The future of radio.....and it is pretty grim.

[ruger22com]

I just read a few threads that deal with the subject of the future of radio, but nobody really wants to admit where it is headed.

O.K...first off, forget auto companies, forget newspapers, forget all other businesses. Radio has made a 180 degree change in the last 20 - 30 years...it is in no way similar to all those other industries...and here is where it has been, and where it is heading:

Back when I was a young long haired jock/programmer, oh so many years ago, the GOVERNMENT had hard rules about ownership. You could only own 7 am stations, 7 fm stations, and 7 tv stations NATIONWIDE, and you could not own more than 1am 1fm and 1tv in ANY SINGLE MARKET.
What that created was COMPETITION. In a town like Detroit (Where I spent many years on the air) you had as many as 20 companies that owned radio stations, all in a battle for the ratings needed to COMPETE and sell ad time. Employees were VALUED TALENT, the $$$$ paid was great (as were the ad rates) and it was a creative and exciting time to be in the business.

Then the FCC changed everything by deregulating the industry, and for all practical reasons, letting a few companies buy up and own as many radio stations as they wanted. The result was disaster for the industry and the public.

Before, the industry was run by the programmers who created the oh so valued ratings. But when deregulation happened...the POWER was taken away from the programmers and given to the salesmen. Why? because the corporations buying up all the stations knew they could monopolize a market, and combo sell the stations. Thus ratings no longer were needed, nor were porogrammers, and when that happened, they realized that the TALENT was also no longer needed. why spend a ton of bucks on half a dozen afternoon jocks, when ratings no longer were needed. all you needed was a small sales staff, and they could just slap a "body" in the control room chair, and as long as music and commercials were still played..all was good.

Next, technology gave the salesmen a hand, by creating digital technology, automation (or voice tracking for a kinder name) was a real deal.
thus eliminating more jobs. newsmen were eliminated. production staffs were cut way down. morning show syndication boomed. single voices were soon heard on many stations in the same market. high paid creative jocks were replaced by card readers.

So where do we stand today? it IS getting even worse. Now the salesmen, having to deal with lost revenue (gee? a lack of creative programming causing a loss of radio listeners??? naaaaaaa???)...are looking for more ways to cut expenses (example..the expected 1,000 jobs clear channel plans to cut next week)...so where do we see this going?

Imagine what it would cost (if you do not care about ratings) to run an entire network of 700 or 800 stations with only a handfull of jocks??? imagine signing 4 or 5 syndicated morning shows to run in ALL your markets....and then signing 5 or 6 top voices to also be fed to all 700 or 800 of your stations to fill the duties in the other dayparts. sure they would be expensive...but what if you could eliminate ALL YOUR AIR STAFFS and replace them with these few staffers?.......next, build a dozen or so production houses to mass produce your stations spots

This is where I believe, radio is heading....heed my words...I have seen it progress this way for 40 years. Remember the last scene on WKRP where the station is nothing more than a little black box on a table?....this is where it is going!

anybody have another realistic picture to paint?
-Bob

 

[Carmine5]

Obviously, there is a segment of the population that likes to hear Rush Limbaugh and similar syndicated programming. There's nothing wrong with that. The problem, as I see it, is that stations are becoming too heavily weighted with syndicated, brokered or centralized programming. In my view, there needs to be a balanced mix of local and syndicated to make a station relevant, informative and entertaining for that station's market.

Case in point involves a friend of mine who works for a Clear Channel cluster in Ohio. Among other production jobs, he VT's the mid-morning shift and weekends. Mid-mornings are usually weak for the station. So last year, he begged the PD to let him do mid-mornings live for a month as an experiment. Reluctantly, the PD let him.

My friend (who is a 30 year radio pro) did interviews, chatted about local events, took calls, etc in between songs. In essence, the show became more than the automated AC jukebox it usually is and, instead, became more of a throwback to the way radio was when he started out.

After a month, the PD got some numbers. My friend's show was the highest rated show in the market for that daypart. Apparently, as listeners were tuning into the morning show, which is always live, they were staying on to hear mid-mornings.

Granted, I'm talking about live vs. automated programming in this case. But the point is that a PD cannot dismiss the importance of live and local. Not every daypart needs to be live and local but certainly no PD, station manager or cluster owner should write off the need for, at least, some of it if he/she wants the station to remain viable.

C5

 

[PTBoardOp94]

We can always look at the ratings to back up the idea that local is important.

In Indianapolis, WIBC-FM runs a local morning show and mid-day talk show followed by a long form newscast (5:30a-12n), then Limbaugh, local PM drive talk, and local evening talk (3p-8p). Then they run Clark Howard and Coast to Coast. They are usually second in the ratings.

Drive a few hours down the road to Evansville. A smaller market with a single talker, WGBF-AM. They run syndicated programming for the entire broadcast day, and only have local news during AM Drive. They usually finish 8-10th in the 12+ ratings. The "full-service" WIKY-FM is a perennial market leader with more news and local jocks except for evenings with Delilah.

The talk situation could be duplicated in markets large and small across the country - WLW, KFI, and WTOP are market leaders. It is hard to do an apples-to-apples comparison, of course since the top rated stations also have the top syndicated talent and usually those stations have some local content. WGBF-AM is the only market-leading talk station I know of that doesn't have a local show.

 

[oaktree]

Here's more reality, sadly ...

Today, in an extremely oversaturated radio environment ... advertising revenue has gone south. As a result, and as a practice done for years in markets large and small, advertisers of all shapes and sizes has listened to countless radio sales reps "chase the same demos" of 25-54 ... and if you're in a market of any size ... how difficult is that, now?

It's real difficult when everyone is chasing the same "money demos" be they 25-54, 18-34, 25-49, etc.

It's a numbers game ... and the numbers haven't changed. When an economy heads south, like this one has and will continue ... the reins are pulled in tighter. Money begets money. Owners don't invest wheelbarrows of cash just to make a non-performing (revenue wise) station stay afloat. Advertisers do.

Owners invest to make a return on investment ... and their stockholders are very demanding. At the same time, the local and regional banks tend to not lend money for radio because the profit margins are typically just not there like they were in many cases ... and the number of stations has grown.

The problem ... radio stations are not growing audiences anymore. It's like land ... it isn't being made anymore.

If that new great format sounds great to us radio types, as Indie in LA proved today ... the mainstream audience, mainstream advertisers and mainstream owners/management is less likely to make it -- a new format -- a cash winner ... and profitable.

 

[KFodor]

Here's more reality, sadly ...

Today, in an extremely oversaturated radio environment ... advertising revenue has gone south. As a result, and as a practice done for years in markets large and small, advertisers of all shapes and sizes has listened to countless radio sales reps "chase the same demos" of 25-54 ... and if you're in a market of any size ... how difficult is that, now?

It's real difficult when everyone is chasing the same "money demos" be they 25-54, 18-34, 25-49, etc.

It's a numbers game ... and the numbers haven't changed. When an economy heads south, like this one has and will continue ... the reins are pulled in tighter. Money begets money. Owners don't invest wheelbarrows of cash just to make a non-performing (revenue wise) station stay afloat. Advertisers do.

Owners invest to make a return on investment ... and their stockholders are very demanding. At the same time, the local and regional banks tend to not lend money for radio because the profit margins are typically just not there like they were in many cases ... and the number of stations has grown.

The problem ... radio stations are not growing audiences anymore. It's like land ... it isn't being made anymore.

If that new great format sounds great to us radio types, as Indie in LA proved today ... the mainstream audience, mainstream advertisers and mainstream owners/management is less likely to make it -- a new format -- a cash winner ... and profitable.

It isn't so much chasing the money demos, as it is station salespeople (and stations in general) chasing agency business. It's just too easy to pick up the phone and get a buy from the agency buyer. And today, most agency buyers are better than the majority of radio salespeople at negotiating rate and proving cost vs. benefits.

Too few stations bother to get to know the people who own the businesses and find out what the client's actual needs are, then design a campaign to meet the advertiser's need. This is what radio MUST get back to. Providing real, quantifiable results for the spots they run. Prove to your client that a Saturday afternoon remote brought him/her real, quantifiable money to the bottom line...and that client will continue to be a client for life...

Arbitron is slowly, but surely, becoming a waste of money to radio stations. Like pouring money down a rathole for a survey that, especially in smaller markets, isn't hitting sample targets, and isn't meeting the goals they promise to the stations. It's not just radio that needs to get their act together fast...

 

[Steven21]

We can always look at the ratings to back up the idea that local is important.

In Indianapolis, WIBC-FM runs a local morning show and mid-day talk show followed by a long form newscast (5:30a-12n), then Limbaugh, local PM drive talk, and local evening talk (3p-8p). Then they run Clark Howard and Coast to Coast. They are usually second in the ratings.

Drive a few hours down the road to Evansville. A smaller market with a single talker, WGBF-AM. They run syndicated programming for the entire broadcast day, and only have local news during AM Drive. They usually finish 8-10th in the 12+ ratings. The "full-service" WIKY-FM is a perennial market leader with more news and local jocks except for evenings with Delilah.

The talk situation could be duplicated in markets large and small across the country - WLW, KFI, and WTOP are market leaders. It is hard to do an apples-to-apples comparison, of course since the top rated stations also have the top syndicated talent and usually those stations have some local content. WGBF-AM is the only market-leading talk station I know of that doesn't have a local show.

In Buffalo, WBEN-AM is live and local from 5AM-10PM (except for Rush) and is always #1.

 

[gr8oldies]

WLW does very well with local programming, but bear in mind they've had almost a 30 year head start. You don't build WLW in your market tommorrow from scratch and expect to have the same results as WLW does now.
Local doesn't win just because it's local.

And even in the good old days, there were any number, if not most, radio stations that "programmed the sales" rather than "sold the programming" Anyone ever work at a CBS affiliate in the 70s and have to deal with all the crap programming you had to take (and not just run the spots either)?

 

[amfmxm]

I just read a few threads that deal with the subject of the future of radio, but nobody really wants to admit where it is headed.

O.K...first off, forget auto companies, forget newspapers, forget all other businesses. Radio has made a 180 degree change in the last 20 - 30 years...it is in no way similar to all those other industries...and here is where it has been, and where it is heading:

Back when I was a young long haired jock/programmer, oh so many years ago, the GOVERNMENT had hard rules about ownership. You could only own 7 am stations, 7 fm stations, and 7 tv stations NATIONWIDE, and you could not own more than 1am 1fm and 1tv in ANY SINGLE MARKET.
What that created was COMPETITION. In a town like Detroit (Where I spent many years on the air) you had as many as 20 companies that owned radio stations, all in a battle for the ratings needed to COMPETE and sell ad time. Employees were VALUED TALENT, the $$$$ paid was great (as were the ad rates) and it was a creative and exciting time to be in the business.

Then the FCC changed everything by deregulating the industry, and for all practical reasons, letting a few companies buy up and own as many radio stations as they wanted. The result was disaster for the industry and the public.

Before, the industry was run by the programmers who created the oh so valued ratings. But when deregulation happened...the POWER was taken away from the programmers and given to the salesmen. Why? because the corporations buying up all the stations knew they could monopolize a market, and combo sell the stations. Thus ratings no longer were needed, nor were porogrammers, and when that happened, they realized that the TALENT was also no longer needed. why spend a ton of bucks on half a dozen afternoon jocks, when ratings no longer were needed. all you needed was a small sales staff, and they could just slap a "body" in the control room chair, and as long as music and commercials were still played..all was good.

Next, technology gave the salesmen a hand, by creating digital technology, automation (or voice tracking for a kinder name) was a real deal.
thus eliminating more jobs. newsmen were eliminated. production staffs were cut way down. morning show syndication boomed. single voices were soon heard on many stations in the same market. high paid creative jocks were replaced by card readers.

So where do we stand today? it IS getting even worse. Now the salesmen, having to deal with lost revenue (gee? a lack of creative programming causing a loss of radio listeners??? naaaaaaa???)...are looking for more ways to cut expenses (example..the expected 1,000 jobs clear channel plans to cut next week)...so where do we see this going?

Imagine what it would cost (if you do not care about ratings) to run an entire network of 700 or 800 stations with only a handfull of jocks??? imagine signing 4 or 5 syndicated morning shows to run in ALL your markets....and then signing 5 or 6 top voices to also be fed to all 700 or 800 of your stations to fill the duties in the other dayparts. sure they would be expensive...but what if you could eliminate ALL YOUR AIR STAFFS and replace them with these few staffers?.......next, build a dozen or so production houses to mass produce your stations spots

This is where I believe, radio is heading....heed my words...I have seen it progress this way for 40 years. Remember the last scene on WKRP where the station is nothing more than a little black box on a table?....this is where it is going!

anybody have another realistic picture to paint?
-Bob

Bob, please allow me to provide a slightly different perspective.

This has never been about programming versus sales. Never. Although this 13-year consolidation period--and 20-year adherence to Wall Street-style focus on cash flow--have indeed diminished radio programming, the people selling radio advertising are just as pissed--okay, displeased--about what has happened. It has not made their job easier--it has made it harder.

The big investors began to enter the radio business in the early eighties when they discovered that radio was an extraordinarily profitable business. No "inventory" costs--mostly just "people" costs. Then they overwhelmed the industry following the Telecom Bill of 1996 that gave radio business units (Clear Channel, Infinity, Cumulus) the heft--size--required to attract BIG investment--billions instead of millions. The 7-7 limits had kept radio companies too small to attract Wall Street investment.

Once the trigger was pulled, the rules of Wall Street took over: increase cash flow (profit) each quarter, every quarter. Initially that was easy to do by showing normal economies of scale created by combining six-or-eight separate radio stations into one (fire 7 of the 8 GMs, 7 of the 8 GSMs, 4 of the 8 PDs, etc)... but as time went on they began to scramble to find employees to whack in order to show ever-growing profit. Remember, Wall Street investors only reward companies that are consistently growing in profit.

So jocks started to disappear. First it was the overnight & evening jocks + weekenders. And a funny thing happened. The ratings generally stayed the same. So then the Mid-day talents were whacked. And, again, the ratings stayed more-or-less the same. You know the rest of the story.

And now we are at a point when Wall Street has fallen out of love with radio. It turns out that we were not the Magic Bean that constantly kept growing profitability, after all. When radio's cash flow growth levelled out, the Big Investors left the building.

Back to Mom & Pop? In markets like Detroit, does radio return to mid-size privately owned companies like, say, the old Storers & Cap Cities?

Radio continues to reach more than 90 percent of Americans each week--a figure that makes newspapers & online outfits drool.

So it's not that we're anywhere close to death. Just waiting the re-birth.

What's it going to look like?

 

[Goat Rodeo Cowboy]

The big investors began to enter the radio business in the early eighties when they discovered that radio was an extraordinarily profitable business. No "inventory" costs--mostly just "people" costs. Then they overwhelmed the industry following the Telecom Bill of 1996 that gave radio business units (Clear Channel, Infinity, Cumulus) the heft--size--required to attract BIG investment--billions instead of millions. The 7-7 limits had kept radio companies too small to attract Wall Street investment.

Once the trigger was pulled, the rules of Wall Street took over: increase cash flow (profit) each quarter, every quarter. Initially that was easy to do by showing normal economies of scale created by combining six-or-eight separate radio stations into one (fire 7 of the 8 GMs, 7 of the 8 GSMs, 4 of the 8 PDs, etc)... but as time went on they began to scramble to find employees to whack in order to show ever-growing profit. Remember, Wall Street investors only reward companies that are consistently growing in profit.

Very well said!

Wall street has an established pattern of finding some here-to-fore backwater line of business dominated by entrepreneurs who have not focused on implementing The Wall Street Squeeze.  In the 60s and the 70s the appliance dealers are a good example.  The guy on the corner selling TVs and then chasing all over the neighborhood with his little black case of replacement tubes morphed into Best Buy and Circuit City and CompUSA.  Looks like they have finally squeezed all the tooth paste out of that tube.

In the 80's and 90's it was automobile retailing.  Detroit used to have ownership rules.  You had to have your brother-in-law front one of the deals if you wanted to own Ford and GM dealerships in the same city.  Then came the Car-Max and Auto-Nation concepts.  Just as old time broadcasters sold stations for amazing prices for awhile,  old time car dealers found people with bags of money knocking on their doors.  Fast Forward.  How would you like to be the CEO or CFO of a public corporation with the narrow/narrow business concept of operating 80 or 90 automobile franchises in today's market?

Some, maybe all the jostling and trash-talk we do on these boards about music and "live and local" and HD vs Analog have a lot less impact on our industry than does the Wall Street/MBA focus in the corporate HQs.

But there may be more.  It is NOT all Wall street.  When TV receivers (and other appliances) moved from the vacuum tube era to the solid state era it was possible to squeeze out the guy in the neighborhood with the black box of tubes.  At one time he made it possible for the industry to function.

When cars no longer needed to have their engines rebuilt at 60,000 miles,  spark plugs changed every 10,000 miles and the oil changed every 1,000 miles Detroit no longer needed the guy with the big local personality to keep the brand serviced and running.

So.  What is the more foundational, the more organic element of radio that is no longer needed by the industry.  There used to be something that needed one-station one-owner  to make it work that has now changed.  I'm not sure we are focused on the true root cause of the industry shift.  We are debating the symptoms and maybe ignoring the disease.

 

[gr8oldies]

I think the frustration is theh very facct that no one knows what the future is, or how to deal with it. A lot of our audience does just fine without, and actually prefers little to no jock talk, and the ratings not having gone down as jocks were elimininated proves that point. I like the automotive example, and I can even add the mom and pop gas station/repair shops back when cars needed much more frequent repair. If you're not old enough, imagine every place you see a Speedway, BP or whatever the big gas station/convenience store chain is in your area being a place with three repair bays that were full 12 hours a day, 6 days a week. All those mechanics and gas pumpers were replaced by low-paid convenience store clerks, some who get held up at gunpoint on a frequent basis. The improvement in vehicles made that change happen. Of course, if I'm buying now, in addition to my big-overhead dealer, I can contact a dealer three states away on the internet.

So we'll be on this board, saying that if only DJs were brought back, everything would be fine, or if only Mom and Pop could come back, or the insurance companies would buy back the stations they sold, or the government would mandate live/local, or for gosh sakes take these licenses away and give them to people who could afford to stuff the station with warm bodies, and let the DJs play and say what they wanted. Then it would be 1972 again! Except, it wouldn't, and the whole marketplace has changed.

The answer is there are no answers.

 

[amfmxm]

I think the frustration is theh very facct that no one knows what the future is, or how to deal with it. A lot of our audience does just fine without, and actually prefers little to no jock talk, and the ratings not having gone down as jocks were elimininated proves that point. I like the automotive example, and I can even add the mom and pop gas station/repair shops back when cars needed much more frequent repair. If you're not old enough, imagine every place you see a Speedway, BP or whatever the big gas station/convenience store chain is in your area being a place with three repair bays that were full 12 hours a day, 6 days a week. All those mechanics and gas pumpers were replaced by low-paid convenience store clerks, some who get held up at gunpoint on a frequent basis. The improvement in vehicles made that change happen. Of course, if I'm buying now, in addition to my big-overhead dealer, I can contact a dealer three states away on the internet.

So we'll be on this board, saying that if only DJs were brought back, everything would be fine, or if only Mom and Pop could come back, or the insurance companies would buy back the stations they sold, or the government would mandate live/local, or for gosh sakes take these licenses away and give them to people who could afford to stuff the station with warm bodies, and let the DJs play and say what they wanted. Then it would be 1972 again! Except, it wouldn't, and the whole marketplace has changed.

The answer is there are no answers.

My wife is in the new homes business. So every few days we have a ritual in which I talk her down from the ledge and remind her that the problems she's encountering are structural (that is, home prices are going through an adjustment--to lower, more affordable, ranges--and lenders are being shaken back into the real world of lending to credit-worthy buyers) and that the basic relationship between home sellers and home buyers hasn't changed. So, if her company can grit its teeth and hold on while this restructuring runs its course, she'll be back selling houses hand-over-fist again. It's a matter of time, not product.

In radio, the product--a service, really--that we call programming has, unfortunately, been compromised a bit over the past decade or so. For the past 50 years (let's say, since the shift of network programs to TV & the resulting invention of "format" programming) radio has served as a source of entertainment, information, and companionship to nearly all Americans from their teens til death. While we're still holding up the entertainment end of things, and to a lesser degree the information portion, we've pretty much forgotten about the companionship element. You know, the Human Interaction part. Yes, talk radio does some of that--but since so much of it is nationalized, it has been minimized.

That's where local air talents--jocks, personalities--come into play. And, as the emphasis & de-emphasis of personality has always been cyclical, I don't think it is a stretch at all to foresee a return to personality radio--or whatever y'all want to call it.

The ownership model is important, too. I just think that Wall Street has kicked the ball back in the direction of smaller companies ("moms & pops" in the small markets and "smaller private companies" in the larger markets). So it has already started. And it is "structural." Aside from reintroducing people--a/k/a jocks, ATs, personalities--into radio programming, our product/service doesn't need major surgery.

Like I tell my wife... back away from the ledge!

 

[Goat Rodeo Cowboy]

Oh, come on, Gr8oldies. Wrong attitude, wrong answer. ;D

I started out six years ago keeping a legal pad and a notebook handy. When I sit down at night to watch CSI or some other who-dun-it, I scribble brain-drippings about what might work in the radio station of the future. Some nights I review previous drippings. Some I revise, some I discard. Once in a while I type up all the loose notes and put them in a binder. Some nights I thumb through the whole binder looker for things to mark with a yellow hi-liter, looking for things to xxxx-out and start over.

I've let that project smoulder now for about 9 months while I remodel my home office and studio. I owe a copy of it to one of the people who has posted in this thread. I have no confidence that I have uncovered or created the "Holy Grail" but if the phone rang this afternoon and the voice said: your deal is ready.... it would be at least a year before I would need to sit down and start squeezing out brand new brain-drippings.

I know what I would do and I know why. Half of my ideas would work, the other half would be discards. I just don't know which items belong in which half. Even my pessimistic side says: "Yeah! We can do this!"

You are going to share your first page of bold new ideas for 21st Century radio tomorrow, aren't you? :

 

[gr8oldies]

I'll get right on it, Goat.

 

[SirRoxalot]

Seacrest is Just the Beginning

I don't know how smaller groups will fare, but I think I have a handle on what radio will look like if the consolidators aren't forced into bankruptcy or reigned in by governmental re-regulation.

1. Radio stations will be located in strip-mall storefronts. They'll house a receptionist, the local "market manager", engineering, and perhaps one studio IF the morning show is live. Satellite dishes will feed "bird food" to the transmitters the rest of the day.

2. Sales calls will be routed to "independent contractors" who work out of their homes strictly on commission, or to "regional call centers" where "order takers" will help the inexperienced fill out the web-based "Sales Order" on a secure page on the station's website.

3. Production, traffic, collections, HR, promotions, and all other functions will be "hubbed" at the "regional centers". Updated "local content" will be fed to the automation system at each station overnight, and remote access will allow adjustments to the programming of "local avails" during the 20-24 hours of syndication.

4. Regional centers near NY, Chicago, Denver, Seattle, LA, Dallas, and Atlanta will be staffed by "major talent" who provide syndicated programming for 15-20 formats in English and Spanish. They'll likely be live, and distributed to all stations in their regional time zone.

5. Most production of both imaging and commercials for each market will be "individualized" at the regional center. A "consistent regional sound" will be set for each format, and localized informational elements inserted where necessary.

6. Local production will be allowed only if the "regional template" is adhered to so it fits the "regional sound". Spots produced by local agencies or advertisers must be cleared by corporate before airing.

I'm sure that I've forgotten a few things, but you get the picture, huh?

 

[davideduardo]

Re: Seacrest is Just the Beginning

I'm sure that I've forgotten a few things, but you get the picture, huh?

No, your list is complete. It sounds just like what TV does, but on a smaller scale.

Or what radio did in the 30's and 40's... NBC's two nets, CBS, Mutual, and regional nets like Yankee, IMN, Don Lee, etc.

Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose.

 

[TheBigA]

Before, the industry was run by the programmers who created the oh so valued ratings. But when deregulation happened...the POWER was taken away from the programmers and given to the salesmen.

I hate to bring facts into this, but as someone who has been in this business for 35 years, and worked at dozens of stations, I can tell you that programmers NEVER EVER ran the industry. They ran the programming, but not the industry. And when the owners didn't like the programming, they clamped down on the programmers. So let's not rewrite history.

Back in the 7/7/7 days (I go back to the 5/5/5 days) there was only limited competition. You had two groups of radio stations. You had the top performers, who all got double digit shares, usually owned by big companies like ABC or insurance companies. And then you had everyone else, who had no money, no budget, and often no ratings. And every now and then, David might slay a Golliath, but WMCA never beat WABC, no matter who claimed to have the most Beatles per hour. It simply never happened. So WMCA just fought as hard as it could, with their Good Guys, and ultimately had to give up. I wouldn't call that competition.

I am also here to tell you that even if the FCC hadn't loosened up ownership rules, we were well on our way to a form of content consolidation by the end of the 80s that involved LMAs and formats created by consultants. So while the stations MAY have been owned by different companies, they WOULD have been programmed by the same 12 consultants. In other words, at the end of the day, radio would sound exactly as it does now. Just that we'd be getting paychecks from different people. That's my view of it. And even if the FCC came along and re-regulated, owners wouldn't change what they're doing. They'd simply continue syndication, expect they wouldn't own it.

Next, technology gave the salesmen a hand, by creating digital technology, automation (or voice tracking for a kinder name) was a real deal.

I worked my way through college at automated stations in the 1970s. They didn't give the salesmen a hand. They gave the GM a hand, because he didn't have to hire anyone. The work of the sales folks was no different at an automated station than at a live station. But in the markets where I worked, there were more automated stations. I was in a college town, and the ONLY rock station was an automated station. This was in the 70s, before deregulation. I think it was around 1993 that I was asked to call a guy in Austin who invented VT. He worked for Southern Star. He was mainly an engineer, but this system was the brainchild of a programmer, not a saleman. He didn't like the style of automation that existed in the 70s and 80s that wasn't localized. He wanted localized automation. THAT is how VT came about.

Imagine what it would cost (if you do not care about ratings) to run an entire network of 700 or 800 stations with only a handfull of jocks???

We don't have to imagine that. It exists right now. Dial-Global programs thousands of radio stations using 8 formats and maybe a hundred jocks from studios in California. ABC does the same from Dallas. This is happening right now, and most people don't even know it. It's been going on for 40 years. I don't understand why people think this is all new, and that it never happened before.

anybody have another realistic picture to paint?
-Bob

Sure. Get a job in sales. Be the programmer who can sell. I've met a few in my day. Bob Meyrowitz of DIR Broadcasting, creator of King Biscuit Flour Hour. If you can sell AND you know programming, you can make a killing. Or maybe not. But if you think that's where the power is, then that's where you need to be. You can't change anything from the outside. All you can do is throw stones. The Trojans learned many centuries ago that you need to infiltrate the fortress if you want to get anything done.

 

[TheBigA]

The one thing I want to add is that ownership of radio has remained fairly constant since about 2002. And those owners kept their stations fairly constant. No mass firings like last week. For the most part, from 1996 until about 2004, a lot of radio was basically unchanged. The same DJs, doing basically the same thing for about 8 or 9 years.

In the middle of that, everything else changed. The internet, personal computers, satellite radio, home video games, lots of entertainment alternatives. And through it all, radio remained largely unchanged. Sure, they'd add a web page and maybe a stream. But no wholesale changes in radio, nothing fundamentally changed at all during the past 8 years.

Back in 2000, CC thought about doing what it's proposing now. But why bother? Things then were great, revenues were up, ratings were up, and everything was fine at the majority of these stations.

Then in 2005, the advertising market crashed. All media, including radio, took a huge hit. And even though programming at most of these stations remained pretty constant, the overall audience for radio shifted.

THAT is where we are now, and why, for the first time in 8 years, radio needs to look at itself and say, maybe it's time to adapt to a changed world. I don't understand why this is so daunting. The book, "Who Moved My Cheese" was written ten years ago. Most people who read it adapted to their changing world. For some reason, radio never did. This is an important book, and anyone who hasn't read it should do so now.

 

[easyfm]

Re: Seacrest is Just the Beginning

I think I have a handle on what radio will look like

You've just described regional radio in Australia and New Zealand. ;D

 

[SirRoxalot]

Well, there you have it, folks. The two biggest apologists for the consolidators have confirmed my post-apocalyptic "vision of the future". Pretty chilling, huh? Makes you really want to walk into that studio and do your best for the boys at corporate, doesn't it?

Start planning for "life after radio" NOW. While you're at it, take the time to load up your iPod, subscribe to some interesting podcasts, and check to see if Google Traffic covers your city. You'll have more local content that way than you'll get from your radio.

It sure will be interesting to see how listeners and advertisers react to the changes as they work their way through the industry.

 

[TheBigA]

Makes you really want to walk into that studio and do your best for the boys at corporate, doesn't it?

If that's your vision of who you do it for then that's you mistake. You don't "you your best for the boys at corporate." You do your best for the audience. I believe that's what a lot of air talent forgot. When new owners came in, the air talent got greedy, said "where's mine," and forgot who they program to. I say that knowing what they got their agents to write into their contracts. If you saw the contracts I've seen, you'd be shocked.

As I said a few days ago, if corporate radio ain't your cup of tea, I can direct you to thousands of non-corporate stations. But you'll have to take a pay cut, and check your ego at the door. I don't know if anyone who has sucked at the teet for corporate radio for any length of time is prepared to do that.

It sure will be interesting to see how listeners and advertisers react to the changes as they work their way through the industry.

The advertisers don't care. They just buy numbers, not amything else. They slowed down buying long before any layoffs, so it's obvious that isn't an issue for them. The audience has spoken with their feet. The audience prefers music devices that have no air talent. They feel betrayed by air talent that is more interested in themselves than their audience. What's the point in local air talent if those people don't interact with the local audience? No, we saw how listeners and advertisers reacted a long time ago.