HOW TUCSON STATION CELEBRATED A LIFE

IN AFTERMATH OF SHOOTING, A TASTEFUL – LOCAL – PROGRAM ELEMENT

It’s a quandary for programmers and radio station managers in every size market: How do you respond to a calamity and maintain format integrity? Do you? On the day of one of the saddest events following the assassination attempt on Representative Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ), a Tucson music station made a difference with a well-thought-out commemoration. It’s a terrific example for stations anywhere.

Six people were killed in the shootings at Gifford’s meet-and-greet event Saturday in a suburban Tucson parking lot. Many more were wounded. One of the fatalities was nine-year-old Christina Taylor Green, born on 9/11/2001, gunned down in a flurry of shots by a madman. Yesterday, hers was the first of the victims’ funerals. I happened to be in Tucson yesterday and was interested in how local radio would mark the event. Would they cover the funeral service? No. Would they break format for other coverage? Not most of them. When the one o’clock start time for the funeral arrived, I heard one tasteful on-air commemoration and it deserves to be noted.

KMXZ-FM IDs itself as “Soft Rock 94-9 Mix FM”. Shortly before one o’clock, its midday jock conversationally promoted “something to mark the occasion” for one o’clock. Needless to say, I stayed tuned.

ANATOMY OF A TASTEFUL LOCAL PROGRAM ELEMENT

At one, just as Christina’s funeral was beginning, Mix 94-9 went into a nicely-produced piece. Here’s how it was built:

·         An extended soundbite of President Obama’s remarks at the University of Arizona Wednesday evening, specifically remarking on Christina’s life

·         Under those remarks, the almost-obligatory “Amazing Grace” played by a bagpipe band

·         As the remarks ended with Obama saying the throat-clutching line “If there are rain puddles in heaven, Christina is splashing in one now”, the music dissolved into the late Hawaiian singer Israel Kamakawiwo’ole – his professional name was Iz – singing Somewhere Over the Rainbow. If you’ve ever heard Iz, you can imagine how this sounded: perfect. If you haven’t, you owe yourself the pleasure

The effect of this production, which couldn’t have lasted longer than six or seven minutes, was remarkable radio. It probably didn’t take long to put together. The elements were easily-acquired. But how many stations bothered to do it?

Hardly any.

So, kudos to the KMXZ gang in Tucson for caring and making the effort. This mini-production, coming at the exact start time as the funeral for the youngest victim of a senseless slaughter, was meaningful and professional. When it ended, they played some spots and went back to format.

Nice.

It’s worth a few moments to think about how your stations would respond to a disaster like the shootings in Tucson. Not only how you would cover the news itself but how – or if – you would handle the follow-up events. You don’t want to deal with this kind of event on the fly.

At least one station in Tucson yesterday made it work and did it right.

RIGHT AND WRONG WAYS TO FIRE TALENT

YET ANOTHER RECENT EXAMPLE SHOWS MANAGERS HOW NOT TO FIRE AIR PERSONALITIES

Firing air personalities is part of any radio station manager’s job. Most don’t like it. Some, however, take the view that out-of-sight is out-of-mind when hustling fired talent out the door. This can backfire in a big way as recent events prove.

Reasons for firing air talent usually boil down to four favorites:

• Quality and performance issues
• Poor ratings
• Budget problems
• Personal issues

Deciding to fire an announcer is your business. When you do it the way many recent managers have snipped their talent off the payroll, however, it becomes a more universal concern because it can make our industry look foolish. And it can be disastrous to a station’s image.

A SHOW ENDS, A QUICK MEETING AND...GONE

Consider: An announcere who had been on the same station for fifty years is fired. He is walked out of the station by the program director and station owner after his show. And he disappears from their air. But a lot more happened that made the station look like a chump. The upshot in a moment.

Commonly, management fires an announcer with no warning, usually right after he or she gets off the air. Then it’s out the door and gone, a tactic more fit for police states than radio stations. It’s done this way, of course, out of fear that announcers might say something, might be nasty about the management, station, advertisers, whatever. The best way to avoid that, weak managers believe, is to simply make them disappear.

When this happens, I wonder whether the radio station manager ever bothered to form a relationship with the talent involved.

Obviously, if there’s a history of testy relationships, contract squabbles or the talent is just plain crazy there’s a reason for caution. In this case, a quick excision is probably the best way to go.

Usually, though, making a fired air personality disappear is simply the easy way to go. The manager can congratulate himself on what a tough businessperson he is or tell herself “Well, it had to be and I took care of it and that’s that.” Really? Are you aware that you have at least a few listeners who may not share your opinion? What about them? And what about the image of your station in the community?

Radio station managers who have formed decent relationships with talent who've been on their air for more than a few months have made an investment in that personality, one of time, resources and community image. If you can’t afford that talent anymore or he won’t fit in with a format change or you just want to “go in a new direction” (a phrase that should be eliminated from the English language), you need to show enough class and professionalism to do it right.

HOW A DEPARTURE CAN MAKE EVERYONE FEEL OKAY

Assuming no hard feelings between you and the soon-to-be-departed personality it isn’t hard to do a departure right. You just have to want to. Here's what you need:

First: a frank talk with the talent about when and why the move is taking place. No debating. Just facts. And in a businesslike atmosphere.

Second: a witness and a written agreement so there are absolutely no misunderstandings.

Third: a formal departure plan. This is where you say, “You can do a last show, say goodbye, reminisce a little if you like. But no disparaging remarks about the station, sponsors, fellow employees or me. If you play nice, here’s a severance package. If you don’t, you lose it. Okay? Cool. Sign here.” One page, one paragraph, nice and clean.

Then everyone knows what’s going to happen, rewards and consequences are dealt with and the personality’s final day can go quite smoothly.

OR THIS CAN HAPPEN

I don’t know the people or backstory involved at the station that bounced the fifty-years-on-the-air announcer out the door – but I do know what happened next:

• A competitor gave him a morning in which to do a final show on their station
• Another competitor held a day-long celebration event for him
• He’s so popular in the community that there’s talk of running him for office
• All of these were well covered by local newspaper and TV

How you fire on-air talent really comes down to how you view them in the first place. If you’re the type who doesn’t want your air personalities to get “too big” or looks at them as budget-challenging ego problems, you’re always going to have trouble. If you look at them as talented, valuable employees who represent your station to the public then you’ll be creative – and humane – if you have to replace them.

But don’t break your arm parting yourself on the back if you simply hustle fired talent out the door. As noted above, that can bite you back hard and fast.

GIFFORDS SHOOTING: WAKEUP CALL FOR RADIO NEWS

WHY RADIO NEWS, NOT POLITICS, NEEDS A HOUSE CLEANING

Today, due to the assassination attempt on Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords in Tucson over the weekend, I’m preempting the usual Monday Sales Blast to provide updated coverage on the state of radio news. We’ll sell stuff again next Monday.

I live and work in Arizona. Like most residents, I’m shocked and saddened by the assassination attempt Saturday against Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords and the mass shooting that ensued, leaving six dead. I’m a broadcast journalist, too, which means I’m also appalled by the sloppiness that characterized some of the coverage of the shooting. And of the scarcity of coverage of ANY kind on radio.

She’s Dead. No, Wait – She’s Alive

Several major national media outlets reported within hours of the Tucson shooting that Giffords was dead. A couple of others didn’t even get her name right. On them, she was “Gifford” (like Cathy Lee), not Giffords, like the Congresswoman who’s fighting for her life.  A journalist friend reminded me of the time during the hours following the assassination attempt on President Ronald Reagan when ABC-TV anchor Frank Reynolds snapped at his producers to get the facts straight before they gave them to him to report on the air. He was right to do so but the need should never have arisen.

My grandfather was a newspaper editor. I have newsmen on both sides of my family. So I learned early on the axiom expressed by Rudyard Kipling, the one that every journalist of every stripe ought to know and practice automatically:

I have Six Honest Serving-Men

They taught me all I knew;

Their names are What and Where and When

And Why and How and Who

Some of those famous “Six W’s” got lost in the coverage surrounding the Giffords shooting. 

How Radio News Misplayed the Giffords Shooting

Here’s how I found out about the shootings in Tucson: By hearing a phone report on my local NPR station.

Here’s how my teenaged daughter heard about it: from postings on Facebook. She attends the University of Arizona in Tucson so there was naturally quite a bit of interest from fellow Wildcats. Especially since the attack took place within miles of her dorm and Congresswoman Giffords, along with some other victims, was taken to University Hospital, about a five-minute walk away.

It's disturbing enough that this is how many people get their news. What we have to do is provide accurate, reliable information for everyone else.

From the moment the shots were fired – about 10:10 on Saturday morning – radio stations in Phoenix and Tucson scrambled to figure out how to cover the story. Most, it seems, settled for not covering it at all. When I scanned the dial around 11:00. I heard music, commercials and network programming. It wasn’t until over an hour later that a couple of stations began to offer some news. This was especially trying since the aforementioned national media – The New York Times and NPR, among others – reported initially that Giffords had died. Where was the fact checking? The attribution?

My Journalism 54 professor must be squirming in his grave with rage.

One of the aspects of radio news coverage of the shootings that I found particularly irksome was the extent to which radio talk show hosts took over coverage of the story. Several did try to get the facts straight or at least to put people on the air who could tell the story.  But in almost every case, I heard talk hosts doing their usual shtick: arguing, interrupting callers and each other and going for the sensational angle. The actual facts seemed to take second place to the usual listen-to-me-I’m-outrageous acts that are the lifeblood of many talk stations.

That may be entertaining to some listeners but it isn’t news.

We have enough issues in Arizona. The political air is already rancid at times and an ABC TV anchor wasn’t far off in referring to the climate of public debate here as “poisonous”. But this isn’t about finger-pointing and name-calling. It’s about how local radio handles breaking news – or even if it does.

Think for a moment: there are plenty of whack-jobs out there with weapons. What if a Congressman or other politician – none of whom routinely have security assistance – were gunned down in your market. If you have a news person or news staff, are call trees and other emergency coverage systems in place to jump on the story? Do your talk hosts have the good sense to ride with the story instead of their egos for a day or so? How about your deejays: can they handle sensitive breaking news intelligently if it isn’t framed by liners and format clocks?

Even more challenging in this era of network programming and voice-tracked music radio: What if something like this happened on a weekend, as it did in Tucson? Who you gonna call?

If you can’t handle a tough breaking story like the Giffords assassination attempt, listeners will find their news somewhere. Which means television. The Internet. Their cell phones. Anywhere but on your stations.

The shootings in Tucson provide a living textbook for journalism students in 2011. They should also provide a wakeup call to radio station managers that hot news, big news, can and does break at any time, even on weekends. How your stations respond can make or break you as a trusted community resource.

IS SPORTS TALK A THROWAWAY FORMAT IN YOUR CLUSTER?

HOW TO AVOID GIVING UP ON A SIGNAL AND JUST TURNING UP THE SATELLITE FADER

It’s a familiar scenario. You run a cluster; in there somewhere is that lower-powered AM at 13-something on the dial. It’s problem? Transmitter’s on but ain’t nobody home. Its format and/or signal cannot compete for audience or revenue. So you make the decision: Flip the switch and take that sad little tea kettle all-sports. Presto: No jocks, no local hosts, maybe no program director. Just 24/7 sports yak from the network. Excellent – except that you may be throwing away a valuable radio station.

There are many more stations in most markets than can ever hope to be competitive. The audience pie is sliced thin, which makes mining for revenue tougher than ever. Radio station owners and managers feel that to survive and thrive, they must concentrate their resources on their major players: the FM music stations and, occasionally, AM talk monsters that pay the bills. What to do with the “leftovers”, the anemic little stations that were included in the deals that brought the bigger, better signals into the group?

“Niche formats” are often the answer. These include Hispanic, religion, bartered programming – and all-sports. Some broadcasters decry the all-sports format but they miss an important point: It works because it provides its listeners with EXACTLY what they want to hear: all sports and access to important guests. Some listeners can actually get on the air on these national shows, which puts them on the same footing as any other listener, regardless of market size.

The major all-sports radio networks (ESPN Radio, Sporting News Radio, Fox and the others) provide solid, big-time programming at all hours of the day and night. What they DON’T provide is the only thing that truly keeps radio local, the one thing listeners can’t find on TV sports shows and the Internet, either: LOCAL CONTENT.

Addressing The Local Content Challenge

Fine, you say, that’s why we have these two funny guys in the afternoon. One goes by his first two initials and the other is called The Coach. They talk about the local stuff after Cowherd or Patrick or Rome or the others. So. Local.

Please.

Isn’t anything other than sports going on in your market? Do you seriously believe you will build an audience of any size that will attract significant revenue by talking only about point spreads on NFL games and what LeBron could have been thinking?

Or do you just want some reason to justify the transmitter's electricity bill?

The challenge is that you jumped into all-sports in order to save money. How can you provide local content without going back to a full staff again and embarking on that vicious cycle of too-much-expense and too-little-revenue?

You already have a terrific set of resources in place to help: the other stations in your group.

Rallying the Reinforcements

Let’s start with local news. You do have at least one person among your “brands” covering local news, don’t you? No, not the “giggle girl” who updates us on traffic and celebrity gossip on the morning show. An actual news person. No? Then it’s time to draft a voice from your roster to take care of news on the sports station.

That’s because the predominantly male, 35+ demographic of your all-sports audience lives in the real world of housing issues, unemployment, taxes, health matters and crime. They don’t just tune in the six o’clock TV news to watch the sports segment. They watch the whole banana. Which makes it absurd to think that just because they want to whine about Brett Favre doesn’t mean they don’t care what happens at city hall or who shot a cop on the west side last night.

And no, your local sports updates don’t count as news. They’re scores. News is news and there’s somewhere to insert it, even if only in one-minute blurbs.

Also somewhere in your jolly band of jocks is a DJ who loves sports, is incredibly knowledgeable about local sports issues and would be a great addition to your lineup, even in short segments. If you’re really lucky, that person might even be one of your female personalities.

Don’t Walk Away From Your Sports Station – Jump In!

When you add local elements such as real news and participation by personalities from your other stations, you vastly increase not only the value of your all-sports station to listeners but to advertisers. That’s because your salespeople now have something to sell that’s local and involved. Which is far more attractive to advertisers’ messages than national sports blab with a few local score and story updates.

Wouldn’t it be cool if, in 2011, your sales force could get away from calling only on sports bars and car dealers and be able to walk into almost any client or prospect with compelling reasons to buy your plucky little all-sports AM?

Why yes. I believe it would.

FRIDAY: A New Year’s Eve when a radio account executive and his client made a big difference to a lonely late-night DJ.

PLANNING PROMOTIONS: THE FIRST QUESTIONS YOU MUST ANSWER

ONCE YOU’VE ANSWERED THESE, EVERYTHING ELSE IS JUST LOGISTICS

As you and your staff plan ahead for Q1 and Q2 promotions, your calendar may already contain several dates. Some of those promotions will be on-air, others will involve remotes. Whatever – and wherever – they are, of all the questions that will need to be answered there is one that is make-or-break: Does this benefit the station? The answer may not be as obvious as it seems.

First, let’s define benefit.

If you’re strapped for cash and a client offers $10,000 (or even $1,000) for a promotion or remote, I’m sure you’ll say “You bet, it’s good for the station”. Revenue is a powerful driver. Sometimes, though, it can drive you straight into the ditch if bad publicity ensues or it sends listeners stampeding for the exits.

Many radio veterans remember the hysterical 1978 episode of TV’s WKRP In Cincinnati in which actor Gordon Jump, playing the station’s GM Arthur Carlson, is convinced to drop live turkeys from a helicopter as a Thanksgiving promotion. The result: pure carnage.

I can still hear Richard Sanders as News Director Les Nessman doing his best Herb Morrison impression during the climactic remote:

            Oh my God, Johnny, they're turkeys!! Johnny, can you get this?

            Oh, they're plunging to the earth right in front of our eyes! One just

            went through the windshield of a parked car! Oh, the humanity!

            The turkeys are hitting the ground like sacks of wet cement! Not

            since the Hindenburg tragedy has there been anything like this!

That promotion-from-hell led to one of TV’s most memorable lines as an appalled Arthur Carlson said, “As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly”.

Allow me a fast sprint through Weak Pun Land to say that a turkey of a promotion will gobble up both listener and sponsor good will and can knock the stuffing out of ratings.

I had to. I’m sorry.

7 Ways To Determine Whether A Radio Promotion or Remote Is A Real Benefit

But if you can afford to be even a little choosy in the promotions and remotes your PD and salespeople dream up, ask them a few pertinent questions in advance. This isn’t about how the event should be done – that’s logistics – but whether it makes sense in the first place.

Questions such as:

1. Does this idea work with our format?

2. Does it appeal to our P1 listeners or could it drive them away?

3. Is there a good chance it will attract new listeners who will at least sample our stations?

4. If you’re in a rated market, can this be done fast-and-tight, the way Arbitron’s PPM likes it (see my Tuesday and Wednesday columns)?

5. Will it get us some good promo for the stations as well as for the sponsor?

6. Who’s paying for this, anyway, and does that make sense?

7. Is it fun?

I’m always amazed at radio station promotions and remotes that just seem to be there to generate a few bucks and nothing else. Radio should always serve up fun content. If we can’t at least do that, listeners might as well head over to the Internet and just load up songs.

Determining whether a promotion and/or remote is truly good for your stations begins with zeroing in on the benefits it provides. This is the first step. If you green light the event, then you can work out the gritty details.

But first make sure that green light isn’t just reflecting the color of money.

PPM RE-BAKES THE FORMAT PIE

PPM UPDATE, PART 2: RATINGS METHODOLOGY CREATES COSMIC SHIFTS IN HOW WE PROGRAM AN HOUR

An hour of almost any radio format is beginning to look a lot different than it has for the past sixty years. That’s because Arbitron’s PPM is revealing facts about how listeners use radio that would have astonished most programmers even a few years ago. The challenge for radio station managers and program directors alike isn’t to understand what’s being revealed but to make changes in format metrics that may be uncomfortable.

What we’re learning creates something of an Alice In Wonderland riddle: In which direction do a clock’s hands turn?

Well, duh, you might say: Clockwise.

Well, duh, the clock might answer: Not if you’re the clock.

In other words, some long-sacred – and previously obvious –  basics of the hourly program clock and its pie-shaped elements need searching and immediate updating.

Don’t Load Up the First Quarter-Hour

If your program director or consultant still insists on stuffing the first fifteen minutes  with the hottest songs and best promos, it’s time to bring up what PPM is reporting: listening is actually spread evenly throughout the hour. The glass-is-half-full view of this is that you actually have more opportunities to appeal to listeners and anchor your P1 listeners; the reverse, of course, is that you also have more chances to drive them away.

But wait, the good old ARB paper diaries indicated the first quarter-hour was the big palooka. Yes but they were based on recall. PPM captures it all. The paper diaries were wrong.

7:20 AM: Ah, the Good Old Days (Last Year)

Remember when twenty minutes past seven was the apex of morning drive? The big listening appointment that everything led up to? That’s when you welcomed the celebrity guest, gave away the money, made the big announcement. Ah, yes: 7:20 AM.

So last year.

A big revelation of PPM measurement is that cume has doubled. That’s not a ground-swell of new listeners, just a new way of measuring what was already there. Which means your station should be making listening appointments all day long. They don’t have to be for money or big prizes, just for unique, compelling content that only you can provide.

Giant Nuggets Mined From the PPM Numbers

Several other major revelations are coming out of the PPM reports. Radio station managers need to be aware of every one of them because this is too important a sea change to be left to program directors and consultants.

Here’s what we’re discovering from PPM that we didn’t necessarily know before:

• Cume is up and TSL is down – formats that benefit from cume seem to be doing better, although this is still in flux

• Monday is a big day – the paper diaries indicated it was Thursday but now there’s no need to hold off important programming or content until the week is well along

• More segues aren’t necessarily the answer for music stations – too many long sets without announcer input that really connects with listeners (which is not reading liners) can drive the strays straight to talk radio or satellite/Internet music providers

• Content separates your stations from everyone else – including the above-mentioned non-broadcast interlopers

Still In Flux

Plenty of questions remain. A big one concerns stopsets, how long they should be and where in various hours they should appear. A number of stations are already tinkering with their format clocks on this element alone. More time with the technology and its results will produce more precise answers.

By the way, PPM isn’t going away. Arbitron is once again alone in the big league of American radio radio audience measurement after Neilsen – stung by the defections of Clear Channel and Cumulus back to Arbitron – announced Monday that it is exiting the radio business in North America.

THURSDAY: Don't even think about planning Q1 and Q2 promotions and remotes until you do this!

MAKING MONEY ON YOUR INTERNET STREAM

MONETIZING CYBERSPACE REQUIRES BACK-TO-THE-FUTURE THINKING ABOUT YOUR RADIO SIGNAL

How do you get your radio? Eighty years ago, it was through a big console with a meaty speaker and beautiful wood cabinetry. Forty years later it was a transistor radio in your pocket or beneath your pillow. Twenty years ago: Walkman. Of course, car radios have been around since the 1930s. More recently, radio signals have been streamed on the Internet.

What’s the next primary device for radio listening? Your cell phone.

For an increasing number of radio listeners, cell phone reception of an Internet streaming signal is already the method-of-choice for daily listening. As more mobile device manufacturers roll out radio-friendly phones, iPads and whatever comes next, the number of people whose primary means of listening to the radio is their mobile device will increase exponentially.

Cell phone instead of transistor. Apple iPad in lieu of Sony Walkman. Blackberry rather than PC. Should this matter to local-market radio broadcasters? Sure. Because now we have more ways than ever to make money with our signals!

First, we have to get over the old way we think of our signal: console to AM or FM transmitter to radio receiver. Sure, that’s still here. It’s robust, mature technology and it isn’t going away for a long, long time. But even if you put out only one signal, consider what you can do with it now that you never could before:

• Extend your coverage area out to infinity
• Turn an AM daytimer into a 24/7 stereo station with exactly the same online coverage as a 100,000 watt FM
• Add print, photos and video to your output along with your radio programming
• Broadcast multiple events—even entire formats—simultaneously 

The last item is where it gets really good: You’re not limited to one “signal” per station anymore! With Internet streaming, you can have as many signals as you have programming and advertising to place on them. Of course, you can create multiple signals for HD, too, but this has many drawbacks, starting with the fact that very few consumers own (or can even find) HD-capable receivers.

With Internet streaming, you’re tapping into cyberspace, baby—a wonderful depthless Wonderland where almost every citizen of North America and Europe already resides.

That all sounds wonderful for big-money, big-group operations. But how can a local-market station justify streaming its signal? Where are the opportunities to turn that Internet stream into a raging river of profit? Diversity: Offer more than one Internet stream. Call them WXXX-2, 3, 4, whatever, or anything you like. They’re your streams. You can run anything you want on them.

For example:

Play-by-play sports

With one signal, you’re limited to one live game at a time. What if you want to cover more than one area team? What about playoff time when you might well be able to sell half a dozen games a night if you only had somewhere to run them?

By offering multiple Internet streams, WXXX-1 (streaming your primary over-the-air signal) can cover the local team. WXXX-2 can simultaneously broadcast another game. WXXX-3 an additional tilt. You're no longer limited by your single over-the-air signal. And since nearly everyone has some kind of Internet access, every fan can listen to the game of his choice.

Seasonal specials

At one my first stations, we made a killing selling and recording high school chorus Christmas concerts. A lot more could have been aired if we had had the time to run them on our one and only signal.

Long-form news and special events

Don’t want to devote time to entire city council, board of supervisors or other meetings? No problem: We have a signal for that—on the Internet.

Niche Programming

Two formats come immediately to mind: Bluegrass and Polka. Both are wildly popular with their loyal fans. Both are also pure poison to programmers. Streamed on the Internet as fulltime formats or weekly programs, they’re moneymakers, often attracting sponsors that wouldn’t otherwise be available to you.

Specialty rock and country formats and all varieties of talk lend themselves to Internet programming separate from a station’s regular offerings, too.

What about local schools? If your high school or community college doesn't have a radio station or Internet radio, let them have a good chunk of one of your streams. You'll be amazed at the variety and quality of programming they'll provide.

Four Key Ingredients For Profitable Internet Streaming

You’ll need all four solidly in place in order to turn a profit.

1. Promote – Cross-promote aggressively between your over-the-air signal and your stream(s) and on your main website.

2. Legitimize – Thanks to the efforts of Google and other major online advertising providers, local retailers are now being made aware of the value of online advertising. Let them know this isn’t second-best or something provided as a bonus: It’s legitimate, targeted, advertising that works.

3. Sell – Commit your sales force to selling the Internet stream(s). Remind them that they can include print ads as well as audio. Video, too, if you have the production capability. And don’t cut commissions just because it’s Internet streaming—pay the full load!

4. Be consistent – Don’t just try streaming for awhile. Your Internet offerings must be available over a significant period of time if they’re going to make money.

Plant your flag in cyberspace and wave it proudly—and profitably—by looking at Internet streams as extensions of your brand. And at mobile devices like cell phones and iPads as the new transistor radio/Walkman/PCs of radio listening.

ALL-CHRISTMAS FORMAT’S SURPRISE DEMO

BING AND HIS BUDDIES’ MOST ENTHUSIASTIC FANS ARE—WHO?

I recently spoke with a friend who has been an air personality—a terrific one, I might add—at a major market soft AC station for many years. This station does very well year-round and, like many of its format ilk, plunges into an all-Christmas music format around Thanksgiving. In fact, it’s already starting. What’s newsworthy about that to me and to radio station managers in any format is how the station’s demographic alters when White Christmas and the rest begin to roll.

Want to take a guess at what consistently turns out the be the most enthusiastic and appreciative age group for Chestnuts, Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree and all the rest? (No fair if you already air the format and have discovered this yourself.)

According to my friend, the soft AC jock...it’s Generation Y.

This demo is loosely defined as people born between about 1986 and 2000—in other words, 10 to 24 years of age. The children aside, what my friend has observed is that listeners in their late teens and early twenties—definitely not your average soft AC P1 demo—flock to the all-holiday format every year about this time. Yes, the same bunch that normally listens to everything from Death Rock to Keith Urban loves to hear the good old Christmas classics, at least for a few weeks out of the year.

Why on earth would this bunch, which was virtually raised on iTunes, get excited about the same old holiday retreads? Ask the air personalities who work the format.

In this case, my friend’s view is that these kids welcome holiday music as a pleasant change from their usual instant-gratification diet of iPod fare. Perhaps, too, a little touch of homey normalcy to an age group that may be the most heavily-scheduled, stressed-out bunch in history. (I have an 18-year-old. I'm right in the thick of it.)

That prompted me to cruise over to the iTunes Store and see what was cooking for the holidays. A lot of holiday music, that’s what! They’re offering a package of up to 20 Christmas and holiday song downloads free for a week. It’s called iTunes Holiday Sampler and includes artists such as Sarah McLachlan, Amy Grant—and who wouldn’t want to fire up We Wish You A Merry Christmas by Weezer?

Not to be outdone, Amazon is also offering some free holiday music downloads through its MP3 store.

So, obviously, Gen Y has plenty of holiday ho-ho available for its MP3 players. But the news to me was that they’re also ready and willing to actually listen to the radio (and to a station they might well never sample otherwise) to help get in the holiday mood.

Which, of course, is solid platinum for sales.

Let’s see, with soft AC (the most common format employing the all-holiday music format, though by no means the only one), we have:

• A large core of steady, loyal listeners already in place
• Incredible TSL numbers, much beloved by Arbitron’s PPM
• And a hefty side dish of unexpectedly young listeners who sample the format

Give me a list, I’m hittin’ the street!

I still don’t go for lighting up the all-Christmas format even before most listeners are lighting up their holiday displays. As I wrote some days ago in this space, it borders on overkill, which will dependably kill an otherwise valuable format. But my friend’s observations about the attraction of Gen Y listeners to the format does make it a solid temporary format—providing no one else in your market is doing it, of course.

There’s only so much room for Bobby Helms.

THE BEATLES ARE ON iTUNES: IS RADIO’S TURKEY COOKED?

WITH THE ”FAB FOUR” ON BOARD, APPLE EXPECTS HEAVY DOWNLOAD ACTION FOR THE HOLIDAYS—WHAT DOES THIS MEAN FOR RADIO?

Prior to 10 AM EST yesterday (11/16/10), Apple’s iTunes music download store contained many power groups and most of music’s iconic names. But one group whose music customers could never download was The Beatles. Now, they can. The Fab Four’s music is available in the iTunes store for the first time and it’s likely customers will burn up the bits grabbing everything from individual tracks to iTunes albums to the entire Beatles boxed set between now and Christmas. For radio station managers, the development again raises the question: “Is owning a radio station going to become the equivalent of owning a livery stable? The answer: of course not.

Apple’s iTunes venture has certainly changed the way music fans acquire their tunes. All it takes now is a couple of clicks, a credit card and an mp3 player and nothing but favorite tracks will spew into those little white earpieces all day long. No further need for music radio, right? That’s what a persistent Greek Chorus of radio’s naysayers intones. It’s easy to jump on their bandwagon and some in the industry have already done so.

Not the smart ones, though.

LOOK AT THE LAST 80 YEARS

Eighty years ago radio was cutting-edge technology. It provided instant (as soon as the tubes warmed up) and free (at least in the U.S.) access to entertainment and information. No technology since has been able to kill it off.

Talking movies didn’t do it.

Television didn’t do it.

Color television didn’t do it.

Movies on VHS and DVD didn’t do it.

The Internet didn’t do it.

The radio industry hasn’t even managed to kill itself off, although some might say it has tried.

iTunes won’t kill it off, either. Not even close.

WHY RADIO IS ALWAYS IN PLAY

Look at what iTunes can do that you can’t:

• Offer millions of tracks on demand
• Get paid directly when someone downloads one

That’s a lot but that’s all.

Here’s why even music freaks who load hundreds of tunes on their iPods consistently say they still turn to radio:

• Entertainment, as opposed to just music—meaning interesting, funny, relevant air personalities and program material
• Information—you can’t download up-to-the-second news, weather and traffic information
• Companionship—any idea how many people are listening to your station(s) right now because they have no one to talk to, are ignored or just plain bored? The number is huge

So here’s the question: What have you done to make your music format relevant? Is it entertaining beyond simply playing the music?

Do you provide local news and other information, not just recorded community calendars and PSAs?

Can listeners tune in someone who sounds like an actual person or is it Segue City with liners in between?

THE MANAGER’S BOTTOM LINE

No music download system—no matter how customized, no matter how convenient—will replace radio providing that radio keeps itself entertaining, informative and companionable. iTunes can’t be that—only your stations can.

A RADIO GUY BECOMES A POWER PLAYER IN CONGRESS

FORMER STATION OWNER WILL MOVE UP IN THE NEW CONGRESS

The Washington Post recently profiled Oregon Republican Congressman Greg Walden, calling him a conscientious lawmaker who plays well with others (I paraphrase). Regardless of your politics, that’s going to be critical when the new Congress sits down in January with an enormous influx of first-time representatives and senators.

More to the point as far as we’re concerned: Walden is a radio guy.

While he no longer owns his small station group in the Northwest, Walden has retained an interest in radio. And why not? Like many of us, he began his radio career taking out the trash and running the board, announcing and learning the ropes at his family’s stations. There’s no better background for a radio station manager and all that hard work and variety seems to have served him well as a lawmaker, too.

Walden has been tapped to head a subcommittee that will map out rules for the new Republican majority in the House. Look for him to move up to more public positions, too, including—according to the Post—the House Communications Subcommittee. He could do a lot of good for the radio industry in that seat, especially with so many key radio issues dangling out there.

What about YOUR representatives?

Which brings us to the people who were elected from your district(s). If you haven’t taken the trouble to establish relationships with them or their staffs, there is no more important time to do so than right now, before the new session begins.

How do you feel about HD? Let them know

What can be done about music performance and copyright payments? Tell them.

What about FM on cell phones?

Interference issues?

And that slew of new translators—are they killing you or curing you? All these and many more issues have either come into the sights of the Congress already or are about to. And if your idea of making yourself felt on Capital Hill is to let the NAB do the buttonholing, you’re missing a terrific opportunity.

Yes, “all politics is local”. And your local clout as the boss of a radio station or group is something your elected representatives cannot afford to ignore. The only way they will ignore it is if you don’t flex your muscle (or at least start firing off thoughtful emails) with them now.

Whenever you contact an elected representative, keep in mind the golden rules for turning your messages into action items:

• State the issue clearly and concisely—and don’t make political comments
• Tell the recipient who you are and why the issue is important not only to you but to the rest of your community
• Let them know exactly what you want them to do
• Above all: keep it brief, focused and professional

Radio—especially local-market radio—needs strong voices in Washington. The elevation of radio-friendly Congressmen like Greg Walden is important. So is your involvement with every representative who snagged votes in your market.

IT'S TIME TO BRING BACK LOCAL RADIO NEWS

WHATEVER HAPPENED TO LOCAL RADIO NEWS?

Local radio news has undergone an astonishing metamorphosis over the last four decades—from too much to hardly any. Where Top 40 stations once routinely aired five-minute newscasts hourly, 24/7, and twice an hour during drive-times, they now air none at all. Where every major market station worthy of the name had a news department, now only the news-talk stations bother. And where local-market stations made news their bread-and-butter, many now don’t even bother to interrupt the satellite to talk about what happened at the city council meeting last night. (Many others, to their credit, do.)

It is not only time to stop this erosion of information—it’s also possible.

Why has local news disappeared from radio in many markets? General managers and program directors offer the same two excuses:

• budget restrictions
• changing listener tastes.

Let’s laser in on these oft-cited reasons.

“It’s the budget, stupid”

When the economy sours and sales budgets nosedive, managers who are looking to lop off a quick limb here and there to cut expenses almost always zero in on news. News is an expense, not a profit center, they say. One station owner actually said to me: “It’s like the engineer. I don’t know what he does but I know I need him. Can’t say the same for news.” Good lord.

A line like that points out an issue in common between engineering and news: unlike sales and programming, engineers and news people are not temperamentally wired to “sell” themselves to management. As far as most engineers and journalists are concerned, they exist to provide a specialized service which requires solid training and expertise.

My father, a mechanical engineer, once remarked, “My name is my resume”. He could have substituted the word “work” for “name”. That’s as far as many news and engineering professionals will go to self-promote.

Programming, on the other hand, can offer ratings as proof of its reason for being. At the very least, they provide the noise that’s heard on the air all day. Sales, of course, is the most easily quantifiable department in the building. Even the office staff produces obvious output such as logs, bookkeeping and tending the phones.

News doesn’t provide any of those “proofs of performance”. It provides the who-what-when-where-why and hopefully punches them up with sound. Good news writers turn even short news updates into sparklers of information. But they don’t play music, spout bombast or sell advertising.

That makes news fair game to many cost-desperate managers.

Here’s a two-pronged fix:

1.  Go back to selling news sponsorships, which were staples of radio advertising for decades. I’m not talking about Old School fifteen-minute newscasts with three :60s plus billboards. Even rookie news people can practice tight writing and conversational delivery while making room for a :30 within a three-minute news update. Or a :15 in a two-minute ‘cast. They can, that is, if you give them the opportunity.

News sponsorships aren’t hard to sell if you make up your mind that you’re going to consistently do so. When you do sell them, you’ve monetized your local news!

2.  View news as a loss leader.  You can also look at local news the way retailers view certain items: as “loss leaders” or “doorbusters” that lure shoppers inside, where they will presumably buy more stuff. Same with your local news: listeners tune in to find out what’s happening in their world and how it relates to them. If you’re the only station in town that actually provides that information—not who won Dancing With the Stars last night but actual news—then they’ve sampled your product and can stay for your entertainment offerings.

“Our listeners don’t want it, dude”

Forget the news-talk stations—focus only on the music stations in your market or nearby. What do they offer as news content? If they bother at all, you can bet it will come from the “morning show sidekick” (often a giggly female) spouting celebrity and entertainment shtick. Yes, Letterman had a funny monolog last night. Oh boy, that Charlie Sheen!

But why is my water bill skyrocketing? Why can’t I get a cop when I need one? Wait, they’re cutting the fire department’s budget?

If all politics is local, so is all news. Almost every national and world event has a local corollary—if you have a local newsperson to work the story. Most of your listeners live with at least one foot in the real world. They have jobs or are looking for them. They have relationships. They have money but not enough. They’re subject to local laws, regulations and taxes.

Their lives are about more than Lindsay Lohan’s rehab.

And here’s a shocker for some radio managers: Every listener does not acquire information from social media and word-of-mouth. Many, many of them want more. Where will they get it if you don’t provide it? The newspaper? Get serious. Social media for local news? Come on.

Here’s another bulletin: Every listener is not 22 years old (or 17). It’s hard for an adult to take seriously some local and cable TV news anchors who are essentially pretty people who sound like they’re 16 years old. You can uniquely provide information within your format that your core listeners will appreciate.

Unlike the younger crowd, these people listen to radio. A lot. In the car, at work, everywhere. As an industry, we've dug up piles of statistics that prove it beyond doubt. So what do you have to offer them in addition to yak about the latest YouTube video that’s gone viral?

When you approach news as something you can actually sell—and as a valuable commodity even if it isn’t entirely monetized—it becomes an attractive business investment.

When you present meaningful information—not entertainment updates disguised as news—it makes a positive contribution to any format and jumps you way over the competition as a valued medium.

IGNITING LOCAL HOLIDAY RETAIL ADVERTISING

CREATE AD-HOC MARKETING GROUPS OF LOCAL RETAILERS

FOR HOLIDAY SALES SUCCESS

The fourth quarter is well along and, in many markets, the traditional big bump in holiday sales is looking more like an ant hill. Fortunately, heavy campaign spending—almost all cash in advance—is helping Q4 look better than last year. But what can you do when local retail advertising lags and the holidays draw near? Create your own local groups of advertisers, that’s what. This gives more businesses the opportunity to reach holiday customers and drives up spending by retailers who might otherwise skip (again) holiday radio advertising.

Here’ how to create your own groups of retail advertisers right now:

1.  Pick a geographical area or trade group

The easiest groups to organize in a hurry are located in the same area. They could be located along a particular street, within a specific neighborhood or area of town, or in a known, easily-identifiable area.

Alternatively, you could organize all the hair stylists you can grab into a holiday retail marketing group. It could be gas stations, muffler shops, women’s clothing stores,  a diverse group of family restaurants, whatever. They become a group because they have a type of business in common.

2.  Give your marketing group a unique name

It could be creative or corny. Anything from “West Side of the Square Radio Marketers” to “Home Cooking For the Holidays Restaurant Group”. It doesn’t

matter what you call it as long as the name says something about what or where the group is located and is not used by any other entity in town.

3.  Create 3 Competitive Advertising Packages

I normally don’t like packages. The consultative sell with spot schedules geared to specific customer needs is almost always preferable. BUT: we’re on short notice here and time won’t permit us to do specific needs analyses for every business in each of our new holiday retail marketing groups. SO...we create three ways for our customers to advertise:

Good, Better and Best.

You can name these packages as creatively as you wish. The tried-and-true Silver/Gold/ Platinum. Or Christmas-oriented monikers such as Santa’s Helpers/Mrs. Claus/Jolly Old Elf. Silly is okay for this one. You can name your packages to conform to your format, too: Blue Christmas/White Christmas/Jingle Bell Rock. Or Christmas classics: Sleighride/I’ll Be Home For Christmas/Chestnuts Roasting On An Open Fire. You get the idea. Have fun and be creative.

4.  Price aggressively but don’t give anything away

You want to create a one-call close if you can so don’t go in at the top of your rate card. Don’t give away the farm, either. And whatever you do, remember what makes radio advertising work: repetition over a short time span.

No two-spots-a-day-for-a-week plans. No sponsorships. And no individual bonus spots! Make sure everyone is on at least three to five times a day for three weeks. More often if you can. You not only want these packages to work right now but to give you good reasons for going back to those customers for Q1 business.

5.  Create a group benefit

Make your custom-named and special-priced group even more unique by doing things for all its members together.

Examples include:

• Airing as many spots as possible promoting the group. Who they are, where they are, why they’re unique, why customers should come in right now

• Remotes from the group’s geographical area, up to and including the morning show, coffee-with-the-coaches show or other high-visibility programs that really put the spotlight on your special group.,

• Giveaways or contests that only include the retailers in your groups.I don’t normally like “Register Here To Win” promotions, either, but when many retailers in a specific area contribute and participate, it really works. It also makes those who choose not to participate wish they had!

• Help organize a holiday-themed kiddie parade or similar activity for kids that’s just in your group’s geographical area—something that will compel adults to come to the area and shop

6.  Print up a one-sheet and get it out there

Make sure one or more are in every retail establishment in the area for which you

want to create your holiday marketing group. Then hit the phones. As you know,

I’m no fan of Old School cold calling but this is the exception to the rule.

Make your offer irresistible—and start closing.

Organizing ad-hoc retail advertising groups for the holidays shows local businesses that you understand the realities of retail in the current economic climate and that you’re going the extra mile to help them accomplish what radio advertising does best: bring customers through their doors.

This idea is not only great for flagging Q4 sales, it also creates a solid base of happy clients that you can call on again—right away—to pump up Q1!