Consultants

[DeBuzzed]

I was reading through the trends thread and felt this topic would be interesting to discuss.
I have seen people speak of consultants as people who help stations and they do exist in understanding a market etc.
But I have had extensive experience with consultants who also forget that it is a discussion between a PD and a consultant and not a dictatorship. I have found too often that when you start to debate a decision that the consultant doesn’t like they will too often go over your head and say that you are being difficult and start the process of elimination without expanding the train of thought.
The other wonderful thing consultants do is continually find something wrong to justify the need for said consultant. How many people are on the beach right now for NO reason than one bad trend or a flawed relationship with a consultant? Speaking your mind is not dissent it’s the American way.
With all of this said it is still not the consultants fault, they are just doing their job and trying to keep their job. How owners and more importantly the person directly involved in the day to day the General Manager extrapolate this information is where the distortion of reality comes into play. GMs need to take what the consultant says and apply this information to the input from the people actually doing the work and living the life. Novel idea and what seems like a no brainer yet too often “Market Reviews” = Gospel. From this simple equation comes bad radio and people losing their jobs for nothing more than the equivalent of a hamster on a wheel.

 

[cflmusiclover]

Station Mangers and wuss PDs share the blame. Then, they blame the consultant(s) if they station doesn't do well.

Consultants can be a valuable resource if used properly, where all parties view their relationship as a partnership.

 

[DeBuzzed]

I think you missed the point in your "adult" response. If the PD IS having a constructive conversation with the consultant and said consultant is putting on a front and then destroying the PD behind his or her back to the GM then you don't have a healthy relationship. Wuss or not a wuss.

If the consultant convinces management to make a formatic change and the ratings go down based on exactly following "the plan" the PD still gets fired. No matter what you say a consultant who lives hundreds of miles away programming based on a one day quarterly vist to a market has no idea what is best for the station.

They all say "talk less, play fewer currents" rinse, repeat.

How can there be new music if no one plays new music? How many stations need to play RUSH "Tom Sawyer" in one market?

 

[Evangelist]

At one station, we had two consultants. The first had a massive ego and felt he had all the answers. The second would tell each of us what he thought we wanted to hear and something else entirely to the management.

At another station, we had a corporate VP of news who also functioned as a consultant. He was constantly offering advice that to me seemed irrelevant. None of it had to do with the quality of actual news coverage. I found out later that he had never been in news and got where he was by glomming onto a guy in charge of talk; neither of them seemed to realize that news and talk are different animals. I found out that the news VP got his start as a morning show sidekick doing booger and fart jokes. A little unnerving, to say the least. Fortunately, most of his advice fell flat pretty quick and we continued to focus on doing news the way it ought to be done.

 

[cflmusiclover]

Nothing more has been said that doesn't go back to the GM and/or PD. I'm sorry you may have had a bad relationship or experience with a "consultant" but quite often it's local management who has no clue; they bring in the wrong consultant for their needs, let him screw things up (or, in some cases, just plain don't listen to them) then play the "blame-the-consultant" game, one of the oldest and lamest in radio.

All consultants are not the same, any more than all GMs, PDs or jocks. There are good ones and there are bad ones.

 

[RulesAsFollows]

I have to agree with this completely. Radio has lost it's touch that it used to have back from the early days. It used to be that jocks were real personalities and they played real requests. I think we have lost site of this down the road as it has become more incorporated. I grew up in a small local market in which most of the radio stations were REAL "live and local", and you could actually get a request in (as long as was something in that same genre of music they played - not just the usuals, and currently popular). I know this because I actually worked closely with the station as a volunteer, and I saw what went on in the background. I think this was only because it wasn't a large market. When I came to Nashville, I was slapped in the face with Radio Reaility, and found out, it is definitely not that way in the real world market. I felt like such a radio virgin and naive. But now finishing up my last 2&1/2 in a larger market, I now have seen a lot of the inner workings of a real radio station. IT SUCKS! No room for a "real" personality and very strict as what music is played. I was always told DON'T TOUCH THE MUSIC, because of the consultants. Well, my personal opinion, consultants SUCK! I honestly don't care how many years of experience they have or how long they have been in the music business, they are not at the board.
TOTAL DREAM HERE: if I ever strike it lucky and i get struck by lightning twice and THEN win the lottery, I would love to start my own radio station of sorts in which there are no corporate BS consultants, and I just pay royalties to the artists/labels that I play, and play pretty much whatever the h3ll I want. That includes FULL ALBUMS, if they are a good quality CD and not just the SAME DAMN SONG EVERY 4 HOURS! It is sickening to hear 'Lips of an Angel' when i get in the car, go to work , and leave home for work and hear it again. I honestly don't think that radio is going to ever make it if they continue the course they are on now.

I also think that the listener is KING. Not the consultants. If I get a F'N request for a GOOD classic song from an artist that has a new album out, i would play the classic over the new stuff, just because I got the request. And I would be a more request oriented station than any other. But i know this is just a small dream that will never come unless i win the lottery and make my own rules.

 

[russ973]

Consultants are another set of eyes and ears. Usually someone with more experience and a success in the format. Or that's how it should be.

Let's just say... that YOU are a idiot program director (we've all know a few). And you are "speaking your mind" to the consultant... i.e. saying what you think... which is actually wrong for the station. Then yes, the consultant should try to get you removed.

To answer the most recent post... requests? If every station only played requests, the mainstream would turn them off. On a pop station, we'd only play what kids 7-16 wanted. Ask your adult friends the last time they called for a request.

 

[romer979fm]

That includes FULL ALBUMS, if they are a good quality CD and not just the SAME DAMN SONG EVERY 4 HOURS!

you must have missed a day in your 2 1/2 years at that station...
like it or not, it's a business...trying to attract a wide audience...not the selective audience you'd attract
by playing full CDs. and while I don't question your musical taste or knowledge, it's impossible to determine
what makes a 'good quality' CD. listeners are there for very brief periods of time...and expect to hear what they
expect to hear: familiar personalities...familiar music...(could be something new from an established artist)...

you and I might want to hear a full CD...I'd like to hear Donald Fagen on the way in today...and I bet you'd turn it off.
who's right? both of us...but the audience wants what they want.

BTW...a 4 hour rotation on a 'power' is pretty good...

and I follow the music log note-by-note...but will gladly take the opportunity to drop songs I don't like if there are
too many cuts in an hour... i.e.... any Alabama cut is out...but someone else probably loves Alabama's music

 

[Evangelist]

Consultants are another set of eyes and ears. Usually someone with more experience and a success in the format. Or that's how it should be.

Let's just say... that YOU are a idiot program director (we've all know a few). And you are "speaking your mind" to the consultant... i.e. saying what you think... which is actually wrong for the station. Then yes, the consultant should try to get you removed.

To answer the most recent post... requests? If every station only played requests, the mainstream would turn them off. On a pop station, we'd only play what kids 7-16 wanted. Ask your adult friends the last time they called for a request.

Maybe that is how it should be, but that is not the way it is. The consultants I mentioned earlier were all real, unfortunately. Consultants in many fields are simply people who decide they want to be consultants, proclaim themselves experts in that field, and make a lot of money tossing their opinions at others. The news consultants I have dealt with knew very little about the cities where their clients are, and in a lot of cases, didn't know anything about covering news. The guy I mentioned earlier whose previous specialty was doing booger and flatulence jokes as a morning show sidekick had about as much business being a news consultant as Janet Reno has being a swimsuit model.

I'm sure there are some consultants who know what they are doing. They are rare, though, in my experience.

 

[firepoint525]

On a pop station, we'd only play what kids 7-16 wanted. Ask your adult friends the last time they called for a request.

Two things about that:

1.) Those kids are very much "in the moment" and they will ask for whatever is in the top 10, the stuff they are going to be playing anyway. Then next week, they will get sick of that, and ask for whatever is in the top 10 next week.

2.) We older folks have become "jaded," and we know that radio won't play our requests, so that is why we don't bother calling stations asking for requests anymore. If they'd play our requests, we might call for more requests more often.

 

[RulesAsFollows]

On a pop station, we'd only play what kids 7-16 wanted. Ask your adult friends the last time they called for a request.

Two things about that:

1.) Those kids are very much "in the moment" and they will ask for whatever is in the top 10, the stuff they are going to be playing anyway. Then next week, they will get sick of that, and ask for whatever is in the top 10 next week.

2.) We older folks have become "jaded," and we know that radio won't play our requests, so that is why we don't bother calling stations asking for requests anymore. If they'd play our requests, we might call for more requests more often.

There has to be extensive research in to my DREAM of a radio station, I know this, and as stated here, you can see that people will call if you play their request. They generally know what sort of station that they are listening too, and know what type of music they can call in and ask for. Every few minutes, you do have those idiots who like to call in and request FREE BIRD on a progressive rock station. I guess it is because they think they are going to get on air, I don't know. But if you want true loyal listeners and want to start a good base, I believe the listener is always KING!

 

[bub]

To c&p from another thread about this subject (Thanks HC):

Definition of a consultant: Some guy in a suit, who flies in from somewhere else, looks at your watch, flies home, writes a report that tells you what time it is, and encloses an invoice.

Definition of a consultant: Someone who can describe, in intricate detail, every known sexual position...but doesn't have a girlfriend.