Friend and former 97 Rock boss jock, speaking at the Jacobs Media Summit, is quoted in today's Taylor On Radio “You gotta have a human being in the chair 24 hours a day”, says WMMR, Philadelphia programming mind Bill Weston. He says that’s “the root of the success” of WMMR, which is live 24/7. But it’s not just live jocks who matter – they’re about to hire a fulltime videographer for the website.
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The Declining state of radio and your opinion why...
- Thread starter Jeff Michaels
- Start date
Some of those managers will tell you that "a human being in the chair 24 hours a day" is just watching music play, and that even contest winners are canned. In fact, the human being in the chair is even just watching the computer wreak havoc on people's lives. And the person in the chair whose computer is wreaking havoc always explains that, "I am just here pushing buttons". Those buttons being pushed are often phone buttons and e-mail buttons elsewhere to find out where certain people are, and what they are doing; who is in town and where. The next button is to tell someone else. It's a strange little world for a lonely jock with a miserable scowl.
I think that Weston's point is that radio needs live bodies doing radio shows, interacting with listeners, and providing content that's not available on Pandora or any other jukebox stream.
Radio is a service to listeners. The better you serve the listeners, the more audience you have. The more audience you have, the more appeal you have to advertisers. The more appeal you have to advertisers, the more money you can make. This is not a difficult concept, but too many corporations have forgotten about the first part of that tautological equation. Listeners are the last thing on their minds, and money is first. Too many decisions are based on immediate returns without thought as to how it will ultimately affect listeners. The ultimate effect is a decrease in revenue over the long term.
If I want to sample a vast variety of music, including the obscure or undiscovered, I open up Spotify and start searching. If I want to know what's going on in my town, and want to kick back with familiar music and maybe some music that I should be aware of, I turn on the radio. The stations I listen to still have some local content, but not nearly as much as they had a few years ago. If I want canned content, I'm not listening to local radio. I can time-shift that and listen to podcasts directly from the source.
The bottom line? It's about CONTENT. If you're not creating compelling content, your headed down the wrong road as a company.
Radio is a service to listeners. The better you serve the listeners, the more audience you have. The more audience you have, the more appeal you have to advertisers. The more appeal you have to advertisers, the more money you can make. This is not a difficult concept, but too many corporations have forgotten about the first part of that tautological equation. Listeners are the last thing on their minds, and money is first. Too many decisions are based on immediate returns without thought as to how it will ultimately affect listeners. The ultimate effect is a decrease in revenue over the long term.
If I want to sample a vast variety of music, including the obscure or undiscovered, I open up Spotify and start searching. If I want to know what's going on in my town, and want to kick back with familiar music and maybe some music that I should be aware of, I turn on the radio. The stations I listen to still have some local content, but not nearly as much as they had a few years ago. If I want canned content, I'm not listening to local radio. I can time-shift that and listen to podcasts directly from the source.
The bottom line? It's about CONTENT. If you're not creating compelling content, your headed down the wrong road as a company.
You aren't going to have content if you don't have live bodies with souls. Also, the income is not going to continue when you are advertising to markets that are not in your listening area. Why they would do it is almost a mystery, unless they are using the area in general as part of a CB radio system via the internet.
Some stations do those weird little things like that. It is not about the audience, and often not even about the station generating revenue.
Then there are those who are so busy worrying about what is going on outside of the station that they have to put their noses in other people's business.
Believe me, there is a failure up the road, and it is not a winner whether by win, lose or draw.
Some stations do those weird little things like that. It is not about the audience, and often not even about the station generating revenue.
Then there are those who are so busy worrying about what is going on outside of the station that they have to put their noses in other people's business.
Believe me, there is a failure up the road, and it is not a winner whether by win, lose or draw.
SirRoxalot said:
True, if you can woo them back to the radio...
It's not a question of wooing them back. Survey says that 93% still sample radio. And, yes, even the 12-34s sample. It's a question of how long they stay. So many stations are fighting for 25-49 that audiences on either side of that "magic range" are ignored and/or underserved. If we don't make radio relevant to younger audiences, they won't be there as they mature into the "money demo". You can't tell me that 18-34s don't have money to spend, and that they're in the same audience as 25-54s.
jfrancispastirchak said:
And that's the hardest thing for people in radio to understand. In another thread, we've been talking about why talk radio is mainly appealing to older folks, and the reason is partly because of the popularity of message boards like this. Let's face it...it's more interesting to discuss subjects directly with other interested people, rather than through the intermediary of a talk show host, who is often mainly there to promote his own agenda. If you aren't in agreement with him, you're probably not listening. Same thing with anything on the radio. It's top-down communication, and it's been replaced in the lives of so many people by peer to peer. This has nothing to do with ownership, live & local, or limited playlists. It has more to do with the fact that a revolution happened almost ten years ago, and even boomers are starting to catch up to things like Facebook. That's the real problem. Radio became too professional.
Sean Ross had an article a short while back about his listening appointment book; good article, and something that many people have.
Walter Sabo, on the other hand, suggests competing with your audience, get videos of them undressing in their bedrooms, get into their lives. I have just one thing to say about that: How dare you infringe on my right to be secure, and how dare you send others out to get into my life, invade my privacy and use my life to hold up on the airwaves! And how dare you interfere in the lives of people I love. And how dare you deal so with people in my life!
And you wonder what is wrong in radio? You have people out there telling jocks to compete with their audiences in such manner! Do you also advise them not to get caught, so that the FCC and police are written to and called?
He's a nice man in a suit giving advice, so he must be right?
Wow!
Walter Sabo, on the other hand, suggests competing with your audience, get videos of them undressing in their bedrooms, get into their lives. I have just one thing to say about that: How dare you infringe on my right to be secure, and how dare you send others out to get into my life, invade my privacy and use my life to hold up on the airwaves! And how dare you interfere in the lives of people I love. And how dare you deal so with people in my life!
And you wonder what is wrong in radio? You have people out there telling jocks to compete with their audiences in such manner! Do you also advise them not to get caught, so that the FCC and police are written to and called?
He's a nice man in a suit giving advice, so he must be right?
Wow!
Making your competitor your partner is not a real good idea if you have made your competitor your audience or vice versa, and you making money off their lives. There are too many people who should not have access to a microphone out there in the younger generations, and this is what it comes down to?
...or is this advice supposed to just cover a multitude of sins, as it were, and other blatant violations?
...or is this advice supposed to just cover a multitude of sins, as it were, and other blatant violations?
The reason that radio mainly appeals to "older" folks is simple. There's far more radio being programmed to "older" folks than there is being programmed to 12-24s. The majority of stations center on either 25-44, or 35-54. Twenty years is two generations musically, so even that may be too wide an audience target.
Teens end up listening to the same station as young mothers - and the programming sure ain't targeted toward teens. There was a time when dayparting might allow that to work with some effect, but now that 7-Midnight has become throwaway time at too many stations, kids have to go to the Internet to find music of their own. Maybe some owners ought to consider the idea that owning 12-29 might bring in more money than being 5th in 25-44. Instead of running a station as a flanker, plug in some brash young talent and see if they can make some noise.
Teens end up listening to the same station as young mothers - and the programming sure ain't targeted toward teens. There was a time when dayparting might allow that to work with some effect, but now that 7-Midnight has become throwaway time at too many stations, kids have to go to the Internet to find music of their own. Maybe some owners ought to consider the idea that owning 12-29 might bring in more money than being 5th in 25-44. Instead of running a station as a flanker, plug in some brash young talent and see if they can make some noise.
SirRoxalot said:
I'm not sure about that, Rox. In the current economic climate, we're hearing so much about young people who are moving back home with mom and dad because they're out of money and can't find meaningful work. Still, it would be foolish of me to make a blanket statement that 18-34s don't have money. I'm sure there are those who have embarked on successful careers and have money to spend. But I do think it's much harder for today's young people than it was for us when we were starting out. In any event, I've long argued that the 55+ demo should be a prime target of advertisers. We're not "your father's" older demo. Radio is still part of our DNA. As babyboomers age, I would think advertisers -- restaurants, car dealers, retailers, and yes, those businesses that serve the needs of older people -- are going to want to reach us.
SirRoxalot said:
Rox, On the contrary, there's a goldmine of yuks & headbanging catering to the 12 to 24-demo. Just listen to the Beavis & Butt-Head crap on FM morning & afternoon drive in most major markets. Programmers might be targeting ages 25 and up, but 12 to 24's hold the keys to the radio kingdom.
I think theyre skewing a bit older with Beavis & Butthead stuff. People who are in their 30's watched it when it was on in the 90's and I'm betting most of those people are watching the revival of the show on MTV.
The 12-34s aren't turning away from radio, they're listening in a different context. Radio's just another choice for them and they have a myriad of choices. This year's Kissmas Bash was a rousing success. That's encouraging news for radio. WKSE, WBLK, WEDG and even WYRK attract 12-34s in impressive numbers. As to the Beavis & Butthead stuff, it's just part of another generation's Three Stooges. The number of young Iraq/Afghanistan veterans and officers, MDs, accountants, researchers and lawyers who howl at this stuff might surprise some of the 45+ crowd that posts here. The 25-34s that I've met can shift gears from "laughing" to "serious" in a heartbeat. They also have a lower tolerance level for media hype and radio BS.
12-34s consume on-line music the way that we consumed records, and later CDs. The difference is that EVERYBODY has access to EVERYTHING as long as they're on-line. Some people will go out of their way to download favorite music so they can listen off-line. A few more will even create playlists, but the majority do not. Radio is still a much more important source of music discovery.
Well-programmed radio is STILL the most convenient way for people to listen to music that they'll probably like, and to be exposed to new music that they'll probably like. What's better is that there are a ton of simple appliances already in use, and they work almost everywhere without dropouts or disconnects. The people who are being crushed by the digital revolution are the recording companies, not radio. If the radio industry reinvests in programming, revives enhanced content (i.e. the art of the segue, among others), and focuses on listeners, it will survive. If radio tries to out-Pandora Pandora, they'll fail as miserably as they did when they tried to out-iPod the iPod.
Well-programmed radio is STILL the most convenient way for people to listen to music that they'll probably like, and to be exposed to new music that they'll probably like. What's better is that there are a ton of simple appliances already in use, and they work almost everywhere without dropouts or disconnects. The people who are being crushed by the digital revolution are the recording companies, not radio. If the radio industry reinvests in programming, revives enhanced content (i.e. the art of the segue, among others), and focuses on listeners, it will survive. If radio tries to out-Pandora Pandora, they'll fail as miserably as they did when they tried to out-iPod the iPod.
SirRoxalot said:
"The art of the segue?" Are you kidding me? That's not "enhanced content." That's the DJ taking a bathroom break. That was a holdover from the dying days of progressive rock. Come on. Listeners can make their own segues. They don't need a DJ to do it for them. The real challenge is INVOLVING the listeners in what you do. Not turning the radio into the DJ's personal music box. People in radio need to let go of the controls. That will be the hardest thing they do. But it has to happen in order for radio to cease being this top-down system where programmers and DJs dictate music taste to the audience, and becomes a more empowering and inclusive system of communication.
B
Bob1370
Guest
Sir Roxalot says, "Well-programmed radio is STILL the most convenient way for people to listen to music that they'll probably like, and to be exposed to new music that they'll probably like."
And programming a station to give people the best new music--selected and progammed locally, reflecting the market's taste--and presenting it with personality and fun, is still the best way to pull an audience all the way from 12 to 49.
In other words, it's time to rediscover the philosophy that drove WKBW in 1977. Put it on a blowtorch FM signal and it'll coin major $$$$$.
And programming a station to give people the best new music--selected and progammed locally, reflecting the market's taste--and presenting it with personality and fun, is still the best way to pull an audience all the way from 12 to 49.
In other words, it's time to rediscover the philosophy that drove WKBW in 1977. Put it on a blowtorch FM signal and it'll coin major $$$$$.
I'm thinking that's it. Gotta go back to the cash cow (Mickey D's Big Mac scenario)
I'm hoping your statement is "agreeing" Bob ???
You aren't gonna beat the new techs...so you gotta go to your best weapon...offense - not defense
Been saying that for awhile...but not holding the purse strings (or a seat in the programming chair anymore
) doesn't help much!HDBG
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