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.

RELAX: FAIRNESS DOCTRINE REVIVAL WON’T HAPPEN

REVIVAL TALK MAKES GOOD SOUNDBITES BUT THIS ISN’T IN THE CARDS

One piece of fallout from the tragic shootings in Tucson that seriously wounded a Congresswoman and killed six bystanders is talk about reviving The Fairness Doctrine. Opponents of conservative talk radio in particular are using the killings to tout a return to a federally-mandated policy that would certainly spell ruin for much of talk radio as we know it today. If you manage a talk station, relax. The Fairness Doctrine is dead and buried – and it’s going to stay that way.

Your view about a possible return to required equal time for opposing views may be shaped by which flavor of conspiracy you prefer. For some, there’s a vast conspiracy of the right to override reasonable discourse via talk radio. For most of talk radio, there’s a vast conspiracy of the left to muzzle their good works with shackles such as The Fairness Doctrine or something like it. Most of America is caught in the middle and, I suspect, is fed up with the whole debate.

The Dirty Little Secret About “Conservative” Talk Radio

Look, we’re grownup professional broadcasters here. You and I both know the lowdown on most so-called “conservative” talk radio hosts: It’s a gig. It’s their shtick. They no more go to bed at night praying to the God of Conservative Babble than classic country jocks hit the hay after making sacrifices to Ernest Tubb. You now it, I know it, they know it.

A lot of the listening public knows it, too. And as professionals, we aren’t about to put Rush or Hannity or any of them on the air if they aren’t:

• Entertaining
• Compelling
• Sold

It’s no different from any other format choice except that talk radio inflames both mind and mouth at both ends of the political spectrum.

All of which means that talk radio requires nothing like government-mandated rules about what it can say (within the law, that is) and whose voices it may include or exclude.

Know who else knows this? The Obama Administration. The FCC. And every member of Congress.

Shackling the Media: Always A Favorite

It’s always good copy for a politician to strike out at “the media”. And let’s face it, we’ve made ourselves popular targets. We’re the ones with the microphones, the cameras, the Bully Pulpit. Rush may have revolutionized AM radio programming but he also pinned a target on it that any politico can site in easily and often. The outcry over the supposed palpability of talk radio in the Tucson tragedy has given the green light to some politicians to harp about the good old days when anything you said about someone required an offer of equal time. It was unwieldy then, listeners didn’t care and it somehow smacked of Big Brother giving the gate (to use a favorite hockey phrase) to  free expression.

And this has right wing talk hosts squealing with delight. It’s fodder for their never-ending shtick machine, which cannot survive and thrive without the threat of that vast conspiracy I mentioned earlier. Okay by me. It’s compelling radio. I don’t have to treat it as a religion.

You Can’t Put Back What People Don’t Want

The Fairness Doctrine was introduced in 1949, when the broadcasting landscape was vastly different from today's. No revival effort has so much as made it out of committee in the nearly quarter century since Ronald Reagan abolished it by Executive Order. It won’t this time, either. If President Obama doesn’t have it on his agenda and Democrats at the FCC aren’t supporting it, who’s left to champion such legislation? Almost no one. It’s only being spoken of now by opportunistic politicians and talk show hosts.

At the grass roots level, The Fairness Doctrine won’t resurface for the same reason that you’ll never again see Prohibition and the military draft: they’re politically iffy, difficult and expensive to implement and wildly unpopular.

At the professional level, it simply isn’t needed. Talk radio has saved the entire AM band. With few exceptions, it’s professionally presented and whether or not you agree with its politics, you and I know it’s nothing more or less than a strong format.

So sleep soundly, talk station manager. Your format is safe and sound. And the government knows it has many better things to do.

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.

SALES FORCES ARE EXPANDING – WHAT ABOUT YOURS?

AS THE ECONOMY IMPROVES, COMPANIES SEE GROWTH AHEAD, HIRE MORE SALESPEOPLE

A telltale sign that Corporate America sees an improving economy is a very strong trend toward expanding its sales forces. Salespeople should have been the last employees to be let go, since they’re the only ones who bring in the money. But many radio stations didn’t see things that way when the economy soured. Now that buyers are loosening the purse strings again, they have to ramp up their sales staffs to handle the increased business. And there’s no better time than right now.

The Alexander Group has just released a comprehensive new study it calls the 2011 Sales Compensation Trends Survey. In a nutshell, Alexander’s David Cichelli, Senior Vice-President and Survey Editor, says the results show a “sharp uptick” in sales hiring plans and loosening of previously tight-fisted controls on expenses. “Most sales departments are ready to spend money to help grow top line revenues” he said.

Hopefully, that includes radio sales departments, too.

The reason for this sudden brightening of viewpoint on sales hiring is the obvious one: companies expect to make more money this year than during the last three recession-racked years. A whopping 80.3% predict sales growth in 2011.

ALL SIGNS POINT TO REVENUE GROWTH IN 2011

Other highlights from Alexander Group’s survey that are of interest to radio station managers include:

• Increasing investment in sales departments – Nearly 72% of the companies surveyed say they plan to spend more on sales in 2011

• Putting more hot bodies on the street – Over 61% plan to hire additional salespeople this year

• Paying salespeople more – 65% of the large group surveyed said they’ll increase base sales pay over the next 12 months

• Jacking up sales incentives – Around 3% is the median rate reported by the survey subjects

The Alexander Group study covered a substantial base of companies nationwide. Results are drawn from responses by over 130 corporations employing a total of around 140,000 salespeople.

WHAT RADIO STATION MANAGERS MUST DO NOW

First: Get going. This is no time to sit tight and hope for better days.

All signs indicate the economy is coming back. Holiday spending was strong and retail, our life’s blood, is looking healthy again for the first time in recent memory. Radio needs well-trained people who come to the table already motivated on the streets, helping customers get back on the air.

Second: It’s also no time for skinflint half-measures. If you’re tempted to say, “I guess we could hire two or three people, pay ‘em straight commission, send ‘em out and see how they do”, you might as well save your time. That kind of thinking sank a lot of broadcasters even before the economy went south. It buried many more when things really got tight.

If you are seriously so beat-up by economic conditions that you can’t think of anything else to do now than the scenario I just mentioned, maybe it’s time to get out of the radio business altogether. There’s no dishonor in that. For some, it’s the only way out of situations they think they can't win.

But if you still have the spark, that Something Within that told you radio was where you needed to be in your life, the drive to get back out and start swinging again, this is the time to get going. Start looking again for quality salespeople, organized yet outside-the-box thinkers who can represent broadcast, online, and any other media you can corral.

Most of all, the Alexander Group survey tells us that the business of selling is coming back, and fast. Which means that a lot of quality salespeople who have been forced to the sidelines are going to get snapped up and put back on the street.

Which also means you’d better get to know who they are so you can grab the good ones before someone else – maybe your competition – gets there first.

I’m thrilled but not surprised by the Alexander survey’s findings. A jump start for sales forces has been long overdue. The smart managers – the ones most likely to make strong gains quickly in the improving economy – feel the sea change, too. And they’re ready to expand their sales forces to ride the crest of the new waves of prosperity that are thundering toward us right now.

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.

HOPE FOR ALL BECAUSE OF HOMELESS “GOLDEN VOICE”

IT HAPPENED FOR TED WILLIAMS; IT COULD HAPPEN FOR ANY OF US

If, like me, you’ve been thrilled by the good fortune that has suddenly cascaded upon Ted Williams, the homeless man with the throat painted in gold in Columbus, GOOD. Many skilled radio professionals are out of work and some have been for a long time. Perhaps now, at the start of the  year, is a perfect time to either recall or to understand for the first time that something fantastic could happen for you, too – any time.

I know what I’m talking about. I’ve been blessed to be given a second chance in my profession, too. That time, it resulted in the job of a lifetime – up to then.  Right now, I’m searching for and confidently expecting yet another “second chance”. You might be in the same situation. We need it. We deserve it. The trick is to be absolutely certain that it WILL happen for us. Because call it what you want, the power that surrounds us is all for the good and it is unlimited.

Not to go all New Age on you here but this belief in the abundance of the universe really does work. (New Age is a terrible term, too, since this belief goes back to the dawn of time. However...)

I’m writing about second chances today because so many radio professionals need one. I don’t believe the phrase is accurate, by the way. There are PLENTY of chances. Let’s call them ADDITIONAL chances instead of second chances, which implies that there might be only two. One thing I know from personal experience is that there is no limit – none whatever – on Additional Chances. Only on our belief that they could exist for us.

Amid all the reportage surrounding the Ted Williams story this week was a little piece on TV about his ex-wife. I mean, the guy has had a full life – way too full, by his own admission – as well as a wife and six kids. She remarked that only last Sunday in church, the sermon was about – go ahead, guess – second chances. The minister asked “Who would you pray for to get another chance?”

His ex-wife’s answer, and that of her current husband: “Ted”.

I’ll borrow that question for today’s column: Who would you pray for to get another chance?

We all know one or more radio pros who desperately need another shot at the business right now. I’ve just been in touch with one of the top air personalities I’ve ever heard, a thoroughly talented broadcaster and a good guy. He’s on the beach simply because an employer reached too high and wound up not being able to do what he planned. Thanks and so long.

Frankly, I’m in the same boat.

More than anyone else, those of us who have earned a crust for a few years in broadcasting know that great talent can wind up unemployed – even in desperate straits – through no fault of their own. This business has a long, bitter history of discarding its best and brightest. Those who make it back again and again have what a long-ago writer called That Something Within: a core belief that not only is great abundance available to you – but that you deserve it.

It’s hard to keep a grip on that, I know. But it works and it works because it’s true.

I’m excited about what’s ahead for you. For me, too. Because it’s going to be terrific and it’s happening right now, whether we realize it or not.

If you need an amazing voice, Ted Williams is your man.

If you could use a terrific morning drive personality, I can steer you straight to a couple of the best you’ll ever meet.

And if you need a strong radio station manager well, humbly, I happen to know one of those. (He doubles in play-by-play, too!)

Most of all, if you’re reluctantly basking with thousands “on the beach” right now, I strongly urge you to reach inside and find That Something Within that reassures you that you are very, very good at what you do. That not a second chance but Another Chance from an unlimited supply is out there for you right now.

Most of all that, like silken-throated Ted Williams in Ohio, no matter what lies behind you, you deserve to survive and thrive right now. And you will if you BELIEVE that you will.

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