April 16, 2023 · 3:00 am

Saving AM Radio

The radio trades have been full of headlines about saving AM radio, especially in the dashboard of America’s cars and trucks. Here’s some of the most recent ones I’ve seen:

NAB launches campaign for AM radio

State Broadcasters Group Ask AM Stations for Help

Can The Industry and Congress Keep AM Radio in the Dashboard?

Detroit Newspaper Looks at Loss of AM Radio in New Ford Vehicles

The National Alliance of State Broadcasters Associations (NASBA) even put out an online survey “to more accurately craft the AM broadcaster owner’s message and to develop actionable items to keep AM [radio] in the dash.”

Let me tell you why everything I’ve read in the broadcasting newsletters, magazines and websites seems to be focused 180-degrees in the wrong direction.

What Features Do New Car Buyers Want?

Keeping AM or FM radio in vehicle dashboards has nothing to do with what broadcasters want, it has everything to do with what car buyers want. The lists from various sources I’ve found are all pretty much the same, though ranking positions may vary a little from publication to publication.  Here is what car buyers want:

  1. Proximity Key – a key fob that allows you to unlock (and lock) your vehicle’s doors and start it without having a physical key in your hand
  2. Apple CarPlay and Android Auto – smartphone connectivity is as important as a steering wheel to today’s car buyers*
  3. USB Outlets – lots of places to charge or run tablets, laptops and other electronic equipment
  4. Blind-Spot Monitoring and Rear-Cross-Traffic Alert – to keep you informed of what’s going on around your car while you’re driving
  5. Adaptive Cruise Control – systems that adjust your car’s speed while maintaining a safe distance from the vehicle in front of you.
  6. Surround-View Camera Suite – this puts the backup camera on steroids and allows a driver to see a 360-degree view of everything around their vehicle
  7. Wireless Smartphone Charging – a place you can put your cellphone to charge while you’re driving
  8. Rain-Sensing Windshield Wipers – a step-up from intermittent wipers, these blades automatically adjust to the amount of road spray or rainfall coming at you to keep your windshield clean
  9. Automatic High Beams – No need to raise and lower your headlight power manually, these systems do it automatically for you, so you always have the most light your vehicle is capable of producing shining on the road in front of you
  10. Heated, Ventilated Seats and a Heated Steering Wheel

What you don’t find on any of these lists are people asking for a radio, let alone an AM radio to be in their next vehicle.

What Features Do New Car Buyers Feel They Can Skip?

It surprised me to find that ‘Navigation’ topped lists, but then when Sue & I rented a car a couple of years ago, I learned that rental cars no longer offer a navigation system option. What they do offer is Apple CarPlay and Android Audio that automatically connects to your smartphone and displays the navigation software you enjoy using to the car’s video screen. (And yes, that arrangement worked for us perfectly, while driving cross-country.)

So, let’s look at the features car buyers don’t mind not having:

  1. Navigation
  2. Premium Audio System – most feel the hefty costs to upgrade the standard audio system the car comes with is not worth the money
  3. Onboard WiFi Hotspot – like Satellite Radio (which most new car buyers are also OK with skipping) WiFi Hotspots require a monthly subscription fee and are deemed not worth the added expense

Your Baby’s Ugly

The real problem the radio industry has is that it lives in a reality distortion field that has it thinking it’s still 1960s/70s. In other words, it needs to put on a pair of headphones and hear it for what it is.

John Frost’s most recent Frost Advisory email, told the story of a small AM radio station that broadcast a financial talk show that he occasionally tunes into hear. John says “it’s terrible radio, but the guys are really smart, they cough a lot, have lots of room noise and give insightful advice.”

On Good Friday, the show was a repeat of Thursday’s show and so what the listener heard on Friday were invitations to call in (which they could not because the show wasn’t live), announcements that Friday’s show would be a repeat of Thursdays show (but this was Friday) and commentary about the current day’s stock market prices (the market was closed on Good Friday) and nothing is more meaningless than yesterday’s stock prices.

Sadly, this kind of thing isn’t an isolated incident, but standard operating procedure on both AM and FM radio stations across America.

No one wants to hear their baby is ugly,

but for today’s radio industry, that’s the truth.

What Should Be The Focus of the Radio Industry

What keeps running through my mind is,

if the radio industry spent as much time, money and effort on producing a great product on AM radio stations across America, might their radio listeners be leading the charge with the auto industry to keep AM radio in the dashboard?

Let’s look at what fans make happen when a favorite TV show gets cancelled. The first television program to be saved by its fans was Star Trek in 1968. The franchise began in 1966 and 57 years later, it is still going strong.

More recently, fans of the FOX series Friday Night Lights organized a Facebook group with online petitions to show the network their support for this show, having it continue for five seasons despite its less than stellar audience ratings.

In both cases, it was not a television network that tried to convince an audience to watch a program, it was the audience that convinced a network NOT to cancel a program. That’s how it’s suppose to work.

AM radio isn’t coming back, so what the radio industry should instead be focused on is making FM radio the best that it can be and insuring that it won’t suffer the same fate befalling AM radio.

To win in today’s media marketplace, you must have a product that listeners want to hear;

today’s audio consumer has an infinite number of choices available.

When it comes to what new car buyers want in their next vehicle, broadcast radio is not on their list of wants, needs or desires.

That’s a real wake-up call,

if there ever was one.

*On April 1, 2023, General Motors plans to phase out widely used Apple (AAPL) CarPlay and Android Auto technologies that allow drivers to bypass a vehicle’s infotainment system, shifting instead to built-in infotainment systems developed with Google (GOOG) for future electric vehicles. It made me wonder if this was an April Fools prank, but apparently GM is that tone death. 

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April 9, 2023 · 3:00 am

Easter 2023

For 51 weeks out of the calendar year Dick writes this blog, and I journey with this incredible man weekly, suggesting commas, periods, paragraphs, and sometimes a different word or two to give a clearer perspective to the blog’s overall composition.

Once again, Dick has asked me to use his Dias and share my perspective of the most important of all holy days, the Easter season.

This past year I truly have become perplexed on why we all have turned a blind eye, and the perilous corner of being unkind. Yes, you know what I’m talking about as we have all experienced this, in people driving a vehicle, in public attitudes, in words and in the outside boundaries of entitlement. So much so that we feel the sting, the bite and the burn, finding ourselves contributing to this meanness.

I pray every day—many times a day, asking for understanding, asking for patience, asking for a way to distribute the love that is so needed in our world.  

I believe we have been placed here from moment one as a perpetual student of our Father’s teachings.  We have lessons placed in our path each and every day. Once these lessons are learned we can proceed to the next class, but sometimes we get stuck in the quicksand and have to keep repeating until we realize what’s holding us back and not letting us proceed.

So, in my lessons learned on how prayer works, I have found that when God answers a prayer, He is increasing my faith, If He delays an answer, He is increasing my patience, and if He doesn’t answer, He is preparing me for the best answer that will be a blessing for me. And I have also learned that when God is silent, I must pray to be still, and LISTEN.

I found this powerful poem sent to me years ago by my beautiful step-daughter and I wanted to share the content.

“Maybe – we were supposed to meet the wrong people before meeting the right one so that, when we finally meet the right person, we will know how to be grateful for that gift.

Maybe – when the door of happiness closes, another opens; but, often times, we look so long at the closed door, we don’t see the new one which has been opened for us.

Maybe – it is true that we don’t know what we have until we lose it, but it is also true that we don’t know what we have been missing until it arrives.

Maybe – the happiest of people don’t necessarily have the best of everything; they just make the most of everything that comes their way.

Maybe – the brightest future will always be based on a forgotten past; after all, you can’t go on successfully in life until you let go of your past mistakes, failures, and heartaches.

Maybe – you should dream what you want to dream; go where you want to go, be what you want to be, because you have only one life and one chance to do all the things you’ve dreamt of, and want to do.

Maybe – there are moments in life when you miss someone – a parent – a spouse, a friend, a child, an animal —- so much, that you just want to pick them from your dreams and hug them one more time, appreciating  those lost moments but turning them into beautiful memories.

Maybe – the best kind of friend is the kind you can sit on a porch and swing with, never saying a word, and then walk away feeling like it was the best conversation you’ve ever had.

Maybe – you should always try to put yourself in the others shoes. If you feel that something could hurt you, it probably will hurt the other person, too.

Maybe – you should do something nice for someone every single day, even if it is simply to leave them with a smile.

Maybe – giving someone all your love is never an assurance that they will love you back.  Don’t expect love in return; just wait for it to grow in their heart; but if it doesn’t, be content that it grew in yours.

Maybe – happiness waits for all those who cry, all those who hurt, all those who have searched, and all those who have tried, for only they can appreciate the importance of all the people who have touched their lives.

Maybe – you shouldn’t go for looks; they can deceive; don’t go for wealth; even that fades away. Go for someone who makes your heart smile, making a dark day much brighter. “

–Author Unknown

Maybe – you should hope for enough happiness to make you sweet, enough trials to make you strong, enough sorrow to keep your blessings balanced, and enough faith to always know God is the great “I Am”.

Maybe – you should try to live the rest of your life to the fullest because when you were born, you were crying and everyone around you was smiling, but when you die, you can be the one smiling as everyone around you is crying.

And, Maybe – with all the earthly turmoil, we think that God doesn’t care, well if we dig deep into our hearts  and the very being of our soul -we will understand that God is sad but God is right here, holding us, comforting us. God may be silent, but our prayers are being heard, and we need to listen to his loving words. Learning what? Love sings to us in many voices and we need to spread His LOVE with every MAYBE , with every bit of HOPE, and with every ounce of FAITH we have been challenged with on our living journey.

Our warmest thoughts are being sent to you

and your treasured family.

Happy Easter

Sue & Dick

Susan is a graduate of Concordia University with a degree in Family Life Education
and is a Certified Grief Counselor. God joined us together in 2018.

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April 2, 2023 · 3:00 am

Out, damn’d spot! (Part 2)

Seven years ago, on this Sunday morning I wrote a blog article titled “Out, damn’d spot!” The title for the blog came from Lady Macbeth, Act 5, scene1, where the spot the Bard’s lady is talking about is the imaginary blood she sees on her hands from the murders and other crimes she and her husband have been involved in. (Not all that dissimilar to how too many spots are killing radio.)

The genesis for that article was born from a speech then CBS Radio President Dan Mason gave in 2016, about how many radio spots should run in a typical hour of radio programming; his answer was 8 to 10 units.

Well, more than half a decade later, the majority of operators in the radio industry, have made very little progress on putting themselves on a strict advertising unit diet.

Limiting Unit Loads in 2023

Radio Ink started the conversation about unit loads again, in an interview with One Putt Broadcasting’s owner, John Ostlund who says he limited the number of ads on his five radio stations to five minutes per hour. Before the reduction, Ostlund says his stations typically were running 10 to 12 minutes (or more) per hour of ads.

As I read the interview, I realized that everything One Putt Broadcasting’s doing, is how radio was back in the 60s and 70s; ‘everything that was old is new again.’

Then Radio Ink heard from Bill Lynch, General Manage at Momentum Broadcasting about how he’s been running short stopsets for a decade and it’s been financially beneficial to his radio stations. Bill doesn’t think “length” when it comes to the number of ads in each hour, he thinks “units.”

It’s About The Units

Radio Program Gary Berkowitz then authored an article for Radio Ink giving his perspective as a longtime radio programmer and consultant. Gary said:

“If going forward we expect to be relevant,

we simply must cut back on the number of commercials we run.

Argue with me, but listeners do not count minutes.

They count “messages” or units.”

Back in the 80s in Atlantic City, reducing the number of units on my radio stations, saw both audience numbers and revenue growth. So, it was a pleasure to read this still works in the 21st Century.

Radio & Casinos Have Something In Common

In the beginning, both the radio business and the casino business enjoyed scarcity. In the early days, there weren’t a lot of radio stations in America, and if you wanted to own a casino, you needed to be in Nevada (1931). For almost half a decade, Reno and Las Vegas had the  monopoly on the casino business until 1978 when New Jersey would be the second state in America to legalize casino gambling.

Most communities were lucky if they had one radio station, it was a time in broadcasting that people would say, ‘owning a radio station is a license to print money.’

What changed for the casino industry was a wave of states legalizing casino gaming all across America quickly disrupting the business models for Nevada and Atlantic City casinos. No longer could they live off just their gambling handles.

Radio station ownership also exploded with multiple radio station signals filling up every available frequency in every populated area in the United States.

The Most Profitable Resort in Las Vegas

Seven years ago, when I wrote my original article, the most profitable casino in Las Vegas was Wynn Resorts and as of September 2022, it still is. What’s Wynn doing that’s different? Wynn Resorts are totally focused on the visitor or user experience.

Steve Wynn changed his casino business model to one less dependent on gambling, to a focus on non-gaming revenues and customer experiences, which now account for 67% of his company’s revenues.

What John Ostlund, Bill Lynch and Gary Berkowitz are telling the radio industry is much the same, that to not just survive, but thrive in the 21st Century, the radio industry must focus on its two main constituencies; the radio listener and the radio advertiser. Both, it turns out, want the same thing; a less cluttered advertising environment.

This should be the focus of the entire radio industry, as Bill Lynch puts it so well:

“It doesn’t matter if there’s one nice house

in a rundown neighborhood,

if most of the neighborhood is run down,

people don’t buy there.”

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March 26, 2023 · 3:00 am

Dealing With Change in Media Sales

It’s human nature to both want change to happen, and rue the day it does.  The 12th annual State of Media Sales presentation was a mixed bag of good and bad news for advertising sales. During the webinar, SalesFuel Founder and CEO C. Lee Smith, BIA Advisory Services VP of Forecasting and Analysis Nicole Ovadia, and AdMail Director of Sales Denise Gibson presented the latest research.

Where Ad Spend Growth in 2023 is Expected

The research broke down the areas of expected growth for over-the-air (OTA) television, radio, linear cable, out-of-home, print/direct mail and digital, but without getting into the weeds, growth will be in the millions for traditional media and digital growth in 2023 is expected to be in the billions.

What’s Getting Easier

All media sales managers say that selling online/digital advertising is getting easier, as well as the ability to upsell existing accounts, compete with other media, meet advertiser expectations and sell mobile advertising.

What’s Getting Harder

All media sellers say that generating new business and overcoming advertising churn are tied for #1. Those are followed by meeting management/corporate expectations, the ability for them to make more money, the difficulty in selling traditional media advertising and getting/staying motivated to do the job.

Top 5 Job Frustrations

Sales managers today say their top job frustration is the lack of sales talent but that’s probably due a general lack of optimism about the future of the media industry everyone is reading about. Rounding out the Top 5 Frustrations are account attrition, sales staff turnover and lack of lead generation.

Everybody experiences far more than he understands.

Yet it is experience, rather than understanding,

that influences behavior.”

-Marshall McLuhan

All Things Digital

The media companies that will not only survive but thrive are those that embrace the change from traditional to digital media. Expect “the demand for skilled digital marketers to only increase in the coming years,” says LinkedIn.

If you’re a seller, digital marketing is the top skill you need to learn in 2023 to boost your career. Yes, change is challenging, but all the arrows point to now being the best time to learn these new skills and kickstart your career.

Every success story is a tale of

constant adaption, revision and change.

-Richard Branson

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March 19, 2023 · 3:00 am

Whatever Made Auto Manufacturers Think AM Radio Is Over?

The CEO of the National Association of Broadcasters touted that 47 million people listen to AM Radio every week during a fireside chat at the Country Radio Seminar in Nashville this past week.

“It’s short-sighted for the automotive industry to consider

dropping AM Radio (from the dashboard).”

-Curtis LeGeyt, CEO, National Association of Broadcasters

Putting that number of listeners into perspective, the current population of the United States, according to the U.S. Census Bureau is 334,233,854 people and AM radio reaches 47 million of them or about 14%.

Saving AM Radio

In 2013, the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), Ajit Pai, said he was going to make it his mission to save AM radio.

“The digital age is killing AM radio, an American institution

that brought the nation fireside chats, Casey Kasem’s Top 40

and scratchy broadcasts of the World Series.

When I was born (1973), AM radio accounted for approximately half of all listening.

Today it’s less than twenty percent.

The number of AM station is declining,

and every day it seems harder to receive a quality AM signal.”

-Ajit Pai, FCC Chairman

So, where are we, a mere ten years later?

Pai’s Plan to Save AM Radio

I never understood the wisdom of trying to save amplitude modulation (AM) by using low power frequency modulated (FM) transmitters, but Pai said this in his speech delivered during lunch at the RAB/NAB Radio Show in Orlando, Florida on September 20, 2013:

“We should make it easier for AM stations to get and use FM translators.”

-Ajit Pai, FCC Chairman

Do you think the automotive industry was listening to this plan for broadcasting in America?

What Happens When an AM Radio Stations Gets an FM Translator?

In market after market, when an AM radio station got an FM translator, two things usually happened, it changed its format from news/talk/information to a music based programming one along with re-branding itself as an FM radio station; even though it had to continue its AM service.

An example would be WNTW 610AM in Winchester, Virginia. In 1994, the station’s programming was news-talk-sports with newscasts from CNN. In 2014, an FM translator was acquired by the station, and in 2015 the station rebranded as “102.9 Valley FM” featuring a classic hits format.

WTOP’s Big Change

It was on January 4, 2006, that the owner of WTOP 1500AM in Washington, DC announced that it would be moving its successful news franchise from the AM radio band to the FM band. Bonneville International accomplished this by eliminating its classical programming on co-owned WGMS 103.5FM and putting all of WTOP’s programming on that signal.

The results were impressive, as WTOP has been the dominant radio station in the 25-54 demographics since moving to FM and has been the nation’s top billing radio station in America since 2014.

The Future of AM Radio in the United Kingdom

AM radio in the UK is in terminal decline with audiences vanishing and AM transmitters shutting down. The current forecast for AM in the British Isles is for the majority of the remaining transmitters to be shut down by the end of 2027; four short years from now.

AM radio was the dominant listening medium in the United Kingdom until the mid 1980s when it was overtaken by FM.

In America, when the number of FM radio signals equaled the number of AM signals, 75% of all radio listening was to FM. Today, there are 21,858 FM radio signals broadcasting in America compared to only 4,484 AM radio signals.

FM Radio Ends in Norway

Norway was the first European country to shutdown its national broadcasts of its FM network, switching to digital audio broadcasting or DAB; and that happened six years ago. Other countries that say they will be doing the same include Switzerland, Britain and Denmark.

BBC & CBC

Both the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) and the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) have said they are both planning for the day, in the next decade, when they will be turning off both their radio and television transmitters, to become an online-only service.

Which came first, the Chicken or the Egg?

So, while the radio industry in America is up in arms over auto manufacturers eliminating AM radio in their Electric Vehicles (EVs), we need to be honest with ourselves about

who started down this path first.

You can’t save the AM radio band by moving it programming to the FM radio band. All the FCC and broadcasters succeeded in doing was to send out a signal to listeners and vehicle manufacturers alike that it was time to say goodbye to AM radio.

Actions speak louder than words.

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March 12, 2023 · 3:00 am

No Longer A License To Print Money

Back in the 60s, it wasn’t unusual for a radio station to have an operating profit margin greater than 50%. (Operating profit margin can be defined as the percentage of revenue that a company retains as income after the deduction of expenses.)

When I took over a major radio property in Atlantic City, New Jersey in the 80s, our operating profit margin targets were greater than 30%.

Being in the radio business at that time was often called “having a license to print money.”

That was then, what’s it like now?

Radio Profit Margins 2022

As we ended last year, the trades were carrying reports of operating profit margins like 8.73% (Radio One), 0.8% (Beasley Broadcast Group) and it made me wonder about the future of the radio industry.

Townsquare

This week the CEO of Townsquare was saying that they were “no longer a broadcast radio company,” because Townsquare was now deriving more than 50% of its total revenue and profits from digital.

In fact, digital delivered a profit margin of 30%.

Borrell

In a February webinar with the Radio Advertising Bureau (RAB), Gordon Borrell told radio stations they should consider hiring digital-only sales representatives. Gordon presented research showing where advertisers were increasing their spending, and it was heavily in the digital realm.

Edison Research

This month, Larry Rosin of Edison Research, showed their research from “The Infinite Dial 2023” report showing that 75 million of America’s 214 million age 12+ population were now listening to their audio content online each month.  

The big winners in this digital online streaming music marketplace are Spotify, YouTube Music, Pandora, Apple Music, Amazon Music and iHeart Radio.

While AM/FM radio still wins in the car, its audience is shrinking due to people listening to their own digital music libraries, or listening to podcasts, or listening to digital online audio; much of it made possible by connecting their smartphone to their car’s dashboard entertainment center.

Comscore

In their annual “Year in Review” webinar, Comscore says that in America there are now 239 million digital users over the age of 18. That’s 91% of the total population, up from 88% three years ago.

While we’ve come to think of “digital” as the future for technology and innovation, the reality is it’s already matured, and as such, is now in a period of “consolidation, rent-seeking and regulatory capture,” says digital researcher Greg Satell.

The Monetization Challenge

Twenty-five years ago, Edison Research recognized how the AM/FM radio dial would be changed by internet streaming, when it began its research report called “The Infinite Dial.” But to think of the world only in terms of radio or audio misses the big picture; for while the future of media and entertainment is digital streaming, the challenge of making money in this infinite content media world has become increasingly difficult.

Ankler Media CEO Janice Min put it this way for Axios:

  • “Hollywood’s calling card has always been that it makes the highest quality content in the world … And when you start to populate a fire hose, you lose some of that.”
  • “Humans are not capable of putting in the same effort when you’re making 100 movies a year.”

Certainly, the quality of radio content has gone down with all the Reductions In Force (RIFs), as fewer people now have to produce more content for multiple radio stations; plus, podcasts, blogs and social media.

Bob Iger is back as Disney’s CEO and focused how to make the mouse’s streaming business profitable; he’s not alone, as every media company is in the same situation.

No one has a crystal ball, but one thing is clear,

the future will not look like the past.

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March 5, 2023 · 3:00 am

What’s Your BHAG?

The past couple of weeks have featured some pretty intense webinars on where the media industry is headed and my mind is still spinning from all that was shared.

Let’s start with the meaning of BHAG (pronounced Bee-Hag); which means to have a Big Hairy Audacious Goal, a term coined from the book Built to Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies by Jim Collins and Jerry Poras. President Kennedy presented America with a BHAG when he said the United States would put a man on the moon.

“We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win.”


-John F. Kennedy, President

The Elements of a BHAG

All companies have goals; probably too many actually, causing employees to have a lack of collective focus on what’s really important. So, what are the elements of a BHAG?

  • A BHAG is a compelling, long-term goal that brings employees together and inspires them to take action.
  • BHAGs should pull employees out of a slump and give them a reason to tackle a big-picture-type plan.
  • BHAGs should cause an organization to focus on a common enemy, and on a defined target, while bringing about an internal transformation.

From what I’m hearing in these webinars,

the radio industry needs a BHAG for digital.

Gordon Borrell

In a Radio Advertising Bureau (RAB) webinar “Digital Sales Approach $2 Billion” Gordon stressed the importance of have a long-term revenue BHAG for digital sales. He said radio stations should consider hiring digital-only sales reps.

Larry Rosin

Edison Research President Larry Rosin co-hosted the 25th Anniversary of Edison’s “The Infinite Dial Study.” It was truly eye-opening to realize how much audio media access has changed over the last quarter century.

  • Internet access 1998 (31%) versus 2023 (95%)
  • Households with computers 1998 (~50%) versus 2023 (91%) where computers have become smartphones we carry with us
  • Streaming digital audio listening 1998 (6%) versus 2023 (70%)

Why I Stream ALL My Radio Listening

On January 9, 2022, I began my 8th year of blogging with an article on why I stream all of my radio listening and how it’s so easy for anyone to do what I do. In our home, we effortlessly connect to the internet and streaming digital audio using Amazon’s Echo. I can’t remember the last time I played a record, cassette tape, reel-to-reel tape, CD or thumb drive; anything I want to hear can be heard on demand by voice command.

As a family, we don’t’ have the latest cars, Sue has a 2006 Subaru Forester and I have a 2009 Honda Accord, but both vehicles seamlessly connect to our iPhones when we enter the car and allow us to stream any digital audio content through our car’s audio systems.

Comscore Year-in-Review

As of December 2022, 91% of America’s population over the age of 18 are digital users. The Comscore webinar was especially eye-opening, when they told the audience that the “digital population grew relatively 2x more than the total population in the last 3 years with increasing emphasis on mobile usage.”

An average adult internet user will spend almost 4.5 hours a day

accessing the internet via desktop or mobile.

-Comscore Media Metrix Multi-Platform United States 18+ Total Digital Population

Willie Sutton when asked why he robbed banks, responded “because that’s where the money is.” Now you know why all media entities are racing to win with their digital media offering.

The interconnectedness of audiences

is where the wins will be found in measurement.

-Jason Clough, Senior Director, Partnerships & Insights, Comscore

I think Jason Clough perfectly summed up what radio’s BHAG should be in the above slide from his presentation: if media wants to stay relevant to its audience and win with any audience measurement metric, it must interconnect with them.

But, instead of “interconnectedness”…

Think “EXPERIENCES.”

Is your radio station delivering the best listener experience, wherever and however they access your programming?

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February 26, 2023 · 3:00 am

Take This Job & Shove It

Forty-six years ago, Johnny Paycheck released a song titled “Take This Job And Shove it.” It was his biggest hit, and as it usually happens with a song like this, it stands out to even non-fans for a reason. Specifically, in this case, it was because it hit home with many dissatisfied workers all across America.

This #1 song was written by David Allan Coe, and in 1981 it became the genesis for a movie of the same name. So, what was the song about?

The Song’s Backstory

It’s appropriate that David Allan Coe was born the day after Labor Day, on September 6, 1939, in that his biggest song is known as “The Working Man’s Anthem.”

The song tells the story of a man who’s grown tired of being underappreciated and overworked at his job and fantasizes what it would be like to tell his boss to “take this job and shove it.”

Coe is fabled to have penned the song in about five minutes. He pitched the song to George Jones who turned it down. As word of the song spread, Coe one day received a phone call from Johnny Paycheck (a country artist unknown to Coe) who asked for permission to record it. He  agreed and the song became a massive hit as well as Paycheck’s signature song. In fact, it was the only #1 record Johnny Paycheck ever had, spending a total of 18 weeks on the charts.

Even recently, the song has been heard on the Hannah Montana and Simpsons television shows.

Why Is Everyone Quitting?

As American workers quit their jobs in record numbers in 2021, the year is now known as the “Great Resignation.” Return To Office (RTO) directives post-pandemic is when it started, as many who found they could do their jobs just as well from home and were not interested in returning to the office. By the end of 2021, 47 million hospitality workers, the industry with the highest rate of quitters, would in essence tell their employers to “take this job and shove it.”

In 2022, American business owners were confronted with a new kind of quitting by their employees; quiet quitting. Quiet quitting is defined as people who do the minimum required and are psychologically detached from their job.

That reminds me of what we used to call “not my job” people, who had the attitude of doing the least they could get away with and still get a paycheck.

Quiet quitters are estimated to make up 50% of today’s workforce and that should be alarming to all employers.

Higher Education

College professors, who must have terminal college degrees (like a PhD), are finding their work environment very unsatisfying and 500,000 of them headed for the exits in 2022. Radio’s unhappy employees have a lot in common with people employed in higher education.

I will tell you why, in a moment.

Broadcasting

If you go to the website Careercast.com and look up the “Top Ten Worst Jobs in America,” you will find that #1 is being a Reporter, #6 is being a Broadcaster and #8 is being an Advertising Salesperson.

Back in 2019, Fred Jacobs wrote a blog article “Take This (Radio) Job And Shove It,” in which he cited Careercast.com data showing that broadcaster, DJ and ad sales rep held down the #7, #8, and #9 positions on the top ten worst jobs in America and apparently conditions are not improving for our industry. Poor pay would be bad enough, but a lack of job growth exacerbates attracting new talent.

            Job                   Growth Forecast

            Reporter                      -11%

            Broadcaster                -11%

            Ad Sales Rep               -6%

Why Are People Quitting Their Jobs?

We can’t begin to fix the problem, if we don’t clearly understand what the problem is, and you might be surprised to learn that no matter the job or industry, the reasons are strikingly similar.

  • Feeling uncared for by their manager
  • Tense relationships with colleagues and stress
  • Poor compensation
  • Lack of career advancement

The Solution

If you’ve worked in the radio business, you’ve no doubt heard something like “DJs are like spark plugs, if one doesn’t work, pull it out and replace it with a new one.” I’ve heard this sentiment attributed to many big box broadcast leaders over the years.

It might surprise you to learn that I found much the same attitude among higher education administrators when it came to their faculty.

College faculty and radio personalities are both instrumental when it comes to making a connection. For faculty, it’s between the student and the college, for the radio personality, it’s between the radio station and the listener.

Colleges like to stress the importance of student recruitment and retention. The radio industry  calls this building Cume (total radio station listening audience) and maintaining a high Time Spent Listening (TSL). Sadly, both miss the most important element in growing both of these metrics.

Colleges have been quick to “replace and replenish workers,” while radio stations have opted for voice tracking and syndication.

If you think this stuff doesn’t matter, think back to when the National Football League (NFL) discounted the issues their referees were complaining about, let them go out on strike while replacing them with less experienced refs. The NFL quickly learned that they had made a very bad decision as blown calls proliferated; players and fans expressed their outrage about how this bad decision hurt the game.

What all workers are seeking, is a place of work that gives them a sense of belonging, appreciation, and fulfillment, as well as insuring their success, productivity and growth. The Harvard Business Review (HBR) says that your employees are more productive and engaged when their four basic needs are met:

  1. Renewal (physical)
  2. Value (emotional)
  3. Focus (mental)
  4. Purpose (spiritual)

HBR says that “when employees at a company perceive that anyone of their four needs has been met, they report a 30% higher capacity to focus, a nearly 50% higher level of engagement, and a 63% greater likelihood to stay at the company.”

People don’t care how much you know,

Until they know how much you care.

-Theodore Roosevelt, President of the United States

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February 19, 2023 · 3:00 am

The Hiring Challenge

Over one-third of American companies have eliminated college degree requirements and the reason they did is simple, to increase the number of applicants.

Here’s the reality, there are 1.9 jobs available for every unemployed worker.

Last year I wrote about how the radio industry needs to remove the college degree requirement from their Help Wanted Ads, and since that time, the ability to attract the best talent has become even more challenging.

The Latest Survey of Hiring Mangers

The website, Intelligent.com surveyed 1,000 hiring managers at the beginning of 2023 and released these key findings:

  • 53% of hiring managers say their companies eliminated the requirement for a bachelor’s degree for roles where a bachelor’s degree in not essential
    • 60% eliminated the college degree requirement for entry-level roles
    • 57%  eliminated the requirement for mid-level positions
    • 33% eliminated it for senior level jobs
  • 64% say the reason for removing the requirement was to increase the number of applicants
  • 76% say they are likely to favor experience over education
  • The majority of hiring managers say their company doesn’t see value in certificate programs, associate degrees, online degrees, or boot camps
  • 77% of companies are currently offering apprenticeships, or plan to, by the end of the year
  • 46% say attrition is a problem

Famous Radio Broadcasters Without A College Degree

Oprah Winfrey didn’t need to have a college degree to become one of the most successful women in broadcasting. She dropped out of college after only one semester to pursue a career in broadcasting.

In 2015, Forbes published the salaries of the top five radio broadcasters in America.

  • Glenn Beck earned $16.5 Million in 2015. Not bad for a Sehome High School graduate with no college experience.
  • Sean Hannity earned $29 Million, and never obtained a college degree, even though he attended four different colleges.
  • Ryan Seacrest earned $65 Million. He started his radio career at 16 while still in high school and would drop out of college to devote all of his energies to broadcasting.
  • Rush Limbaugh earned $77 Million and dropped out of college after only two semesters. His mother said at the time that Rush “flunked everything…he just didn’t seem interested in anything except radio.”

The BIG Exception

The top earning radio personality is Howard Stern. Howard graduated with a 3.8 Grade Point Average (GPA) from Boston University. In fact, Stern was named by Forbes as the world’s highest-paid media personality and the fifth highest-earning worldwide. As of February 2023, Howard Stern’s net worth is $650 Million.

I Love College

Please don’t think I’m dissing the college experience, I’m not. What I am taking issue with is the hiring practices of the radio industry that make having a college degree preferred. Radio is better positioned as a trade, one best learned by doing.

The radio industry should be presenting a broadcast career as an opportunity for students graduating from high school.

I treasure my five decade radio broadcasting career, but having my Bachelor of Arts and Master of Science college degrees never played a role.

It wasn’t until I pursued my second career in life, that of a college broadcast professor, that I would need those two pieces of paper to be hired at The School of Broadcasting and Journalism at Western Kentucky University.

Colleges sell pieces of paper representing knowledge learned. You can’t be part of the faculty unless you have also earned these benchmarks in higher education.

Finally, I am adamant about the radio industry starting its outreach at the high school level.

Radio Talent Institute

When I was at Western Kentucky University, I worked with Dan Vallie and his Radio Talent Institute. It’s an excellent program, now owned and operated by the Radio Advertising Bureau (RAB). Sadly, it’s offered as a summer program to students in a handful of colleges across America. I contend that the RAB should be offering this program in the high schools, especially those schools that have vibrant student run radio stations.

The Radio Talent Institute puts professional broadcasters into a mentorship role with the radio’s industry’s future leaders and we can’t start the recruitment effort early enough.

“A mentor is someone who

allows you to see the hope inside yourself.”

— Oprah Winfrey

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February 12, 2023 · 3:00 am

It’s SUPER BOWL SUNDAY 2023

(NFL.com)

Super Bowl Sunday is a big event for broadcasting.

In the year 1983 the television’s series finale of M*A*S*H on CBS was the most watched program on TV and it held that record until it was beat by a Super Bowl broadcast in 1985. By 2015, M*A*S*H was being surrounded by football, as this graph from Wikipedia shows, and in 2022, the National Football League (NFL) had 82 of the top 100 programs on television in America.

M*A*S*H still is television’s #1 for most viewed scripted broadcast.

Football & Radio

While it’s estimated that over 100 million Americans will watch Super Bowl LVII (57) on television Sunday night, the best estimate for audio only listeners are a vaguer “millions.”

The big game will be broadcast on approximately 600 terrestrial radio stations as well as on-line and on streaming platforms. Westwood One, the radio network of record, will also provide its broadcast to the American Forces Radio Network and America’s Military troops around the world.

As I’ve written here before, I listen to all of my radio via streaming on a smart speaker or my iPhone using the TuneIn Radio App.

Home team fans have been known to watch the television network broadcast while having the sound turned down to hear their local radio broadcasters call the game.

The First Super Bowl Broadcast

The very first Super Bowl between the Green Bay Packers and the Kansas City Chiefs was broadcast by both NBC and CBS. NBC was the official television network of the AFL, and CBS was the same for the NFL; it remains the only Super Bowl to have been broadcast live in the United States by two different television networks.

Radio & Baseball

Baseball was meant to be listened to on the radio.

Growing up in New England hearing the Boston Red Sox baseball games coming out of everyone’s radio was commonplace. I remember sneaking my portable transistor radio into elementary school to listen to a Red Sox game.

Since the birth of radio, baseball has been broadcast live on this medium, originating on August 5, 1921 over Westinghouse’s KDKA in Pittsburgh. 25 year old Harold Arlin, a foreman for Westinghouse Electric Company, became the first person to ever broadcast a Major League Baseball game, using a converted telephone as a microphone.

Sadly, no recording exists of that first baseball broadcast. Radio stations at that time preferred their announcers to be anonymous voices, not wishing them to become popular and harder to manage.

The first television baseball broadcast didn’t occur until August 26, 1939, 18 years after the first radio broadcast.

Today, with every baseball game available to watch on TV, on your computer, smartphone or tablet, does radio matter anymore? Yes, it does, but in generationally different ways. Young baseball fans can’t imagine how us oldsters consumed sports back in the “dark ages.”

You’re either a baseball fan that likes listening to baseball on the radio or the kind that doesn’t.

The radio broadcasting network for Super Bowl 57, Westwood One, says that people who do love to listen to sports on the radio are:

  • People who attend sports events
  • Seek sports information on a phone
  • Friends/Family ask their advice on sports
  • Are considered to be a sports category influential consumer
  • Play fantasy sports

GfK MRI reports that radio’s play-by-play audience is more engaged with and passionate about sports than those who watch sports on TV.

Super Bowl Parties

We’re hosting a Super Bowl Party for our family this year. For Sue and I, it’s a wonderful opportunity to spend time with family, much like Thanksgiving or Christmas. There will be lots of food and beverages while the TV will be tuned to the big game.

Our party will number ten people, and one rather large and lovable dog.

If you might be wondering how your Super Bowl party compares to others:

  • The average Super Bowl party will number 14 people
  • 103.5 million people plan on having or attending a home-based Super Bowl party
  • 17.8 million people will watch the big game at a bar or restaurant
  • 8,083 calories will be consumed at the average football party feast
  • Favorite football foods: 28% say its pizza, 24% say its wings & 18% say chips & dips
  • 16.1 million people will be calling in “sick” on Monday

Eagles vs. Chiefs

Whether you watch the Super Bowl on TV or listen to it on the radio, whether you’re rooting for the Philadelphia Eagles or the Kansas City Chiefs, or whether, like me, are just coming  for the calories and the camaraderie…

Enjoy Yourself

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