Message for David Eduardo

[Prais]

As uaual they are wrong. I live 40 miles West of Ionia. AS for me, with only a few exceptions, radio stinks.

 

[davideduardo]

As uaual they are wrong. I live 40 miles West of Ionia. AS for me, with only a few exceptions, radio stinks.

As ususal in this kind of post, what we have is a 66 year old who is now 11 years beyond the age groups that radio can successfully serve. While many people over 55 find formats like AC, Country, news / talk and such to their likeing, there are nearly no stations specifically serving 55+ in the US as there is scant little ad revenue to be had.

Unless radio can make a profit serving a group, there will be no programming directed at that group; there is no geezer revenue so no geezer formats.

 

[Goat Rodeo Cowboy]

Unless radio can make a profit serving a group, there will be no programming directed at that group; there is no geezer revenue so no geezer formats.

Those of us who have lived on a cotton farm have a couple of cliches I would like to share:

"I see you are in the TALL COTTON."

""We're down to the slim pickin's."

You are much too flippant with the term "geezer formats". Our society, our economy, our broadcast industry has not yet adjusted to extended life-spans. Have you seen the commercials on TV by T. Boone Pickens announcing his support and investment in alternate energy sources. Vibrant good looking man! Committing billions (with a B) of dollars to a whole new business venture. The man looks like he might could kick both our tails on the golf course. The man is 80 years old. Someone didn't clue him in that geezers should crawl in a hole and zip it up behind them.

I tell my investment managers I am scared of outliving my money. And they respond, "We know! We know! We hear that every day."

The radio industry has built this neat little nest where they hand-wired all the programming to filter the "Tall Cotton" advertising their way. Focusing on youth made this neat little nest very comfortable.

Times are a changing. Now that radio has some new competition in the new 21st century media, these other people are looking for their share of the "Tall Cotton".

Radio may have to consider rewiring the nest. Maybe we're down to the "slim picken's". Maybe there is some profit in salvaging the cotton from the geezer patch.

What has radio done for the geezer crowd? The Music of Your Life? Can you see T. Boone Pickens climbing out of that private jet they showed on TV Friday night, getting into the Lexus and thinking out loud: "I wonder where on the dial I am going to find "The Music of Your Life"?

Where did I put my cotton pick-sack anyway. Maybe I need to get back to work.

 

[jprg]

Well it's true that the iPOD doesn't give me weather or traffic but here in San Diego I have to listen to the Los Angeles stations to get that. The weather in San Diego is just as predicable as the radio. I don't take the freeway to work - I ride my bike and the iPOD works fine

 

[davideduardo]

You are much too flippant with the term "geezer formats".

I frequently use hyperbole, slang and colloquialisms to make points or to make a point more noticible. This is one of those times.

The fact is that in the medium and larger rated markets, agency buisness is essential to radio, and there is essentially no agency business for 55 and over. That is something radio is not going to change, as the dictate is based on ROI, not stereotypes.

If the ROI on advertising to, say, 55-64, changes, we will se agencies buying older demos and, thush, statins looking for formats that appeal to 45-64 or 35-64. For the moment, stations that have that appeal are going to be in small markets or suburban areas and will survive on 100% direct business... fine in the smaller markets, but really tough in big markets.

In large markets, the local direct business is too small to use radio unless it has multiple locations. A single location retailer or service provider in LA is getting population coverage that is 90% useless while one in Bishop is getting good coverage and price efficiency. That's why local direct accounts use geographically segmented cable, direct mail, local neighborhood pring, etc., in such situations.

Our society, our economy, our broadcast industry has not yet adjusted to extended life-spans. Have you seen the commercials on TV by T. Boone Pickens announcing his support and investment in alternate energy sources. Vibrant good looking man! Committing billions (with a B) of dollars to a whole new business venture. The man looks like he might could kick both our tails on the golf course. The man is 80 years old. Someone didn't clue him in that geezers should crawl in a hole and zip it up behind them.

It's not about age or vitality per se... it's about ROI... how many ad impressions it takes to change the consumptionpatters of an older person. In general, the ROI is not good.

 

[Prais]

David, old bud, (note hyperbole)
I used to respect your information, but now you missed my location by 40 miles and overstated my age by 7 years.

Meanwhile back to Les Baxter and Kay Starr and Hamilton Joe Frank and Reynolds on my I-pod.

Local radio here isn't worth my time. WGN does fine for me at news time.

 

[davideduardo]

I used to respect your information, but now you missed my location by 40 miles

I had no idea of your location and care even less. I was just pointing out that your message quite nicely fits in the "troll post" category.

and overstated my age by 7 years.

You said you were 66, and I took you at face value. 66'ers are not a football team... they are 11 years outside the sales demos.

Meanwhile back to Les Baxter and Kay Starr and Hamilton Joe Frank and Reynolds on my I-pod.

Get satellite. Listener supported radio can serve constituencies that commercial radio can not.

Local radio here isn't worth my time. WGN does fine for me at news time.

Yeah, the station in trouble... 25th in the Chicago metro in 18-48, and billing dropping considerably in last few years due to the old demos.

 

[Prais]

Just to clarify, I said,
"There is no music for someone over 66 or so.

I never said I was 66, but the 2 stations who once played "MOYL" and "Adult Standards" and competed here are gone, both changing to Hispanic.

 

[davideduardo]

Just to clarify, I said,
"There is no music for someone over 66 or so.

So you are not 66, which means you are assuming what a person over 66 likes to hear.

I never said I was 66, but the 2 stations who once played "MOYL" and "Adult Standards" and competed here are gone, both changing to Hispanic.

A person who live the tail end of the band and standards era and got "intro" the musicer would necessarily have been around 15 or older in 1955. In other workds, around 70 or more today.

It's no wonder the standards stations are gone. So are a big percentage of the listeners.

 

[Ombudsman]

There is absolutely a market for older listeners and anyone who can't see that must hate money.

 

[Goat Rodeo Cowboy]

My father was a dreamer. Back in the 1950's he was moaning and groaning about the product from Detroit. They could make mufflers out of stainless steel. They could put water pumps where you don't have to take the engine apart to replace them. Back in the 1940s if you drove a car more than 60,000 miles you were going to overhaul the engine. It was shot.

If my father could have actually conversed with "Detroit" they would have said to him what David Eduardo is saying to us: "If you are going to make a profit and keep building cars, you have to build them the way we do. The market place guides us."

Fast forward to today. If my Toyota requires MAJOR repair before 200,000 miles I am going to be very unhappy. The Japanese car manufacturers came and ate Detroit's lunch. Times have changed.

There are a lot of pretenders to the throne standing on the edge of the stage today wanting to eat Radio's lunch. We've named them all.

We talk longingly about the "good old days" of radio when it was FUN. Talk to the people in the airline business, talk to the people who work for smaller banks (and the big banks), talk to people who sell us our groceries. Talk to doctors. Talk to policemen. If they have some gray hair or baldness, they can probably tell you how much more FUN their job was years ago before the bean-counters showed up. But could we afford them if they had not changed?

Why do we think radio would be exempt from the pressure cooker? Can radio be radio in the pressure cooker,... or can it only survive long term if we find a way to make it more like a back yard BBQ grill, which I think describes radio in the 50s and 60s.

 

[davideduardo]

If my father could have actually conversed with "Detroit" they would have said to him what David Eduardo is saying to us: "If you are going to make a profit and keep building cars, you have to build them the way we do. The market place guides us."

The analogy you present is defective at best and inapplicable in all probability. Radio depends on two consumers, the listener and the advertiser. If the advertiser does not want a particular age group, collectively, there is no way to give the product to the consumer.

A an auto company deals with one consumer, the buyer of cars. We deal with users who are not buyers and buyers who are not users.

 

[davideduardo]

There is absolutely a market for older listeners and anyone who can't see that must hate money.

In small markets, maybe.

But in rated markets where there is significant agency business, a format appealing to 55+ will not get orders.

Ask any manager in LA or NY or Dallas or Miami when they last saw an agency buy come up for 55+ and most will not remember one single instance.

 

[oldies76]

There is absolutely a market for older listeners and anyone who can't see that must hate money.

You're darn right!

 

[davideduardo]

There is absolutely a market for older listeners and anyone who can't see that must hate money.

You're darn right!

And how much time have you spent selling or managing sales for a radio station?

 

[RicoGregg]

There is absolutely a market for older listeners and anyone who can't see that must hate money.

You're darn right!

This thread started with the claim that young people just love the music of older demographics, and now it's about the claim that there's a very profitable market for older listeners.

Can we please make up our minds here? ???

 

[davideduardo]

This thread started with the claim that young people just love the music of older demographics, and now it's about the claim that there's a very profitable market for older listeners.

Can we please make up our minds here? ???

That pretty much says it all. ;D

 

[Mike Sheridan]

Thank God for the iPOD! I have my own playlists on there including "oldies" I go to Limewire, download the music I like and play it all back on my iPOD with no commericals, annyoing DJ's and "no static at all!"

I am so happy for you.

Does your iPod give you any hints that there is a traffic problem between your home and your work? Does your iPod alert you to the Severe Thunderstorm Warning just issued by the Weather Bureau? Does you iPod prepare you to be a good citizen when you cast your ballot.

On that last one: does the iPod prepare all those other fools who vote at the same precinct you do to vote for candidates who will deal with today and prepare us for the next generation?

Nope and neither does radio. The stations where I live stopped using their traffic plane (too expensive to do it right I guess) so the traffic reports are worthless. Many times they report an accident and I go past the location and there is no sign of it.

Radio has stopped being a good place for political information unless you believe everything Rush Limbaugh says.

 

[LibertyNT]

game consoles out there... you can't watch TV or listen to radio or read a paper while gaming.

Yes you can. My kids do it quite often.