Clear Channel

63° - clear/sunny at 8:25am

Welcome to another work week.

When I started writing this blog post this morning, I had six other topics I was going to include. My first topic however, was Clear Channel and I've run out of room. This is a piece I didn't want to write.

Still doing a lot of reading as details trickle out about Clear Channel's latest changes, including its "Premium Choice" programming, which essentially syndicates some of the company's better talent to stations around the country. I've found it difficult for me to critical of Clear Channel. My years with them were pretty good ones that I would be hard to trade for anything else.

If what I hear is true, its disappointing to hear that "Premium Choice" won't be localized, unlike the out-of-market voice-tracking the company had been doing - where the local PD would actually schedule the music and ship a log, liners and market information to the remote talent, resulting in a local sounding airshift with some good talent.

How weird to be nostalgic for that period!

This must explain the company's rush to "localism", which is essentially an increased PSA load. Advance damage control but hard to do much otherwise with a skeleton staff.

One PD who works crosstown to a Clear Channel cluster recently described Premium Choice to me as sounding like "bad 70s satellite." I hope not! On the other side of the coin, a large market PD with the company told me via Twitter "Wait till you hear how it sounds. I think you'll be stunned."

OK, fair enough. I haven't heard the product yet.

But apparently gone from any station "opting in" (your definition of "opting in" may vary) to Premium Choice is local scheduling of music. The national playlist rears its ugly head. Interesting that this comes from a company that spent a lot of time over the years denying that there was a corporate playlist (and when the did there really wasn't).

While its true that the hits are the hits are the hits, I don't need to mention that there's always been differences from market to market (that's what local music research was all about) and this research is what gave stations a competitive advantage. Added: in the very simple sense, it was finding out what your local audience wanted and giving it to them.

Given the present economy, Consultant Harve Allen noted in this piece he posted over the weekend that "It's the perfect storm--negative cash flow and bland & sterile local radio stations."

And Harve adds: "Are you mad yet? I hope a little bit."

Harve hints at something that I've said many times one way or another: it's unique hard-to-duplicate content that makes for a winning radio station. And I'm simply repeating something that (love him or hate him) Randy Michaels said to group of programmers at a Dan O'Day conference years ago.

Pulling back the local personalities and becoming music intensive (and with a national playlist at that) offers nothing unique and difficult-to-duplicate. Nothing. Anyone can do that!

There was a day when a smart crosstown competitor would take advantage of a situation like that. I really hope those days aren't over yet, but my guess is that the MBAs making the programming decisions at Clear Channel are betting that there's nobody in most of their markets who will come in and kick their ass.

Or maybe they simply don't care.

Sunday Morning Odds & Sods

37° - overcast at 11:14am

Good Morning from Okemos.

After a week of continued great autumn weather with daytime highs in the 70s, colder weather finally traveled across Lake Michigan and yesterday colder temperatures and rain hit with predictions for snow. No white stuff here yet. Spoke too soon. White flakes are coming down as of 10:30am eastern time.

Recharging my batteries. Yesterday the day job hosted its 4th annual "Broadcast Career Builder Conference" (BCBC); a day filled with industry leaders talking to college and trade school students who want to enter broadcasting/electronic media. It was awesome to see/feel the enthusiasm for this business from those who want to enter, even after some of the sessions were quite blunt about downsizing, consolidation and the changing skill set needed in today's environment.

One of the highlights of the day was a session titled "Marketing Yourself for a Successful Career in Broadcasting", moderated by local WLNS-TV News Director Phil Hendrix that included a great presentation by Jay Kruz of Bonneville's WSWD/Cincinnati; plus participation by Midwest Communications (Kalamazoo) OM Brian Hayes and former XM air talent Sari Zalesin.

Jay Kruz - who at age 24 and a PD in market 29 was an inspiration for many attendees and wonderful to chat with aftewards. One word of advice from Mr. Kruz to his college audience was to Google yourself and clean up those Facebook pages, among others - if neccessary.

Related: Consultant Harve Alan talks about your online brand (you, not your station) here.

I also had a chance to chat with Rich Padgen from Detroit's Radio Disney station (WFDF). Want to dive head-deep into promotions? Work for a Radio Disney station. They're on the street all the time.

Props to MAB's Julie Sochay for organizing the event for a fourth year as well as to MAB President/CEO Karole White; and to Citadel/Saginaw Market Manager Chris Monk, this year's Committee Chairman of the Conference.

Listening this morning: My usual Sunday routine...WDRV/Chicago's Rock 'N Roll Roots followed by WKLH/Milwaukee's Rock 'N Roll Roots program.

Reading this morning: Rick Kaempfer's Chicago Radio Spotlight shines on Mancow, who - aside form his long running syndicated morning show - just landed a prime gig on some legendary call letters. Read here.

Programming: Still getting caught up on posting reading recommendations from my blog hiatus. A series of great posts are from Country consultant Jaye Albright who writes about "Ingredients Of A Great Country Music Radio Station."

Let Jaye's comments serve as thought/discussion starters for your station no matter the format. Part one here. Part two here. Part three here.

Contribute To Revenue. One session yesterday at the above-mentioned BCBC was "Creating Job Security By Creating Broadcast Revenue". Couldn't spend much time in the room with other responsibilities - but as a related sidenote, Fred Jacobs writes in this week's FMQB about PDs contributing to sales in this day and age, offering some specific suggestions. A great read here.

Follow-up: On Tuesday, I pointed to a Seth Godin piece on "Marketing Lessons from the US Election" - and how those lessons relate to radio. Seth's piece also caught the attention of Mark Ramsey. Read here.

Fun Read: John Gorman continues to offer a glimpse into the glory days of WMMS/Cleveland through his Buzzard Blog - and offers a great piece on fighting the battle with the competition. Read here.

Speaking of: Gorman offers a ton of audio, video and related material on WMMS on his blog. As an example, John offers audio from a 1979 Pete Towshend interview here. An example of memorable and timeless material that should be archived and available on the station's website! Audio/Video/Photos...whatever.

Is there someone in your station responsible for archiving your treasured programming assets and making them available on your website? If not, there should be. In radio, too much of what goes over the air is never heard again. This material makes great long-term web content.

Aside from the web, there's got to be much material that can be recycled for use in imaging and special artist weekends. Watch VH-1 or MTV. They save everything and reuse just about all of it sooner or later.

Have a great Sunday.

49° - overcast at 8:12am

Good Morning From Okemos, Michigan.

Congrats: To WDRV/Chicago's Bob Stroud on releasing Volume 10 of his Rock & Roll Roots CD series, with proceeds going to charity. The CD series an extension of his long-running Sunday Morning "Rock 'N Roll Roots" program. I covered the release of Volume 9 last year here. Read more about this year's CD on The Drive website here.

Election Day: Headed down the street to my polling place on the way to work this morning. Starbucks offering a free cup of java if you go in and tell them you voted. Harve Alan asks: "What "free for a day" styled promotion could radio be doing to rekindle interest in our aging brands?"

Meanwhile - Dave Lange makes some observations with "Lessons for Radio From Campaign 08" - a great read here.

Yesterday I wrote about the cutback virus that is spreading throughout the industry. Not to ignore those who find themselves out of work, but I feel that those who still have a job in radio need some TLC and attention during these tough times.

Dave Martin - in the second part of a series for media CEOs titled "Execution, Not Excuses", notes that 2009 is "mission critical" for HR:

"As a practical matter, making HR important beyond compliance issues will be a new concept for many media firms. We have to start treating our employees like our best customers. Every person on the payroll is talent. Employees help the company achieve its goals by becoming the best at what they do."

"Leadership must create the context in which people can do their best work. An important part of the D in R&D is HR-D. The key to growing profits is growing people. Employees deserve and need an advocate, that's a critical mission for HR."

As I've written here before - PDs have the responsibility of being an advocate for their staff as well as station listeners. Fear is counter-productive - and in talking to others still employed in the industry, there's too much of it getting in the way of the job.

As a sidenote, PDs also now - more than ever, need to be an advocate for their station's sales departments when neccessary...and find ways to make revenue opportunities integrate well with programming and listenership goals.

More later today. Get out and vote!

Sunday Morning Odds & Sods

69° - clear/sunny at 9:40am

Good Morning from Okemos.

Listening. My usual Sunday Morning routine with Bob Stroud on Chicago's WDRV. Bob featuring music from the summer of 1968....and as I write has just played Eric Burdon & The Animal's 7-minute + epic "Sky Pilot" - followed by Clarence Carter's "Slip Away". Wonderful stuff.

Later logging into WKLH to catch Steve Palec's Rock 'N Roll Roots.

Rockin' The Workforce: Back on Thursday, Fred Jacobs wrote a great piece on marketing to those at the workplace - and radio's increasing importance.

Noting that American's are now spending 60% of their waking hours on the job - an all time high - radio is the ideal medium to reach those workers.

Read Fred's piece here. Share with your sales manager.

More PPM: This week's FMQB features Pollack Media Group's Pat Welch reviews what we know so far. Pat opens with:

"...programming tactics that are more PPM friendly should be done regardless of how soon your market is scheduled to make the conversion. Think of this as the world’s largest research project, and take advantage of the lessons learned from markets that have already made the conversion."

Pat's thoughts here. PPM market or not, learn from the research PPM is providing into listener habits.

"Monday is the new Thursday in PPM." #3 in a list presented last week at the Morning Show Bootcamp. See the list here. Jaye Albright points us to a simple promotion to hype Mondays from country KYGO/Denver. Here.

Launching A New Station. Consultant Harve Alan launched a radio station this week and shares the excitement in a piece here.

There's nothing like a start-up!

Seth Godin. Seth writes about the "experience": "A concert isn’t about the music, is it? And a restaurant isn’t about the food." Read here.

Think about "the experience" with your radio station; I do everytime I go to the ballpark.

In case you missed (I did). Last Sunday, Rick Kaempfer's Chicago Radio Spotlight was on WLS/Chicago PM drive talent Bill Leff. Read here.

Have a great Sunday.

Starbucks And Radio

59° - sunny at 7:40am

I've read more than a few articles regarding the troubles Starbucks is having these days. Some of those come from the radio bloggers who note similarities to whats happening in the radio business these days.

For example - consultant Harve Alan asks: "How could this be happening to Starbucks--arguably one of the hippest, coolest, well respected brands ever?" Harve then points to a Reuters article that features some choice consumer quotes:

"Starbucks was a cool brand, and then all of a sudden it's not a cool brand," he said. "There's this new global consciousness that is out there that can suddenly shift." "The people that work there are very pleasant, but the stores are devoid of any kind of real charm or personality," he said. "They push a button, and a machine does everything from grinding the beans to brewing the drink."

As Harve comments on his post, that last line hits home. A DJ just pushes a button and a machine does everything. Ouch.

Its my take that Starbucks simply lost its charm. It simply became too big. Uhhh...way too big when you can drive down a street and see location after location within blocks of each other. Instead of being the neighborhood coffee shop, they became McDonald's. And I haven't thought McDonald's was "cool" since I was six years old.

Digressing just a bit - but I think there's a real need for radio to act small in the eyes and ears of its listeners. Being the hometown station. The neighborhood station. Not the corporate franchise.

Think everything from air talent and content down to listener marketing. Low-key or eliminate the corporate identification on the air (what brand truly matters?) Small. Community. Act like a mom and pop with great resources.

No matter how big you might really be.

Listen Live Widgets Revisited

55° - mostly cloudy at 9:50am

Last July - I noted on this blog the availability of "Listen Live" desktop widgets that made listening to streaming radio easy - tools put together by fans of radio stations, not the stations themselves.

My original post here. The KQRS/Minneapolis widget pictured above - found on Yahoo! - was put together by a station listener. The only problem with listener-created listen live widgets is that they become outdated once a station changes its streaming provider or parameters.

Again - why require listeners to navigate through a station website and pull up multiple windows just to listen to your radio station? Imagine if they had to do that with their regular radio!

To date, I have yet to see any radio stations offer a similar product on their own.

This past week - as a member of their "email club" - I received an invite from a regional grocery chain offering a desktop widget for my PC - and its brilliant: click on image for better view

Consumer-friendly resources for meal preparation and shopping. No website. Just a small window on my PC's desktop. Awesome!

Imagine the possibilites for a radio station! Aside from one-click listen live - what other resources could you provide your listeners instantly? And how could your sales department benefit from a tool such as this?

I just be thinkin'.....

Related: Consultant Harve Alan writes about the new product widgets being offered by Amazon.Com here.

Wednesday Blogs

67° - scattered clouds at 8:33am

Good Morning from downtown Lansing.

Striking A Chord. Fred Jacobs writes here about whats he's been hearing from station Listener Advisory Panels.

Much of it is right in front of your eyes; I'm very surprised that there's not more gas promotions taking place right now.

Workplace Online Listening. It's getting big. Even many of the smaller markets are beginning to stream, though its surprising how many still don't. Arbitron and Edison Media release a new report on workplace listening. Harve Alan writes here.

Pizza Wars. Jaye Albright on successful stunting from Pizza Hut and Papa John's. Here.

The last successful stunt I saw observed was Bubba "The Love Sponge". I'm not sure who started what between two competing morning air personalities, but it paid off big for Bubba.

20 minutes. Yesterday I spent 20 minutes on the telephone with someone who helped give me my start in this business - when he had just started shortly before me. Bob Heymann - who is with Media Services Group in Chicago these days.

As Bob calculated, it had only been 37 years since we last spoke. It was 20 wonderful minutes that I wish could have gone 3 or 4 hours. There's a road trip to the Windy City soon.

Added: Another case for Radio. Edison Media's Sean Ross writes about the renewed and continued success of WCBS-FM/New York:

"When WCBS-FM New York dropped Oldies in 2005, it had a 3.0 share 12-plus. When WCBS-FM came back last summer, it returned with a 3.7 share and has held there through the recently released winter 2008 book."

"In that time, WCBS-FM's many disenfranchised listeners had no shortage of choices that could have taken them away from terrestrial radio. They were directly targeted by Sirius Satellite Radio and its hiring of Cousin Brucie. They had their iPods. They could have found no shortage of customizable Internet-only Oldies channels."

"They had plenty of options - many of which would have been seen by some industry people as far superior to the old WCBS-FM during its problematic last year. But when WCBS-FM came back, the listeners came back, too."

Read "For Some, Radio Is Still The Best Way To Hear Music" here.

Monday Monday

70° - scattered clouds at 7:08pm

Good evening from Okemos. Spring weather again today; plan on taking a bike ride with the kids right after dinner. It'll be a short ride. Long winter = very out of shape.

HD Radio. Fred Jacobs points to his firm's (latest) Tech Poll IV that 40% of the survey respondents say they just don't know about it yet. Another 32% think the radios are too expensive. The good news: this can all be improved on.

My take: the HD Radio Alliance still needs to strike a deal with Detroit. I know there's been progress but there's a long way to go. Get that done. Radios (as standard equipment) in new cars will significantly increase awareness better than anything and provide the incentive to invest in the product (programming). And build from there.

Promote strong brands, not (just) the technology. Its all about the content.

Fred's post from this morning here.

Tom Webster of Edison Media Research offers a video from the RAIN Summit HD Radio panel in Las Vegas last week. Here. I have not seen yet.

Added later: I've now seen. Intelligent conversation on the topic. And speaking for Ibiquity is a former Chicago programmer (with whom I share my last name with) - who oversaw an incredible FM in the market back in the 70s. I never knew him; but I well knew his name.

Thinking Small. Harve Alan posted a piece last week that caught my attention. From the eMarketing Association eMarketing Conference: "The Shrinking Brand-Marketing in a Small World".

How to make effective use use of "micro-formats" and making them central to your marketing plan. And how radio is perfectly suited to micro-formats. A great read - and slide-show - here.

AAA rocks. Triple A Radio's Mike Lyons writes:

"I've long advocated the AAA, or the adult-rock format, as one savior for the industry. Thousands of arbitrarily unplayed but obviously worthy songs and artists are available for play. Plus, the appeal of AAA to both boomers and the college demo provides an awfully attractive audience. During the last decade and a half, it's been consistently shown that most commercial AAA stations bill higher amounts than their rated audience share would normally indicate."

"That the AAA "power-rating" (percentage of a market's radio advertising billed by a station versus the percentage of listeners that station gets in a market) has always been among the highest in the business, often between 1 and 2 times. This means AAA stations can charge more per spot because their listeners are extremely desirable and listen longer."

A great piece from "The Forest" at Triple A Radio. Read here. Mike ends the piece, noting:

"...after buying Radio One's Urban AC KRBV-FM in Los Angeles, Bonneville flipped it to AAA, "100.3 The Sound. World Class Rock For Southern California," bringing commercial AAA back to the second-largest market in the country. Reportedly, Bonneville President Bruce Reese's favorite station is KFOG in San Francisco so he's a man with good taste and some business acumen."

Have a good night.

Sunday Morning Odds & Sods

33° - overcast at 1:40pm

Happy Sunday.

Listening: This morning to WGRF/Buffalo (97 Rock). Now playing: "Something To Believe In" by Poison segued into "LA Woman" from The Doors. Great imaging. Great radio. Guest DJ was Buffalo Bills punter Brian Moorman - for Super Bowl Sunday.

On the 97 Rock website: "Tom Tube" - a collection of Tom Petty videos from You Tube. Very cool tie-in to today's half-time appearance and upcoming tour.

Talkin' Spots. Commercials. Consultant Harve Alan writes:

"Have you listened to the commercials that are running on most stations today? How many are poorly written, carelessly slapped together, and for advertisers that don’t mesh with a particular stations audience? It’s not just the locally produced spots, either many of the agency spots are the worst offenders!"

"This has always been a contentious issue at most every radio station. Programming wants to protect the product, sales needs to make the sale, and the client needs to get that spot on this afternoon. Sounds all too familiar and given today’s economic realities ill suited commercials frequently make it on the air."

"Effecting change in this area is not going to be easy."

Yep. This is one area I haven't been shy about in my career - but its very hard to fight the money. Even offering suggestions on changing the creative to keep the dollars is never well received for fear of losing the revenue all together. The "let's not rock the boat" thing.

99% of the time its been an issue with production that comes from the outside; and the occasional client who insists on voicing his own stuff. Some should, others should not.

This really isn't a solution - but after losing a battle, I've massaged the log after traffic load to place the offenders at the end of a stopset. Or talked my traffic director into doing it. A valuable relationship.

Harve points out: "Stating the obvious—better quality spots helps everyone." Harve's piece is here.

Worse than poor production or spots that don't fit are the (usually national) spots accepted by stations that are "consumer risks". Audio spam.

Friends (us) shouldn't do this to friends (listeners).

Speaking of spam: Sean Ross writes about something of value that might be in your email spam folder. Read here.

Enjoy the game - have a great Sunday.

Sunday Morning Odds & Sods

37° - overcast at 11:09am

Listening: The usual Sunday Morning fare. WDRV/Chicago - and Bob Stroud with Rock 'N Roll Roots.

Stroud segue: "She's A Rainbow" (Stones) into "Susan" (Buckinghams). Both with that 60s psychedelic violin thing. Later: Heard Leon Russell's "A Song For You". I've forgotten what a great song that is.

Wondering: Where is Steve Palec? Steve hosts "the other" Rock 'N Roll Roots program on WKLH/Milwaukee. Station has been filling his slot the last few weeks with various syndicated programs. Hope all is well.

Caught my ear: the new Gatorade TV Commercial. Music is "Sparks" from The Who's Tommy album. Very nice.

Caught another Gatorade spot during SNL last night with the bass riff from Lou Reed's "Walk On The Wild Side". It's a classic rock party!

Underwhelmed: Consultant Harve Alan tries the new Ford/Microsoft Sync voice command system and declares it "not ready for prime time".

Harve also notes that while the voice command system works through the radio - there are no voice commands for the radio. And that's wacked. Harve's blog here.

Still waiting: but not complaining - for Jay (J.) Blackburn's (JDB) radio novel based-on-real-life. "The Radio Gypsies" due out in just weeks.

JDB sharing the cover artwork with me in an email back on Thursday.

I'm on the list for one of the first copies off the press. And I promised JDB I'd plug-plug-plug. Stay tuned!

Goodbye: To the "One-To-One" Newsletter. Publisher Jay Trachman writing in the last issue:

"I am closing it down because the enterprise is no longer profitable, and the industry is – to me – no longer recognizable.

"There was a time when I could write “Talent Tips” columns with the comfort that hundreds, if not thousands, of jocks would read and consider the advice. It’s just not that way anymore."

Read Jay's sign-off in FMQB here.

Jay Trachman's words remind me of something Randy Raley had on his blog here at the end of a post about the late KYYS:

"The business I miss is no longer the business anymore."
-Randy Raley March 2007

It ain't like it used to be. I don't think anything ever is. I go back to my hometown in the Chicago suburbs and its nothing like the small village I roamed all over on my Schwinn bicycle as a child.

My parents said the same thing about the town when I was a young.

In the mid-70s at age 18 - I joined CBS' WBBM/Chicago as "Continuity Director" - replacing a retiring gentleman by the name of George Clare. George's time at WBBM extended back to radio's first golden era.

Back in the 40s he was a sound effects guy on radio drama and entertainment programs. I remember George sharing stories from that period of his career and echoing something similar to Randy Raley's line above.

Speaking of WBBM: Rick Kaempfer's Chicago Radio Spotlight this week shines on Newsradio 780 morning traffic anchor Bart Shore. A good read about a great radio career here.

Thanks: To WGRF/Buffalo PD John Hager for the kind words in an email this past week. Also to media sales pro, radio station broker (and lifelong friend) Roger Rafson for the nice note too!

More here tomorrow morning. Monday Night; the jobs getting in the way of the blog again!

The New Year

26° - overcast at 9:26am
Left: looking west; downtown Lansing this AM.
current image

Lots of snow overnight here to bring in the New Year. I'm working up the desire to dress warm and fire up the snow thrower. The kids actually put down their video games to go outside and play. Score one for Mother Nature.

Last Night: Ended the night watching Dick Clark, Ryan Seacrest and Carrie Underwood bring in the New Year. Didn't stay up much past midnight.

Listening: This morning to WDRV/Chicago. Just came out of the 9am (eastern) Legal ID into "Pure & Easy" by The Who. Surprise deep track outside the Mediabase Top 500. Very cool.

The New Year. McVay Media's Dave Lange sums up the first priority in 2008 for program directors in this paragraph:

"The first is making our products exciting again. That goes back to the basics of ENTERTAINING THE AUDIENCE. We are not going to do much entertaining with another list of 400 songs to spin and a big voiced announcer hyping it up between every song over and over till we pound it into their heads. We need to get close to the community and the target audience in the streets and in their computers."

Dave's complete post here.

Reading: Consultant Harve Alan's recollection of his AOR days at WBAB/Long Island. The tail end of the "progressive rock" era - and before the era of Selector and music on hard-drive.

"4 categories of currents rotated with index cards and everything else was "on the back wall" with songs rotated by tracking sheets taped to the album jacket".

Ah...the good old days when it was difficult not to be just a tad bit self-indulgent. Cue up and start one record then turn around in your chair and stare at a wall of albums to pick the next perfect segue. Check out Harve's post here.

Thanks: To reader Gary Moore (KLOS/LA) for the kind words on this blog in the last few days. Gary working on his own blog to debut soon. Looking forward to his thoughts, ideas and POV. KLOS currently in the middle of an A to Z presentation.

Enjoy the day.