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Why do you think radio stations insist on using consultants?????

A

allenv

Consultants are certainly not a new idea in radio.They have been around since the late 60's in some form or fashion but it just seems to me in the last 15 years or so they have taken a stranglehold on radio stations. Its almost like most radio station owners all went the RAB or some other convention & they all drank the same coolaid & bam stations just can't seem to function without a consultant. At every radio station I have worked at there has always been a more than capable person or two or three who can do what the consultant does for the station which in most cases seems to be a alot of style & fancy lingo but very little substance.The station could save an obscene amount of money in most cases they are paying consultants & put in in employee salaries, promotions, equipment & a dozen other things the station needs worse than a consultant.The consultants for the most part are nice people & the one skill they possess is salesmanship. They are good salesmen. They convince those in positions of authority that the station will be a much better product with them but in most cases, not all, this turns out not to be the case. The term I hear way too much is "research"..... It is the most over used smoke & mirrors term in radio today. In terms of music research all this call out testing,auditorium testing etc.. is a complete waste of time & money in my humble opinion.If the song was a top 20 song the research has already been done.. play it.
Consultants severely underestimate the musical passion & memory of a listener. People remember & relate to a heck of a lot more music than they are given credit for.There are really only 200 songs that people recognize in the first few notes. If an artist has had 25 top 20 songs most stations only play 3. That is simply crazy & a huge disservice to the listener. It is time that radio wakes up & widens the playlist and programs music in house. It doen't matter what format is being done, it all sounds the same. Most everybody is this market has become a follower & not a leader and if a listener is ever gonna get really excited about radio again somebody has got to come in and shake things up.It is more than likely just a dream of mine but Henry Hinton has a perfect opportunity to give radio an ennema & a kick in the butt!! I'm so afraid it will be the same old tired stuff that the listener has been force fed but maybe I will be shocked & amazed. What do you think???

Allen
 
I could not agree more with what Allen Vick is saying, i've been in radio close to
24 years, and when i first started in broadcasting in early 1983 in Rocky Mount,
the AM outlet i was empolyed would never used consultants, i never heard this
term until i moved to Wilmington, and i have learned that radio listeners want
much more than the same songs over and over, no wonder many have decided
to play CD's, I-Pods, MP3's, subscribe to XM and Sirius, and listen to Internet
Radio, "Variety" is the way to attract your audience, if these "corporate"
companies would abide by that, a lot of people would tune in again...
 
Thanks for the reply. I don't want to come across as a know it all but I really believe if someone would do something different & get back to basics the listeners would respond. With the great technology in radio today there is a tremendous oppportunity for the rebirth of personality driven,community driven radio. Some of today's outlets do a decent job but it could be so much more. We need to get away from the no DJ dayparts,that was this is voicetracking and start interacting with listeners again & simply get back to what made radio great.


Allen Vick
 
I never understood this either.
I always thought that if you hire someone to do a job, they should do the job.
They shouldn't require other extraneous people to tell them what to do.
The only benefit I ever saw from a consultant was for them to say "This is how so and so did it" but you can get that off the internet or a million other places now....
 
Consultants are paid to make your numbers go up. Once they do that, they are out of work...If you were a consultant, how would you insure your survival? How would you make sure that you continue to work? Would you make those numbers go up slowly? Would you have to sabatoge a little to survive and feed your family? Radio Consultants are a joke and can't be trusted!
 
I started to say that I never met a consultant that I didn't like, but I can't say that because one of my good friends, Dan Spice, works for the Lund Group. But, aside from him, people like Allen Snead, Steve Warren, et al...it's kinda like the old lawyer joke: what do you call a hundred consultants going over a cliff? A good start. If you're hired to program a radio station, then it should that person's responsibility to program the station and not be shared by a consultant. They just get in the way and they don't need to get in the way.
 
What I don't understand is when a consultant says (and this is most of them in the smaller to mid size markets) but when a consultant says....I don't get it!?!?! We are doing everything right, the station sounds great...the imaging rocks, the jocks sound great and the music is on target, I don't know why the numbers are bad. Why does the company keep them around...wtf are they telling the owners behind closed doors to keep them paying all that money for nothing?
 
allenv said:
They have been around since the late 60's in some form or fashion but it just seems to me in the last 15 years or so they have taken a stranglehold on radio stations.
Click to expand...

My guess is that, #1)in most cases, it provides peace of mind to the people that don't have confidence in the people they hired, and #2) economical reasoning(especially in medium to large broadcast chains).

I've met some consultants that really brought something to the table and then, again, I've met some that are sitting in a chair 1000 miles away telling me what my listeners should be listening to instead of what they want to listen to. But I'm not bitter.
 
Some in radio have consultants because they don't want to do the job in house because they are plain lazy.Also so many GM's now are coming out a sales background & have no programming knowledge so they have two people to blame when things aren't going well... the consultant & the PD. I had a radio station GM tell me in October 05 that he had a consultant because he didn't want to pay someone to do a four or five hour airshift and then "Dick Around"(quote) with selector for a couple of hours a day.By the way the guy he uses was a consultant for a big stick in this market on three different occasions(same station). A good in house MD knows the listener, the music(texture, tempo etc...) the area & simply has a good musical ear & doesn't follwow what everyone else is doing. If that is"Dicking Around" then I would gladly pay someone in house to do just that...

Allen
 
Consultants became prevalent with the corporate buyout of radio because jocks were being hired off the street with little to no experience, talent or knowledge of the music they were playing.

In the heyday of radio, Jocks were given some leeway with music because they knew the music and what their listeners wanted to hear, the "request line" was important. Classic rock radio has become a joke because of puppet program directors that are either fresh out of puberty or wimps that bow down at the feet of consultants and forget the listeners. These days, most are followers not leaders.

Big corporate advertisers put too much emphasis on an antiquated Arbitron ratings system because they have nothing else to to rely on when placing their buys... Most sales people these days are being hired off the street more for their looks and are driven like sled dogs to sell multiple stations they know little or nothing about, therefore mediocrity.
 
A consultant is someone who comes in to solve a problem and stays around long enough to become part of it.
 
Our consultant is Mike McVay, and I have to say he's pretty sharp. We're #1 in bunches of demos in large part because whenever a new PD has been hired and comes in saying we need to VT middays and overnights, he's put through the McVay school which is basically, so what if you're not a large market? You still need to sound like it. Our stations manual is largely his study of our market. As a 12 year PD/Ops vet, I think it's pretty much on target. But we're a success story. It's scary how huge our shares are in our target demos.

I've also seen instances where consultants are every bit as bad as mentioned above. In those cases, he/she has been brought in mainly for one reason: to fire somebody the PD or GM doesn't have the balls to fire. I've had a PD give me my walking papers (the only time I've ever been fired) while saying I should submit a T&R for the job he was firing me from. The reason for the fire: "the consultants say we need to cut back". The reason I should apply for my own job: "maybe you're what the consultants want." Which was 100% crap. I knew my stuff went right into the roundfile as soon as I left his office. What's funny is that PD has a reputation for being one of the good guys, but his own career has been one misadventure since then. he went from large market PD/Morning man to now doing mornings in an unrated market on a 1kw AM. But he tied his wagon to Clear Channel. So, nos surprise there. You hang with mafia, you eventually get whacked.

I've seen the same thing happen to others. My next job was in a much bigger market where the consultant was brought in to fire the MD. That kind of worked out good, the MD opened up the music cabinet and let us take whatever we wanted and he ended up with a very goold gig at Columbia records within the month.
 
So, let me see if I understand this correctly, you took music that belonged to the radio station? Shouldn't you be fired, too? I think they call it stealing!

Listen, consultants have a place in this business - but it should never be to fire a PD or MD. In fact, the consultant should be hired by the program director - not the GM. A good consultant is a good tool - a source for ideas (not a daily play list).

The PD should feel confortable talking to the consultant and not be afraid to discuss "management" issues with his consultant. The PD should use the consultant. Ask questions, bounce ideas off them, ask them for liners and imaging ideas. The PD should be the one to choose and if necessary fire the consultant. A consultant should NEVER be the wedge between a GM and PD! It is unfortunate that GMs don't see it that way, but that is the way it should be.

One more thing - it wasn't consolidation that brought consultants to this business. They have been around for years - in markets of all sizes. In fact, consolidation has likely cost consultants some money since the large companies have so many people in the company who have their fingers in a format.

Rather than hiring an outside consultant, talk to the PD of a similar station in your company!
 
Although a lot of what you say is true, in 30 plus years of radio, I've never worked anywhere with a consultant that was hired by the PD. The GM and, in some cases, the owner hired the consultant. I wish the PD had a say in which consultant was hired. It would've saved a ton of grief.

XTalker said:
So, let me see if I understand this correctly, you took music that belonged to the radio station? Shouldn't you be fired, too? I think they call it stealing!

Listen, consultants have a place in this business - but it should never be to fire a PD or MD. In fact, the consultant should be hired by the program director - not the GM. A good consultant is a good tool - a source for ideas (not a daily play list).

The PD should feel confortable talking to the consultant and not be afraid to discuss "management" issues with his consultant. The PD should use the consultant. Ask questions, bounce ideas off them, ask them for liners and imaging ideas. The PD should be the one to choose and if necessary fire the consultant. A consultant should NEVER be the wedge between a GM and PD! It is unfortunate that GMs don't see it that way, but that is the way it should be.

One more thing - it wasn't consolidation that brought consultants to this business. They have been around for years - in markets of all sizes. In fact, consolidation has likely cost consultants some money since the large companies have so many people in the company who have their fingers in a format.

Rather than hiring an outside consultant, talk to the PD of a similar station in your company!
Click to expand...
 
I just wish someone would have the guts to do something different like maybe serve the 40+ demo locally with personality,good contest & good tunes that you can't hear on any other station. People who really believe 40+ dosen't spend alot of money are not dealing with reality. Give me 1965-1990 and have a playlist the size of the grand damn canyon.Sprinkle in today's good stuff. A slogan I loved that Henry Hinton came up with in 1980 or 81 was "The Sound Of Your Life" For WRQR. I think that would still be a great slogan today. It is close to "Music of Your
Life" yes... but so what. Again, its all in the music you choose.No need for the same tired tunes.Say variety & really do variety. The are a thousand tunes that aren't getting airplay that would blow the minds of your 40+ listener.

Allen Vick
 
XTalker said:
So, let me see if I understand this correctly, you took music that belonged to the radio station? Shouldn't you be fired, too? I think they call it stealing!
Click to expand...

Quell horreur! Taking CDs from a radio station! Such larceny never before contemplated! It's not like I had my girlfriend pose as a prize winner of some laptops and trips that labels were offering up in exchange for playing their tracks on a top 40 station located on Glenburnie where a former doctor's office used to be.

Our format came strictly from Century 21 hitdiscs. Actual CDs were from the prize closet. He was still the MD and thus in charge of the CDs. Rather than just give him the heave ho, the station was basically giving him the mushroom treatment to try to make him quit, so he responded in kind. As far as the PD hiring the consultant, I've been in radio for 20 years now and have never heard of such a thing taking place. However, I do agree that consolidation has been bad for consultants as it has for everybody.
 
Didn't say PDs hired consultant - only that they should! I never understood why GMs never seem to trust the PDs they hire! Only thing I can figure is insecurity!
 
allenv said:
I just wish someone would have the guts to do something different like maybe serve the 40+ demo locally with personality,good contest & good tunes that you can't hear on any other station. People who really believe 40+ dosen't spend alot of money are not dealing with reality. Give me 1965-1990 and have a playlist the size of the grand damn canyon.Sprinkle in today's good stuff. A slogan I loved that Henry Hinton came up with in 1980 or 81 was "The Sound Of Your Life" For WRQR. I think that would still be a great slogan today. It is close to "Music of Your
Life" yes... but so what. Again, its all in the music you choose.No need for the same tired tunes.Say variety & really do variety. The are a thousand tunes that aren't getting airplay that would blow the minds of your 40+ listener.

Allen Vick
Click to expand...

I agree with you there buddy! You and I have the same thoughts. The marketing "idiots" think that the 40+ crowd is dead. Well I say WRONG! We are very much alive thank you and we spend quite a bit of money too.
 
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