Sadly....Radio Is in Trouble

[redneckriviera]

terrestrial radio is like the buggy whip industry.
Once there was a great need for it.....but when engines replaced horses (as sat radio will replace terr radio), you don't see many buggy whips any more.

We understand what you are saying, and I would agree that terrestrial radio may indeed be in for some big changes. But I would suggest you have come up with a apples vs oranges comparison to use the old cliche.

I live in a county of 100,000 people out at the north edge of Metro Atlanta. If I am driving to work next year and the significant road that I normally drive has been closed by a traffic accident, are they going to interrupt ALL channels of satellite radio to make it possible for me to select an alternate route?

If we have a major thunderstorm and flash floods are headed for my house or my place of business, can I expect sat radio to bring me that news.

We have a volatile political climate in our local government. Can I expect election results for my county if I listen to sat radio while eating breakfast?

Granted, if terrestrial radio is going to survive, it is going to have to battle head-to-head with the cell-phone industry and streaming audio from various sources if it is going to survive..... and sat radio has no guarantee that it can survive against the cell-phone streaming juggernaut.

Maybe you can answer a question that no one else has been able to answer for me. What percentage of the people are "Music Centric". How many people will line up for whatever media brings them the music they want? 20%? 40% 60%? Much of the logic of discussion groups is that music is 97% of what people want from radio and the demand for news, for weather, for sports, for just some good conversation, is may 3% of what people want from radio. If that is true, then your scenario for sat radio is rosy.

Sometimes it's funny reading these Doom & Gloom prognostications and comparing it to Real Life.

GRC, you are down there in Class C Country where the large-market umbrellas extend way out into the countryside--far enough out that one can often go directly from umbrella to umbrella (Atlanta to Birmingham; Atlanta to Chattanooga; Atlanta to Greenville-Spartanburg... G/SP to Charlotte... Charlotte to Winston-Salem)--point is, The South is indeed a tough place for micro-small-town radio--and has been for about 30 years, now. Don't get me wrong: the Romes & Albanys & Athens & Annistons do okay; but the kind of stuff you've been talking about--towns of maybe 10,000--hey, it's tough. If the good folks who live in those small towns have a choice each day of listening to Top 10 Market radio or their little local station--and there's no charge for admission, either way--the big market guys are gonna win, most days. It's why local TV stations don't try to put local comics up against Jay Leno & Dave Letterman. Gonna get crushed.

Up here in the Land of Ice & Snow that you left for the Sunny South, those umbrellas aren't nearly as big. Class Bs get out about 35-40 miles, not 40-to-60, so when you get an hour or so out of The Big City, those "competitors" are gone. Especially if you're up in the mountains--which have a way of getting in the way of those out-of-town signals.

One of our stations a Country FM in a town of 8,000 out in the woods (a "non-rated market") and staff it with 4.5 people on-air, including a fulltime news/sports guy--so, yes, you'd hear about the storm, flash floods, election results, high school sports play-by-play... non-injury auto accidents... lost dogs & cats... birthdays & anniversaries--all that stuff. We do about $1.1 million in net sales (excluding trade) and cash flow around $500,000 yearly. Our jocks average around $30,000 a year and our sales staff averages between $40K & $50K. The GM makes about $100K. Cost of living is relatively low, so nobody's missing any meals.

Our little company owns a bunch of these. We're not alone. There are thousands of healthy local radio stations just like ours, all across the country. We don't make the headlines ("Local Station Helps Find Cat") because there's nothing very peculiar about what we do. It's the norm--not the extreme. I know it's more fun to talk about how the sky is falling, but small-town radio isn't anywhere close to being as dead as y'all seem to believe...

 

[Goat Rodeo Cowboy]

RNR wrote-

One of our stations a Country FM in a town of 8,000 out in the woods (a "non-rated market") and staff it with 4.5 people on-air, including a fulltime news/sports guy--so, yes, you'd hear about the storm, flash floods, election results, high school sports play-by-play... non-injury auto accidents... lost dogs & cats... birthdays & anniversaries--all that stuff. We do about $1.1 million in net sales (excluding trade) and cash flow around $500,000 yearly. Our jocks average around $30,000 a year and our sales staff averages between $40K & $50K. The GM makes about $100K. Cost of living is relatively low, so nobody's missing any meals.

Our little company owns a bunch of these. We're not alone. There are thousands of healthy local radio stations just like ours, all across the country.

I concur with your observations about market size and geography effects on radio.

When I came south nine years ago I was still sweating having a do-able retirement scheme in place when I came to the end of my working years. There was NO viability at that time that I could acquire a station up in the area you are describing.

In a Southern market I might find something that I could put together. Recognizing everything you just described.... I knew to make one of these "micro-market" operations in the South actually work was going to requirie a lot more smarts and creativeness than a market like the town of 8,000 you described.

In the computer programming world we talk about de-compiling or reverse-engineering someone's existing software to see what is going on in there. I have been working on de-compiling the traditions of radio. What are the essential elements going on inside the business. I assume other people listen to a lot of radio and say: What were they thinking when they put THAT together. Who really thought someone wanted to HEAR that. Who really thought some advertiser could justify BUYING that.

If you are going to do it in a small market with a limited budget, what can you do that is cheaper. What can you do that is fresh and quality everyday even though the staff is small. Maybe I should have set out to write the great American novel instead.

My vocabulary today includes terms like Murphy-bed Studio, Program Bobbins, Salon elements, and positioning for gravity flow. See, the project has driven me nuts!

 

[tomservo]

It pains me to see little local radio stations doing nothing. Not covering the storms. I have been spending some time brain-storming the buggy-whip scenario for the last four years. What can a "micro market" station do that most are NOT doing currently, and how can they enhance revenues in order to pay for what OUGHT to be done.

Some of us live in counties where county government streams a video of election results. Why couldn't the operator of a micro-market radio station be doing that. Why would local radio stream? Because they are daytime only? Because the night-time power gives them 5 or 6 miles of coverage when they need 8 to 12. Because expatriots living in the big cities where the jobs are still want to keep up with home town and will listen to election night stream, sports night stream, storm night stream. Many of them return home often enough that advertisers want to keep in touch with them. Many of them are responsible for aging parents back in the little town and are making buying decisions for the parents that can be influenced by the radio/streaming advertising.

P.S. Atlanta traffic is SO BAD and SO BIG that listening to terrestrial radio traffic is pretty sad. They try to cover it all and they talk so fast you can't understand what they are saying. And typically they are telling you what was the situation 90 minutes ago. If they say a road is blocked, chances are it's clear by the time they report it.

Oh I know that Atlanta traffic. It's funny to hear WSB "segment" the traffic reports, doing one sector of the city at one break, then another the next... I've never heard that anywhere else, even LA or Chicago!

As for our local stations, none of them stream... Then again none of them have websites, either. It's a huge missed opportunity because Grenada is one of two "market towns" in the area (the other is Greenwood) and our signals don't really cover Greenwood well. Both towns aren't exactly bastions of technology or rich people, but they're decently connected.

It's 9am now, and I'm listening for some local interaction on our area stations. Nothing yet. The oldies station has a live jock, and he just went back to music after the national news break. The 50kW country station is jockless and went to commercials (and now music) after the national news. The hot AC is jockless, no news. Over in Greenwood, the Jack-FM clone is playing music, and I can't pick up the rest without going to the car. (There's nothing on AM here.)

I've heard good local stations and I've heard bad local stations. It seems the bad outnumber the good, that most folks are running these little stations strictly to sell ads and not actually 'serve the community'. Heck, we can get that from Clear Channel and Friends.

Okay, here's a question: you guys have your ideas for what can make a small town station work. But can it still work on a small AM station?

 

[amfmxm]

Okay, here's a question: you guys have your ideas for what can make a small town station work. But can it still work on a small AM station?

The quick answer is "No."

Although it may be hard to see in large markets where the WSBs & KYWs & WLWs of the world continue to be extremely healthy, most small-market AMs died grueling deaths 25 years ago and it is VERY difficult to breathe life back into them. If the national audience split between FM & AM is 80-20, in rural areas I'd venture it must be something like 95-5. As a result, your efforts to revive an AM are really trying to buck society's near-unanimous verdict... that "radio" is FM.

Are there exceptions? Yeah, I think so. The critical issue for an AM is its NIGHT signal. If the night-time signal is at least as good as--say--a Class A FM (getting out a good 15-to-20 miles), it might be competitive enough to still be viable. Obviously (or maybe not)... the less FM competition, the better.

Them babies are few & far between.

 

[Goat Rodeo Cowboy]

The quick answer is "No."

Although it may be hard to see in large markets where the WSBs & KYWs & WLWs of the world continue to be extremely healthy, most small-market AMs died grueling deaths 25 years ago and it is VERY difficult to breathe life back into them. If the national audience split between FM & AM is 80-20, in rural areas I'd venture it must be something like 95-5. As a result, your efforts to revive an AM are really trying to buck society's near-unanimous verdict... that "radio" is FM.

Are there exceptions? Yeah, I think so. The critical issue for an AM is its NIGHT signal. If the night-time signal is at least as good as--say--a Class A FM (getting out a good 15-to-20 miles), it might be competitive enough to still be viable. Obviously (or maybe not)... the less FM competition, the better.

Them babies are few & far between.

Oh.... I've got to 'jerk your chain' a little bit on this one.

What one needs is optimism... a good positive attitude... and everything will work out just fine!

I know that is not true. There are communities that through no fault of their own do not have and cannot get an FM allocation. Their only hope for localized radio service is for some entrepreneur who has local ties or who does not have enough capital to go elsewhere and acquire an FM at the going rates, to come a sweat and labor and make the AM station work.

Now, a few miles over there may be a market with a town of 25,000 population with 4 FMs and 2 AMs. The big social and political dilema we face today is: Should government, via the FCC, manage the situation by determining that overpopulation exists and we are going to shut down the 2 AM and maybe move out at least one of the FMs. Or is that totally the job of market-driven captialism?

If I have $250,000 available, I might be able to acquire the pitiful little AM in the community that has been passed over by technology and make a go of it.... but I can't go over and acquire an FM for 3 or 4 million and go through the grief and expense and waiting time to move it to my little burg where maybe I can gross $260,000 per year (or less) if I am smart and inventive.

If I do the foolish thing and acquire the AM I may be sitting in the right spot if the world does indeed embrace internet streaming as an alternative for small town community communications.

O.K. ... Forget the little community. It doesn't deserve to have audio service. Why would I do to the larger town and acquire one of the six existing stations in an overpopulated town. Isn't that equally as short sighted as acquiring and AM that is dead but doesn't know it yet?

 

[tomservo]

Them babies are few & far between.

That must explain why the town's only AM station is not operating. When I moved here over a year ago, I found only the unlit tower in town, no studios, no transmitter shack, nothing. With all the near and fringe FM signals, they musta saw the writing on the wall.

 

[davideduardo]

That must explain why the town's only AM station is not operating. When I moved here over a year ago, I found only the unlit tower in town, no studios, no transmitter shack, nothing. With all the near and fringe FM signals, they musta saw the writing on the wall.

That reminds me of KYOR in Blythe, CA. This 1450 fulltime AM went silent some years ago after many decades of very fine community service. Too many FMs, not enough ad revenue to sustain them. Thaks, mostly, to Docket 80-90.

 

[radionut925]

Sure, terrestrial radio has had it problems recently, but that's no excuse to make things the best they can be in the present.

Most of us have read or heard the following statements: "Radio is in trouble", "radio doesn't have a future", "radio is not a growth industry", etc. Still, there are some stations, however few there might be, that are serving their communities with quality, local programming. Unfortunately, though, there aren't enough of them.

Maybe instead of painting the same bleak picture of doom and gloom many industry observers seem have to been doing, all of us should find a few ideas to improve terrestrial radio's outlook. Any questions?