Hear 2.0

A Disclaimer is Worth a Thousand Rating Points

mramsey@mercradio.com (Mark Ramsey) — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 07:26:00 PDT

This picture - from Arbitron's own PPM reporting tool (in an MRC-approved market) speaks volumes.

To be fair, no "estimate" is precisely "accurate" because "accuracy" is no easier to measure than the number of angels dancing on the head of a pin.

Then again, pins make no head-counts and no promises to ad agencies and clients.

And pins are cheap.

Dumb Harris Poll turns cold shoulder to Radio

mramsey@mercradio.com (Mark Ramsey) — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 05:36:00 PDT

What can you say about a study that suggests nearly 1/3 of consumers say the media are of no help in making purchase decisions?

This reminds me of the focus group I did years ago where one respondent was stalwart in his assertion that brands were meaningless to him. He bought stuff on the basis of quality and quality alone, not based on the way things were portrayed in the media or, God forbid, advertising. Meanwhile, his clothing - from head to toe - was branded. And he wouldn't know "quality" if it tapped him on the shoulder and introduced itself by name.

The Harris survey in question indicated that not only do folks lie about the effects of the media on their purchase decisions (knowingly or unknowingly), but it also ranked media advertising according to its "easy to ignore" factor.

The result? Adults ignore radio commercials less than Internet or TV ads, says Inside Radio. That would be the "good" news. But on the flip side, consumers find radio ads "less helpful" than those in any other category but Internet banner ads - a fast diminishing point of comparison, indeed.

The bottom line on this study and those like it is that it's patently impossible to ask folks their "opinions" of how advertising affects them when much of the affect of advertising is non-specific or cumulative or subconscious or all of the above.

This is, after all, not a study that tracks stimulus to response with actual measurements of impact. It's simply a dumb opinion study about a topic that's better analyzed with real data, not opinions.

Users of radio advertising know that advertising works. And don't let any half-baked PR study tell you or your clients otherwise.

"Emerging Media" - Southwest Airlines Style

mramsey@mercradio.com (Mark Ramsey) — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 10:00:04 PDT

This video outlines the ways that our clients will and are increasingly using social media to go direct to their customers.

There are two ways that this is relevant to broadcasters:

1. To understand that this is the direction you must head with your own brands - whether or not you have the "time" or "resources"

2. To understand that there is a place for broadcasters to help their clients go direct to their customers using these tools with the help of the "expert staff" of your own local media company (or what used to be called your "radio station").

(If you don't see the video, click the post title)

The Shape of Radio to Come - Four Predictions

mramsey@mercradio.com (Mark Ramsey) — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 06:18:37 PDT

Several things are likely before this year is out.

First, one or more major radio groups are likely to default on their debt obligations. This, sadly, will not be a surprise. And it's hardly news.

Second, the Radio Advertising Bureau will likely vanish. If that happens it may not make a big difference to your bottom line, but it sends a very bad signal to our agency friends on Madison Avenue. I'm hoping this prediction is wrong, for the record.

Third, the structural problems of all media tentacles - especially newspaper, TV, and radio - will likely alter the FCC's ownership rules so as to allow further consolidation, including cross-industry consolidation. A shrinking industry can survive by owning more of the remaining real estate, and that's exactly what's likely to happen.

Fourth, plenty of smart broadcasters will be left standing - and lots of them will be staging for a new growth curve as they redefine their structure and their very fundamentals. And how will those be redefined?

From MediaPost:

With rare exceptions, we won't be going back to double-digit station multiples," said Mark Fratrik, vice president of the BIA Financial Network and a former executive of the National Association of Broadcasters. The reason reaches beyond the recession to systemic changes occurring in all of media and advertising.
Advertising dollars are expected to be 10% to 12% lower than 2008, which was the second-largest-ever spending decline. Marketers are clearly paralyzed or bankrupt waiting out the recession, during which time digital technology is radically altering the media game board. When Madison Avenue revives in 2010, marketers will be spending less and seeking more of the target consumer connections and qualitative data they can only get on the Internet and connected devices.
"Every local media company must broaden its thinking about what they are and how they go about their business," Fratrik says. That means partnering with Google and adopting its online ad auction model, partnering with local newspapers and other stations, aggressively getting into e-commerce and multicasting, and charging for their unique local content and services on mobile handheld devices, he said.

Now, more than ever, it's time to ask what business you're really in.

And that means what are your unique leverage points and how can you solve the problems of your constituencies better than anybody else?

To quote one of my favorite TV characters from the 90's, "the truth is out there."

If you don't understand this, then please resign now

mramsey@mercradio.com (Mark Ramsey) — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 11:19:52 PDT

You've read it in my book, you've read it on this blog, you've heard it from Gap Media, and now you can read it from BIA (referring to TV):

BIA continues to emphasize that local TV stations will see a return to profitability the quicker they see themselves as local information and entertainment companies rather than simply television transmitters.

Remove "TV" and insert "radio" and your strategic challenge is clear.

This is a transformation much more total than most broadcasters understand. This has structural, sales, programming, talent, content, and technology consequences. Are you setting the table right?

That's why I and others are actively working (often under the radar) to help "old media" radio transform into what it's becoming.

It's the "it" we always talk about...

As in "broadcasters just don't get it."

When "Feel-Good" News Hurts Radio

mramsey@mercradio.com (Mark Ramsey) — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 05:18:25 PDT

One of the biggest mistakes the radio industry makes is to embrace and encourage "feel-good" statistics from Nielsen, Arbitron, and others that look for and find the good news.

There's nothing wrong with good news, of course. But the world knows when you're not telling the whole story and it damages the credibility of the story-teller and our industry, both.

Take this piece from MediaPost, which reports on Nielsen's pronouncement that radio is still "tops with teens worldwide."

Not only does the article poke holes in the argument but it points to the weakness of the argument itself:

Indeed, the Nielsen study ended up damning radio with faint praise. For example, Nielsen's observation that "teens may find themselves in older cars not yet equipped to play from their MP3 player" hardly inspires confidence, suggesting a residual audience held in place by technical limitations that will eventually be lifted. Likewise, Nielsen's assertion that "radio still serves as an information source for local social happenings of extra relevance to teens" describes a function that is marginal to radio's overall business, and also an easy target for disintermediation by online media.

Too often, our industry is so hungry for positive spin that we leap into obvious traps - and I'm talking about companies (Nielsen and Arbitron) who should know much better. With friends like these, who needs enemies?

Here's the headline I want to see covered in MediaPost:

"Radio broadcaster launches bold initiative to reinvent industry."

Don't look for that headline to come from Arbitron or Nielsen.

Please, Arbitron and Nielsen, save your "good news." You're not doing yourselves - or the rest of us - any favors.

Rather than assure me I'm not ugly, how about announcing my makeover?

Our industry desperately needs a public relations effort with teeth - one which is about the truth of our progress and plans, not about false images of momentum full of more holes than swiss cheese. This is really pathetic, gang.

"Just call it radio," Pandora says

mramsey@mercradio.com (Mark Ramsey) — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 05:38:40 PDT

"Just call it radio."

So, I was told, said Pandora's Tim Westergren recently while in the midst of a conference call discussing strategies for Internet radio or online radio or streaming radio or IP radio or whatever it is that comes to your devices via the internet and sounds pretty doing it.

Radio, Internet radio, it's all the same thing, argued Tim. And he's not wrong, but he's also not quite right.

Obviously, it suits the agenda of Pandora to be considered by advertisers and others to be at the leading edge of radio's transformation - the most forward-thinking member of the radio tribe. Meanwhile, this suits the agenda of conventional broadcasters not at all.

But motivations and incentives aside, Tim's only right if, by "radio," he means much more than "wireless audio."

At its best, radio unites communities. Radio informs, educates, and entertains. Radio moves listeners to go places and do things - online and off - that have nothing whatsoever to do with the radio but wouldn't possibly happen without it. Radio creates demand. Radio makes our lives richer. Radio builds businesses in our local communities, saves us from traffic jams, wakes us up in the morning and tucks us in at night. It makes the workday go faster and brings our friends into our cars on our long commutes.

Today, radio is more than linear audio - it's pictures and highlights and video and blogs and on-demand and personalities and promises.

Done right and done well, radio is about the people behind the radio, not simply the songs on it, whether we personalize those songs or not. Great radio is personal, not just personalized.

Pandora is a terrific service - and a legitimate flavor of "radio." But Pandora must live up to radio's potential.

And so must the rest of the radio industry.

Learn to be like Google with these three rules

mramsey@mercradio.com (Mark Ramsey) — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 06:02:28 PDT

Megan Smith is Google's director of new business and strategy. And Google knows a thing or two about both.

Since your business - especially if it's connected to broadcasting - is unlikely to have anyone with such a title on board, let alone unlikely to fancy that it needs one, you might be curious about what Megan's three rules are, and why Google believes in them so utterly.

As told by Alan Webber in his new book Rules of Thumb: 52 Truths for Winning at Business Without Losing Your Self, here are Megan's rules:

1. The consumer participates

2. The consumer drives

3. Open systems beat closed systems

Let's take each in turn...

1. The consumer participates

The line between producer and consumer is getting fuzzy.

What is a "program director" in an era when listeners are programming their own iPods and Pandora stations, an era when some of us are creating radio programs for the rest of us?

What is an "air talent" when listeners are podcasting their own content or, say, contributing parody songs to enhance your morning show?

What is a "news station" when the most current headlines come from Twitter, and a revolution is powered by YouTube?

We can blather on all we want with the comforting slogan that "radio is the original social network" but - right or wrong - what does that matter to today's audience? After all, the Model T was the "original automobile."

If you don't open the gates for audience participation on-air and online, then you are hopelessly out of step with the times, and your audience will choose to participate without you and around you.

Shockingly, I can't even find a radio station website with so much as a "tell us what you think" response box on its front page.

If you don't want your listeners to participate and you don't care what they think, there's no better way to tell them so.

2. The consumer drives

The gift of choice is that consumers choose. And the era in which their choices were constrained by the broadcasters on an FM or AM dial are long gone.

Even today, however, I see broadcasters Hell-bent on attracting listeners to their websites and keeping them there, as if their audience didn't have a zillion options to choose from and every inclination to do so, regardless of what you want.

The goal isn't to try to glue listeners to our properties, but to make our properties so attractive that listeners want to go there. The goal isn't to force listeners to our sites but to allow listeners to share our content wherever and with whomever they want - because they want to and because it's worth it to them.

As Webber writes: "Your job is to learn to accept the fact that you're not driving anymore...Your job is to create the most exceptional, enjoyable customer experience you can conceive of. You're just another roadside attraction. That's it."

When the customer is driving its imperative to know what that customer wants and where she wants to go. Woe unto the broadcasters who fail to do their homework in this area. They will be playthings for Arbitron.

3. Open systems beat closed systems

Whether its the fall of the Berlin Wall or the current strife in Iran, nature gravitates towards open systems.

Historically, radio has been a closed system - an exclusive club with a limited supply of federally sanctioned members. But thanks to the Internet, no more.

Even famously closed Apple throws open its doors to podcasters and radio streams and iPhone apps - and the primary sales pitch for the iPhone becomes not the calls you can make with it but the apps you can use on it - Apps which depend on an open system (albeit one with standards and an approval process).

It's still common to find radio groups that perceive all the answers to their digital problems reside within the corporate castle walls. But nature suggests that such fixed, closed systems are extraordinarily vulnerable to environmental change. Meanwhile open systems, writes Webber, "save money, increase speed, invite participation...break down barriers, promote pragmatism, spotlight talent, and reward real performance."

Better to be like Google.

A walk through the Nielsen Radio Ratings Diary

mramsey@mercradio.com (Mark Ramsey) — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 05:50:00 PDT

Have you thumbed through a Nielsen Radio Ratings Diary?

I hadn't.

Until now.

This future looks a lot like the past, but with stickers.

Next up, the dedicated Howard Stern app

mramsey@mercradio.com (Mark Ramsey) — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 09:30:00 PDT

Here it is, finally. The too-long awaited Sirius XM iPhone app.

And...drumroll please...no Howard Stern, no Oprah.

Watch this absurdly breathless but nevertheless informative app tour:

Now, Sirius XM is justifiably criticized for not including its star players in its star player.

But don't be naive, folks.

In my opinion this simply sets the stage for dedicated Howard Stern and Oprah apps down the road. Each available for (get ready) a premium fee.

Now before you go ballistic on Sirius XM for charging for every piece of content and every transmission channel, recognize that these guys are trying to do what for so many digital radio players is impossible:

Give folks what they want and make money while doing so.

I can't blame 'em.