Tag Archives: Larry Rosin

March 12, 2023 · 3:00 am

No Longer A License To Print Money

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

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

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

That was then, what’s it like now?

Radio Profit Margins 2022

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

Townsquare

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

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

Borrell

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

Edison Research

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

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

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

Comscore

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

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

The Monetization Challenge

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

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

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

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

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

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

the future will not look like the past.

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March 5, 2023 · 3:00 am

What’s Your BHAG?

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

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

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


-John F. Kennedy, President

The Elements of a BHAG

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

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

From what I’m hearing in these webinars,

the radio industry needs a BHAG for digital.

Gordon Borrell

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

Larry Rosin

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

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

Why I Stream ALL My Radio Listening

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

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

Comscore Year-in-Review

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

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

accessing the internet via desktop or mobile.

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

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

The interconnectedness of audiences

is where the wins will be found in measurement.

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

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

But, instead of “interconnectedness”…

Think “EXPERIENCES.”

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

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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

 

 

 

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January 26, 2020 · 3:00 am

The Words You Use Matter

wordsI was reminded of this important statement the other day when I read an article in Radio Ink penned by Larry Rosin, President of Edison Research. Larry’s article was titled “Stop Saying ‘Still’” and you can read it HERE

The point of Larry’s article was when by using the single word, still, in telling radio’s story, we in essence are devaluing the medium.

Weak: Radio is still what people listen to in their cars.

It automatically makes the mind wonder, what else people are listening to in their cars. Or if radio was still important in the car, why do we have to remind anyone of this fact.

Larry did an excellent job of showing how by eliminating the word “still” in that sentence how much more powerful it becomes.

Strong: Radio is what people listen to in their cars.

I Think Versus I Know

When making a sales presentation, one of the phrases I worked to have my students at the university eliminate was “I think this will work.”

When you use the word “think,” the advertiser assumes, that if you don’t know if it will work, s/he’s not going to waste their money trying to find out.

But if you instead say, “I KNOW this will work,” the advertiser will draw confidence from your words that this is something they should be doing.

Transference of Confidence

Sales is the transference of confidence.

If you’re confident in the program you’ve put together for your client, use words that transfer your confidence to your client.

“Think” doesn’t transfer confidence, “know” does.

It’s much the same thing that Larry Rosin talked about in using the word “still” to describe radio’s attributes in the sales process.

Words That Influence

In the world of sales, some words have real “magic.”

“Because” is a magic word. When we were growing up our parents used this word when answering their children’s questions, and as a result we have become conditioned to respond to this word whenever we hear it.

In a sales presentation, adding the words “because this program is very effective” causes the person hearing your presentation to be primed to accept what you’re telling them. This is due to the cause/effect inference.

Add the word “Now” to the sentence can make it even more powerful.

“Because this program is so very effective, you need to be doing this NOW.”

Doesn’t that sound confident? Doesn’t that sound positive? Doesn’t that convey a sense of urgency?

Courtesy Never Goes Out of Style

Two words you can never over use, are “Please” and “Thank You.”

I’m sure your parents told you repeatedly to always ask for things by saying “Please” and whenever anyone did anything for you, to always say “Thank You.” These words still show respect to the people you deal with and you should use them with everyone you meet in the selling process.

Our Favorite Name

Everyone has a favorite name. Their own.

In sales, it’s important to use a person’s name, but not to over use it.

As a general rule of thumb, I suggest using a person’s name in your opening and conclusion and maybe once during the presentation.

Imagine

Now, just imagine yourself making more sales because you are using words that are extremely effective.

Please give it a try with your sales presentations this coming week.

Thank You for reading this article about how the words you use matter.

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May 3, 2015 · 9:28 am

Are We Losing the Next Generations?

Growing up in western New England, the transistor radio would impact my life and career. Radio has been in my blood as long as I can remember, but it would be my Zenith transistor radio that would first allow me to explore new stations, new music, new personalities and new ways of delivering content without the supervision of my parents. My transistor radio and ear piece would make me the master of my own radio dial.

Growing up, it seemed like most radio markets had two radio stations battling for the teenage ear. WPTR and WTRY out of Albany, New York’s capital district would be mine. Each of those radio stations would bring their mobile studios to our county shopping center and broadcast LIVE. It was such a thrill.

Hartford had WDRC and WPOP. Boston had WMEX and WRKO. Philadelphia had WIBG and WFIL. Chicago had WLS and WCFL.

New York City would finally be a battle between WMCA and WABC for the Top40 crown in the Big Apple.

What made traveling around in my folk’s car so exciting was that each of these radio markets and radio stations were special and different. The personalities, the promotions, the station jingles and yes, even some of the music was unique to each station and market. Local and regional bands could be heard hoping to be discovered and go national with their music.

Radio stations all did music research back then and printed weekly surveys charting how the hits were doing from week to week with local listeners.

That was then, this is now. Larry Rosin at Edison Research says that today “virtually no radio stations perform formal research for music among teens nor target teens directly in their marketing strategy.”

I’ve sold “old people radio formats” where the presentation was quick to point out that what advertisers should be focused on is not the age of the audience but the amount of money they control and have as discretionary to spend as they wish.

I’ve also sold “young people radio formats” where we pointed out that kids are the masters of convincing their parents and grandparents to get them anything they wanted, so please don’t focus on how young they are. I mean once my boys were out of the house, I no longer went to Mickey D’s and ordered “Happy Meals.” (That made me very happy!)

Radio has always focused on the “family reunion demo” aka 25-54 adults; though that demo is shifting upwards with the aging baby boomers to 35-64 adults.

When Radio Disney was born and focused on little tykes, it appeared there was now a radio operator ready to pick up the torch for young people listening to radio. But then radio was shocked the day Disney announced it was selling all but one of its owned and operated Radio Disney stations. Radio Disney basically operated on AM radio. AM radio is no longer used for music listening by the public and so was Disney just abandoning AM radio for FM radio? No. Radio Disney had established a strong beach front on two audio delivery mediums; SiriusXM and online listening. (It also benefits from the Disney TV Channel on cable, satellite and streaming via the Net.)

It should also be noted that around the time Radio Disney was coming into existence that the radio ratings company known at that time as Arbitron began to measure listening audiences down to age 6+ with their new PPM device where as the diary previously only measured “adults 12+.” When Nielsen bought Arbitron and rebranded the radio ratings service Nielsen Audio it kept the 6+ listening metric. Nielsen also now is trying to establish a listening service that will measure all audio listening consumption across all platforms. Can you see where this is going?

Radio listening is a habit. My father never acquired it. I was raised on it. My sons were raised on it. But I see my grandchildren are holding iPad-like devices and easily navigate their parents’ iPhones.

You would have thought that with more radio stations on-the-air in America than at any time in history there would be more variety than at any time in our history, but that’s not the case. There’s actually less variety.

After launching two Smooth Jazz formatted radio stations and falling in love with the artists and their music I now can only hear this music streamed online. So like my grandchildren, I’m forming a listening habit that doesn’t require a radio; just my iPad or iPhone.

I believe the future is going to be all about being the best at something, not necessarily garnering the most people. Radio was always about getting the most ears. Everything was based on CPP (cost per point), but in a world of infinite choice, the best will dominate.

Radio can play in this world if programming is turned back over to people who program their passions to others just like themselves.

Steve Jobs made Apple into the world’s most valuable company by focusing on design (in radio, that’s programming) and making products that he and his team wanted to have for themselves (building a radio station that you not only own, but love to listen to yourself).

Radio is either going seize the day or have a seizure.

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