Article: What Broadcasters Can Learn from Steve Jobs

[trackertalent]

VERY interesting article.

http://www.markramseymedia.com/2011/08/what-broadcasters-can-learn-from-steve-jobs-the-tao-of-steve/

 

[TVradioguru]

Not to be nitpicky, but that is a blog, not an article. Articles edited and fact checked containing journalistic elements are different than someone's non-vetted opinion in a blog.

Comparing a consumer product manufacturer with what amounts to a producer of various sounds isn't a valid comparison. Have the new consumer products created more competition for traditional media? Sure, but so did the Sony Walkman. Can radio reinvent or reshape itself as with a consumer product? One could argue it already has. Gone are the days of the DJ's yakking-up to the post or vocals of songs each hour of a broadcast day, time tones, and pitched-up pop songs and have gone to what listeners want..more music.

 

[Groove1670]

Gone are the days of the DJ's yakking-up to the post or vocals of songs each hour of a broadcast day, time tones, and pitched-up pop songs and have gone to what listeners want..more music.

Yes, this is working so well as 18-34 demos continue to erode, and talk is migrating to FM. Take heed, if we continue to think within the box, we will lose a generation. Radio better find a way to connect with today's listener.

Facebook has replaced the connection with the listener. We quit providing weather alerts and community info a long time ago.

If we continue to play "10 in a row", what is the point. Why not load up "300 in a row" on your personal player.

 

[KFodor]

Man, you must be in a really strange market.

Where I work, we still give weather alerts...we still get out in the community. (In fact, one of our stations has raised a million dollars over the years for the local Children's Hospital.)

Talk is migrating to FM, true...that was inevitable, when you consider the fact that about 80 to 90 percent of all radio listening is on FM.

Oh yeah...what about the most recent study that showed radio listening up?

The fact is: there are still broadcasters out there who connect with their local communities, but far too many of them who just don't care about anything but the P & L statement.

Let me suggest you stop "generalizing" the gloom and doom as fact everywhere. It is not.

 

[SirRoxalot]

It's simple. Broadcasters who serve their audience will not only survive, they'll thrive. Jukeboxes emulating "somebody else's iPod" will slowly erode into insolvency.

 

[TheBigA]

The thing about this particular blog by Mark Ramsey is that most of the big radio companies are doing exactly what he suggests, and have been heading in that direction for several years. According to Ramsey. "Steve doesn’t think anybody should be limited to what they hear on the radio." I suggest radio people agree. That's why they are diversifying their platforms. That's why they are re-allocating resources to platforms other than on-air. Anybody who isn't doing that is living in horse & buggy land. This is not to say that radio is dead, but why ignore another platform for your content when you have content to share?

The big difference Ramsey ignores, and I've argued with him about this many times, is that radio companies are not in the hardware business. Apple is. Being in the hardware business means you own patents and you create products that people buy. Radio creates content that people steal or want for free. It's nice to criticize radio for selling more spots, but the fact is that spot prices are, on average, ten times the price of online ads. Sure we can talk all day about how online is a growth area, but it simply doesn't deliver the tonnage of on-air. Pandora blabs all the time about how many users they have and how they're competing with radio. Meanwhile, their world wide revenues are equal to one on-air radio station in New York. If they're so successful and reach a third of the population, why are they taking in so little money? The problem with content is it's omni-present and free. There's nothing a radio station can provide that its listeners can't get elsewhere. Weather, traffic, local news, and even gossip is available for free...you just need to know where to look.

If the radio industry can learn anything from Jobs it's that simplicity sells. iTunes isn't the best interface, it simply is the easiest and most convenient. Same with the iPhone. Radio already benefits from that, and that's why radio hasn't really lost audience in spite of all the competition.

 

[davideduardo]

Yes, this is working so well as 18-34 demos continue to erode,

Halt play. Urban legand penalty applies.

Sample market: LA. July book.

6+ 95.5% of people use radio weekly, and average time spent hearing radio is 11:15 hours.

18-34. 95.1% of people use radio weekly, and average time is 11:00 hours weekly. In 18-24, the time listening is 10:45.

So much for your truthless statement.

 

[Groove1670]

6+ 95.5% of people use radio weekly, and average time spent hearing radio is 11:15 hours.

TSL is LA is high because of travel time. A recent survey that was published in one of the newsletters that I receive from this website found radio listening is down for younger demos. So who is right? The next time you see a kid with earbuds ask him what FM radio station he is listening to.

Gloom and doom. Nah. We just need to adapt to change. Small market and non corporate properties will hopefully lead the change.

I hope every station is doing well in this economy. We just need to think out of the box a little bit.

 

[TheBigA]

Small market and non corporate properties will hopefully lead the change.

But as I said earlier in my post, they really haven't. It's companies like CBS, CC, Hubbard, and Townsquare that are currently leading the charge and adapting to change. They are actively reallocating money and resources to other platforms. And it's not that OTA is dead. The amount of money stations make in 30 spots still well exceeds the revenue they bring in on the web. But the fact is that listeners have diversified their media sources. Radio should too. There are easy and inexpensive ways to spread the brand around to the newer forms of media. But change won't happen first in small markets unless they're pushed by their owners.

 

[davideduardo]

6+ 95.5% of people use radio weekly, and average time spent hearing radio is 11:15 hours.

TSL is LA is high because of travel time.

No, TSL in LA is comparable to that of just about any PPM market.

6+ TSL in San Antonio is exactly the same as LA. So is 18-34 and 18-24. And so is the total radio "cume" rating...

In-car in LA was shown in the diary (PPM does not break in-car from at-work) to be about 32% of listening. Just around 1/3 is typical of all major markets.

A recent survey that was published in one of the newsletters that I receive from this website found radio listening is down for younger demos. So who is right? The next time you see a kid with earbuds ask him what FM radio station he is listening to.

TSL is down compared to years ago in all demos, mostly because of PPM, not a fundamental change in listening. And younger TSL has fallen more than some older demos, not surprising when you realize that it's not just iPads but 120,000,000 gaming consoles and 500 channels of TV and so on. But the fact remains that radio is quite viable, and even if the 20-year projection is grim, there is time, as BigA says, for broadcasters to move the brands to new means of distribution and to new brand extensions.

Gloom and doom. Nah. We just need to adapt to change. Small market and non corporate properties will hopefully lead the change.

It will be the big companies that can afford to hire Bob Pittman and Bob Michaels and Steve Case and Gary Marince that will lead change, not the operations that are running on a hand-to-mouth existence.

I hope every station is doing well in this economy. We just need to think out of the box a little bit.

There has never been an economy where every station did well. Even back in the "Happy Days" of the 60's about half of all stations either broke even or lost money.

 

[landtuna]

There has never been an economy where every station did well. Even back in the "Happy Days" of the 60's about half of all stations either broke even or lost money.

If you are using "Happy Days" in the sense of the TV show title you are a decade late. At least as it was first configured, Happy Days referred to the 1950's.

And, as one who lived through the tumultuous 60's, I would never have described it as anything approaching "happy days" (although it might have been from a radio perspective).

 

[davideduardo]

There has never been an economy where every station did well. Even back in the "Happy Days" of the 60's about half of all stations either broke even or lost money.

If you are using "Happy Days" in the sense of the TV show title you are a decade late. At least as it was first configured, Happy Days referred to the 1950's.

And, as one who lived through the tumultuous 60's, I would never have described it as anything approaching "happy days" (although it might have been from a radio perspective).

I was just using the term to evoke nostalgia for a time when radio, reborn in the 50's, was thought to be doing so well.

 

[landtuna]

I was just using the term to evoke nostalgia for a time when radio, reborn in the 50's, was thought to be doing so well.

Not to take this thread too far afield but didn't radio do better in the latter 30's and early 40's?

 

[davideduardo]

I was just using the term to evoke nostalgia for a time when radio, reborn in the 50's, was thought to be doing so well.

Not to take this thread too far afield but didn't radio do better in the latter 30's and early 40's?

Yeah, as of December, 1940 there were 820 stations on the air and about 60 CPs, and no TV (except a couple of experimental ones). There were maybe 35 FM stations.

(See "Station Count" at http://www.americanradiohistory.com/Radio_Annual_1941.htm" )

 

[Tom Wells]

And no one had yet heard the rip roaring noise of a TRIAC lamp dimmer at a 5% duty cycle.

Operating such a device in the 1940s would probably have gotten you in a lot of trouble.
I have read about people who decided it would be "fun" to put old spark gap 1920s damped oscillation
transmitters back on the air after they had been banned for making too much splatter.

Suffice it to say that EVERYONE noticed, it got reported and stopped fast.
The RF spectrum used by radio got a lot of respect and engineers were entrusted with
deciding how to best protect it.

I say why stop now? Keep adding more noise until none of it works anymore.
I'm fine with us all falling back to the stone age, if we're not going to pay any attention to
and respect the physics involved. If we can't be bothered with understanding the technology
that keeps us elevated above subsistence, we will not enjoy such advancement for long.

This is the cynical side of me talking, I see so much digital "conceptual" failure at work where
I still have to find a problem in equipment that is digital but it's still failing for the same sort of stupid
reasons that made for analog failures....it's made of stuff, by people, and there will alwys be failure modes.

Unfortunately someone is making a lot of dunces believe that "digital" is any better than any hybrid or purely analog etc
but EVERYTHING has its faults and vulnerabilities.

Not so bad until it's my supervisor, who has no clue about things involving electrons, electronics, computers and/or complex mechanics.

Not his fault, but then his influence resulted, in let's say.. the purchase of equipment "not durable enough" for our
environment, impacting production and creating headaches for all, but the purchase saved a few dollars.

Would it not have been better if the position of influence had been someone who could have looked at the insides of the
product and through experience steered the company away from making a bad choice?

I'd just as soon we not advance much more, if not having to understand any of it ( blissful ignorance) is really the most
important part.

I'm already tired of fixing the same things over and over again for those who refuse to attempt to understand things.

 

[landtuna]

I have read about people who decided it would be "fun" to put old spark gap 1920s damped oscillation transmitters back on the air after they had been banned for making too much splatter.

One more slightly off-center comment and then I promise to quit.

Back in the 60's I visited the WWI Japanese battleship Mikasa in Yokosuka. The radio shack was a virtually empty space midships on the main deck with the largest spark-gap transmitter and Morse key I had ever seen. The key had replaceable contacts. You must have had to wear sunglasses when keying that monster.

 

[TVradioguru]

And no one had yet heard the rip roaring noise of a TRIAC lamp dimmer at a 5% duty cycle.

Operating such a device in the 1940s would probably have gotten you in a lot of trouble.
I have read about people who decided it would be "fun" to put old spark gap 1920s damped oscillation
transmitters back on the air after they had been banned for making too much splatter.

Good Lord, here goes Tom with the 'way back machine of technobabble'.

Look, 99.9999% of media consumers can give a rats you-know-what about what it takes to make sound come out of a speaker or earbuds, let alone spark gap TRIAC flux capacitors. or other terms old tech geeks throw around. If the sound is bad for whatever reason, the listener moves on to another choice; CD, IPod, Zune, FM Radio, Pandora, Slacker, whatever. There are many-many more choices than there were back in the 'good ol' days' where AM radio and some 8 track or cassette tape player were the only choices for music. In fact, one could easily argue the many far better sounding choices for ears is one of the several reasons AM radio is going the way of the dinosaur. The only relevant point to this thread is Mr. Jobs happens to have been the CEO of a company that produces one of the products. My grandfather produced radio programming, built radio stations AND the radios to hear those programs. Those days ended many moons ago.

 

[bossbill]

TSL is down compared to years ago in all demos, mostly because of PPM, not a fundamental change in listening. And younger TSL has fallen more than some older demos, not surprising when you realize that it's not just iPads but 120,000,000 gaming consoles and 500 channels of TV and so on. But the fact remains that radio is quite viable, and even if the 20-year projection is grim, there is time, as BigA says, for broadcasters to move the brands to new means of distribution and to new brand extensions.

There has never been an economy where every station did well. Even back in the "Happy Days" of the 60's about half of all stations either broke even or lost money.

Nothing really new in radioland... in the 60's and into the 70's, major market FM stations were not infrequently using AUTOMATION 24/7. In the early 90's, KOIT in San Francisco was using racks of CD players for the overnight, and KIXI in Seattle was voice-tracking with dual CD changers and tape.

The statement "TSL is down due to PPM" is a bit off. Time spent listening is likely close to the same this year as a couple of years ago. It isn't TSL that is down. The reporting methodology is different.