Radio’s Future – from Radio & Records

Couple of posts ago I talked about Mark Ramsey & Radio & Records call for ideas regarding the future for radio.

I shared my ideas with them (Radio’s Cultural Revolution) and posted them on here.

They ended up being published (in edited form) in Radio & Records. See the feature including ideas and observations from several other radio people by downloading the PDF below.

Ramsey/Radio & Records Feature.pdf

Good stuff.

PPMIWYP

Portable People Meter (PPM) has been rolling out in major markets across the U.S.

For the first time – radio stations get credit for the people actually exposed to it’s broadcast. Rather than it’s ability to get people to remember & write their name down in a paper diary.

The prevailing “wisdom” developing around PPM was not difficult to predict.

Before PPM – our job was to get people to remember our station.

Now, PPM’s passive measurement is turning our job into making sure the people already listening don’t tune out.

We’re moving from trying to make a mark; to be remembered – to trying to not be objectionable.

Terms like “Mic Flight” were coined to explain what people do when a DJ starts talking.

PPM will not forgive a bad break, an unfamiliar song, a misguided promo, an obnoxious commercial, a boring interview.

Everything, at every moment is being measured and it all counts.

PPM Is Watching You Pee.

Which might be a welcomed thing if we had a tradition of developing and training our air talent to consistently deliver desirable content.

Instead, it’s largely demoralizing because we’re seeing that our “wing it” approach to most non-music elements is more likely to REDUCE listenership.

So – we’re looking at everything we do thru the EARS of PPM.

Do we need to identify the station at EVERY segue?

Do promos need to be :40 seconds?

Do our Disc Jockey’s have a real reason to open the mic – or is it just some old school habit?

Is it really worth playing an unfamiliar track? A B-side etc….

Certainly re-examining these things with PPM ears is important. I’ve always been an advocate of challenging conventional wisdom. PPM does help us with that.

My original excitement with PPM is that it changes the game.

The old game was fun – but it got boring to me. Everything was already figured out. There was no more exploration to be done. Change was almost impossible to achieve because “the way it works” (arbitron diary games) had already been figured out.

The rewards for status quo maintenance were far higher than for taking risks and trying new things.

With PPM, I sense we have a new guide to help us make radio more humane. More personal. More relatable and more responsive. To change it for the better.

I believe we finally have a tool that will reward us for daring and doing big things on the radio. PPM has proven great at measuring events. This should be a great inspiration for radio makers.

Instead – it appears the other side to the PPM coin; the fear based “tune out avoidance” meme is getting far more play.

And why not. It’s easier. It’s cheaper.

But it’s also the least forward looking, laziest, path of least resistance approach we can take. It will eventually lead us into a corner from which we will not be prepared to escape.

My fear – in our effort to shave potential tune-outs across our presentation – is that we ignore our responsibility of ADDING new value.

The result of our present approach will be to reduce our stations to little more than a streaming music service.

But with 12+ commercials an hour.

And no song skip.

And No “favorite”, “customize” or interactive functionality.

Sound compelling?

I’m not sure what it will take for us to approach what we do differently.

I don’t expect it will happen industry wide.

But courage is certainly going to a necessary trait. And until one of us steps up, tries something different and wins – business as usual (PPMIWYP) – no matter how stale or ineffective the results will continue to be the “prevailing wisdom”.

Talkin Bout a Revolution

Time for my annual blog post about radio.

This time, I’m responding to a request put out on Mark Ramsey’s Hear 2.0 blog.

Mark – in conjunction with Radio & Records is soliciting ideas about Radio’s Future.

The question:

What’s the recipe that every radio broadcaster needs to follow to get ahead of the game in 2009? What are the best practices that must be followed to compete effectively? What are the best-in-class ideas that every broadcaster can profit from in a turbulent year?

I’m not sure if this is the kind of response they were looking for – but it’s what I deeply believe.

So I decided to share it here also.

Please feel free to drop a comment and pass it around.

RADIO’S CULTURAL REVOLUTION

Radio’s future will be as much about what happens off the air as on the air.  Because of this – Radio needs nothing short of a top to bottom Cultural Revolution. 

We need to birth a new Culture of Innovation.  A culture that embraces new ideas & experimentation.  A culture that faces down old Fears in the pursuit of creating new products and services for our clients and audiences.  

It’s unreasonable to expect we can incubate a Culture of Innovation in radio before we get out from under the pervasive Culture of Arbitron.  

The problem isn’t Arbitron specifically. Arbitron is just a tool. The problem is what we’ve allowed Arbitron to become and the effect it has on our thinking.  

WE have put the tool at the center of our universe. If an idea doesn’t have the potential to move the Arbitron needle, we discard it before any resources are “wasted” on it.  We behave as if there’s no other way we can create meaning and value for listeners, clients and ourselves than by playing and winning the Arbitron game.  This, I believe, is a false and increasingly dangerous choice.  

Of course, Arbitron ratings are important. For now.  But we systematically choose to focus on what Arbitron does measure – at the EXCLUSION of everything else that Arbitron does not measure.  

We’ve been doing this for so long that our internal culture has become one of echo-chambers and feedback loops.  A process that asks the same questions that recall the same answers.  It’s led to a culture that is often quite hostile to any idea that isn’t about winning the Arbitron game.   

For example:

CBS launches KYOU here in San Francisco. Billed as “Open Source Radio” – they would solicit and broadcast pod-casts and audio created by the community and other sources. The station was closely integrated with it’s website.  It was an idea truly of this place & time.

It was put on a tertiary AM signal so there wasn’t much at stake from a traditional point of view.  Still . . . the inside reaction & chatter I witnessed from the radio peanut gallery – from the lowest to fairly high levels – was mostly snide mockery & derision.   

That kind of naked hostility towards new ideas doesn’t happen in Silicon Valley. I doubt you’ll find it inside Apple. Or Google. Or any organization/industry that thrives on it’s ability to generate IDEAS.  

We can’t be surprised that nothing new happens in radio. There is a systemic bias against it if it doesn’t square with Arbitron.  Think about the fear this creates and it’s effect on our culture.  When the easiest way to fit in is to mock experiments and new ideas – pretty soon there won’t be many new ideas.  

Even Detroit – despite all it’s troubles – still build concept cars that challenge their engineers and tease our imagination about the future. It’s a systematic, institutional process to create, expose and leverage new ideas.  

So.  What are we building?  

Why didn’t Pandora come out of our own Test Kitchens?   What were we so busy doing?   Shouldn’t it have rightly been OUR innovation?   Will we come up with the next idea that captures people’s affection?  

If we wait for Arbitron to tell us what’s important; what’s worth our time & effort, we will always be followers.  We will miss opportunities to create and define new markets.  To set new product standards.  We will abdicate leadership and control of our destiny.   

In an increasingly social, interconnected & symmetrical media space – we can’t afford a myopic world view of radio as a closed eco-system that can thrive without new ideas or innovations.  Business as usual is going to be an increasingly bad business.  

So how do we get there – to birth a Culture of Innovation? 

We can begin laying the foundation right now by rewarding Extra-Arbitron thinking.  We can do it throughout our industry. At every level. In every department.

We don’t need to stop thinking about Arbitron to begin thinking about what is possible in ADDITION to Arbitron.  

But thinking is only the first step.  Action needs to be empowered.  The veil of fear – of failure and ridicule needs to be lifted.  Experimentation needs to be encouraged and embraced.  

Here’s just one thought. Have you ever wondered how many passionate niche communities might exist within your “database” of generic radio contest players?  

Is there anyone in your group getting an incentive to 

A.) Find out

and 

B.) Create new products and services specifically designed for those passionate communities?

Passionate, engaged communities will command far higher CPMs than generic, passive crowds.  But we can rethink that also.

This is going to be the prevailing wisdom of advertising in the years to come.  A bullhorn will not be able to compete with a whisper from a trusted friend.  Advertisers are now learning this. Where will we be, and what will we be doing when this is common knowledge?

If we are only rewarded for playing the Arbitron game – this kind of idea (or even the 5 Extra-Arbitron ideas you just had) will be viewed as completely useless and a waste of time. They will die on the vine.  And we’ll be worse off for it.

I don’t see this as an Either/Or choice.  But –  BOTH / AND  

We can be BOTH great mainstream broadcasters on the radio – AND dig deep into creating credible products and services for the MANY niche communities/interests that ALREADY exist within our fan base.   We can play Arbitron without being a slave to Arbitron.

This, along with many other ideas can happen – for real – when we begin rewarding Extra-Arbitron thinking.  

Are we there yet?   

2009 can be the year we answer – yes we are.

–jeff schmidt

when looking back is still looking ahead

I stopped blogging here about the challenges and opportunities facing radio in Feb 2007.

Not because the issues changed.

Not because the challenges were being met.

Not because the opportunities were being seized.

I stopped because I began to feel like a broken record. Everything I had to say about these issues I had already said. Several times. In several ways.

Every issue that arose only provided another opportunity to repeat the same things. I wasn’t into doing that. That’s not good blogging form – I know. But that’s the decision I made. Swimming against the tide is EXTREMELY tiring. It seemed pointless to expend the energy.

That was a year ago. I left the blog up because I felt the ideas I expressed were valid even though the tide within the power structure of the industry was going in the opposite direction.

A few days ago – in preparation for an upcoming meeting that promises to approach many of these issues, I reluctantly scanned through the old posts here.

I’m a bit surprised to see that everything I said then is still stuff I would say today when talking about the same issues. In other words – these ideas are not fads. These are not flash in the pan – hot today gone tomorrow ideas of the moment. They represent a fundamental change that is clear to me. It’s undeniable. Resisting it is foolish. These are cultural changes which will occur with radio or without radio.

Unfortunately, looking back on these year old posts and finding the content is STILL very forward looking from where we are even today is a bit sad.

Now please don’t mistake this. I’m not putting myself out there as a visionary futurist or anything of the sort.

But the notion that these observations are STILL seen as “cutting edge” demonstrates how glacially SLOW the radio industry has been in taking even modest steps forward.

Granted – there are steps being taken within the industry. But little of it appears poised to usher in a new era of growth & innovation. Little of it appears to be embracing, at a holistic level, the cultural changes taking place.

Radio – at it’s best – at it’s most successful – is a reflection of the culture.

Present day radio at large is falling WAY behind the emerging culture.

I still have a lot of ideas about these issues. And I’m feeling compelled to being blogging them again.

–jeff

In-car entertainment? Bring your own, industry says

In-car entertainment? Bring your own, industry says: “LAS VEGAS (Reuters) – Car travelers should get used to plugging in their own entertainment gear as all but luxury automakers give up a decades-long struggle to build in the latest audio and video equipment.

“

(Via Jeff Schmidt’s starred items in Google Reader.)

Duh, Duh, Duh, Duuuuuuh

NBC: Streaming Extends Reach of Shows: “

February 1, 2007

NBC: Streaming Extends Reach of Shows

Mike Shields

JANUARY 31, 2007 –

NBC has discovered that some fans of its top prime-time shows are using NBC.com as their de facto DVR, while curious non-fans are using the site to sample shows they’ve never seen on TV.

According to new research released by NBC, 78 percent of users who’ve streamed full-length episodes of shows on NBC Rewind–NBC.com’s video player–watched episodes of series that they regularly watch but missed on broadcast TV, according to a research study conducted by the independent firm Insight Express. The network says that dynamic is helping extend the reach of these shows, and unlike with shows recorded using DVRs, fans can’t skip advertisements on NBC Rewind. In fact, 81 percent of those surveyed said that they recalled specific pre-roll ads that were streamed alongside NBC’s shows after two “

(Via .)

Appointment media is dying. TV has an answer. Does radio?

Self Inflicted Disruption

iPhone = self-inflicted disruption.

Not only does it disrupt the cell phone market – it also leads the way in a movement that eventually means disrupting and then killing off the iPod.

iPhone won’t kill the iPod all by itself – and it won’t happen this year. Or even next.

But it’s clearly the first bold step in a journey that will eventually make the iPod concept – (the solo portable mp3/movie player) obsolete.

The very product that brought Apple mainstream success and adulation is now having it’s death carefully orchestrated by Apple themselves.

And in radio?

PPM, HD Radio, Internet streaming, Satcasters, The Youth problem etc… – all opportunities to re-make our business and invent the NEXT way.

Instead fear, trepidation, worry and a desperateness to “protect” what was and is appear to be the industry’s average reaction.

And if we really think HD Radio = disruption . . . consider what “HD Radio” might look like if it were made by a 3rd party not tied to protecting the current interests of the radio industry. What if HD Radio were invented by a company or group of independent radicals whose sole interest was to make the radio listening experience BETTER for listeners rather than preserve and protect the group owners?

Think TiVo – not TV Guide.

Dial ‘M’ for Murder me

Dial ‘M’ for Marketing: “

 

Monday, January 8, 2007

BRANDWEEK

Dial ‘M’ for Marketing

January 08, 2007

By Kenneth Hein

NEW YORK — It’s a grey winter day for train commuters on the Northeast Corridor. Crammed into his seat on his way into Manhattan, a businessman uses his cell phone to log onto Weather.com just to see if there’s some sunshine on the way. The forecast comes up on the phone’s screen: ‘Seventeen inches of snow expected by the weekend.’ The commuter moans aloud. Just then, a bright blue banner ad with white lettering pops up on and grabs his attention. ‘Aruba,’ it says.

Which gets the businessman thinking. It has been a long time since he’s had a vacation. He clicks on the banner ad, and his phone dials an 800 number, connecting him to an Aruba Tourism booking agent.”

If anyone ever wants to know why I dislike most advertising, it’s because the people who create it think like this.

The premise that a BANNER AD on my CELLPHONE is, will, or even COULD BE perceived as a choir of angels is idiocy.

The “reality” is – the Aruba ad most likely interrupted or stood between me and the forecast I went online to get in the first place.

Cranky? Perhaps – but I’m not alone.

According to a study of 2,000 users conducted by Weekly Reader Research, Stamford, Conn., on Brandweek’s behalf. Forrester Research in Cambridge, Mass., found 79% of consumers are turned off by the idea of ads on their phones and a mere 3% of respondents said they trust text ads.

“Relevance” is a new buzzword. Everyone thinks all they have to do is make their message “relevant” and it’s full steam ahead.

The problem is that they don’t really know what’s relevant to you. They only know what you’re looking for – so they’ll take every connection imaginable to that 1 sliver of information – and use it to justify sticking all kinds of seemingly relevant messages in between you and what you’re really after.

Obviously, to some people, the Aruba ad mentioned above appears “relevant”. It’s not.

It’s relevant to people looking to book a trip to Aruba, not to someone who wants to know if they should buy a new snow shovel on the way home tonight.

There’s no market for messages.

There’s a thin market for relevant messages.

Creative license for 6 degrees of separation does not a relevant ad make.

Mobile Music = too rich for my blood

Via C-Net Apple’s iPhone a threat to mobile operators?

Music and internet streaming over cell phone is supposed to be the killer app. And while I personally can’t wait for true mobile internet the carriers currently charge confiscatory rates.

n Verizon and Sprint charge a premium for over-the-air downloads.

While iTunes charges 99 cents per song for downloading a song onto a computer, Sprint charges $2.50 per song and Verizon charges $1.99 per song for downloads onto cell phones.

What’s more, Sprint customers are also required to pay additional fees to access the network. The company recommends that customers subscribe to one of three data plans, which guarantee them the $2.50 fee per song. The plans are priced at $15, $20 and $25 per month. The $20 plan allows people to get one free download per month. The $25 plan allows for four free music downloads per month. Beyond that, customers pay the $2.50 per song.

Verizon has revamped its pricing and subscribers are only charged $1.99 per song plus the minutes it takes to download the song, which is anywhere from 30 seconds to 1 minute.

And how many of these high-price downloads are taking place?

Sprint launched its music service more than a year ago, and it claims to have sold more than 11 million music downloads over its wireless network.

Verizon, which launched its VCast service last year, claims to be selling more than 1 million downloads per month.

Find the people paying for those downloads and you’re looking at some of the stupidest people alive. Or – kids with fully parent subsidized cell phones.

Same difference.

Clear Channel and Culture of Innovation

I have to hand it to Clear Channel – they’re trying new things.

After killing off it’s San Jose, CA Alternative Station “channel 1049″ for a spanish format – Clear Channel uses the database of 7000 “Channel Fans” to promote it’s new interactive radio station on wheels.

Check out the inside pics HERE

Full story -

MercuryNews.com | 01/10/2007 | Kava: Clear Channel launches two interactive radio stations on wheels

“”These are rolling radio stations, although they never use the word radio. They are WiFi Internet stations, programmed partly by listeners at www. echannelmusic.com, with video screens, blaring waterproof speakers running 24/7, and a computer keyboard and screen and a large microphone in the back seat, from which street DJs can do commentary”".

I’m sure most if not all the 7000 Channel Fans would just as soon have their favorite radio station back than the chance for it’s gimmicky mobile offspring to show up at their door and let them DJ an hour.

But honestly – it’s a neat idea. And making it actually happen? That’s most impressive to me.

I can imagine sitting in the meeting where this idea came up – I can imagine the the grimaces of disapproval, groans and strings of “logic” it had to overcome.

It’s not that the idea is so great – it’s that this same idea probably would never have made it out of the “creative meeting” at any other broadcaster’s conference room.

On that alone I have to give it major kudos. Once the creative door is opened – once it’s shown that ideas will be tried – risks will be taken – more ideas will be born by more people and an entire culture of innovation can be born.

Radio desperately needs a culture of innovation.

Very little new ever happens in radio – it’s creative process is so often one of simply re-wording old ideas.

I find it exciting to see radio people being given the ability and freedom to do something different – to take risks and get creative about how “radio” can be done.

Ideally this will inspire other broadcasters to take risks and try new things.