Tag Archives: Edison Research

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.

9 Comments

Filed under Education, Mentor, Radio, Sales

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

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?

16 Comments

Filed under Education, Mentor, Radio, Sales

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

February 5, 2023 · 3:00 am

Option A or Option B

Over the years as I’ve been writing this blog, some of my critics have accused me of being negative on the future of radio broadcasting, comparing me to a “radio chicken little” that each week proclaims the sky is falling.

It’s hard to read something that makes you feel uncomfortable.

Predictably Irrational

I’ve been a fan of Dan Ariely, with his Predictably Irrational  books and his column “Ask Ariely,” which was published in the Wall Street Journal for just over ten years. If you don’t know, Dan Ariely is an Israeli-American professor and author, serving as a James B. Duke Professor of psychology and behavioral economics at Duke University.

On September 26, 2022, he announced that he was ending “Ask Ariely”, a weekly column that he has been writing since June 2012.

At that time, the reasons he gave were “our society now confronts some big, important, collective problems. We haven’t yet made up our minds as to how we will treat our planet, confront fake news, cope with a post-COVID workforce or mitigate the effects of inequality, hatred and political fragmentation.”

WOW, it kind of makes anything I write about concerning radio seem trite, doesn’t it?

Then, in December, Dan emailed his subscribers a letter called “End-of-Year Alternative Ask Ariely”, with thoughts that I’ve been mentally marinating.

Stay or Change

In life we are often faced with Stay or Change decisions.

  • Stay in our current job or Change to a new one
  • Stay married or Change to go our separate ways
  • Stay on the couch watching TV or Change to a more active lifestyle
  • Stay in the radio format we’ve done for the past 10 years or Change to something new

“In general, when we look at the decisions we make each day, most of them are not an outcome of active deliberation,” says Ariely.

The Future is Digital

One of the tough facts facing the radio industry is the move to an all-digital world. Inside Radio started off the new year with the headline story “Digital Audio Listeners Expected to Top 225 Million This Year.”

The facts they presented in the story were:

  • 74% of American internet users listened to digital audio in 2022
  • Time spent listening (TSL) to digital audio is increasing by its users
  • Digital audio consumption is nearly even with the TSL of broadcast TV daily
  • Digital TSL beats streaming video, using social media or playing video games
  • Digital adoption remains most common among younger generations
    • 91.1% among people aged 16-24
    (Smartphones are the dominant way young people listen to digital audio)

Last year saw the majority of Americans listening to digital audio on their smartphones while at home, and this number is expected to grow to 55.8% of the U.S. population by 2026 according to eMarketer.

eMarketer also points out that more than six in ten digital audio listeners in America were  paying for a streaming audio subscription in 2022. (Full disclosure, I pay for two different streaming audio services that began in 2022.)

The latest from Dave Van Dyke at Bridge Ratings research shows that digital media was the big winner in 2022, with 95% of consumers using websites or apps and 88% interacting with social media.

Then there was this headline from Edison Research, “Mobile’s Share of At-Home Audio Listening Leads AM/FM Receivers.” Edison has found that Americans over the age 13 now spend 35% of their daily audio listening time with digital audio via their mobile device while in their home. In contrast, Americans who are still listening on an AM/FM radio receiver is down to 26%. This probably shouldn’t come as a surprise, since the most recent Infinite Dial research found 39% of American households have zero radios.

BBC Without Broadcast

BBC Director-General Tim Davie was recently reported saying: “A switch-off of broadcast will and should happen over time, and we should be active in planning for it.” Davie went on to say: “consumers are awash with choices from traditional broadcast and new streaming services [and that] a change to [the BBC’s] traditional model is necessary.”

The internet has removed

the historical distribution advantage

of broadcast media.

Changing Your Perspective

Most of the people who read this blog, have grown up with broadcast media, but a person born just 10 to 15 years ago is presented with two options for listening to audio content, broadcast or digital. For these young people, these two options have always existed.

Think of it as buying a new car with or without air conditioning. People buying cars in the mid-90s didn’t even consider buying a car without it, as it was offered as standard equipment by virtually all manufacturers on new cars.

Broadcasters weighing whether they should “stay” with what they’ve always done versus “change”, should reframe this question by labeling the choices as “Option A” or “Option B”.

  • Option A: Broadcast Media
  • Option B: Digital Media

As Dan Ariely explains, when you change the framing of this decision from one that considers “stay” versus “change” to one that considers Option A versus Option B, you put each choice on a more equal footing.

“The problem is that the natural framing of “stay” versus “change” gives an unfair advantage to the “stay” decision because it is simpler, it require less change, less work, and does not make us feel that we are making a decision. It also doesn’t make us think much about what we would risk if we made the wrong decision. Of course, staying might feel like we are not making a decision, but by staying we are making a decision. By reframing the decision as “Option A” versus “Option B”, some of the advantages of the stay options are reduced and it becomes clearer what we really want to do.”

So, what say you? “Option A” or “Option B”?

I’m all ears.

12 Comments

Filed under Education, Mentor, Radio, Sales

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , , ,

April 18, 2021 · 3:00 am

You Can’t Make an Elephant into a Giraffe

Let’s face it, somethings in life are what they are. Giraffe’s have long necks and elephants have big ears, big feet and trunks. Just as pickup trucks were designed for a different purpose than speed boats. So, why do we think that radio can somehow defy the natural order and become something that it was never designed to be?

Work on Your Strengths, Not Your Weaknesses

One of the lessons I learned in classes at Clear Channel University* was how people often focus on their weaknesses and try to improve them. However, studies have shown that when we focus on our strengths, we grow faster than when we try to improve our weaknesses. Added benefits to focusing on our strengths are that we become happier, less stressed and more confident.

The cure for constantly falling short of your goals is to work on improving where you’re already strong, rather than on areas where you are weak.

Why Doesn’t Radio Focus on Its Strengths?

Entercom changed its name to Audacy, saying:

“We have transformed into a fundamentally different and dramatically enhanced organization and so it is time to embrace a new name and brand identity which better reflects who we have become and our vision for the future. Audacy captures our dynamic creativity, outstanding content and innovative spirit as we aspire to build the country’s best audio content and entertainment platform.”

-David Field, CEO

Audacy is the fourth largest radio company in America (based on the number of radio stations owned) and just like the top three radio operators ahead of them, none use the word “radio” in their name.

It was in 2010, that National Public Radio announced that it would be using “NPR” as its brand name, even though its legal name remains the same. NPR celebrated its 50th birthday in 2020, the same year that American commercial radio turned 100.

What is it about the name “radio” that has radio station owners and operators distancing themselves from this word?

Finding Your Strengths

If you want to grow your strengths, first you need to identify them. This week, Pierre Bouvard, Chief Insights Officer at Cumulus Media/Westwood One, did a pretty good job of that in his blog. While Pierre was trying to correct some misperceptions about broadcast radio, he also gave us a good place to start with identifying some of its strengths. Here are five Pierre cites:

  1. Radio reaches 88% of persons 18 years of age and older each week in America.
  2. Radio reaches the 60% of Americans who are back in their cars commuting to work every day. (The Radio Advertising Bureau says radio’s reach in the car is 83% in 2021, making it the dominate form of media on-the-road.)
  3. Radio’s audience shares are twenty-one times larger than ad-supported Pandora and ten times that of ad-supported Spotify, according to Edison Research.
  4. Radio delivers an impressive Return On Investment (ROI). Pierre says “for example, for every $1 invested in an auto aftermarket AM/FM radio campaign, there is a $21 sales return.”
5. Radio delivers listeners at all hours of the day, seven days a week.

Radio’s Analog Audience

Lee Abrams posted a short YouTube video back in August 2020 that you might have missed explaining his “PSYCHOGRAPHIC CHART.” If you’re in radio, you should watch it now.   

View the full twelve-minute presentation HERE What I’d like to focus on is the two quadrants that Lee has labeled as “Analog Generation/Culturally Sophisticated & Culturally Unsophisticated.” These people are radio listeners. They were born with and are comfortable with analog media.

Lee makes clear that you can’t satisfy more than one quadrant. Pick one and super serve those people to the point of making what you do appalling to people in the other three quadrants.

The bottom line is that you can’t be all things to all people, but you can be everything to some people. This is really Marketing 101.

But the Future is Digital

Yes, the future of media is digital and it can’t be ignored. But you can’t make radio into something it’s not and never will be. It’s a powerful one-to-many media entity; leverage that.

The Australian Radio Network’s Neuro Lab is doing some interesting research into how a listener’s brain responds to audio, whether it’s coming from the radio, a podcast or streamed.

What should make all radio owner/operators sit-up and take notice is the fact that “radio showed the strongest ability to engage listeners and for extended periods of time, racking up 60% more neural engagement than any other audio format.” Podcasts showed higher levels of memory encoding and streaming was noted for promoting positive attitudes towards brands. You can read the full report HERE

All Audio is Not Created Equal (in the Brain)

Dr. Shannon Bosshard, the neuroscience specialist who conducted this groundbreaking research said, “This is the first time that anyone has demonstrated, from the perspective of the brain, that radio, podcasting and music streaming are processed differently and should be treated differently, in the same manner that audio and audio-visual mediums have been.”

Radio Financed TV

It was the incredible revenue streams produced by broadcast radio that were used to build out the medium of commercial television. TV also stole radio’s stars and programs, leaving the radio industry to reinvent itself and compete with television for advertising.

Today, radio is once again finding itself the “money mule” charged with funding the buildout of digital initiatives, having to sacrifice the very thing that makes radio unique in the process; its personalities. And then, just like with TV, radio has to compete with digital for advertising.

Fred Jacobs in his TechSurvey 2021 revealed how important the Radio Personality is to today’s radio listener.

But this shouldn’t come as a surprise. For generations, the radio personality has been the primary attraction drawing audiences to one radio station over another. At his peak, Dan Ingram on WABC in New York was said to be more popular to the station’s listeners than The Beatles.

Great Radio

In the end, great radio isn’t any one element, it’s all of them – personalities, jingles, promotions, station imaging, community involvement and companionship – that makes a radio station part of a listener’s family. People have favorite movies, but not a favorite movie theater; they have favorite television programs, but not a favorite television station; however, people DO HAVE favorite radio stations.

Remember that. Leverage that. Make money knowing that.

*Clear Channel University was closed in 2009

2 Comments

Filed under Education, Mentor, Radio, Sales

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

March 21, 2021 · 3:00 am

Only Change is Here to Stay

Every night, the music of Enya lulls us off to dreamland. One of our favorite songs is “The Humming.” A line from that song is “only change is here to stay.”

I’ve often written in this blog about the only constant in life is change, and that if you’re not changing your life for the better, you’re changing it for the worse, for nothing stays the same. Nothing.

Changes in Communication

Watching the Ken Burns documentary on “Country Music” it was very clear the important role that radio played in spreading the popularity of this musical genre. But that was then, today the smartphone is at the center of everyone’s life.

Smartphones

The latest from Edison Research now says that 88% of Americans over the age of 12 own and use a smartphone; 250 million, to be exact.

The wireless phone companies will tell you that today we use our smartphones primarily for data. Edison Research tells us that 82% of Americans are now active on social media platforms, the top three being Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.

Smart Speakers

While 32% of homes in the U.S. don’t have a single AM/FM radio in them, 47% now have a smart speaker.

Today, 193 million Americans – or 68%  of adults 12 years of age and older – digitally consume audio using one of these smart devices.

Car Radio

AM/FM radio’s last place of dominance is the vehicle dashboard. WFH (Work From Home) eliminated the need to commute for a lot of people, thereby causing them to spend less time with traditional radio in their cars.

McKinsey Global Institute says at least 20% of people currently in the WFH mode won’t ever be returning to an office after the pandemic ends. Just as alarming for radio station owners is the recent report by Edison Research that shows the percentage of people who listen to audio on their smartphone in their cars is now at 50%.

“We’re recovering to a different economy.”

-Jerome H. Powell, Federal Reserve Chairman

ZOOM

Before COVID-19, we already were doing video conferencing and phone calls on platforms like Go To Meeting, Face Time, WebX, or Skype. But then the world was shut down by a novel coronavirus and it was ZOOM that suddenly became the dominant platform for teaching school, conducting government, running our courts, attending church, working from home, celebrating our weddings and birthdays, and just about everything else we used to do in person.  

ZOOM is the best example of how fast our world changed when COVID-19 struck.

How did ZOOM do it? By investing the time to know what their video conferencing customer wanted, knowing it better than anyone else and then delivering it best when the critical moment – a global pandemic – arrived.

“Spend a lot of time talking to customers face-to-face. You’d be amazed how many companies don’t listen to their customers.”

– H. Ross Perot

Your listeners are changing, your advertisers are changing, your world is changing. So, you’d better be listening carefully to understand how you must change to be relevant to their wants, needs and desires.

Because as Enya sings “only change is here to stay.”

Leave a comment

Filed under Education, Mentor, Radio, Sales

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

March 7, 2021 · 3:00 am

COVID-19, One Year Later

It was just a year ago that I wrote about “The Day the World Shutdown.” So, shall I ask you, “how are you doing?”

For Sue & I, while we were just vaccinated on Friday, the wearing of face masks, hand sanitizing and social distancing is unlikely to change for us for the rest of 2021, if not longer.

Based on my research of pandemics past, I realized very early that this would be about a two year disruption and I suspect that when we say “Happy New Year” and ring in 2022, things will finally be on course for whatever the “new normal” is.

WFH

Working From Home, most often abbreviated as “WFH,” has also changed people’s media habits.

A year ago I wrote that I expected most people would consume their media by streaming it via the internet. The latest research has shown that is exactly what happened. eMarketer data showed that traditional radio broadcasts were eclipsed by digital audio, mid-2020. This week, Edison Research reported, that 30% of all audio listening now occurs on mobile devices; unless you’re between the ages of 13-34, then that number is 46%. Not surprisingly, this age group’s listening to audio on an AM/FM radio receiver is down to only 20%.

Working from home meant that those people who normally listened to AM/FM radio while commuting in their car, were now doing their audio consumption where they live, and 32% of today’s households don’t have a single AM/FM radio in them. However, 44.2% of homes today have a voice activated assistant, like Amazon’s Alexa, to access their favorite audio content.

Audio in Cars

The global pandemic has forced all of us to get used to new ways of doing every little thing, such as shopping online, streaming video entertainment on huge flat screen TVs and asking Alexa for assistance like she had become a member of the family. We’ve become so comfortable with these new Artificial Intelligence (AI) devices that we might start to wonder what life was like before them.

Automobile manufacturers also took notice of this change, like the commercial for a new Buick – or is it an “Alexa on Wheels?” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GqvEcLWI0ME

I remember when I used to tell advertisers that a car was a “radio on wheels.”

Now I don’t have a new car, but my 2009 Honda Accord has a fabulous sound system that seamlessly connects to my iPhone and streams my audio content in my car. My car radio is locked on “AUX.” (I know I’m not alone.)

The End of Commuting

Bill Gates shocked the world when he predicted in November of last year that 50% of all business travel would never come back and that 30% of the days people spent in an office would likewise disappear forever. McKinsey Global Institute pretty much corroborated Gate’s predictions by adding that 20% of workers would continue to work from home indefinitely.

Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome H. Powell, puts it this way, “We’re recovering to a different economy.”

Disney Closing Mall Stores

Disney plans to close 20% of its Disney Stores saying that they’ve seen changes in the ways people shop due to COVID-19 and that the future means people will continue to shop online. As a result, Disney plans to focus on e-commerce, its Apps and social media platforms. Disney says the data shows that the global pandemic increased the speed of change from brick-and-mortar to online shopping by half a decade.

Movies & Streaming

Disney’s CEO Bob Chapek went even further in announcing the company’s future, saying that the days of releasing new movies to theaters for several months before bringing them to their streaming platform, are over. For example, when “Raya and the Last Dragon” hits the theaters this month, it will simultaneously be available on Disney+ for subscribers for an additional $30.

Disney+ has exceeded everyone’s expectations, rapidly growing to over 95 million paying subscribers. The biggest surprise to this streamer of family content was that over 50% of those subscribers don’t have children.

Worst Year in Pay-TV History

2020 was a record year for cord-cutting according to analysis of cable TV subscribers by MoffettNathanson. Cable TV lost six million subscribers dropping cable’s household penetration level to a low, not seen in thirty years. Smart TVs are the primary reason people now stream their video content from the internet.

Award Shows Audiences in Decline

Audiences for the Academy Awards, Grammy’s, Golden Globes and Primetime Emmys have all been in a steady decline since 2000. The first of these 2021 award shows, and a harbinger for those to come, the Golden Globes, set a record low for NBC’s telecast of these awards.

Where Have All the Sports Fan Gone?

You might have thought with people stuck at home, that sports would have seen solid television audiences, but that wasn’t the case. 2020 saw a drop in viewership for practically every sport. Compared with 2019, the NBA Finals were down 51%, the NHL Finals were down 61%, the U.S. Open tennis matches were down 45%. Even the Kentucky Derby recorded its lowest TV audience ever, falling 49% from 2019, to just over eight million viewers.

Television’s biggest audience draw for many years has been the NFL and the Super Bowl, but not this year. The big game’s audience was the lowest it has been in fifteen years.

If Misery Loves Company…

Pro Sports, Harley Davidson and broadcast radio/TV are all suffering from a similar problem, they aren’t attracting the next generation. Generation Z Americans, those born after 1996, just aren’t that into sports, Harley’s and traditional media, like previous generations.

That’s probably why, when the NFL started asking for a 100% increase in TV rights payments, Disney (owner of ESPN) immediately rejected it.

However, streamers, like Amazon Prime and AppleTV+ may give the NFL the money they want, but will those high rights fees manifest in higher premiums for subscribers.

For the maker of “The Hog” and traditional broadcast media, the future is as challenging. Harley Davidson is looking to make their motorcycle line all electric, following the lead of the world’s automobile industry, and hoping it will attract new riders to their brand. Radio/TV broadcasters are also trying to capture new audiences with Apps, streaming and podcasts.

“I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been.”

-Wayne Gretzky

Anyone who thinks their business will return to the way it was, once COVID-19 is in the rearview mirror, will be hanging the “Gone Fishing” sign out, be down-for-the-count or just plain out-of-business.

It’s time for all of us to be thinking like Gretzky.

8 Comments

Filed under Education, Mentor, Radio, Sales

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

August 16, 2020 · 3:00 am

Radio’s GEN-Z Challenge

GEN ZI recently sat in on the Edison Research webinar about people born between 1996 and 2012, known as GEN-Z.

If you read about this webinar in the radio trades, you would have learned that 55% of these young people listen to AM/FM over-the-air radio. What’s not to like about that?

The reality was, this daily radio listening was only to Over-The-Air FM radio, none of these GEN-Z people ever mentioned listening to AM radio. That’s still a positive, right?

It is, if your only focus is on the immediate future, not future trends.

Generation Z

Today, people aged 8 to 24 make up over 65-million Americans. They are the first truly digital natives, not having known a world without full digital access to content. GEN-Z people are also often called “ZOOMers.” They would rather create their own content than curate other people’s content.

Edison Research points out that Generation Z has only known a world where everything is ON DEMAND, and it’s the growing up in an ON DEMAND world that makes ZOOMers a challenge for OTA radio.

ZOOMer Trends

  • Their smartphones are the center of their media world.
  • 53% of ZOOMers listen to audio streaming daily.
  • They spend 98% more time than the rest of the population watching videos and listening to music on YouTube.
  • Spotify is their go-to music streaming service.
  • Their radio listening is mostly in the car, some at work, but none of it occurs in the home.
  • If they listen to OTA radio, it is on a device that only receives OTA radio signals, not with a digital streaming device.

When Edison Research ran clips of people in this age group talking about their media habits, it was clear FM radio wasn’t their first choice, but the fact that it was available in the car they were riding in or it was playing on a radio that everyone listened to while they were working.

Things Radio Can Do to Attract ZOOMers

Edison suggested that these programming ideas might be a way to attract the GEN-Z audience:

  • News & Information is important to GEN-Z, it’s their social currency.
  • Remind ZOOMers that radio is available on their digital streaming device.
  • GEN-Z wants to change the world, their local communities for the better and OTA radio could be a catalyst for helping them do this.
  • Surprise and delight ZOOMers with your content.

This last point is really about engaging the listener, and showing them you really care. In reality, 74% of your listeners probably don’t care* if your FM radio station disappears, because they don’t think you really care about them. Radio needs to create shared experiences for this age group. Radio needs to show they care.

Shared Values and Shared Purpose

Christian broadcasters and NPR both understand the shared values and purpose of their listeners and base their programming decisions on them. These broadcasters understand that their mission is not to attract everyone to their programming, but to build a loyal audience with those who share their vision of the world.

Using the Edison Research on GEN-Z, how can your radio station inspire and empower the ZOOMers in your community?

How do you learn what the shared values and purposes of the GEN-Z listeners are?

Ask them.

Form a GEN-Z advisory board to learn what’s on their minds and what their vision for the future is. Be willing to focus every aspect of your radio station on what’s important to THEM.

Change doesn’t begin with a slogan, it begins with shared values and purpose, which then inspires people to come together and create a world that is better than they found it.

 

*based on book “Know What You’re For” by Jeff Henderson

10 Comments

Filed under Education, Mentor, Radio, Sales

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , , , ,

August 9, 2020 · 3:00 am

Would You Like to Participate in Radio Research?

nielsen familyNuVoodoo does some really wonderful research about radio listening. They particularly focus on reaching people who are most likely to keep a radio listening diary or wear a Nielsen Portable People Meter, aka PPM.

During their last webinar, a slide came up quickly in the jam-packed presentation that made me choke on my coffee. It showed how small the pool of radio listeners is that would participate in Nielsen Radio ratings research. An astounding 82% say they would never wear a PPM device and even more listeners say they wouldn’t keep a ratings diary. Ratings Likies 2020

I Was a Nielsen Family

When I was a radio broadcaster, it wasn’t unusual for Arbitron Ratings to ask me about keeping a radio listening diary for a week. Each time I declined because I was actively working in radio.

When I was a broadcast professor at the university in Kentucky, I was approached about keeping a television ratings diary and Nielsen said that being a broadcast teacher was not a disqualifier, so I said “yes.”

I knew that the experience of keeping a ten-day television viewing diary would be one I could share with my students in covering the topic of radio/TV ratings. I was thrilled to be a “Nielsen Family,” even though that thrill quickly dissipated once the survey diary and instructions arrived.

The few dollars Nielsen sent to me with the materials seemed small potatoes for the amount of information they wanted to extract from my viewing habits.

By the end of the ten days, I was sure I’d never want to do this again, and it made me sad because I was a person who should be passionate about doing such work.

A Relative’s Family Wore PPMs

A member of my family living outside of Boston was asked to participate in PPM radio research. The rewards being offered enticed them to say “yes.”

The members of the family ranged in age from 44 to 6.

I remember looking at this 6-year old playing on his swing-set and thinking, Boston radio 6+ radio ratings depended, in part, on little kids like this. It sent a chill down my spine.

Well, the family grew tired of participating very quickly. In the nutshell, they didn’t feel the inconvenience was worth the small reward paid for wearing the PPM devices.

They said the experience hardened them from ever participating in future radio or TV ratings research, besides now they rarely listen to radio anymore with Spotify being the family choice for streaming. The Spotify App keeps track of each member of the family’s listening habits, serving up just what they want to hear.

Ratings Likelies: Rare & Vital

In late June 2020, NuVoodoo fielded their sixteenth Ratings Prospects Study and they write: “we drilled down to the small segment of radio listeners likely to accept a meter or diary from Nielsen. As has been the case in every past NuVoodoo study, when we model for the subset of respondents who would say ‘yes’ to Nielsen, the opt-in rate even among our already research-inclined sample is staggeringly low – with the percentage of likely ratings respondents who spend an hour or longer with radio each day even rarer still.”

That’s pretty disturbing to hear.

Share of Ear

Then the news breaks that COVID-19 has tipped the consumer listening habits to digital streaming. Now 53% listen to on-demand/digital devices versus 47% who listen to linear/non-digital devices, like AM/FM radio. Edison Research began tracking audio consumption on digital devices in 2014 and now, only six years later, people over the age of 13 spend more time with these devices than traditional OTA radio.  Digital Devices Cross 50%

It’s another case of the inevitable happening anyway, but COVID-19 is causing changes to occur on an accelerated time frame.

Edison Research also found in their latest Infinite Dial research that new music seekers are using YouTube for music discovery versus AM/FM radio, 68% to 46%.

Dan Ariely Explains

Dan Ariely is a psychology and behavioral economics professor at Duke University. I first became aware of Dan’s work with his book Predictably Irrational.

Dan explains that “the interruption of everyday life has been an experiment showing that habits aren’t just desires; they’re behaviors cued by reminders in our environment. When we change the way we interact with our environment, a lot of seemingly ingrained habits fade away. Some of them we are better off without, like thoughtless consumption and spending.”

Since the pandemic more people who used to commute to work, began working from home. The AM/FM radio cue for listening was their vehicle’s dashboard radio, but since they were spending less time in the car and more time at home, the device for audio consumption used in the home now became dominant.

While one hopes that once people begin to commute to work again, if that even happens, the old routines – including listening to the car’s radio – might return.

However, many companies, especially the high tech ones like Google, Amazon, Twitter, and Facebook, are moving to a permanent WFH (Work From Home) model.

Dr. Ed Cohen

One of the most recent high profile layoffs was that of Dr. Ed Cohen from Cumulus as its VP for Ratings and Research.

Radio Ink asked him about the future of AM/FM radio to which he responded:

“It’s a question of whether (the radio industry is) cutting bone and muscle rather than fat. If the radio industry continues to cut, can we put our best foot forward to not only keep current listeners spending as much time with the medium as they have in the past, but can we also convert light listeners to spend more time with radio? Commercial radio is not a charity and faced with the revenue challenges of (COVID-19), layoffs and furloughs are inevitable, but listeners don’t understand that and don’t likely care. They want to be entertained and informed. If they perceive a degradation of what they expect from us in a world of increased competition from other sources (streaming, podcasts, etc.) some will go elsewhere, accelerating a downward spiral. I hate to sound pessimistic about a medium where I’ve spent nearly my entire career (even my Ph.D. dissertation was about radio) and have no claims to be Nostradamus, but that’s the logical conclusion. I hope I’m wrong.”

Sadly, Dr. Cohen, I think you’ve got it right.

11 Comments

Filed under Education, Mentor, Radio, Sales

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

June 28, 2020 · 3:00 am

It Ain’t Over, Till It’s Over

Yogi Berra“It ain’t over, till it’s over,” one of the many phrases made popular by Yogi Berra kept popping into my mind as I sat in on several webinars these past few weeks. COVID19 is not over, so why are people acting like it is? We can expect that we will be living with this virus through all of this year and through most of 2021.

Just because we’re tired of it, doesn’t mean we can let our guard down.

“If the underlying problem is that people are afraid of interacting in close proximity, and they’re afraid to go shopping in certain ways, then the only way to get things back to normal is going to be to solve the public health problem.”

-John Friedman, Brown University economist

Nobody Has the Answers

Whether by reading the broadcast trade publications or watching webinars, it’s become abundantly clear that no one has the answers. Sadly, the radio world seems determined to turn back the clock to the way things were. Whether it be in programming or sales, you simply can’t take the way things were done and put them online. The online world is different and needs to be utilized differently.

The Medium is the Message

In 1964, Marshall McLuhan realized how important the medium carrying a message was to the process of communication. Each medium, be it print, visual, audio, musical etc., will determine how the message is perceived by the person receiving it.

You can’t take a price/item full page newspaper ad and simply print that ad on a billboard.

Every advertising person knows that a billboard message needs to be short, succinct and instantly communicated. For a driver passing by at 65 miles per hour, that means a message of about seven words.

Yet, broadcasters forget the wisdom of McLuhan when they take their over-the-air radio broadcasts and simply stream them on the internet.

The internet is a different medium, and people’s expectations for what they watch, listen to or read on the internet are likewise.

It’s Like Déjá Vu All Over Again

Yogi Berra sure knew how to turn a phrase and expose our follies.

When FM radio was born, the type of radio being done on AM was easily transferred over to this new commercial FM radio band. Why? Because both the AM and FM commercial radio bands came through the same type of receiver, a radio tuner. In other words, they utilized the same medium, the radio set.

But when listening to audio programming over the internet, the listener could be using a computer, a tablet, a smart speaker, a cellphone or any of a multitude of internet connected devices.

Different mediums entirely than AM/FM radio sets and each with different user expectations.

You Can Observe a Lot by Just Watching

Once again, Yogi points the way with his unique turn of a phrase.

As I watched the latest round of weekly webinars, one of the things that became clear was how people were moving to steaming when accessing media in their homes.

ComScore said that WiFi connected homes accounted for 68% of video consumption, with the big five streamers being Netflix, YouTube, Amazon Prime, Hulu and Disney. These five account for 82.5% of the streaming video that’s being consumed.

Likewise, Edison Research’s Larry Rosin points out that radio listening is very much car dependent (mainly due to most cars having an AM/FM radio in the dashboard) and that when people are home, streaming is taking over.

“Radio is mainly an over-the-air product

and not a streaming one.”

-Larry Rosin, Edison Research

Think about that statement for a moment. Edison Research has found that AM/FM radios are vanishing from American homes, with 32% of households no longer owning a single radio set.

So, if people mainly use radio programming only on radio receivers, and those receivers are dwindling in homes, offices and dashboards, the radio industry’s challenge is a daunting one. Listening to audio programming will continue to grow via streaming on non-radio set devices. Radio, as we knew it, is moving in the direction of malls and movie theaters, built for a past generation.

During the stay-at-home months of April and May 2020, audio listening at home rose from a pre-COVID19 49% to 70%. This didn’t mean more OTA radio per se.Share of Ear May 2020

If the way people accessed their audio content was via streaming, they did more of that, and if they still owned a radio set, then they listened to more OTA radio.

If You Don’t Know Where You Are Going, You’ll End Up Someplace Else

And that Yogi Berra saying pretty much sums up the world right now during this pandemic. No one knows where we are going. No one has the answers. This is a period of global disruption.

What history shows us during periods of disruption is, the old ways get destroyed before the new ones get built to take over. However, COVID19 appears to be speeding up the process.

“The future ain’t what it used to be.”

-Yogi Berra

 

 

 

12 Comments

Filed under Education, Mentor, Radio

Tagged as , , , , , , , ,

March 22, 2020 · 3:00 am

Look for the Helpers

 

Look For The Helpers“These are the times that try men’s souls,” wrote Thomas Paine on December 23, 1776. What Paine was writing about in his essay “The Crisis” was about how Americans were being tested in their ability to stand up for their country and their newly won freedom.

Paine went on to say, “The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands by it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman.” “The harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph.”

Courage

I remember when Dan Rather anchored the CBS Evening News, as that network was going through tough times, and he changed his nightly sign-off to one word, “Courage.” That’s what we all need right now, courage.

Dan recently wrote,

“When we emerge from this, we must remember what society needs in order to function more equitably and justly. At the same time, please let us protect the embers of light that makes life livable.

We are left with a lot of time to sit and think. That is the nature of this particular crisis. The news is grim, and will likely get grimmer. But there is still joy and hope. There can be. There must be.”

Some Helpers

Fred Rogers was born the day I was writing today’s blog, March 20, 1928. Mr. Rogers was always quick to share with us what his mother told him in times of trouble, “When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, “Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.”

This week, some helpers appeared, to give those of us in media and advertising some new ideas and encouraging thoughts on how we can help our clients (and ourselves) through the COVID-19 Pandemic.

Gordon Borrell & Borrell Associates

The first helpers of the week were Dave Morgan, CEO of Simulmedia; Matt Coen, president of Second Street Media; Matt Sunshine, Managing Partner at The Center for Sales Strategy; Jim Brown, EVP of Sales for Borrell Associates; Corey Elliott, EVP of Local Market Intelligence for Borrell; and Gordon Borrell, CEO. They presented a free webinar titled, “Crisis Marketing for Local Media.” Here’s a link to the recording: https://wordpress.borrellassociates.com/crisis-marketing/

Not only did Gordon and his associates give actionable ideas for helping local agencies and media companies on how to serve local businesses during this global pandemic, but even the format of the presentation itself was an excellent blueprint of what every media organization should be doing on the local level, right now.

I highly recommend viewing this webinar and using Gordon’s slides in your own presentation for your marketplace.

You’ll learn how to help your clients who are struggling with declining sales and customer distractions. You’ll learn what businesses might actually thrive with the right marketing, and how you can help them establish their local voice as community leaders.

When the recovery begins, you’ll know what those who are suffering will need most from you.

Edison Research

The next helpers were Tom Webster and John Rosso. Tom Webster (Senior Vice President, Edison Research) and John Rosso (President, Market Development of Triton Digital) delivered the latest data in their annual “The Infinite Dial” webinar.

With most people sheltering in their homes, and with one third of American households without a single OTA radio receiver, the presentation provided real insights into why radio stations need to be paying close attention to their streams. In most America homes today, the smart speaker is the radio, and Amazon’s Echo, dominates. You can view the presentation deck here: https://www.edisonresearch.com/the-infinite-dial-2020/

The Research Director

The third helper of the week was Charlie Sislen, partner in The Research Director, Inc. I’ve known Charlie since his days at Eastman Radio in New York City and have always found him a go-to person when you need help.

Charlie presented a short, to the point, webinar on “Advertising in Uncertain Times.” During that webinar he gave a link to a webpage you will want to bookmark on your browser: https://researchdirectorinc.com/hot-topics/

In addition to the material Charlie covered in his webinar, you’ll find constantly updated information, ideas and facts in his “Radio Survival Kit.”

Charlie writes:

“These are uncertain times. Nearly every aspect of our lives are changing due to the spread of COVID-19. Research Director, Inc. strives to help our clients and the radio industry at large, weather this storm by gathering the strongest and most informative data and opinions available.

 

It may be an understatement to say that we are living in unusual times. Every American’s life has been disrupted and there is a real concern for what will happen next.

 

While it may seem minor compared to other events that are pressing right now, this is a time when radio, especially local radio, excels. It is important for everyone to realize that this is not business as usual, and our industry’s ability to adapt is the secret of our long-term success.”

Focus on the Future

It always seems, in times like these, that things will never get back to normal. But they always do.

Be optimistic, you really don’t need to fill your basement up with toilet tissue. The stores will soon be fully stocked once again and offering you coupons to buy it.

We’re in this together.

Let’s “be the helper” and help one another to get through this.

BONUS HELPER

This Monday morning (3/23/2020) I opened my email to find this email from The Wizard Academy. I wanted to share it with you. I hope you will share it with others.

Wizard Academy Update:

Advertising in a time of crises.

We just sat down with Roy and filmed a quick video of some very encouraging wisdom and insight for small business owners and advertisers during this extremely difficult time we are all facing.

This is our small way of giving hope to small businesses that you don’t need to simply give up and fade away, but can actually succeed and grow in this season.

-below is the direct link to the video:
https://youtu.be/kHaM_7l5-Gw

 

2 Comments

Filed under Education, Mentor, Radio, Sales

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,