Will internet radio become the choice of listeners in our lifetime?

[PTBoardOp94]

When I read TheBigA say "Radio was NEVER connected to communities" I wanted to jump up and down and shout him down. And then I "pondered" the dilemma, the claim, the question. As a whole, the radio industry has never really connected with community. We thought we did!!

Because your stations only tried to interact with the movers and shakers in the community, those from whom you could earn money from ad purchases, or local government types from whom you could get news, which you in turn earned money from.

Putting on my cynical hat this afternoon, but I don't honestly know how you're supposed to "connect" with Joe the mechanic at Old McDonald Chevrolet in any way deeper than "I'm Joe and I like listening to Celene Dion's greatest hits on WXYZ."

 

[Groove1670]

A good community station connects with Joe the mechanic, Bob the barber, and many others in a small community. It is done everyday.

We do blood drives, bake sales, fundraisers, and more. We announce lost dogs, birthdays, and yes a request or two, and say hi that listener or office staff listening.

We reply to that like, email or tweet. We might not reach everyone, but we sure as hell will try

 

[Small Market Guy]

I've done a lot of traveling. There is a MASSIVE amount of the country that has no 3G-4G service. It might not be 60 years, but it will be at least 40.

 

[TheBigA]

Radio has not always had a disconnect with the local community. This has happened slowly as the number of stations has increased, and ownership has become "corporate".

It has nothing to do with corporate ownership, as I said I've known community stations (non-profit) to be disconnected from the community. What has changed is our definition of community.

I worked at a community station that was well connected with its members, but mainly ignored the general population. That's what I mean by disconnect. They don't see themselves as serving the community as a whole, but their limited community of listeners. Two different things.

If you go back to the earliest days of radio, there was a disconnect between those in radio and the community. Sure, the sales guys went out and pressed the flesh. Someone had to go out and bring back the money. But Arthur Godfrey wasn't much of a meet & greeter.

Getting back to the main thread, the internet is a great connector, but in a different way. Once again, people of like interests are connected. The rest of the community is on the outside. As a result, there is a disconnect with the general community, and so you end up with pockets of people who may feel connected among themselves, but not with people outside their group. Once again, who is the community? Everyone who lives in the COL? Or everyone who listens to your particular station?

 

[TheBigA]

Because your stations only tried to interact with the movers and shakers in the community, those from whom you could earn money from ad purchases, or local government types from whom you could get news, which you in turn earned money from.

That's exactly what I mean. I grew up in a town of 50,000 people, and I never met anyone from the local radio station until I worked there. They had no reason to meet me. What could I do for them? Today, the reason the local radio station doesn't spend as much time working the local community is because there's not as much to be gained any more from those relationships.

 

[Groove1670]

Getting out there is called top of the mind awareness. Network 101.

"Arthur Godfrey wasn't much of a meet & greeter."

Yes but Bob Hope was, and was a meet & greeter.

"Today, the reason the local radio station doesn't spend as much time working the local community is because there's not as much to be gained any more from those relationships."

I hope more stations in our markets subscribe to that thought.

 

[TheBigA]

Getting out there is called top of the mind awareness. Network 101.

Maybe. For the few people you reach that way.

But if that's what you mean by connecting, lots of radio stations do it today. It's not unusual to go to a concert and have a radio station broadcasting from the parking lot. Go to a shopping mall, and there's a station giving away CDs and t-shirts. Go to the fair and there's the station's prize van and a booth. So I'm not sure what you mean that there's a disconnect today.

 

[bossbill]

I can't speak for others, but in my experience most of us USED TO connect, but no longer do. And when I use the word "corporate", I refer to the broadcast groups that are so large and so bottom-line oriented that they no longer can or want to connect.

In my little tiny market, we still connect, with the bankers, doctors, teachers, office workers, pulp mill workers, grocery clerks, etc. People in all walks of life know us from our extensive community involvement.

 

[TheBigA]

But Bill, aren't your stations using a national satellite service for on-air talent? Meanwhile, the big corporate stations in nearby Seattle have all local staffs? How do you "connect" without any local air staff?

 

[SaltyDog]

The problem seems to be is that the people who own radio stations don't know anything and the people with all the answers don't own anything.

 

[Groove1670]

"The problem seems to be is that the people who own radio stations don't know anything and the people with all the answers don't own anything."

Bill is on the right track. I agree with him. We do the same thing. Earn one listener at a time.

 

[TheBigA]

Sounds to me like it's less an issue of era or ownership, and more a function of market size. Small markets are more personal, large ones are less.

 

[Goat Rodeo Cowboy]

But Bill, aren't your stations using a national satellite service for on-air talent? Meanwhile, the big corporate stations in nearby Seattle have all local staffs? How do you "connect" without any local air staff?

This conversation is having problems because we are using shared words..... but we have UN-shared meanings for those words.

(I just turned a V-O Forum upside down by raising the question about room-tone noise levels. It was an Arkansas back-woods dog-fight for a few replies until we all realized we have various ways of measuring and expressing noise in our audio.)

In this quote, the poster appears to be suggestion that "connection" only occurs when a listener is magnetically attracted to an on-air human being. That's something of the end goal.

I've known radio salesmen out on the streets that would NEVER be allowed on the air... their speech pattern was so unattractive, and yet the salesman could connect with the store owner or other advertising buyer who may NEVER listen to the radio. And yet the STATION is CONNECTED to this non-listening member of the community and the station benefits from the transaction, and the advertiser benefits from the transaction. And if that sales rep goes to the Lions Club meeting and CONNECTS with the three other people sitting at his table, and if the sales rep knocks off an hour early and goes to coach his Little Legaue baseball team, and he CONNECTS with seven different parents because they see him helping mold some lifetime habits for their child,.... and if the bumpy-tongued salels rep carries food into a church building on late Sunday afternoon for the Youth Group weekly meeting and he sits down with three teens at a table while they munch on tuna salad sandwiches and answers their questions about how the real world functions when they grow up and enter the business world and the adult social life.... that station CONNECTS with the community.... and that station builds audience and audience loyalty.... even if the station is highly automated and their primary voice-track person is three states away.

Now for some icing on the cake: fly the voice-tracker in two to four times a year for public events for CONNECT time.

As my Daddy said: "There's more than one way to skin a cat, son." And when I got a little older I always responded: "But Dad, no matter which way you do it, the cat ain't gonna like it."
But then again, cats don't CONNECT well.

 

[TheBigA]

This conversation is having problems because we are using shared words..... but we have UN-shared meanings for those words.

Exactly. Some posters believe there's a "disconnect" between radio and the local community. I'm trying to figure out what they mean by that.

Physically, there's always been a disconnect, because radio studios tend to be kept away from the general public, and on-air folks tend to prefer remaining aloof from their listeners. Is that a disconnect?

In the last 15 years or so, some stations have replaced local talent with syndicated talent. Is that a disconnect with the community?

Some stations program formats that appeal to certain parts of the community, but not the general public. Is that what you mean by a disconnect with the community?

Some posters think it's a function of ownership. Big corporations aren't as connected as small local owners. But it's been my experience that big corporations have local representatives who they pay large sums of money to represent them in the local community. These local reps are heavily involved in local community groups, sharing facilities and raising money for charities, and broadcasting from local events. So where's the disconnect?

 

[Groove1670]

To lighten up the mood. here is one you will enjoy.

"Where's Omaha's 'Magic 1490' radio coming from? No one seems to know"

courtesy of Omaha.com

http://www.omaha.com/article/20130915/NEWS/130919133#.UjcxuT9dSfU.facebook

 

[bossbill]

Answers to TheBigA -

First of all, in this small rural market I have three local live morning shows, plus a live local midday show on one of our stations, and a live local fulltime newsman, who has received the Washington State AP news story award of the month almost every month the past couple of years. Not many local groups have this anymore. If we were running one station, we'd have live/local all day. But the market revenue doesn't change any with the additional stations, so I offer three different live local morning shows. So the answer to your question is, I do have a local air staff, quantity four, fulltime. Our local competitor has two FM live local shows, and while we have live network later in the day, they use voice-tracking to create the illusion of being live.

Secondly, the big corporate radio stations in nearby Seattle (120 miles) do not all have "all-local" staffs. They should, with individual station revenues of ten times our total market revenues, but they don't. Check out Clear Channel, for example. A few might, but most don't.

 

[bossbill]

My live and local morning programs share local interviews promoting local events almost every day. Because I have multiple morning shows, someone promoting, say, the Habitat for Humanity auction (this weekend by the way), will be on Sunny 102.1, then 105.7 The Jet, then KBKW, then later Bigfoot 93.7. This way we are able to offer exposure for the event to four different audiences within the same hour. Our news/talk station has already scheduled interviews for this election cycle with over 2 dozen candidates prior to the ballots going out. Our same station has a four-hour daily morning talk show. We have about 10-15 guests every week, and many of them end up being topics on our local newscasts, which feed all five stations. This weekend we did an on-location broadcast from the local community college.

I am proud to be an integral part of our community. If we didn't use network programming, we would not be able to provide the format diversity to this community. We spend a much higher percentage of our operating revenues on live local talent than any major market station. I'm not in this for the money, obviously. We make a few bucks, but we are providing a local service. I suggest we are far more connected with our community than most major market stations, and perhaps more than a lot of small market stations.

 

[TheBigA]

Secondly, the big corporate radio stations in nearby Seattle (120 miles) do not all have "all-local" staffs. They should, with individual station revenues of ten times our total market revenues, but they don't. Check out Clear Channel, for example. A few might, but most don't.

But certainly CBS, Entercom, and Fisher have a lot of local staff, and they do a lot of local outreach.

 

[bossbill]

I would sincerely hope that a radio station grossing $10-20 million a year would have a strong local staff. We do know, however, that the larger groups in many cases don't have a larger staff than we do, yet their revenues should justify a much larger staff.

It was only a few years ago that I found that the #1 country station in Seattle was operating with network programs for 11 hours out of 24. Some of the top stations in the country have fooled us for years with voice-tracking some shifts, including midday. In our market, we are so involved with our listeners that they would be onto us in a jiffy.

Why the small markets get so much criticism when we utilize network programming part of the time, in order to provide a local service all the time, is beyond me. As I've said before (over and over), the major markets use voice-tracking and network programs because they CAN, and in the small rural markets we do it because WE HAVE TO. You cannot equate a $2 million market with a $200 million market, in terms of live talent.

 

[landtuna]

When I grew up in the 50's listening to the radio at that time was a personal experience. The DJ's of those days were on the radio but they also showed up at the roller skating rink on weekends, at store openings, at the high school sock hops and once even at a friend's birthday party. They appeared in print every week on the flyer that had the Top 40 listed and MC'd special movies and stage shows at the old Fox theater.

Later, after moving to San Francisco, there were still the old DJ's (as a matter of fact some of them were the same person as were on the radio in the 50's as several had changed markets along with me) but because the Bay Area was so much bigger than Tucson, AZ they didn't get out in public as much. You could still find them at concerts and the occasional public appearance at car dealers and, of course, they did remotes at all manner of places.

Forward to the 70's and a DJ in person was rare, very rare. In the past 40 years I haven't seen a single one. Some of them gravitated to TV and continued their personal appearances there but not as a part of radio.

That is how "connections" was lived and lost.