The Alan Burns "study" is another steaming load of consultant BS. It's the same manure he and those like him have peddled to gullible operators for decades. They swoop in with theire forma d'jour - Movin or Groovin or Jumpin or Alice or Froggy or ___ - and immediately blame DJs for talking too much. He did it as a PD, he does it as a consultant. I can just see a GM, after spending $25k on this "study" looking it over and nodding solemnly as Burns explains that if the DJs would just take their breaks down from :45 to :25, the station would zoom in the numbers.
It's nothing new and it's nothing that works. Why hasn't a totally jockless station ever dominated in a market? Why do stations with what most of us would consider lousy talent that talks too much do so well?
Burns and other consultants never study success and emulate that. They market in failure. They tell you where you've failed. It's an entire cottage industry based on the negative. And because that caters to fear-based marketing, GMs often cough up. Most will soon realize it was a mistake but they swallow it - they don't want to tell THEIR boss they wasted all that cash. So, it's back to blaming the DJs. Firings begin, tight & bright is brought on and the station is in even more trouble. What wins is either truly radical changes or a relationship so bonded with a market that only death or resignation will break it. And both of those things are very, very hard to pull off.
Someone post when Burns or any other consultant has a truly radical and effective thought. The rest of the world is Twitter and IM and we're still spinnin' the platters that matter - nine-in-a-row with no talk and a chance to win concert tickets coming up.
As for satellite radio -
They were in trouble from the get-go. IMO, for a few reasons. One: customers get fee weary. Another bill to pay? Another $20 a month? If they could link the subscription price to a cell or high speed provider, bundle it in there, it would be better. When you buy a car and are being sold a $1000 sound system upgrade, the salesperson will say "it's only $5 more a month for all this booty kickin' sound." SOLD. But if you were told it's an additional $5 a month and fancy rims are another aznd separate $10 a month and so on - no way would you buy it.
And when they started signing big names to huge contracts right out of the box - trouble. You have to sell a LOT of subscriptions to pay a Stern or Oprah. Much better thinking to get a guy like Little Steven and give him his own show - creative, fun and draws listeners and way WAY cheaper than the bloated names above.
A few idle thoughts during some down time ...
