitter facilities that do not have a sign out front to identify who they are.
I was in a small town a few years ago that had a station. From a distance I listened to it from time to time. Sometimes they would do a remote broadcast from the town where I lived. (You would only know that if you listened to them.) I stopped for coffee at a convenience store and caught a local policeman in the parking lot: "Where is the radio station?" His response: "Mister, I grew up in this town. There ain't no radio station in this town."
I came back a couple of days later after going to radio-locator and I found the station about two miles from where I had the conversation with the policeman. That, my friends, is a picture of radio today. As long as our salesman can sell SOME advertising, we don't care if anybody knows who we are or where we are.
Whether Wal-mart uses radio or not is irrelevant to the point here. Walton's quote means that any business that stops advertising itself to the public will fail. Radio has stopped trying to grow its audience.
MACK184 said:
Uh, Wal-Mart is currently the #1 national radio advertiser. In the past they didn't use radio, they sure do now!
I agree about radio - it stopped inviting people to listen but when did that attitude begin? My take is when Broadcasters were replaced by 'Bean Counters' and Stockholders. The business was then only looked at as to how much money could be squeezed from an ever increasing dwindling supply. Yes, at first people made obscene gobs of cash but then ‘everyone else’ saw the potential and the race to destroy the golden goose was on. There was a way to realize great cash flows but investors and stockholders wanted an ever increasing dividend each quarter so the industry had to find cost cutting ways and pretty much each time it involved people being sent off for a six month state paid vacation. That situation drove morale of the remaining ‘labor units’ right down the tubes (in most cases) and the situation just kept getting tighter and tighter as the years passed. Bottom line results were being squeezed, more people were released and those left behind were put upon to increase output at every ‘down-size’ – or as ‘they’ are calling it these days – ‘right-sizing’... that doesn't sound as bad as "You're fired!". And of course the labor units left behind will be perfectly happy doing the additional jobs of two or more units for no increase in cash, another wonderfully thought out morale builder. And the ever smaller play-list syndrome, after all people are just too stupid to know what they want to listen to so we’ll use this computer here and rotate 103 songs and the lemmings will be just too happy to run away in droves… Listeners would call ‘request’ lines and be told their choice in music sucked and to just shut up and listen or take a hike. They took a hike. Duh… why does the industry believe iPod sales are sky-rocketing?
We fast-forward to today and here we are.
But an ancillary situation began popping up that assisted ‘broadcasting’ in flushing listeners down the big fat pipe of no return – the Music Industry Nazis who wanted totally lopsided payments for paying increasingly less talented music ‘performers’. To believe charges for Internet streaming should rival over-the-air costs are just downright greedy. That industry is a discussion for another thread entirely so I’ll stop here before my blood pressure approaches critical…
Anyway, just my 2¢…
Have a good day. Carry on...
We fast-forward to today and here we are.
But an ancillary situation began popping up that assisted ‘broadcasting’ in flushing listeners down the big fat pipe of no return – the Music Industry Nazis who wanted totally lopsided payments for paying increasingly less talented music ‘performers’. To believe charges for Internet streaming should rival over-the-air costs are just downright greedy. That industry is a discussion for another thread entirely so I’ll stop here before my blood pressure approaches critical…
Anyway, just my 2¢…
Have a good day. Carry on...
One of the things Radio People probably need to do,
if they haven't already,
and apparently we haven't based on what we say here,
is to look at some other line of business....
other industries.....
other career choices that are also ALL SCREWED UP because modern man-kind now has spread-sheets and MBA degrees from big name colleges, and everyone wants to buy stock in a company that is going to hit a home-run.
Take a look at the nursing home industry. What more satisfying calling could a nurse or a housekeeper or a cook have than to lovingly look after those who have grown too old and too frail to take care of their own needs. With the coming of Medicare, that business was taken out of the "rest home" and moved into mainstream business practices. Today, big chains and bean counters and Federal bureaucrats have squeezed the fun and pride out of being a career nursing home worker.
Retailing? For many of us, the life of the retailer has little or no appeal, but just as some people find a really comfortable home in the military, there are people who LOVE the life of retailing.... well... they did until their equivalent of what broadcasters are calling BEANCOUNTERS took over and found new ways to make life a living hell.
Car dealers? Who takes greater enthusiasm from going to work every day than a CAR MAN! More and more dealerships are now chain owned. Sing the chorus again.
Farming. Not for everybody. But those who love it want to be no where else. Work outdoors. Have some seasonal downtime now and then. Watch the life-cycle, both plan and animal... at work. Sing the chorus again. Welcome aboard, corporate lawyers, beancounters and bureaucrats.
Everybody and his brother are trying to make a living and hope to be something they love doing while they are at it. Broadcasting is just in the same boat as everyone else. Get over that part. Talk to your neighbor and ask how he has figured out a way to beat the Dilbert factor in his line of work and see if you can steal his idea to recapture the spark of broadcasting genius.
(I'm sorry... did my sermon run too long?)
if they haven't already,
and apparently we haven't based on what we say here,
is to look at some other line of business....
other industries.....
other career choices that are also ALL SCREWED UP because modern man-kind now has spread-sheets and MBA degrees from big name colleges, and everyone wants to buy stock in a company that is going to hit a home-run.
Take a look at the nursing home industry. What more satisfying calling could a nurse or a housekeeper or a cook have than to lovingly look after those who have grown too old and too frail to take care of their own needs. With the coming of Medicare, that business was taken out of the "rest home" and moved into mainstream business practices. Today, big chains and bean counters and Federal bureaucrats have squeezed the fun and pride out of being a career nursing home worker.
Retailing? For many of us, the life of the retailer has little or no appeal, but just as some people find a really comfortable home in the military, there are people who LOVE the life of retailing.... well... they did until their equivalent of what broadcasters are calling BEANCOUNTERS took over and found new ways to make life a living hell.
Car dealers? Who takes greater enthusiasm from going to work every day than a CAR MAN! More and more dealerships are now chain owned. Sing the chorus again.
Farming. Not for everybody. But those who love it want to be no where else. Work outdoors. Have some seasonal downtime now and then. Watch the life-cycle, both plan and animal... at work. Sing the chorus again. Welcome aboard, corporate lawyers, beancounters and bureaucrats.
Everybody and his brother are trying to make a living and hope to be something they love doing while they are at it. Broadcasting is just in the same boat as everyone else. Get over that part. Talk to your neighbor and ask how he has figured out a way to beat the Dilbert factor in his line of work and see if you can steal his idea to recapture the spark of broadcasting genius.
(I'm sorry... did my sermon run too long?)
Goat Rodeo Cowboy said:
Bingo!
It isn't just Broadcasting. The visitors here point out what they feel are the current shortcomings of the broadcasting business and you hit the nail on the head when you say most all business has become this way. Since this is a broadcasting web site we of course base our observations on the industry we know about. But we can see the effect of corporate agendas all throughout the business environment, worldwide. The same things are happening in Russia, China, India and other up and coming financial powers. Just look at what is happening with oil today. More, more, more… so we can build more snow skiing slopes in the middle of the desert. :
Now, there’s nothing wrong with wanting more of what makes us feel good. But when certain emotions (greed, hate, fear, etc) begin causing hardship to less fortunate individuals, that is when we must step back and take stock of where we’re headed.
It won’t be pretty. It may not be easy. But after all is said and done I believe we will all be much better off than we are now. (That all means something but right at the moment due to the heat I can’t explain it any better…)
Thank you Goat Rodeo Cowboy for making a very valid point so we can compare broadcasting to other industries. Maybe we aren’t as bad off as we often believe…
NigelWick said:
True... it's a little difficult to connect with a liner card or voice track from 800 miles away...
The success of any radio station today does depend on invitations. Talk radio invites listners to join in the conversations. Other stations should invite listiners to tune in by constantly doing promos on upcoming news, contests and public service evernt. In other words we will not only keep you entertained with music and our egotistical personalities...but we will also inform you of upcoming events that you wont want to miss.
What made WARM so popular?
What made WARM so popular?
It's tough to put into words, but a lot of it has to do with the "likeability" factor. Is there a jock/talk show host in the market who people really like and want to spend time with? Frankie Warren comes to mind as perhaps the best of the lot. Daniels and Webster seem like a couple of guys you want to have a beer with. I've always liked Doc Medek. Other than that, not much choice.
2
2MANYHATS
Guest
Nairda Quote:
"They are tools that can be used to supplement programming but not replace it. "
I'm total agreement....I've woked with more yhan a few local "tools" myself.
"They are tools that can be used to supplement programming but not replace it. "
I'm total agreement....I've woked with more yhan a few local "tools" myself.
I've had PD's freak over not getting the new "liners" into the recorded rotation! They actually believe that these sell the product. Tell me, is there any one who tunes into a station because of some liner? Speaking of station identifiers... when was the last truly successful identifier? As an example.. every time I hear WBRE-TV use the "WBRE.. We're on your side!" identifier, I cringe.. what a useless and terrible slogan... Now WNEP.. "The News Station" quickly comes to mind and gives the viewer everything necessary to both identify the station as a news leader and it is simple to remember. Sorry to hit on TV so much, but radio has some really lame and useless examples.. none of which are good current examples of successful slogans...
U
uncleDJ
Guest
What a FANTASTIC thread. God, folks, most of what you're saying I've droned about for years.
I am surprised though that the FCC has not been under much more scrutiny in your treatises.
When you have an organization that is in the back pocket of the rich and powerful in the media it is no wonder why people are forgotten and the almighty buck can dictate terms. It's also the perfect excuse for facilities to keep 'hiding'...something I've been piping up about since my start in the 70s.
The standard for the industry still on the books ... the Communications Act of 1934 ... says media should 'broadcast in the public interest, convenience and necessity'. No better words invoked by our forefathers describes so well today's debacle, why brick and mortar radio has been riding like a sinking ship. This is one instance where government got it right: the airwaves do not belong to the few and powerful, they belong to everyone...that is what makes up the power of a free society, the free flow of ideas and commentary done in decency. Who can refute that? And how does this translate to advertisers who rarely or NEVER buy radio? After all, the savvy advertiser divides the ad budget to where people gravitate...Hello, INTERNET.
Odd as well that one who saw the need to be meaningful to the marketplace (Sam Walton) is exactly what allowed the marketplace to be so cheapened. Again, when standards erode and greed is emulated, the results benefit only the few and the privileged.
-Bill Alley
I am surprised though that the FCC has not been under much more scrutiny in your treatises.
When you have an organization that is in the back pocket of the rich and powerful in the media it is no wonder why people are forgotten and the almighty buck can dictate terms. It's also the perfect excuse for facilities to keep 'hiding'...something I've been piping up about since my start in the 70s.
The standard for the industry still on the books ... the Communications Act of 1934 ... says media should 'broadcast in the public interest, convenience and necessity'. No better words invoked by our forefathers describes so well today's debacle, why brick and mortar radio has been riding like a sinking ship. This is one instance where government got it right: the airwaves do not belong to the few and powerful, they belong to everyone...that is what makes up the power of a free society, the free flow of ideas and commentary done in decency. Who can refute that? And how does this translate to advertisers who rarely or NEVER buy radio? After all, the savvy advertiser divides the ad budget to where people gravitate...Hello, INTERNET.
Odd as well that one who saw the need to be meaningful to the marketplace (Sam Walton) is exactly what allowed the marketplace to be so cheapened. Again, when standards erode and greed is emulated, the results benefit only the few and the privileged.
-Bill Alley
2
2MANYHATS
Guest
All kidding aside, I agree with emo about the liner thing....Knowing of stations who won't hire air personalities because the pd has it in his head that the liners will make the station sound "live"...excuse me, but I give the listeners more credit...they know the difference between a live jock and a liner. A voice - tracked show can sound somewhat live but liners...give me a break !
"A license to serve the public"... agreed 100%... Also a license to serve the community for which the license was granted under!!! WBHT.. MOUNTAINTOP... how does WBHT serve mountaintop? I've said this 100 times... these stations laugh at the public. Broadcast licenses are like the old game of RACKO.. how many can you get in a row.. first one to make a string..R-A-C-K-O! There is no more personality, no community involvement, or desire to interact with the citizens of NE PA... not unless they can sell it. Do you want to take a look at what happens when corporations take over the locally run business in NE, PA? Look no further the the local Uni-Marts....
Once owed and maintained at very high standards by the Orloski family... these were bought out by a larger corporation. Walk into any Uni-Mart now and see that there is no personality behind the counters, the beautiful landscaping that adorned these marts is now in disrepair, and some are already closing (no surprise). It what happens when pride is replaced by greed. Uni-Mart let these very nice properties loose their charm, sold off many to poor business managers and now they lack both the charm and friendliness that once brought in customers. radio too lacks that charm... I can get the music, weather, and time in an instant with IPods and the internet.. what's been stripped is the thing radio needs.. personality and local involvement.
Once owed and maintained at very high standards by the Orloski family... these were bought out by a larger corporation. Walk into any Uni-Mart now and see that there is no personality behind the counters, the beautiful landscaping that adorned these marts is now in disrepair, and some are already closing (no surprise). It what happens when pride is replaced by greed. Uni-Mart let these very nice properties loose their charm, sold off many to poor business managers and now they lack both the charm and friendliness that once brought in customers. radio too lacks that charm... I can get the music, weather, and time in an instant with IPods and the internet.. what's been stripped is the thing radio needs.. personality and local involvement.
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