WHY HUBBARD RADIO EXPANSION MAKES SENSE NOW

FROM ONE MARKET TO FIVE, THREE-STATION GROUP DOES IT RIGHT

Minnesota-based Hubbard Broadcasting is purchasing half of Bonneville’s radio markets in a deal that could indicate how smaller groups expand intelligently now that the economy is nudging its way back. Bonneville revealed this week that it is selling its radio properties in Chicago, St. Louis, Washington, DC, and Cincinnati to Hubbard for $505 million. Hubbard, which has owned KSTP (AM) in the Twin Cities (Arbitron market # 16) since 1923, has only two other radio properties, both also in that market. It has a full complement of TV stations.

Bonneville will retain its radio stations in Phoenix, Los Angeles, Seattle and Salt Lake City as well as KSL-TV there. Hubbard hasn’t owned radio stations outside the Twin Cities since it sold KOB (AM/FM), Albuquerque, to Citadel several years ago.

An Instant Radio Group

Hubbard’s acquisition of the Bonneville package makes it, in one stroke, a major, though not a mega-, radio group. The company is creating Hubbard Radio, which will be chaired by current Hubbard boss Ginny Hubbard Morris. From owning KSTP AM/FM and KTMY (FM) only, the new group will pick up four stations in St. Louis, six in Washington, three in Chicago and four in Cincinnati – 17 new properties. Here’s the list:

Chicago (ARB # 3)

WDRV/WWDV (FM)

WILV (FM)

WTLX (FM)

Washington, DC (ARB # 9)

WTOP (AM/FM)

WTLP (FM)

WWWT (FM)

WFED (AM)

WWFD (AM)

St. Louis (ARB # 21)

WIL (FM)

WXOS (FM)

WARH (FM)

KZQZ (AM)

Cincinnati (ARB # 28)

WREW (FM)
WYGY (FM)

WKRQ (FM)

WUBE (FM)

Why The Deal Makes Sense

Many industry eyeballs will be watching for details on this transaction, which is the first major radio deal of 2011.

Radio station trading has been at a virtual standstill for at least three years, as any starving broker can tell you. One big question, of course, has been when the ice will break, especially in large and major markets. The other key question has been: What will the multiples be? Radio & Television Business Report says that in this transaction it may be eight times broadcast cash flow, which is what most buyers and sellers are talking about these days.

Hubbard runs a high-class, very professional operation which has always been smart with its money. The President of another major market group told me: “Hubbard, like Bonneville, is an excellent broadcaster with strong ties to their community. Their attention to ‘localism’ including live, local talent is very good for radio and bodes well for its future. I hope this becomes a trend as opposed to the cookie cutter, cost efficient models that have been adopted by many of our country’s largest radio media companies.”

Hubbard wasn’t a player in the last big wave of radio consolidation because it was starting up a satellite TV business, which later sold to Direct TV in a deal valued at $1.6 billion. So there was plenty of cash for this deal. Hubbard is also a mature operation, which is reflected in the stations it’s buying. Several are either at or near the top of their market rankings. They’re all competitive. This was no pig-in-a-poke numbers grab.

A major reason why this deal makes sense is that Hubbard is buying proven assets all the way through. Reportedly, there are no significant changes planned for any of the stations. Bonneville’s top radio hands are going along with the deal, too. CEO Bruce Reese and COO Drew Horowitz and their staff will soon be drawing their paychecks from Hubbard Radio.

Looking Through A Long Lens

Ginny Hubbard Morris shares the DNA of a great broadcasting pioneer, Stanley E. Hubbard, who started KSTP in the Twenties and added KSTP-TV in 1948. So unlike giant mega-merger players and investment bankers, she can take a solid long view of the industry. Hubbard told Radio-TV Business Report: “We believe in the future of radio...We now know that what we all experienced a couple of years ago was related to the recession, not some underlying cracks in the broadcasting industry.”

She added: “Everything that made (radio) a good business in the ‘30s makes it a good business in 2011”.

Expect the Hubbard-Bonneville deal to at least open a lot of group owners’ eyes if not to mark the beginning of a return to healthy station trading this year.

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.

HOW NEW LPFM ACT WILL AFFECT YOUR MARKET

THEY MAY BE SMALL – AND NON-COMMERCIAL – BUT DON’T IGNORE THE NEW KIDS WHEN THEY COME TO PLAY

President Obama’s signing last week of the Local Community Radio Act means you’re likely to have new radio competition regardless of your market size. Before you dismiss Low-Power FM (LPFM) stations as “Amateur Night at the Bijou”, consider this: All those volunteer program hosts will be talking about local issues, local music, local people. How often does any of that happen on your stations?

Prometheus Radio Project, the national community radio organization, wanted only one thing from the Act: elimination of third-adjacency protection of full-power FM stations. They got that. Now, LPFMs can be as close as two “clicks” from your frequency.

But they got more:

• LPFMs and translators will now exist as equals as far as interference is concerned. Whichever one was there first has to solve any interference problems between the two

• The FCC can now also issue waivers to LPFMs that don’t meet the minimum protection standards but can be shown through modern measurement methods to not create interference (for instance, if there’s a mountain between the LPFM and a full-power station)

• The new Act could have speedy legs if FCC Chairman Julius Genechowski’s promise to “take swift action to open the dial to new low-power radio stations” has any meat to it.

All of which means you’re going to have company – and, believe it or not, competition – from micro-broadcasters sooner or later.

Why Bother About the Pipsqueaks?

Sure, a new LPFM might have a range of five miles with a strong wind. And underwriting rates are unlikely to put a serious squeeze on ad dollars in your market. So why bother to do anything more than send them a nice plant and a “Welcome To Town” card (if that) when they fire up their little transmitters?

Because if you’ve paid attention to what LPFM broadcasters have been up to over the last few years, you’ve noticed that they do a lot of interesting things. Things that local broadcasters used to do but often don’t anymore.

Such as:

Remotes – from anything and everything

Where local-market radio used to originate coverage of parades, meetings, Memorial Day ceremonies and the opening of the municipal swimming pool, satellite feeds have taken over. Listeners used to enjoy those broadcasts and advertisers used to sponsor them. They still do – but not on full-power commercial radio.

Discussions of community issues

LPFM stations are far more than just outlets where home-brew program hosts can play their rap or bluegrass or progressive rock records (yes, records sometimes). Many provide the only divergent voices in their communities by organizing and airing debates, round-table discussions and extended coverage of all sorts of events and issues.

Being a local resource – for everything

You can find many LPFM stations that broadcast want ads, even personals, along with swap-and-trade shows and public service announcements by the bucket. Listeners may not stay with an LPFM all day and night but since most thrive on variety, they’re going to attract audiences that crave something original, different, fresh on the radio. Scarce commodities on many full-power stations.

Giving a voice to minorities

Lots of LPFM stations reach out to minority audiences, many of which are underserved or have never been served at all locally. Each of these constitutes a community-within-a-community and the ties that bind are incredibly strong.

Making celebrities out of everyday folks

How many program hosts does it take to run an LPFM? A dozen? Twenty? For many, it’s even more than that. And what they lack in polish and professionalism (traits they often achieve with surprising speed, by the way) they make up for with freshness and localism.

The FCC’s Genechowski also remarked that, “Low-power FM stations are small but they make a giant contribution to local community programming”.

Now, I don’t envision squadrons of tiny LPFM transmitters rising up to overwhelm your stations and take over your market. I do think well-run low-power community stations – the kind we’re about to see a lot more of – can put a serious dent in your image as a local broadcaster if you don’t take them seriously.

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.

NEXT: 3-D RADIO – SAY WHAT?

WHY THE BBC’s NEW TECH GIVES FRESH ENERGY TO RADIO RESEARCH

Okay, radio rangers, here’s a new tech term to know and share: AMBISONICS. It's a system for broadcasting radio in 3-D and yes, they've made it work in Britain. Just when much of the broadcast world is either deploying or grappling with HD radio, along comes a real live way to broadcast not in two dimensions but in three. Does this mean you need a hole in the top of your head to hear it? No, but you might need one in the ceiling of your car.

Before I proceed, please note the date of this column – specifically that it is NOT April 1^st. Although some of this might reek of an April Fool’s gag, it’s all real. And just wacky enough to have come from our broadcasting buddies in Britain.

I got this lead from a mention in Larry Shannon's excellent industry blog, Radio-TV Daily News. If you aren't already on Larry's daily mailing list, jump aboard NOW . There's no better source for a wide variety of radio news and insight.

A recent article in The Daily Telegraph, one of Britain’s leading newspapers, reports that an experimental unit of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) has already demonstrated its Ambisonics system of 3-D radio. First reports are impressive. Whether the new technology has any application for real-world radio is another matter.

Toto, We’re Not In Stereo Anymore

Imagine yourself in a car with music or talk on the radio. You have your basic left-right stereo speaker configuration. In many vehicles, there’s also a front-rear mix control. However you blend them, you still get one thing: two-channel stereo.

Very Sixties.

Now imagine that a third dimension in sound appears – above your head. That’s where the BBC system places the third speaker. The results, the report claims, are something special: a whole new way to experience broadcast audio.

For the demo, a memorable sound effects-heavy scene from The Wizard of Oz was produced for radio using the new 3-D system. According to The Telegraph, the 3-D transmission “makes music sound impressive (but) it’s most revelatory for drama...the tornado scene, with the wind swirling towards Dorothy’s house, took on a new atmosphere”.

The concept of radio in 3-D would seem best suited to automobiles, where it’s a lot easier to mount a speaker overhead than in, say, your family room.

How It Works

I’ll just quote The Daily Telegraph article:

The system uses more channels and so is able to pipe sound to more speakers independently. Although it requires new ways of initially recording sound, it can also be mixed from existing recordings. The result is an advance that does not require rewiring of the radio process and so could, if the BBC chose, be implemented over the Internet.

Okay...

What I think that means is that you might see such a technology deployed

in non-broadcast media first (or exclusively). And with the approach of Internet in car radios, that makes something like 3-D radio a very real possibility.

Bigger Picture: Radio Is Pushing Technological Boundaries Again

The BBC points out that the wider significance of its dance with 3-D radio is that radio is back in the pushing-the-tech-envelope business. That’s a good thing. With DAB iffy in some countries and outright stalled in others, television and new media take the prizes for most recent innovations.

As the BBC’s audio guru, Tim Davie, remarks: “It’s vital we plug radio (back) into the landscape of innovation."

It may be years before we see any meaningful rollout of 3-D radio. It could have a haphazard life like HD or an extended twilight a la AM stereo. It could also fall into the category of gimcrack tech, the likes of Quad FM. What I like about the BBC’s experiments with 3-D radio – and hardly any organization holds the record for more innovative work than the “Beeb” – is that fresh thinking should always be welcome in radio.

Sometimes, it takes new thinking like the BBC's Ambionics 3-D radio system to remind us of that.

HOW TO SURVIVE AND THRIVE IN THE NEW YEAR

WHAT YOU MUST DO TO MOVE AHEAD IN 2011

This is going to be a terrific year for radio, much better than its naysayers care to believe. That will be especially true for radio station managers and owners who embrace the new realities of radio life. It isn’t about tightening up the morning show, tweaking the music or cleaning up your interns so remotes don’t resemble college radio outings. Happily, it’s all about things you can directly implement and manage.

THE ONE THING YOU CAN’T DO: LOOK BACK

Hey, I love history. We can learn a lot from it. But when it comes to financial performance, I can’t think of a year when year-over-year numbers are more meaningless than they are right now. After three years of battling a recession-addled economy, past sales figures tell us only one thing: this has to get better.

While it’s always tempting for a manager to base budgets and goals on previous-year numbers, we need to do better than that in 2011. This is a time for a zero-base look at budgets and expectations – paring everything down to the bones then adding, first, what we need and second, what will give us extra muscle in moving our stations forward. That’s never a bad idea; this year, it’s just about required.

Another way that looking back on the least three years won’t help us is in the confidence department. Your properties may have behaved superbly. Probably, they didn’t. Most likely, you were at least in a holding pattern if not worse. So let’s not give in to doom-and-gloom by excessive archaeology into recent financials.

Instead, let’s concentrate on where we go now.

FOUR TRAITS OF RADIO MARKET DOMINATORS IN 2011

Regardless of your market size, you want solid traction to get going in the new year. More than ever, these four things will get you there:

Get A Grip On New Media – So you have a website. So what? It needs to be valuable to your listeners and advertisers or it’s nothing more than something you checked off a to-do list. Listeners don’t care about your air personalities’ favorite movies or what the national group owner supplies that might be interesting to website visitors. You need to provide a reason for listeners to visit your website every day – or they won’t.

I’ll talk more about winning radio station websites soon. For now, look at your website home page like a listener would. Anything interesting? Valuable? Funny? Or do you have to register, click several times and generally wade through meaningless junk to find what you want?

Apply PPM Tactics Even If Your Market Isn’t Rated

One of the big lessons we’re learning from Arbitron’s PPM ratings system is that air personalities need to look at every segment of each hour as equally important. That means spreading good content throughout the hour. It also means get to the point without lengthy lead-ins.

Gone are the days when we load up the first quarter-hour with the big stuff and plan every major bit or guest for the 7:20 AM segment. Listeners, we are discovering, don’t listen that way. So we had better not be programming that way.

Provide Compelling Local Content

Make sure everything on your air has at least some local flavor. Yes, if you’re a talk station or employ another format that relies heavily on satellite programming, much of the day is beyond your control. But it’s still your station and your listeners live in your market, not New York or Washington or L.A.

This means providing something other than canned weather updates without current temps. Disembodied voices intoning “community calendars” and other content. Celebrity gossip instead of local news. This is the year you have to do it differently.

Build and Keep A Stable Sales Force

In my best-selling book, The Zero Turnover Sales Force – conveniently on sale now at your local Barnes & Noble or Borders or, if they’re sold out, at online at Amazon.com – I offer many ways of building and keeping a sales team that succeeds in part because managers aren’t constantly recruiting, training and ramping up new people. Buy a copy, for cryin’ out loud. What are you, cheap? Okay, trade it out. I’m game.

One important point is that local business people won’t tell their story to the salesperson of the week. When your staff is stable it builds relationships with clients and prospects and avoids meaningless cold calling. If a key requirement of a sales job applicant at your station is that he or she has been born. you need to look deeper and hire better. There is an enormous payoff to having a stable sales force.

You know what I wish for you: An incredible, profitable, highly satisfying New Year. Join me here regularly and I’ll share insights that will help you get there.

NEW YEAR’S EVE RADIO IN A PARKING LOT

HOW A STRONG ACCOUNT EXECUTIVE-CLIENT RELATIONSHIP BRIGHTENED A YOUNG JOCK’S LONELY NIGHT

This is a personal story. I include it here because it shows how a top salesperson should relate not only to a strong client but to an air personality as well. It’s about a cold New Year’s Eve in a Midwest capital city. Yours truly was on the air, doing the ubiquitous end-of-year countdown show. Nothing unusual about that except for the locale: I was broadcasting from a converted camping trailer in an office building’s parking lot.

Here’s why: The station where I was night jock and weekend play-by-play announcer had been sold. It planned to move into new digs in a nice downtown office building and the remodeling had been underway for some weeks when it became clear that we would have to vacate the old building – owned by our former partner, a TV station – before the studio suite in the new place would be finished. What to do? Borrow a remote trailer from a sister station in another market, tow it up to our city, plop it into a corner of the parking lot and wire that baby up.

Welcome To Radio Siberia

The little vehicle was nothing more than a camping trailer that had been gutted and re-purposed for remote broadcasts. I think our new sister station had used it for week-long broadcasts from its state fair. The door opened into a room that housed the remote equipment rack and a counter where the newscaster did his reports.

Across the glass from him was the microscopic control room. To enter, you had to open a door, ease in, then shut it carefully. No visitors, either: there was room for exactly one person. This little studio, which was modestly soundproofed, sported a five-pot Gates Ambassador control board, two Gates turntables and an ITC three-deck cart machine.

Everything else happened across the windy parking lot, inside the building. The newsroom was up and running. A make-shift production room was in there, too, along with executive and sales offices. And the restrooms.

We rarely received visitors in our little corner of Siberia. A news dude would trudge out once an hour and the chief engineer, a young wire-twister who didn’t trust any announcer for any  reason, peered in from time to time to see if we were still on the air. Otherwise, it was actually rather peaceful.  Except when the winter wind gusted across the open parking lot, which made the trailer rock a little. That was solved early on by anchoring it to the pavement with guys.

Now you have the picture.

The AE, The Veep and the GOOD Stuff

And so we come to this particular New Year’s Eve. I had the 8-1 shift, the top-hits-of-the-year countdown show.  The whole thing had been sold to a single sponsor, a major national convenience store chain. That in itself was a terrific idea. First, the time was hardly premium for most advertisers. Second, only the chain’s numerous metro locations would be open for New Year’s revelers to grab last-minute supplies of beer and snacks.

That’s still a great idea for a New Year’s countdown show sponsorship package.

Here’s where the really important part of this little tale occurs. I was well into the show when the trailer’s door swung open. Since it was always locked for security reasons, this had to be a station employee with a key. Sure enough, in climbed one of our top account executives – and he had a big grin on his face. I squeezed out of the little control room to say hello and he said, “Doug, I have someone I want you to meet.” And he introduced me to another smiling soul, who proved to be the Regional Vice President of the convenience store chain!

I thought it was pretty cool that the two of them, who surely had other things to do on New Year’s Eve, had taken the time to stop by and swap howdies. But then it got even better: the VP and the AE began to bring in bag after bag after bag of stuff from the sponsor's stores: chips, dip, candy, frozen pizza, toilet paper, even loaves of bread and – BEER!

It was all for the staff working on New Year’s Eve during the countdown show. Which meant one news guy and me. He and I later divvied up the goods (I managed to abscond with all the beer) and I happily went home to my apartment in the wee hours for my own little New Year’s party.

The point of this little remembrance is to illustrate how a top salesperson should work with customers. In this case, the AE could have just had some goodies delivered. (Many wouldn't have bothered even with that.) Instead, he had formed such a good relationship with the regional VP that they decided to bring the viands in person. This strengthened their already strong relationship and, of course, it meant the world to a poorly-paid 22-year-old marooned in a trailer in a windy parking lot on New Year’s Eve.

Next time there’s even a question about whether a salesperson should show up at a remote, client event or special program, pull this out as an example of how radio relationships ought to be. And have a wonderful, meaningful, joyous and profitable New Year!

MONDAY: The first Monday Sales Blast of the New Year!

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.

PROGRAMMING QUALITY CONTROL vs. NIT-PICKING

WHEN TO LET THE P.D. RUN THE SHOW – AND WHEN YOU HAVE TO STEP IN

I well remember the first time I was accused by a program director of meddling with his air staff. This was at a station in a large market that was at a solid signal disadvantage and really struggling to assert itself in an overcrowded band. Because of this situation, I was constantly on the hunt for any competitive edge, however small.

One day, while returning to the station in my car, I noticed our staion's audio was distorted. One thing we had invested in was good signal processing gear so this had my hackles up right away. Before calling the chief engineer, I went straight to the control room, which had a window facing a hallway. Looking in, I immediately saw the problem: our midday air talent was pegging the VU meter needles way over on the right. I’m a former major market announcer, too, and I know my way around audio processing. I hustled into the control room, pointed out the error and the talent immediately cranked down the pot. I also asked her to please keep the monitors turned up so she could hear what she was putting out.

Of course, I received the old excuse of the non-technically blessed: “The processing gear will correct any level discrepancies. Right?”

Wrong. It’s garbage-in/garbage out. No processor can smooth out a really distorted signal. All any processor can do with junk like that is make it louder.

The upshot of this little incident was a fractious PD upbraiding me for meddling with his air talent. I held my tongue and did not inform him that, in fact, since I was the general manger, she was actually my air talent. What I said was that her show belonged to all our listeners. Thus she was actually their air talent. And as such, she was responsible for producing a clean, listenable stream of audio deliciousness. Not distorted (and highly processed) trash!

What I should have done, of course, was immediately call the P.D. from my car, explain the situation and ask him to step into the control room and apply verbal nudging (or thrashing) as required.

On another occasion, I did step in directly to deal with a developing on-air train wreck because it was potentially catastrophic for the whole organization. A talk show host was vilifying a local politico for some real or imagined villainy. He had gone on about this dastardly character for at least twenty minutes and was being not only entertaining but inventive.

Until...

He went overboard so suddenly and disturbingly that direct action was required. Raking politicians over the coals has a long and glorious history on talk radio. I have no problem with it. In fact, I often enjoy it. But this host suddenly veered away from the common weal and jumped on the politician’s personal life. He attacked the guy’s wife, who was not in politics, and even suggested other kids beat up the politician’s kids at school. Then he suggested a boycott of his business, which was a prominent local appliance store chain.

A swirling vortex of people and office supplies probably trailed in my wake as I flew from my office to the air corridor. I did have the presence of mind to enquire after the location of the program director. He had left for lunch. Alright then...

I walked into the control room, reached over the board op’s shoulder toward the pot for the talk host’s microphone and punched OFF. I then pointed to the computer screen containing the program log and said, “That stopset. Right now.” To the slack-jawed producer, I said “Backup show. You’ve got three minutes”. She went scrambling for the backup show we kept on file for each of our personalities, some evergreen programming with undated general content. At the end of the set, that’s what listeners heard. Of course it was jarring. But it dammed the flood in time, I hoped, to save our business.

It did. I suspended the talk host on the spot. The politician certainly did take offense at what had been said and I had to publicly apologize on behalf of the station. (Ever have to do that? It’s lots of fun.) The program director, who hadn’t been listening during a peaceful lunch, strolled back to work and into a maelstrom. He was a good guy who had worked hard to establish that particular host in our market and I felt bad for him.

Lessons For Radio Managers About Intervening In Programming

Here’s my take-away from these and similar incidents, which could happen to any radio station manager any day:

1. Even in small markets, let your department heads run their departments for routine events

2. Recognize the difference between fine-tuning your product and the headlight of an oncoming train

3. Never – NEVER – hesitate to take the helm yourself and give it a good spin when the ship is seriously in danger of slamming into the rocks

In the end, they are your air talent, your department heads, your listeners – and your FCC license – and you are responsible for protecting all of them.

THURSDAY:  Is Sports Talk A Throwaway Format At Your Station?

INTRODUCING THE MINI-SALES MEETING

WHY SHORTER, SMALLER SALES MEETINGS RATCHET UP PRODUCTIVITY

If you’re a fan of the traditional, Old School, Hour-Or-More-Long weekly sales meeting, you’re going to have to swallow hard on this one. I’m about to share with you a way of looking at sales meetings that may be outside your comfort zone. I’m going to introduce you to the concept of the mini-sales meeting. If you implement it soon and stick to it religiously, there’s a good chance it will significantly ramp up the productivity of your sales force.

I think we can all agree on one thing: No salesperson likes sales meetings. And with good reason: they’re generally a waste of time and resources. As often as not, they’re also poorly planned, raggedly executed and deal with things that really have no business being discussed in front of everyone.

Notorious Sales Meeting Time-Wasters

Such as these usual suspects. How many of them have you trotted out at a recent sales meeting?

• Comparisons of individual sales performance – I’ll talk about this in a future blog but this Old School tactic motivates nobody except the one or two hotshots who are already atop the sales performance chart

• Rah-rah motivation – If you need to do this then, my friend, you have hired the wrong salespeople in the first place!

• Routine housekeeping – Even five minutes spent on this at a sales meeting means your sales force could have been on the street five minutes sooner

The Only Two Reasons To Have Sales Meetings

If you’re going to force everyone into a room once a week, you had better make it worth their time.  Only two things do that because they’re the only two that will make money for everyone in the room:

1. Brainstorming

2. Focused training

For example:

Brainstorming  This is NOT a general all-ideas-on-the-table bull session! If you know what makes a productive sales meeting, you know that planning is critical. So when it comes time to brainstorm, by all means include everyone but keep everyone on topic.

One good brainstorming topic is problem clients and prospects.

Here, you don’t do the old-fashioned circle-the-table and see who everyone is calling on this week. No value to that. What you do is ask each person to come prepared to discuss – in sixty seconds or less – a particular challenge that’s ahead of them in the coming week. This could be a cranky client who never seems satisfied, a hard-to-pin-down prospect or an advertiser who’s looking for a new idea that just hasn’t popped up so far. Ask for ideas, suggestions, past histories. Let everyone contribute but limit the discussion of each of these topics to five minutes or less.

Another way the group mentality can light up a sales meeting is solving a problem the whole station faces. Perhaps this has to do with branding or audience perception. Maybe ratings have dumped and advertisers need to be convinced to stay the course. The group brain is a great resource on topics like these – if it’s driven by you to stay on the subject.

Focused training

You don’t need to do formal sales training at every sales meeting. It does need to happen from time to time and only you – and your sales force – can determine when that time is.

Just remember what successful sports team coaches know about training:

• Focus each session on one item – and only one
• Practice repetitively until everyone is on board
• Involve more experienced players as mentors
• Point out to all how valuable this particular training is (in other words, how much money they can make!)

Apart from these two items, take five minutes each week with each individual salesperson to cover the performance and housekeeping issues that used to waste everyone’s time at a full weekly meeting.

Then turn ‘em loose to go sell something!

WEDNESDAY: Programing Quality Control vs. Nit-Picking

KEEP WAVERING ADVERTISERS ON THE AIR

HERE’S A SHORT LIST OF GREAT REASONS TO KEEP ADVERTISING NOW

What can your salespeople say right now to customers who may be wavering about advertising in the coming weeks? Stay the course and let the others fall behind. Sure, the economy is iffy right now. But local businesses  that maintain and even increase radio buys when their competitors are cutting back often outpace what used to be stiff competition and grab new market share – in any size market.

Get these five key messages across to any advertisers who are on the fence about being on your stations in the first quarter:

FIVE COMPELLING REASONS TO KEEP ADVERTISING

            1.  Advertising has always worked well during recessionary times. You can go back as far as the 1989-1991 recession for some stunning examples of companies that kept advertising – in many cases, increasing their ad budgets – and did much better than companies that didn’t. During that economic downturn, for example, Pizza Hut pumped up its sales 61% and Taco Bell’s sales were up 40%. When many beer brands cut way back on advertising, Coors and Bud Light kept their heads, spent more and each experienced double-digit sales hikes. How about Kraft salad dressing? Figuring more people were going to eat at home, Kraft pumped up its ad budget and catapulted its sales 70 percent.

            Obviously, these are national brands. Does this same thinking make a difference to a small business, even a one-person operation? Sure. Because the logic is the same: Let the competition panic and apply a slash-and-burn approach to advertising; local businesses that survive and thrive keep advertising – and do more of it.

           

2. When the competition cuts back, your message booms through.  Gee, fewer ads from your competitors? That’s…too…bad. Where their commercials used to run regularly on radio only yours are heard now. Where they might even have outspent you, you’re now running ads more frequently. They’re on the sidelines – you’re carrying the ball. It’s a simple sports metaphor but it exactly describes your forward-thinking business activity and their wait-it-out-and-hope-for-the-best thinking.

            3. Advertising reassures your customers, both old and new. Every day it seems we hear of a well-known company or product or brand simply disappearing. It’s happened in your area. Businesses that might have been around for generations had to fold their tents and slip away into the economic night. Not you, though. Sure, you’ve had to keep a firm grip on expenses and rethink almost everything you do. But by keeping your message on the air you’re saying to your customers and prospects, ”I’m here today. I’ll be in business tomorrow. Come to me and I will absolutely be here to take care of you”. Confidence has an enormous impact on buying decisions when money is tight. Your continued advertising campaign tells people they can rely on you, no matter what happens to those other guys.

            4. Consistency creates familiarity. Hit-and-miss never works in advertising. Never has, never will. That’s Advertising 101 and has been for a couple of centuries. Now, though, there’s a new urgency that speaks in favor of consistently putting your message out there. With the broad range of choices assailing your customers’ eyes and ears today it’s more important than ever to realize one thing: attention spans are getting shorter and shorter. 

Your advertising needs to be available to those over-stimulated eyes and ears all the time. 

            5. Community involvement strengthens your message.  Sponsor whatever you can: basketball games, concerts, community celebrations. Everyone needs money, especially when the economy is rocky, and civic sponsorships are generally very reasonably priced. When you associate your name with something that’s important in your trading area you not only project a caring image but create enormous good will with the sponsoring organization. You didn’t give up – you contributed.

Suggest to your customers that they contribute their time as well as their money. That doubles the value to both their businesses and the people and events they help.

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.