Sign Of The Times

[JustPastBuffalo]

Not like we didn't see this coming.

From Inside Radio February 14, 2011:

Aging demos presents sales challenge.
As research shows radio’s audience continues to age, the medium risks becoming out of sync with the demographics most sought by advertisers. Buyers say it’s already having an impact on how they use the medium. With national driving the recovery so far, it may decide which formats are winners and losers.

Biggest formats going gray.
While still a big portion of the population, aging Baby Boomers are losing their appeal with advertisers. The result is a large percentage of radio’s three most-listened-to formats are slowly aging-off Madison Avenue’s radar.

_________________________________________________

Still, baby boomers comprise a major portion of the buying demographic and in many markets are the stakes that hold up the tent. The question is, where do we go from here? All the apps,on line streaming and outside the box massaging won't turn the tide for stations whose primary demo is "aging out." Country, and in Buffalo particularly, WYRK, seems to be the format that covers the demographic spectrum and remains healthiest, thanks in large part to the way the Country Music Industry services and appreciates radio. Every Country performer on last night's Grammy Award Show thanked "our friends in Country radio." The artists (writers and producers) have the talking points and routine down cold, and more important, they continue to provide a product that reaches a broad demo.

Question is, without prejudice, how long will the Classic Rock and Classic Hits (my personal favorites) formats endure? Two weeks ago I spoke to a respected media person who speculated the decline will come sooner than many of us would like.

What?

"Like five years."

By 2016 these formats will fall off the table?

"Yes. The question goes beyond 'more 80s and/or 90s' which appears to be lipstick on a pig that doesn't address the real issues, those being that people who like Floyd, Hendrix, Zep, the Stones and the Beatles are getting older and Green Day and Oasis don't fit the format. The buys are all about 25-49 and even the locals are suspicious about the '54' part of the buys."

I'm hearing the Who pound out "Long live Rock" or is that "...hope I die before I get old." ?

 

[Lee Rust]

It happens to every generation eventually. How many stations play Glenn Miller today? This time around, the natural demographic turnover is complicated by the technological shift to personal digital media.

 

[Philip_Airtime]

I'm not sure if I buy the idea that the classic rock format will no longer be a factor in five years. My kid is about to enter the coveted 25-54 age group this year. And he is a fan of plenty of classic rock groups. And when he's in the car, he's listening to 97 Rock. Plus, until the last baby boomer dies, there will always be an audience for the music on the radio. Some station will be playing it. Maybe it won't be the powerhouse it is today. But I don't think classic rock will disappear. Just my two cents.

 

[Jody-Thornton]

But why doesn't radio (or advertisers) see those in their 50s and 60s as part of a saleable demo? They spend money. They still absorb change (I would say that today's 60 year old is a MUCH more youthful and adaptable person as copared to the same a couple of generations ago; would I be wrong?)

I wonder if it's that they are perceived to be "too careful" with their money, or that they make wiser decisions with money. Am I getting radio's viewpoint correctly here? Seems like there is money to be made with this age group, so why ignore it?

Cheers,
Jody Thornton
(Hamilton, Ontario)

 

[JIBGUY]

But why doesn't radio (or advertisers) see those in their 50s and 60s as part of a saleable demo? They spend money.Cheers,
Jody Thornton
(Hamilton, Ontario)

It's simple. We 60-year-olds, and older, are more careful with money, smarter with money, pay our credit card bills in full at the end of each month, and our minds are not as easily scrambled by advertising. - Most advertising is aimed for those who impulse-buy, who don't need it and can't afford it. America's economic engine works on credit, not so much on the profit of the sold item. In America, basically, the only thing we make here... is money. Products are made in China, South & Central America.

 

[Lee Rust]

Another part of the problem may be that most radio advertising people these days are on the younger end of the age scale, and see their own cohort as the center of the universe, just as the baby boomers did thirty years ago. It's a natural thing. Most of the older members of the sales profession have either been pushed out the door in favor of cheaper, younger and more energetic 'street fighters', or are now in upper management trying to figure out how to meet the next revenue target without taking any undue risks.

 

[Lee Rust]

Advertising energy is now mostly focussed on the internet. Google is the new normal. I'll bet that most younger ad buyers would never waste any money on radio time at all if they had their druthers. As far as they seem to care, the thrifty seniors who still stubbornly listen to "ancient modulation" broadcast radio are just a bunch of old fogies who want to hear only about Gold Bond powder and cheap insurance for their Buicks. Their assumption appears to be that any remaining active 'old people' with real money to spend on consumer products are now firmly gripping an iPhone in their arthritic hands and Facebooking, Tweeting and Googling right along with the rest of the modern world.

Is this true? If not, what do we do to correct a false perception?

 

[UpstateNYBill]

Times change, taste change. The young people of today will be the old people of tomorrow.

 

[Bob1370]

A lot of radio formats will shift with the times, and retain at least some listenership iin younger demos as a result. Take classic rock--today we have one idea of who the core artists are, but a few years down the road the format may begin with Nirvana and move forward to Chris Daughtry. Classic hits? Ten years from now Kelly Clarkson and Lady Gaga will be core artists.

What I worry about most in terms of a format aging out, is news/talk. It really hasn't updated either its outlook or its core talent in a decade or more. It's still fighting a lot of the culture wars and ideological wars of the 90s that people born after about 1970 (and even a significant number of people born after 1950) either disagree with or don't care about.

Too predictable, too narrow.

If it doesn't develop new talent with new outlooks and ideas, it'll go the way of big band/standards radio...

 

[JIBGUY]

If it doesn't develop new talent with new outlooks and ideas, it'll go the way of big band/standards radio...

Hold yur horses there. Adult-standards is alive and very very well. My Boston station and my Maine station do very nicely with that format. (Don't look at ratings because I don't broadcast PPM-encoding signal in Boston). The amazing thing is that I have a VERY sizable 30-to-65 audience, almost as much as 65+. The thing I keep hearing over and over is the younger listeners say that "FM radio sucks", and "today's music sucks". And they find what they like on a little AM station. So, if there is some compelling programming on AM, a moderate amount of younger people find it.- But one thing is for sure..... there's no money in it for the reasons I (and Lee Rust) mentioned above.

 

[Element9]

I'm not sure if I buy the idea that the classic rock format will no longer be a factor in five years. My kid is about to enter the coveted 25-54 age group this year. And he is a fan of plenty of classic rock groups. And when he's in the car, he's listening to 97 Rock. Plus, until the last baby boomer dies, there will always be an audience for the music on the radio. Some station will be playing it. Maybe it won't be the powerhouse it is today. But I don't think classic rock will disappear. Just my two cents.

Some people just don't get tired of hearing Led Zeppelin, the Doors and Pink Floyd.

 

[Paul_Warren]

Biggest formats going gray.
While still a big portion of the population, aging Baby Boomers are losing their appeal with advertisers. The result is a large percentage of radio’s three most-listened-to formats are slowly aging-off Madison Avenue’s radar...

Sadly for the business, I don't think it's the major formats greying, but the entire medium. And, as Joey Reynolds once said about the decline of AM radio, "it was an inside job."

It's been at least two full generations now since radio (with a very few exceptions) worked at being to 12-24 what the great Top-40s and AORs meant to us 1955-1972. Classic Rock in 2016 will be a section on iTunes, not a radio format.

It's popular to compare the present day to the late 1940s, when the death of radio was forecast, and it managed to reinvent itself and thrive. The big difference today is that the tactics being touted as the way to save radio are all things that don't require a transmitter.

If you own a high-overhead RF broadcast facility managed by middle-aged guys in suits who came up through sales, and suddenly find yourself in competition with art-focused, low-budget content providers on the web, you're not going to beat them at their own game. You'd better start leveraging the things that can only be done with a transmitter, because it's your only exclusive benefit.

Instead, the big music stations become more indistinguishable from MP3 playlists every day. Consultant Alan Burns has now service-marked "Playlist" as a station brand, while online operations have started looking for something hipper than "internet radio" to call what they do.

Radio is trying now to train managers to create more compelling web content, and sell the "avails" on websites more efficiently. Fragmentation online is exponentially more challenging than in broadcast, so how will that be a winning strategy?

Radio can't beat TMZ or an MP3 player at their own games, and vice-versa. So far, only one side has figured that out.

 

[bbb]

But why doesn't radio (or advertisers) see those in their 50s and 60s as part of a saleable demo? They spend money.Cheers,
Jody Thornton
(Hamilton, Ontario)

It's simple. We 60-year-olds, and older, are more careful with money, smarter with money, pay our credit card bills in full at the end of each month, and our minds are not as easily scrambled by advertising. - Most advertising is aimed for those who impulse-buy, who don't need it and can't afford it. America's economic engine works on credit, not so much on the profit of the sold item. In America, basically, the only thing we make here... is money. Products are made in China, South & Central America.

Is this why just about every radio commercial I hear is for some debt settlement or tax evasion service?

 

[firepoint525]

Seems like every commercial that I hear on the radio are those that have 800 numbers to call for more information. What ever happened to local sponsorship? Can they not afford radio anymore? Or are they being crowded out? Maybe the national advertisers are waving more money at radio than the local businesses can.

 

[Philip_Airtime]

Speaking of commercials that just don't make sense, I heard an ad that targets women who may be dealing with stretch marks on WGR this morning. Really?!?!

 

[PTBoardOp94]

People talk about News/Talk not refreshing in the last 10 or 15 years, but neither has Classic Rock. A local classic rock station ran the same TV commercial from like 1997 to 2003 featuring Zepplin, Aerosmith, and Def Leppard. They could well still be running the commercial if not for getting a new logo.

The question is, how would you even go about refreshing "rock?" The really good rock was made before Micheal Jackson.

 

[Jody-Thornton]

What about adding the stuff from the early 90s Seattle scene to the Classic Rock library? Though I would say that we are now targeting a whole diffrerent audience in that case.

 

[majicrockstar]

I would say that the EDGE is basicly doing the "dare I say" classic rock of the 90s and early part of 2000.. The playlist they do now is basiclly a bit of 70s(sabath) 80s(u2,Billy Idol,Rush< Motly Crue, Van Halen, metallica) mostly 90s (the entire grundge library to limp biscuit) early 2000 and some new stuff.. I remember when the EDGE first came on the new music content was ALOT higher.

 

[chas108]

I think Classic Hits will be around in some form or another. As noted earlier, today's Top 40 is tomorrow's Classic Hits, pure and simple. As musical tastes evolve, some people stay with the previous style. The number of people who do will determine the viability of the format. But there's more to it.

Today, I believe there a couple of dynamics in play. The "us vs. them (the older generation)" element of rebellion that characterized the first 15-20 years of the Rock era has long been pushed to the margins where radio doesn't really go. Top 40 has evolved into a 25-54 format that still serves the teenage demos. Is this because we are now 55 years into the Rock era and adult tastes are used to the elements that characterize the current music? Or are the radio and record industries simply playing it safe? Whatever the case you have a lot of generational interest in current music.

That said, you also have young people - also mentioned on this thread - who, for one reason or another, have discovered and embraced the music from when we fifty-and-sixty somethings were their age. Bruno Mars and Zeppelin on the same iPod? Lady GaGa and The Beatles? Today it happens.

Anyone watch Idol this season? When I was the age of most of the entrants on the show, I thought Jaye P. Morgan was a fill-in panelist on The Gong Show...and Merv Griffin and Mike Douglas were simply talk show hosts. I had zero clue, until I spent some time in Al Ham's Music Of Your Life format, that all three had been artists some 20-30 years before. But it was pre-rock era so I hadn't a clue. Today, most anyone trying out on Idol knows all the early Aerosmith hits, despite their being over 30 years ago.

I'm not sure that radio has - or should - embrace all these changes. The Bob and Jack formats did, to some extent but now it seems that too has become a niche...or does the format simply need an infusion of live personality?

Are there enough younger people to go to a Classic Rock station and get their fix...the answer to that may well answer the question of that format's future viability. You may see a point soon where Classic Rock, like Adult Standards, is viable only in Top-10 markets where you can make $$ with a 2-share.

Does Classic Rock need to move into the 90's Alternative music to survive? Can it be done without alienating their 60's-80's base? In 2011, it would seem logical that the next place for Classic Rock to go is post-Seattle. But are the new 90's-formatted stations filling that niche already? Can the gulf be successfully bridged and Classic Rock play both? Or is there a new format of Alternative Oldies on the horizon?

 

[schmave]

People talk about News/Talk not refreshing in the last 10 or 15 years, but neither has Classic Rock. A local classic rock station ran the same TV commercial from like 1997 to 2003 featuring Zepplin, Aerosmith, and Def Leppard. They could well still be running the commercial if not for getting a new logo.

The question is, how would you even go about refreshing "rock?" The really good rock was made before Micheal Jackson.

What I've noticed as much as anything is so many classic rock stations have narrowed their playlists the past five years or so. Maybe that's Clear Channel's fault. I don't know. But even stations that used to have giant playlists now play mostly the basics we all get tired of.