Tag Archives: Fred Jacobs

February 18, 2024 · 3:00 am

Is AM Radio “Hot or “Not”?

Twenty-four years ago, in October 2000, a new relationship website launched called “Hot or Not.” The premise of the site was for people to submit photos of themselves (or others) to have users of the site rate them on a scale of 1 to 10 on their attractiveness.

Within a month of launching, the site reached around two million page views per day.

Mark Zuckerberg’s original idea was to do something similar with a site he created called FashMash, which became TheFacebook.com in 2004 (now just Facebook.com). Likewise, the founders of YouTube said they originally set out to create a video version of “hot or not” before developing a more inclusive site.

HOT or NOT

It was based on this site that Fred Jacobs presented, the things he did and saw at this year’s Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, aka CES 2024, as being “Hot or Not.”

During the webinar, I asked the smarmy question “Is AM Radio HOT?” in the chat box. (No, I didn’t get an answer.)

However, the bigger question really is, “Is RADIO Hot or Not?”

The answer from everything I’m reading is “Not,” at least in the way things are going.

When it came to radio audience ratings, I never concerned myself with individual ratings, but preferred to study audience trends. Here’s the latest trend lines for both broadcast radio and digital streaming:

Not A Viable Business Anymore

In Canada this month, the chief legal and regulatory officer of Bell Media grabbed the headlines worldwide, when he explained the reason Bell was selling off 45 of its radio broadcast properties, was they were “not a viable business anymore.”

“One man’s trash is another man’s radio stations.”

-Fred Jacobs

So, what do you think the buyers of these radio stations must have thought, after the seller tells the world they think the radio stations they just sold are not a viable business?

Surprise, they are very positive about the radio business. Take a moment to listen to this very positive view from the CEO of My Broadcasting Corporation, one of the seven local broadcast companies that purchased radio stations from Bell.  You can here that CBC interview here: https://www.cbc.ca/listen/live-radio/1-100-ottawa-morning/clip/16041778-local-bell-media-radio-stations-owner

The State of Media 2024

Harker Bos Group https://harkerbos.com/ released new research on the state of media today and here are some of the key takeaways.

What are radio listeners looking to hear?

  • 54% highlight the importance of local coverage
  • 67% sound quality
  • 54% station availability
  • 53% ease of use

When the researchers compared broadcast radio to digital streaming of music, they found that usage of broadcast by younger audiences was losing out to streaming services. Those that are frequent users of streaming music tend to access it via smartphones, computers, smart speakers and tablets preferring on-demand music services with personalized playlists and recommendations. Streaming also provides users global access that is not bound by geographical limitations.

Is The Media Prepared For An Extinction-Level Event?

That headline in the New Yorker caught my attention! The author, Claire Malone, cites “ads are scarce, search and social traffic is dying, and readers are burned out, [which means] the future will require fundamentally rethinking the press’s relationship to its audience.”

The way to become a millionaire in radio,

is to start with a billion dollars.

That’s not something new, that witticism has been around since the end of the 20th Century. I was reminded of it when Claire shared the words of a late-career writer’s advice to the newbies: “You want to make it in journalism, marry rich.”

Last year, 2,681 people were laid off in broadcast, print and digital news media.

In February of this year, after the record-setting viewership to the CBS broadcast of Super Bowl 58, that very network announced it would be cutting 800 jobs.

Significant job cuts have taken place at:

  • NBC News
  • Vox Media
  • Vice News
  • Business Insider
  • Spotify
  • theSkimm
  • FiveThirtyEight
  • The Athletic
  • The New Yorker
  • Sports Illustrated

And some other media outlets closed down:

  • BuzzFeed
  • Gawker
  • Pitchfork
  • The Messenger (this endeavor lasted less than a year)

“Publishers, brace yourselves – it’s going to be a wild ride.

I see a potential extinction-level event in the future.”

-Matthew Goldstein, media consultant

I share these stories with you, not to depress you, but for you to better understand what’s going on, and that it’s not just a radio problem, but a media problem.

As Netflix, Amazon Prime Video and others add advertising to formerly ad-free streaming channels, where will those ad dollars come from; radio, TV, cable, newspapers, magazines? The advertising dollar pie is not infinite; to grow your piece of the pie, means eating someone else’s.

“It’s time for a new revolution.”

-Mark Thompson, CNN’s new CEO/Editor-in-Chief

Sadly, many media folks working in the industry today, have only been part of the culture of decline – where cutting expenses has been the only plan to achieve future success.

What’s always been true, is it takes money to make money.

Netflix, for example, invests a billion dollars in research and development – mostly on data scientists, engineers, and designers who help Netflix subscribers discover content that they will love.

How’s that working out for Netflix? Here’s the latest data:

In 2024, media companies will find media users making decisions on which services they really want – and can afford – to continue subscribing to.

For radio operators, who operate a subscription-free service, the challenge will be:

  • to understand what your listening area’s population wants, needs and desires, and
  • to deliver for your underwriters or advertisers the best R.O.I. (Return On Investment)

The best ratings for advertisers

will always be increased cash register rings.

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September 24, 2023 · 3:00 am

Is There a Future For Anyone in an A.I. World?

Last week I asked the question “Is There a Future for Radio Personalities?” That blog was my analysis of the latest research done by Jacob Media Strategies for Don Anthony’s annual Morning Show Boot Camp. I wasn’t surprised by the volume of comments about the blog, however it was sad to find that most people feel the days of making RADIO a career are over.

A.I. (Artificial Intelligence)

The part of Fred Jacob’s research I didn’t include in last week’s blog was the impact that air personalities thought A.I. would make on their future. 76% of the people in the survey agreed with the question: “I’m personally concerned that A.I. technology will lead to many more on-air radio jobs being lost.”

It’s Worse Than You Think

Our universe is estimated to be 26.7 billion years old. Humans on planet earth have only been around 6,000 years, but look at all we’ve accomplished in such a short period of time.

Now, what maybe mankind’s greatest invention might also be responsible for our demise: A.I. or Artificial Intelligence.

This technology has the potential to take away

30% OF ALL JOBS within 10 years.

Think of all the jobs that A.I. can do better (and maybe do even better than you or I).

  • Stock Trader
  • Truck Driver
  • Accountant
  • Telemarketer
  • Lawyer
  • Bookkeeper
  • Actor
  • Writer
  • Musician
  • Painter
  • Radio Personality

It would be easier to make a list of the jobs that cannot be impacted by A.I., than a list of those that will.

To get a better idea of how scary this technology is, listen to either of these links:

The proliferation of these kind of A.I. creations can abundantly be found on YouTube.

Today’s A.I. voice software can listen to a few seconds of anyone’s voice and completely re-create a replica that is almost indistinguishable from the original. I don’t know what is most troubling, that it can be done, that it can be done so quickly or that it’s so easy that anyone can do it.

Call Centers

Call centers are big business around the world, making up 8% of India’s GDP (Gross Domestic Product), 6.3% of Brazil’s GDP and while America outsources the majority of this type of work, the U.S. still employs 3.4 million people who work in call centers.

A.I. has the ability to completely replace everyone

working in call centers around the world.

You don’t have to be a political scientist to predict what would happen if 8% of a country’s GDP is suddenly wiped away. You’ll see more people carrying pitchforks and torches than stormed the castle in “Beauty & The Beast.”

I have radio friends that have used their incredible voices to produce audio books, and earned a good living in the process. A.I. will replace these talented people as well.

Actors & Writers Strike

It’s not just the radio industry that is finding itself in unknown territory.

Actors fear they will lose control of their lucrative likeness and writers fear they will have to share credit with a machine. Watch this situation closely, because writers and actors are the proverbial “canary in the coal mine” for what’s to come for the rest of us in media.

A.I. is at the very heart of the current actors and writers strike, it’s ahead of pay models, benefits and job protections.

Federal A.I. Commission

Senator Chris Murphy is one of the most outspoken members of Congress on artificial intelligence. “When you start to outsource the bulk of human creativity to machines, there comes with that a human rot,” says Senator Murphy. He estimates that humans being replaced for creativity by computers will happen at a staggering scale within the next two to three years, and it scares the hell out of him.

Senator Murphy believes that it is time to create a new regulatory body, like the creation of the FCC (Federal Communications Commission) that came into existence with the advent of broadcast radio.

“There are really deep spiritual questions at hand here. I don’t think policymakers should be shy about talking about that,” Senator Murphy believes.

Putting Things In Perspective

While humans may have inhabited this planet for 6,000 years, look at what has happened in just the last 50 years:

  • The personal computer is 50 years old
  • The iPhone is 16 years old
  • Today’s A.I. is 5 years old

Of all the many calamities the human race faces in the years ahead — a full-scale nuclear war, climate change or artificial intelligence – it’s A.I. that poses the greatest risk. One highly researched economist report on A.I. noted that “there’s more than a 50-50 chance A.I. will wipe out all of humanity by the middle of the century.”

“Open the pod bay doors please Hal.

I’m sorry Dave, I’m afraid I can’t do that.”

-from the movie “2001 – A Space Odyssey”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dSIKBliboIo

Google co-founder, Larry Page, believes that once computers are smarter than humans, they will find no use for us humans, and they will simply get rid of us. He sees this as the next step in the evolutionary process.

If we don’t understand the risks, along with the benefits A.I. brings to us, we might all end up like Dave.

-0-

Note: For a deep dive on this subject, read the article by Nick Bolton from the September 13, 2023 edition of Vanity Fair. It was this article that provided many of the facts and quotes used in this week’s blog: Artificial Intelligence May Be Humanity’s Most Ingenious Invention—And Its Last? Silicon Valley is barreling ahead with AI technology that could unlock novel forms of creativity, art, and medicine, and potentially, wipe out all mankind. As one AI engineer warns, “We’re creating God.”

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September 17, 2023 · 3:00 am

Is There A Future For Air Personalities?

This past week, Fred Jacobs shared the latest research about radio air personalities and how they view the future of this profession. Here’s what struck me about the presentation.

The Radio Talent Pool is Shrinking

Jacobs Media Strategies has been producing this research for Don Anthony’s Morning Show Boot Camp since 2018, and during COVID, no research was done in 2020. So, from the first survey in 2018 to the latest one in 2023, the number of participants shrank 62%; from 1,168 to 442 people.

COVID, with the resulting Work From Home (WFH) operating model,  has greatly impacted radio station cultures and has not returned to anything like pre-pandemic days.

Less People, More Hats to Wear

Not surprising, with fewer people working on the content side of radio, those that remain “wear more hats” than ever; 54% of radio personalities now say they are responsible for more than four different areas.

No Talent Farm

When I began my radio career, it was board operating Sunday morning church programs. That first radio job would give me the opportunity to land a nights/weekend part-time air shift. This was pretty much the norm for baby boomers in broadcasting. In fact, Jacobs research shows that 78% of us started in radio this way.

Today, those entry level radio positions are gone, with only 14% of today’s up and coming air talent having those same opportunities.

Talent Development

One of the concerns expressed by today’s air personalities is believing their radio station and/or their company is not working to discover or develop new air talent. Radio’s biggest companies are blamed most, with medium and small companies being exceptions.

Would You Recommend Radio as a Career?

When today’s air personalities were asked how they would respond to the statement:

“I would absolutely recommend [that] a high school student pursue radio as a career,”

  • More than half, 52%, said they would disagree or strongly disagree.
  • A quarter of the sample was neutral.

Possible reasons for this negative attitude might be:

  • Four in ten air personalities are in debt or struggling
  • Few air personalities expect to make more money this year
  • Three in ten air personalities are now involved in a second business
  • A majority of the air personalities feel they are taken for granted
  • 76% are personally concerned that Artificial Intelligence (A.I.) will lead to many more on-air radio jobs being lost
  • Four in ten of those air personalities currently “on the beach” say they won’t be back

Welcome to Consumer Choice

Gone are the days of the gate keepers of music; those people being the radio program directors, record store owners and record companies. Consumers are now in charge and define the characteristics of the media world we live in.

Any solution to the problems we confront must understand our audience’s needs, wants and desires, and put those first.

“People don’t by what you do, they buy why you do it.”

-Simon Sinek

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July 23, 2023 · 3:00 am

For Whom Does The Bell Toll?

When I heard the news that All Access would be closing its doors after twenty-eight years in business, it came as a shock to my soul, and sent a chill down my spine that foretold of a media crisis much bigger than this publication’s demise.

It reminded me of the famous poem by John Donne, For Whom the Bell Tolls:

No man is an island,
Entire of itself.
Each is a piece of the continent,
A part of the main.
If a clod be washed away by the sea,
Europe is the less.
As well as if a promontory were.
As well as if a manor of thine own
Or of thine friend’s were.
Each man’s death diminishes me,
For I am involved in mankind.
Therefore, send not to know
For whom the bell tolls,
It tolls for thee.

The Bell Tolls For Thee

The news of the coming death of All Access made each of us consider our own mortality. Fred Jacobs wrote in his blog on Monday:

“Funerals are a mandatory attendance experience where we mourn the departed, while also considering our own mortality.  We think about the deceased and try to rationalize that he/she was older than us, in worse health, had questionable lifestyle habits, or had some undesirable traits and flaws.  And we rationalize that their sorrowful outcome will surely not be ours.

But in fact, it is hard to disassociate All Access’ fate from our own.  This isn’t just about what befell Joel and his staff – it is a referendum on radio and all of us who work in it.”

The Medium Is The Message

In his seminal 1964 book, “Understanding Media, The Extensions of Man” Canadian communications theorist Marshall McLuhan’s first chapter was titled “The medium is the message;” by which McLuhan felt “that the form of a medium embeds itself in the message, creating a symbiotic relationship by which the medium influences how the message is perceived.” (University of Michigan – Digital Rhetoric Collaborative)

But did McLuhan foresee the state of media today?

The Medium Is A Mess

Bob Iger was reinstated as CEO of The Walt Disney Company in November 2022. Iger, who had been Disney’s CEO from 2005 to 2020, had retired at the age of 69. His replacement, Bob Chapek, created two years of tumult at the mouse house, and was fired.

It was in 2006, that Iger sold Disney’s 22 ABC branded radio stations and the ABC radio network to Citadel Broadcasts Corporation in a cash and stock deal valued at $2.7 billion.

Last week, CNBC reported that Bob Iger had “opened the door to selling the company’s linear TV assets as the business struggles during the media industry’s transition to streaming and digital offerings.”

On June 30th, Audacy, the radio company formerly known as Entercom, did a 1-for-30 reverse stock split to try and prevent being expelled from the NY Stock Exchange. Stock watchers called it a “stock market Hail Mary attempt to stave off financial ruin.” (elitesportsny.com)

Adding to these two company’s woes, the media industry is also dealing with both a writers strike and an actors strike, global climate change, the ongoing war in Ukraine, out-of-control wildfires that have burned over 26 million acres of Canada, polluting the world with no end in sight, and the mess we call our democracy; it’s hard not to wonder what our future holds for anyone, anywhere.

Is This Television’s Radio Moment?

That’s what the analysts are wondering at MoffettNathanson, because radio’s lackluster revenue recovery has forced that broadcasting industry to cut into its bone and consider if using artificial intelligence (A.I.) could be their savoir to keeping investors at bay.

Goodbye All Access

To Joel Denver, Perry Michael Simon and the rest of the dedicated All Access team we say “Thank You, for 28 incredible years of chronicling the business of radio, records, and the people who made it happen.”

Your work has always been at the cutting edge, maybe that’s why your publication’s death feels like a harbinger for us all…

For whom the bell tolls,

It tolls for thee.

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January 29, 2023 · 3:00 am

Listeners Don’t Care

If you think listeners hang on our every word – surprise – the reality is quite different.

Listening is a Habit

Radio listening, like many things in our lives, is on auto-pilot. When someone makes listening to your radio station part of their daily habit, you’ve struck gold.

However, two years of a global pandemic changed everyone’s routines and replaced them with new ones.

People who study people’s habits, usually say that it takes at least three weeks for a person to form a new routine and COVID forced changes on all of us that lasted for two years.

Award Winning

Go ahead and pound your chest that your radio station has won awards for its news coverage, its public service and its ability to break new hit songs, but appreciate that listeners don’t care. What is important to them is having your radio station deliver what they’re looking for, when they’re looking for it, and on the media platform they want it delivered on.

The Best Ads

It’s interesting that the ads listeners remember most are usually for products or services that have been around for decades and used the power of repetition to burn their ear worm into your brain.

Let me give you some examples of what I mean:

  • I don’t want to grow up, I’m a Toys R Us kid.
  • The best part of waking up, is Folgers in your cup. (Oddly, the brand actually sold the rights to this 38-year old jingle for $90,000.00.)
  • Plop, plop…Fizz, fizz…Oh, what a relief it is. This Alka-Seltzer ear worm was penned in 1976 and was so popular that Sammy Davis, Jr. actually recorded a version.
  • I’d like to teach the world to sing in perfect harmony, and I’d like to buy the world a Coke and keep it company, it’s the real thing.
    • I actually still play on my radio show, “I’d Like to Teach the World to Sing,” a song by Hillside Singers and it still makes me crave having a Coke, even though the hit record version never mentions Coca-Cola.

I could go on, but I think you get the idea.

Your Brand Messaging

You will never be all things to all people.

If your radio station uses multiple positioning statements, I’m willing to bet that your listeners, at best, can remember only one.

Back when I started in the broadcast business, radio stations spent a lot of money promoting their air personalities; they were the draw then, and they are the draw still, maybe even more so as Fred Jacobs TechSurvey 2022 so vividly points out.

Your personalities are your brand, and unique to your radio station; coach them, grow them and promote them.

If you don’t understand the listener’s needs, from the listener’s point of view, then you’re just spinning your wheels.

Your goal is to be the radio station a listener thinks of first,

and makes a daily habit.

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June 19, 2022 · 3:00 am

What Comes First? Radio Job or College Degree?

The reason I write my blog is to stimulate discussion about what radio needs to be doing to not just survive, but thrive in the 21st Century. If things weren’t hot enough after I published last week’s blog article, “No College Degree Required,” they got even hotter after Fred Jacobs expanded on my thoughts in his Monday blog article titled: “Want To Succeed In Radio? Get That Degree.” Let’s hope all the discussion that occurred on both of our blogs and on social media leads our industry’s leaders to make some meaningful changes.

How I Got Into Professional Radio

Just about everyone my age (69) who got into the radio business, did so while still in high school. For me, the entrance door was via Junior Achievement. JA was just beginning to experiment with the idea of having service companies. The Junior Achievement program was created to help high school students understand the principles of running a business by selling stock ($1), forming a company, deciding on what product to make, making that product, selling that product and then liquidating the company and returning (hopefully) a monetary value greater than the $1 invested by the stockholders; all during a single school year.

One of the local radio stations in my town, came to my 10th grade high school assembly and made a presentation about forming a JA Radio Company. I set my sights on being in it, and made the cut. One of my best friends also made the cut and has retired from a very successful radio and voice-over career of 50 years.

My College Years

I was the GM of my college’s carrier current AM radio station and worked to secure an educational FM license before graduating. WJJW remains on the air to this day at the Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts.

I was a commuter student with no student loans, but back in 1970, such a thing was more the norm than the exception. According to the National Center for Education Statistics, during the 1970-71 academic year, the average in-state tuition and fees for one year at a public non-profit university was $394. By the 2020-21 academic year, that amount jumped to $10,560, an increase of 2,580%.

How Other Industries Treat College & Their Best Employees

In other industries, it’s not uncommon for companies to actually pay for their best employees to earn their college degrees in order to further their advancement. I know a person that learned his computer skills in the military and works for a military contractor in DC. He’s been working with the highest level of military leaders at the Pentagon as well as with members of Congress. After 17 years of constant achievement, his company is paying for him to complete his college degree. He currently maintains a 4.0 GPA.

His degree, ironically, won’t even be in the area that he works in, but in an area that gives him passion outside of his job.

Just-In-Time-Learning

The point of my article wasn’t to dis getting a college education, but for our radio industry to begin recruitment and training at the high school level. Radio needs to be a way for talented individuals to be exposed to what a wonderful business radio is, and have a way to enter without being screened out by a computer algorithm looking for a college degree. (You can’t see talent on a spreadsheet.)

Clear Channel used to run a wonderful training program called Clear Channel University. It succumbed to one of the many rounds of budget cuts.

The RAB’s Radio Talent Institute is an excellent program and my point was it should be run in the high schools across America.

Companies interested in retaining and growing their best employees should be making higher education opportunities a company benefit, what I like to call “just-in-time-learning.”

When the NAB offered a Sales Management Program through the Wharton School, I paid my own way and went. I already had an undergraduate degree from a four year college and a master’s degree from a university, but I never had the specific training that this program offered for the job I had been promoted into.

The owner of the radio stations I worked for at the time, provided a lot of training for its people. We attended the annual Managing Sales Conference hosted by the RAB. I earned my CRMC, Diamond CRMC and CDMC from the Radio Advertising Bureau.

I always told my college students that their degree wasn’t the end of their learning, but the launchpad to a life of learning. Every year of your life, learn something new, experience something new, grow your knowledge in life.

Think about what you can add to your resume that will make you a more valuable person to your company, your family and yourself.

Not Every Job Is For Every Person, Regardless of Their College Degrees

A comment made by Tom Langmyer said it best; that at the core, it all comes down to the person. Having a PhD doesn’t equal a great air personality or salesperson.

The hardest part is expecting the same result when sending 10 people to university for Broadcasting/Media. So much is about the person.

Success on the content and sales side relies so much more upon the candidate’s personality, makeup, drive, ambition, chemistry, life experiences, ability to engage and activate people, etc.

Those are attributes which additional education can enhance, but if one does’t have those natural abilities, anything including a PhD in broadcast media, is worthless.

-Tom Langmyer

My success as a GM in hiring was to first hire for attitude and then train the person for the job that needs to be done.

When the raw talent at affordable prices is sitting in high school classrooms today, why is the radio industry waiting till college to begin recruiting?

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May 15, 2022 · 3:00 am

Radio’s Leaking Listeners

The results of Techsurvey 2022* was presented in a webinar this week and two things about the latest data and the trend lines of the last five years struck me.

“We have met the enemy and it is us.”

-Pogo

Walt Kelly coined that phrase in a poster he made for an anti-pollution poster for the first Earth Day in 1970. He would later repeat it in a comic strip he created for the second Earth Day in 1971.

Sadly, the similarities between what needs to be done to preserve our planet and the radio industry are striking. We all know what the answer is, but aren’t applying the solution.

Personalities

Jacobs pointed out that “over the past four surveys, broadcast radio personalities have stayed ahead of the music as a key attribute of the medium.”

Yet, the big radio owners have done more to eliminate the very advantage broadcast radio has over its many audio competitors. Worse, our industry has no plan to create a farm team of new broadcasters that will replace personalities that are retiring or have retired.

Instead radio has tried to compete in areas where, at best, it’s a distant second; like music discovery.

Besides Personalities Radio’s Positives are Under Attack

Radio, we are told is easiest to listen to in the car. Unfortunately, when a person buys a new car, they learn SiriusXM is just as easy to access. Plus now everything on their smartphone easily connects to their dashboard. In fact, Fred Jacobs points out that in Techsurvey 2022 the feature most wanted in a new car is Bluetooth (76%) followed by an FM radio (70%) and having a smartphone connector or auxiliary input (57%).

My first blog article of 2022 told how even with older cars, like our 2009 Honda and 2006 Subaru how easy it was to make them connected cars. You can read that article here. https://dicktaylorblog.com/2022/01/09/why-i-stream-all-my-radio-listening/

It doesn’t take a Mensa to realize that this is another hole in the radio listening bucket.

Radio is “free,” with the tradeoff being forced to listened to very long commercial breaks, which radio listeners say is the thing they most dislike about listening to broadcast radio.

Radio’s covenant with its listeners was, you give us your attention to our advertisers, and we will entertain and inform you. Sadly, radio owners kept adding more commercials to each hour while eliminating the very programming elements that attracted listeners.

There’s nothing wrong with advertising, that is when it is in balance with programming content sought by the user. Podcasts understand this and enjoy increasing listening with advertisers seeing a positive benefit from sponsoring them.

Trends

No one called Paul Revere’s warning that the British were coming as being negative, and neither should anyone who cares about the radio broadcasting industry call those who are trying to promote positive change, “negative.”

Techsurvey 2022 should be a wake-up call to radio people with trends that show eight in ten people that can now connect a smartphone in their cars. Those who own a car with a “connected system” now spend the majority of the in-car time with digital audio or SiriusXM.

The car is the last beachhead that broadcast radio has left, and it is under Sirius attack.

SiriusXM

Techsurvey 2022, like all the surveys that have been done before, use as their database, fans of radio broadcasting. They are the core of our industry and so when we see these folks leaving us for other forms of media, it’s like seeing the canary in the coal mine lying on the floor of its cage.

One of the reasons given by people who still listen to broadcast radio, as to why they continue to listen is, it’s become a habit. When a person buys a new connected car and gets SiriusXM to listen to for free, what is happening is that a new habit is being formed. Not only do they now have access to a myriad of content options, but often their favorite radio personality might be rediscovered hosting one of the music channels.

During the pandemic, SiriusXM removed the paywall for their App as well as listening on a smart speaker, both of which had been available for an extra charge. What Fred Jacobs showed on his webinar was how this positively impacted listening at home, at work and other places for the satellite provider. The habit of listening to SiriusXM was now something that could be done everywhere, and that should keep any radio broadcaster awake at night.

The tipping point is that magic moment

when an idea, trend, or social behavior

crosses a threshold, tips, and spreads like wildfire.

-Malcolm Gladwell

I fear we are at the tipping point.

*Watch the full presentation of Fred Jacobs webinar on Techsurvey 2022 here: https://jacobsmedia.com/techsurvey-2022-results/  

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April 24, 2022 · 3:00 am

P E R S O N A L I T Y

In 1959*, Lloyd Price released the song “Personality.”

It was about a girl and what made her special.

Here’s a sample:

            ‘Cause you got personality

            Walk, with personality

            Talk, with personality

            Smile, with personality

            Charm, with personality

            Love, with personality

With the exception of a daypart or two, it’s what most radio lacks today – PERSONALITY.

Rewound Radio

Every Saturday, Rewound Radio, a streaming-only radio station features its “DJ Hall of Fame.” They are air checks of some of America’s best radio personalities, like Dan Ingram, Ron Lundy, Robert W. Morgan, Charlie Tuna, The Real Don Steele and so many more. While everyone of the personalities I just mentioned are now in radio heaven, their recorded radio shows sound as vibrant and exciting as ever. That’s why people from all over the globe dial in to hear them, and not just radio people, radio listeners who grew up with them.

People like me.

Techsurvey 2022

So, it wasn’t really a surprise when Fred Jacobs gave us a sneak preview of his latest research on why people listen to over-the-air (OTA) radio.

People today listen to OTA radio for the very same reason that they always have, to hear their favorite radio personality. The unfortunate thing is, the radio industry talks the talk, but doesn’t really walk the talk.

Radio’s ultimate strength as a medium is dependent

on the power and popularity of its personalities.

-Fred Jacobs

Club DJs

When I walk the boardwalks in New Jersey, Delaware or Maryland in the summertime, you can’t help but be very aware of how important it is for each club to have a popular DJ. Club DJs get people dancing, having fun and spending their money in that particular club for hours.

The longer club patrons stay, the more money club owners make.

The reality is the role of a Club DJ could be easily automated and the music would be non-stop, but it is the special magic a live personality delivers that makes all the difference. Great performers make people feel things. They deliver an emotional experience that can’t be duplicated by automation.

“People are always neglecting something they can do

in trying to do something they can’t do.”

-Edgar Watson Howe

Living in a VUCA World

The world today is volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous; it’s a VUCA existence. Many businesses are told they must innovate or die.

In radio’s race to stay relevant, it tries to compete with streaming audio services, where at best it can only be second best when it plays on their terms. What OTA radio should be heavily investing in is the development and promotion of outstanding, compelling, relatable radio talent.

“Treat talent with respect.

They are the reason radio remains so important.”

-Lori Lewis

Family Feud

Sue & I love watching Family Feud with Steve Harvey. This TV game show debuted on ABC on July 12, 1976 with host Richard Dawson. It would be broadcast for nine years before the network pulled the plug,  but would continue to air periodically over the following decades. The show has had six hosts, but only its original host and the current host have seen the show be an audience hit.

In fact, it was when Steve Harvey took over as host in 2010, that Family Feud was finally resuscitated. His hosting abilities with his stand-up comedy and radio background has the audience always wondering what he will say next and almost always producing laugh-out-loud moments on the game show. It also doesn’t hurt that Steve Harvey is as nice as he seems. Being genuine is always an asset in the media world.

I said there were six hosts of this show over the years, Richard Dawson was the first and Steve Harvey is the current host, but you probably can’t name the other four without looking it up on Google. And that’s my point.

Personalities are the difference maker.

Radio leaders talk a good game when it comes to telling us how important local talent is to the power of great radio, but it’s time they put their investment monies where their mouths are, by hiring and training the next generation of radio performers.

It’s time for the radio industry to focus on a change that matters.

Family Feud Hosts: Richard Dawson, Ray Combs, Louie Anderson, Richard Karn, John O’Hurley and Steve Harvey.
*Note: an earlier version of this post stated the date of Lloyd Price’s hit record “Personality” as 1957. It was updated to 1959 after a reader pointed out this error.

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April 3, 2022 · 3:00 am

Subscription Media

The inspiration for this week’s article came from a blog written by Fred Jacobs titled “When will ‘Netflixification’ Come To Radio?” Fred’s article revolved around Netflix’s innovation of a subscription model for its entertainment offerings, which got me to thinking about when the subscription business model for media began.

The Subscription Model

We would have to journey back to the 17th century to find the earliest records of book and periodical publishers pioneering a subscription business model for print media.

The subscription business model is one where the customer

pays a recurring price

at regular intervals to access a product of service.

Most recently, Apple is said to be working on a subscription model for its hardware; iPhones, iPads, computers etc. Why? Well customers are good, but it turns out that subscribers are even better. Emarsys’s Chris Gooderidge writes that over the last nine years, “the subscription economy has grown nearly 6x (more than 435%),” with subscription businesses growing five to eight times faster than those with a traditional business model. The two years the world closed down due to COVID only served to accelerate companies’ and consumers’ digital transformation.

On Demand & Subscriptions

What most of us want, as consumers, is convenience. We want what we want, when we want it. The subscription business model fulfills this desire. It enables us to listen to music or play games, as well as watch TV shows and movies.  

The more customers gain a taste

of truly personalized repeat services,

tailored specifically to them…

they won’t want to go back to what they had before.

-Chris Gooderidge

Subscription Radio

In 1923, in Dundee, Michigan, an early radio entrepreneur offered subscribers a wired radio system, that would provide radio programs from several radio stations for $1.50 a month; which would be $24.75/month in 2022. While it didn’t succeed, it was the precursor to what later would become the cable television industry.

Subscription Television (STV)

Back in the 60s, over-the-air television experimented with a subscription model. Companies in Connecticut and California each found themselves in court with theater owners when they developed a subscription business model that offered recent movies to be viewed in the home. The battle in Hartford, Connecticut made it all the way to the Supreme Court.

In the end, the pay television model was taken over by cable television, which learned in addition to providing a community antenna to receive distant broadcast television signals, could also create original programming. These new program channels could be offered on a subscription basis, like CNN, ESPN, The Weather Channel etc.

Is a Subscription-Based Business Model Right for You?

Like most questions along these lines, the answer is: it depends.

The subscription model is dependent on products and services that have a high perceived value to the consumer. (Note: things offered for “FREE” often don’t have a high perceived value)

On the blog, Billing Platform, they list four common successful subscription based business models:

  1. Consumables and Retail Models in Subscription Billing: companies like Dollar Shave Club and Blue Apron
  2. As-a-Service Subscription Billing Models: companies like Microsoft with their Office 365 and Dropbox
  3. Digital Entertainment Subscription Billing Models: companies like Netflix, Disney+, Apple TV+, Amazon Prime, Hulu, Peacock etc for video and Spotify, Pandora, Radio Tunes etc for audio
  4.  Maintenance and Repair Subscription Billing Models: companies like landscaping, pest control, heating & cooling, as well as other common maintenance needs

Peak Subscription

Which brings us to the million dollar question, when do we max out on all of these monthly/annual subscriptions? When do we reach, “peak subscription;” that light-bulb moment when we realize we need to start eliminating some of these expenses.

It was that very question that finally got me to sit down and review our monthly household subscriptions and total things up. It’s something I’ve been meaning to do anyway, but Fred’s blog was the spark that put me in action.

Here’s our entertainment subscription list:

  • Amazon Prime
  • Frndly TV
  • Netflix
  • Disney+
  • Apple TV+
  • Washington Post
  • Time Magazine
  • The Atlantic
  • Consumer Reports
  • Radio Tunes
  • Pandora Premium
  • Sling TV

Now, to make most of these digital entertainment subscriptions work, we need to subscribe to an internet service and since we use many of these services on our iPhones, we also need to add in our monthly call/text/data plan too.

Our monthly cost is $228 or $2,736 annually.

Fred reveals that in the upcoming Techsurvey 2022, two-thirds of the people in his survey now agree with the statement, “I am concerned about the growing number of subscription fees I’m paying for media content.”

I urge you to sit down with your bills and do an audit of your household’s entertainments subscription expenses. If you are like us, you didn’t subscribe to all of them at the same time, but added them one-by-one over a period of years.

Sophie’s Choice

The problem for all of us, comes to making a “Sophie’s Choice” of our media subscriptions. We love them all and trying to decide which ones to eliminate is NOT an easy decision.

What one learns when they are faced with this decision is that we are “happily hooked” on all of them.

Commercial radio and TV operators also need to realize as the subscription economy for entertainment continues to grow, the number of hours in a person’s day is finite, and our time with subscription media means little is left over for OTA radio/TV.

People will spend their time, on those media services

they spend their money with.

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March 13, 2022 · 3:00 am

The Car Radio is 100

Commercial radio was born in November of 1920. The first OEM (Original Equipment Manufacturer) car radio came along in 1922 designed by the Chevrolet Motor Company and manufactured by Westinghouse. This first car radio was heavy, cumbersome and expensive; costing $200. In today’s dollars this would be the equivalent of $3,347.00. A 1922 Chevrolet, Superior 5-Touring automobile was priced at only $860, so you can see how expensive it was to buy one with a radio installed.

The good news is the radio worked and would then birth 100-years of innovation in the automobile dashboard.

The 1920s Car Radio Sales Pitch

With a radio in your car, your family could drive anywhere within a hundred miles of a radio station while being entertained, informed and educated.

It’s hard for any Baby Boomer to imagine not having audio entertainment as standard equipment in their dashboard.

1930s

It was radio engineer Paul Galvin that would pioneer more affordable car radios which he manufactured and sold through his new company, called Motorola.

1940s

Midway through the 40s, it is estimated that nine million cars now had radios in their dashboard and people were becoming concerned that they were leading to distracted driving thereby causing more auto accidents. Both broadcasters and radio manufacturers made the case for how having a car radio was useful in emergencies and alerted drivers to bad weather conditions.

Today when the topic of distracted driving comes up, it’s usually about handheld cellphones being used by drivers. But back then, Radio-Craft Magazine told of the battle being waged between state legislatures and radio manufacturers: “Ever since auto-radio installations became popular, a controversy has been going on…as to whether auto radio presented an accident hazard or not.”

The president of the Radio Manufacturers Association made the case that car radios were safe saying:

“Radio is not distracting because it demands no attention from the driver and requires no answer, as does conversation between the driver and passengers. Motor car radio is tuned by ear without the driver taking his eyes off the road. It is less disconcerting than the rear view mirror.”

Several states proposed steep fines for drivers, while others considered making installing a car radio a crime.

The Princeton Radio Research Project was created to study the effects car radios were having on automobile safety. In a paper published by Edward A. Suchman for that project, he reported that his small study found no link between car radios and traffic accidents.

1960s

In 1963, Frequency Modulation (FM) radios were introduced into the automobile for the first time. Radio penetration in cars had now reached 60%.

Along with FM radios, the 60s also gave birth to both eight-track tapes and car stereos, primarily due to the use of transistors, instead of vacuum tubes. Solid state transistors were smaller, drew less power and emitted very little heat.

1970s

If the 60s belonged to the 8-track tape player, the 70s would belong to the stereo cassette tape player. Recording tape manufacturer Maxell promoted these cassettes as nearly indestructible.

1980s

While the Compact Disc (CD) would be introduced in the 80s, it didn’t really become ubiquitous until the late 90s, coexisting with compact cassette players in automobile dashboards for two more decades.

21st Century

Probably the biggest disruption to the automobile dashboard came with the advent of Bluetooth allowing smartphones to interface with a vehicle’s entertainment system.

In 2011, automobile manufacturers stopped offering cassette tape players in their new cars, soon followed by the elimination of CD players/changers.

Today’s new cars come equipped with access to Satellite Radio, and an automatic interface with your smartphone allowing you the ability to stream anything you want to hear into your car’s entertainment system.

In fact, my first article for this blog in 2022 was “Why I Stream ALL My Radio Listening,” which diagrammed how my car radio audio systems are now programmed by my iPhone.

“Radio is not going to be Numero Uno in the dash any longer.”

-Fred Jacobs

AM/FM radio will most likely coexist with other forms of audio access for a period of time, but the writing is on the wall.

The definitive answer to how long over-the-air radio will continue to be used in the automobile really depends on broadcasters and whether or not they offer compelling and attention-getting content that audio consumers demand to hear.

AutoStage

Xperi’s newest in-dash experience is AutoStage. It was demonstrated at CES2022 and it should be noted that this system comes with the following pre-sets: SiriusXM, FM, AM and TuneIn Radio.

I use the TuneIn Radio App for most of my radio listening, but why was it chosen by Mercedes Benz? Turns out the answer is, “TuneIn’s radio stations can be accessed worldwide in 197 countries on more than 200 different platforms and devices.” TuneIn says it “provides the displaced radio listener a connection to home with local, national, and international stations anywhere they go and on any device.”

In other words, why would any audio consumer need DAB (Digital Audio Broadcasting), DAB+, Digital Radio Mondiale, HD Radio, AM or FM when they can receive any radio station in crystal clear audio via streaming?

With the exception of the proprietary content offered by SiriusXM, everything else is available via streaming at no charge.

Waxing Nostalgic

Car radio has come a long way from the day William Lear and Elmer Wavering drove their girlfriends to lookout point high above the Mississippi River town of Quincy, Illinois to watch the sunset and their dates told them how much better this romantic evening would have been had they been able to listen to music in the car.

Lear and Wavering shared their girlfriends’ comments with Paul Galvin who would go on to make Motorola car transistor radios, and then AM/FM radio would dominate the dashboard for the rest of the 20th Century.

So, now moving further into the 21st Century, radio broadcasters really need to follow the advice of Steve Jobs in order to survive and thrive, and that is to:

Think Different

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