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What's really wrong with radio...

O

OKCRadioGuy

http://www.radioworld.com/pages/s.0100/t.15253.html

Too bad corporate radio won't even take a cue from financial people that appearently have more intuition into the broadcasting industry that those at the top of the industry currently. HD, digital audio, insanely tall towers of power and all the fancy studios in the world won't buy ratings. They just don't get it do they? Damn.

Let's put up even taller towers with "crystal clear" HD radio. Surely that will make more people listen. Let's get rid of a few more people so we can afford this expensive stuff. The money should be rolling in soon, right?

Corporate radio. What a laugh. Enjoy your 3-7 percent a year tumble down hill. Maybe after things get so run down some of us that still remember what the hell a radio station is can morgage the house, sell some plasma, pawn the wedding ring, and scrape our savings together so we can go employ some people with a clue to put something on the air worth listening to and make a go of it.
 
Forgive me if I don't put a lot of faith in the financial people and what they say about radio. After all, they're still trying to justify their attempts to get clients to invest in Sirius stock as it's looking more and more like it will be a penny stock a year from now despite a merger that was supposed to cause the stock value to shoot up. They also had such good judgment on companies like Enron and Worldcom.

Don't get me wrong, I have my share of problems with corporate radio and HD Radio. However, radio still reaches roughly 95% of the population each week. There's not a single other medium that can boast that kind of reach. There also aren't very many industries that aren't struggling with revenue right now. No, it's not good to just ignore the revenue decline and write it off because they're doing better than similar industries. However, big oil and its $1,500 per second profit is about the only one I can think of that isn't struggling, and I'm not convinced it's as well off as many think.

I also have to admit I find it odd that radio people are criticizing corporate ownership for not taking the financial people's advice when most of them claim taking too much of that advice ruined the industry in the first place. It looks like a flip flop of epic proportions, and the results would likely be the equivalent of a shot in the foot for many of them. Maybe that's not you, but it's certainly a lot of people on these boards!
 
You are right on Kent. The financial people have no idea how to run radio or any other business. (expcept banking maybe)

I would look for some of the public companies to go private very soon. With the price of stock so low, the companies could buy it all back and see a return on their investment quicker. Could that be part of the strategy??? Think about it.

But I would rather see broadcasters own broadcast outlets. The economy will get better. We are just so close to broadcasting and we forget that every industry is going through tough times right now. We will all come out a little tougher and hopefully wiser.

We need to make sure the products are better too. Tulsa has several good programmers and it a fairly progressive market overall. The quality of Tulsa radio is right up there with most large markets.
 
The problem is, for the most part, the industry isn't doing anything proactive to get a decent product out there so it can increase the revenues. The standard thing to do now is cut costs at all costs. That doesn't solve anything other than short-term.
 
I would take a pay cut for a couple years and tell the stock holders profits aren't going to be great for the next five years. Next, I'd hire some decent talent to bring my stations up to a listenable level. I wouldn't go overboard, but I'd hire some people worth listening to. Next, I'd install a listener line to where people could bitch about what's wrong with their station that I'd check from time to time to see what the pulse of the station is. I'd go out on remotes from time to time and get some listener feedback. After fixing all the programming issues I'd have something to sell. Along with decent talent I'd make sure I have salesmen and saleswomen that were self-starters and hungry to make money. I'd treat them with respect and give them enough of a percentage without taking things away from them all the time that they'd want to go make more money for me and the stockholders. I'd make damn sure they'd keep rate integrity as my product would be much better than the adverage semi-automated dogsqueeze that's on the air elsewhere. In general, I'd let my help take ownership of the station in their minds and let them with their input and contributions make the stations I had control over as good as they get. The problem I see on any of this is it takes some to make some. Corners have been cut so bad that it's going to take some years of loss to fix the problem enough to stop the bleeding. Cheapness and bad attitudes from on-high have caused all of the problems. The bad economy was a trigger for going down hill, but radio has been on the decline for years. Big corporate has had a bad attitude towards the help and clients for years. (Even clients have had to put up with things like a sales person every three months, etc.) Now it's caught up with them and they are crying like babies.
 
Interesting thought starters. Anybody else?

This is good stuff.

What would you do as GM? PD? Jock?
 
JournalGuy said:
You are right on Kent. The financial people have no idea how to run radio or any other business. (expcept banking maybe)

I would look for some of the public companies to go private very soon. With the price of stock so low, the companies could buy it all back and see a return on their investment quicker. Could that be part of the strategy??? Think about it.

But I would rather see broadcasters own broadcast outlets. The economy will get better. We are just so close to broadcasting and we forget that every industry is going through tough times right now. We will all come out a little tougher and hopefully wiser.

We need to make sure the products are better too. Tulsa has several good programmers and it a fairly progressive market overall. The quality of Tulsa radio is right up there with most large markets.
Click to expand...

It would appear that 'real broadcasters' got the hell out of Dodge while the gettin' was good. I still can't help but believe that eventually it will all come full circle, or enough so that a reasonable facsimile of what radio used to be might be back in the dash boards before the end of this decade. Oh well, a girl can dream. ;D

Bob O'Shea
 
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