tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-214594722024-03-13T14:26:34.221-05:00Radio RefugeeMy take on the media circus with a radio/music bias. I've been in the ring, and outside the tent. Sometimes
it's hard to tell the difference.Lou Mazzucchellihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06433422870345865172noreply@blogger.comBlogger12125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21459472.post-17695100272936703892007-08-06T09:43:00.000-05:002007-08-06T12:15:59.083-05:00Cutting The Nose Off The Goose That Ate The Seed CornPardon my deliberately mixed metaphor, but, boy howdy! I go out of the country for a while and come back to a movement afoot in Congress to force radio broadcasters to pay a performance royalty. Has the collective body of performance artists in the US taken an RIAA pill to make them as brain dead as that erstwhile organization? Do they realize just what the logical implications of that measure could be?<br /><br />Let me state for the record that I am against broadcast, Internet or any other advertiser-supported "broadcasters" being forced to pay performance royalties. It will be amusing to watch the NAB and others argue for one position while arguing against the other, but not surprising given each sides' vested interest.<br /><br />But that's not the point. If songwriters and performers want to extinguish the mass market for new music in the US, I can't think of a better way than to support this proposal. Why? Because, instead of unearthing a mythical pot of money, this rule will force a series of rational economic behaviors which will tighten playlists, increase costs for both stations and record labels, and reduce the amount of money spent on development of new acts.<br /><br />Think about it. Radio and the music business have had a long-standing symbiotic relationship: the radio stations supply free airtime, the labels (or artists themselves in some cases) supply the content. Radio benefits from not having to pay to fill the airtime, and the music industry benefits from free advertising (yes, that's what playing a song on the radio is, in effect, advertising for the artist and songwriter). <br /><br />Suddenly, the performers (and labels, if they own the performance rights) want to be paid for their content. Doesn't it make sense, then, for radio to be paid for its airtime? If one side is going to break this deal, then it's only fair for the other side to respond in kind.<br /><br />Music radio programmers today don't worry about "what will the song cost to play". You can bet, once they have to, that the bean-counters are going to put pressure on programmers to minimize the "expense" of the music they play. And music radio, as practiced today, is risk-averse enough - resulting in few adds over the course of the year. This tends to play into the hands of established acts. Are the chances of a song by a new act being added to a playlist going to increase, given the proposed explicit economic risk added to the current "loss-of-listener" risk? I don't think so. And forget about that impromptu Gentle Giant retrospective - got to get a sponsor first.<br /><br />Another way the bean-counters might respond is to raise revenue to offset the increased expense. Some argue that radio ad rates have been rising in the face of audience erosion, and are too high already. This would result in more pressure to play less music in general. Unless, of course, the radio stations start charging record labels to play the music to cover the performance royalty expense. While some readers may be thinking "payola", I'm thinking rationality. Radio airplay of music is advertising. Why shouldn't the labels pay, if the radio stations have to pay and the advertisers won't?<br /><br />But, one might argue, wouldn't the labels tend to concentrate their new "airplay" budgets on their most successful acts, or ones they were trying to make successful? Exactly. Just have they have been doing with other forms of promotion for years. They are just as risk-averse as radio stations, and tend not to focus on their back catalogues. Does this favor the average artist? Hard to see how.<br /><br />And, finally, given the complexity and overhead costs of tracking performance royalties, some stations might just abandon music formats altogether.<br /><br />I could go on - but you get the point. Somebody wasn't thinking when they woke this sleeping giant. Now we're going to see how ugly the giant really is.Lou Mazzucchellihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06433422870345865172noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21459472.post-13650704398995765692007-05-31T09:34:00.000-05:002007-05-31T10:51:32.328-05:00Why HD Radio Can Really MatterNow that the consumer electronics manufacturers have begun to introduce volume HD products (JVC, Sony, Panasonic, Alpine and Kenwood are all ramping up their efforts), it is reasonable to expect that there might be more than a handful of potential listeners by the end of this year, with decent growth momentum carrying into 2008.<br /><br />The big question for radio is how to monetize this audience - scenarios span the spectrum from "run HD subchannels at a loss to prop up the primary channel" to "sell HD audiences as stand-alone targets". The bean counters reading this will note that I deliberately set extremes at each end - instead of accounting for each HD channel as its own P&L, it's easy enough to account for an HD subchannel as an expense of a "primary" channel - the net result being lower margins if no additional revenue is generated. And I don't expect a single station to set up a completely redundant infrastructure to sell and service HD subchannels.<br /><br />Notice I said a "single station". But what about a large cluster, or a regional or national aggregation of stations? HD radio allows the quick and relatively easy creation of "overlay networks" on top of existing radio spectrum, and can leverage a lot of the existing infrastructure. These networks have the potential to reach large enough audiences to matter to regional and national advertisers.<br /><br />So there are at least two ways to look at the HD opportunity: one is from the position of a stand-alone station or cluster, and the other is from the perspective of an overlay network builder. <br /><br />Let's examine the stand-alone issues first. Is the goal of using an HD subchannel to strengthen the primary channel? If so, then we can view the HD channel like we view a station website. It's a place for additional information, footnotes, and listener interaction all tied back to the primary programming. Did a music station do a live recording of a local band? Play the best tracks on the primary and cross promote the entire broadcast on HD. Is a news station covering a visit by a Presidential candidate? Air the best sound bites on the primary, and make more material available on HD (but take care not to let this devolve into "CSPAN lite"). A critical element in both of these examples is strong cross-promotion back to the primary station, either with contests that require cross-listening, or strong programming elements that can pull accross the channels (and note to the hardware guys - make it easy for listeners to hop between the primary and the subsidiary channels, or this model won't work).<br /><br />The above examples are about using HD to go "deep" to support a primary channel. But there are other uses. When WCBS-FM switched from oldies to Jack, the oldies format moved to HD. It's crying into the wilderness now, but, as HD receivers become more available, it may find its prior listeners. This is an example of the "long tail" phenomenon, which posits that markets shrink over time, but rarely go to zero. The long tail promise is that, with low cost distribution, it becomes economically viable to serve the growing number of small fragmented markets. A key long-tail assumption is that content exists, and has a long shelf life. This is but one of the reasons the "pure" long-tail model doesn't work for radio - unless you believe that the future of HD is all recordings, all the time. Even with cheap HD subchannels, filling multiple channels with pre-recorded content doesn't seem that appealing from an aesthetic or an economic perspective.<br /><br />But, if small islands of interest exist in local markets, and they could be tied together by an HD overlay network, then that aggregation can result in an audience big enough to attract the interest of advertisers (and talent). In this model, the local stations are spectrum landlords - a key concern here is primary target audience overlap with the HD overlay network programming. However, that overlap could be a plus if the primary station wants a way to reach its listeners as they travel out of its coverage area (and don't have the Internet in their cars). Ubiquitous national coverage is the primary differentiator for XM and Sirius - and is why they could be vulnerable to a concerted attack from a terrestrial overlay network. An interesting tactical side issue will become how to use overlay programming to take share away from primary competition in a market - this should be fun to watch.<br /><br />HD radio is a sleeping giant. Terrestrial radio would be well served to wake it up, and put it to work.Lou Mazzucchellihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06433422870345865172noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21459472.post-13649772304058091612007-04-11T07:41:00.000-05:002007-04-11T08:30:54.600-05:00Dumber Than DirtOnce upon a time, the FCC required that radio stations prove their actions in "the public interest, convenience and necessity" in order to maintain their licences.<br /><br />Can someone explain to me how defaming a women's basketball team meets any of those criteria?<br />I didn't think so.<br /><br />These women are not celebrities, nor politicians, nor public figures by virtue of anything other than their participation in an amateur sporting event - they are private citizens. And yet, one of the most popular radio figures in the US deemed it acceptable to utter a racist, tasteless and inaccurate characterization of them, offered up as "entertainment".<br /><br />I've admired this person for a long time. But there are lines that should not ever be crossed, and the more experience you have, the clearer your judgement should be. A justifiable howl has gone up in response to this error in judgement, but the saddest thing for me to watch are people rising in defense of the indefensible.<br /><br />Let's consider: if this happened at a local station, the person would have been fired already. That is an appropriate response to an action of such stupidity (but even firing does not remove the threat of liability to the station). The person might or might not find another radio job, depending on his or her past performance, acknowledgement of the error and committment never to repeat it.<br /><br />The person in question may have had a long and successful career, may generate millions of dollars for his employer, and may be a wonderful family man who loves kittens. But that doesn't matter, and the proposed punishment, a two week suspension, is sending a message that this behavior is, if not acceptable, at least tolerable. It is not.<br /><br />Interestingly, the programs' sponsors are leading the way in doing the right thing, by pulling their advertising dollars. In the limit, this effectively cancels the program. But even a large enough partial response might give the employer enough backbone to make a stronger response to this boneheaded, thoughtless, irresponsible (i could go on...) episode.<br /><br />It wouldn't hurt this person to be off the air for a year. As a condition for his return, he would have to travel to the top 100 radio markets at his own expense, and meet with local radio people to explain that they should never, ever want to get to a position where they don't think about what they are saying to a mass audience, and the negative effects their speech can have.Lou Mazzucchellihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06433422870345865172noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21459472.post-26000901451362351382007-03-11T14:26:00.000-05:002007-03-11T15:33:56.747-05:00Beat The Clock: Why the PPM is Good For RadioAs most of you know by now, Arbitron has rolled out its Portable People Meter in Houston and Philadelphia, and we should begin to see numbers soon that will be argued about by all. The technology is sound (literally), the system design is well thought out, and I think it will hold up to any technical objections raised. On the other hand, at least one critic has suggested that there is a difference between a person being in a room with a sound and actively listening to the sound. Certainly the PPM eliminates the errors inherent in relying on people to fill out diaries consistently and accurately, but it doesn't close the loop into a listeners' brain. However, broadcast advertising rates are currently based on the number of potential listeners comprising an audience, not impressions actually received. In that regard, the PPM changes nothing.<br /><br />While the above discussion proceeds, let me suggest at least two ways that the PPM will benefit radio, and, ultimately, all broadcast media. The first is to help close the advertising order/payment cycle. Broadcast advertising is one of the last industries to embrace supply-chain automation technology, in part because it's so hard to build a closed-loop system. By getting radio stations used to encoding program material, one can imagine that, eventually, ads can be encoded and detected. This will drive better accuracy in delivery and clearance, and shorten the time to create affidavits, which in turn should shorten a station's receivables cycle. In addition, better schedule performance will reduce the number of make-goods a station has to carry on its balance sheet - this makes bean-counters happy, and potentially frees up cash for other uses.<br /><br />While the PPM can ultimately make the business types happy, the Radio Refugee likes it because it can smash the Arbitron-induced dogma that holds quarter-hours sacred. This dogma, a logical outcome of gaming the Arbitron methodology, has resulted in every station in a market (yea, every station in the country, or at least the Arbitron MSAs) sticking to basically the same programming clock.<br /><br />Arbitron's PPM has the potential to smash this clock. The FCC still requires its hourly ID, but other than that, programmers will be free to experiment with new (or perhaps old but forgotten) approaches to captivating audiences, knowing that their success is not dependent on what happens in the first five minutes of each quarter hour. <br /><br />I don't expect every station to abandon its clock - there are valid programming reasons for predictability in certain formats, especially news/weather/traffic. But I fully expect that someone in a PPM market with a music-oriented format could find a way to take advantage of the PPM's always-on nature to give listeners more than the same old stop-set, ad pod shuffle we've come to take as gospel. Furthermore, adventurous programmers can being to take cues from their television brethren and experiment with ads that go beyond :30s and :60s (see <a href="http://mcvaymediarocks.blogspot.com">mcvaymediarocks.blogspot.com</a> for some of my specific proposals in this area).<br /><br />In summary, Arbitron's PPM has that rare potential to be a true win-win, with side effects that offer long-term improvements to the general state of the broadcasting business and art. <br /><br />End note: Many people mis-refer to the Portable People Meter as the <i>Personal</i> People Meter, and I can't hear that without thinking of Sheb Wooley...Lou Mazzucchellihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06433422870345865172noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21459472.post-19270612300638810802007-02-20T20:11:00.000-05:002007-03-11T15:47:31.005-05:00Space JunkYou've got to hand it to Sirius and XM - they've got chutzpah. After convincing Wall Street that satellite radio was a market the size of the solar system that could support all comers, and raising hundreds of millions of investor dollars, now they want us to believe that the satellite radio market is just another struggling niche in the entertainment spectrum, and it's not fair that they have to keep beating each other over the head to attract listeners, and that they both should have to pay for duplicate transponders, studios, content and talent.<br /><br />The FCC and the Justice Department should issue a one word response: tough. <br /><br />No one put a gun to these company's heads to force them into business. I don't remember reading about any government subsidy to bring Howard Stern to Sirius (although, come to think of it, getting him off the terrestrial spectrum would have been a good use of public funds...). No one is forcing either company to pay $90 to $114 to acquire a subscriber.<br /><br />Neither Sirius nor XM has made a profit. You can talk about free cash flow all you want, but the operating bills still have to be paid. On a P&L basis, both companies don't look so good, and their stock reflects this reality. One could argue that the programming and talent of either constitute an asset that should be valued highly, but both companies have overpaid so much for talent and programming that no one will buy out any contracts at face value.<br /><br />Could satellite radio ever be profitable with two competitors? Yes, if both were to sharply pare back their operating expenses. But instead, we are being asked to create a monopoly that is basically a reward for profligate spending by both camps.<br /><br />Can anyone expect that a merged entity will suddenly become thrifty? Sure, getting rid of all the duplication will reduce the fixed expenses, but both companies have said they'll be running their distribution systems in parallel for the forseeable future. If there is as much competition from iPods and terrestrial radio as XM/Sirius would like us to believe, why should subscriber acquisition costs go way down? Or why should talent cost any less? Will the spending of the merged company be covered by the purported expense savings? If not, do you think there might be pressure to, I don't know, raise the price of the only satellite service in town? <br /><br />Sirius and XM do compete with other forms of audio entertainment, but justifying a merger on those grounds is like allowing all the cable companies to merge because there are movie theaters. If DOJ and the FCC (purporting to represent the public) are serious about a competitive satellite radio market, they will not approve this merger. If that means that XM or Sirius fails, that's the free market in action. Someone else can take a whack at the ball out of bankruptcy.<br /><br />My advice to Kevin Martin: offer these companies this deal -- they can either continue to compete in the open market, or, they can merge, but into a regulated utility. Want to bet which choice they'd make?Lou Mazzucchellihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06433422870345865172noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21459472.post-29697564315070396632007-02-16T18:38:00.000-05:002007-02-16T20:46:21.569-05:00Just Because You Can Doesn't Mean You ShouldAccording to The New York Times of 2/14, "The nation's commercial radio stations have seen the future, and it is in, of all things, video". The article then goes on to describe the let's-hang-a-camcorder-in-the-studio phenomenon, and quotes an LA promotions director as saying "This is a visual medium now".<br /><br />OK, LA. I'm not surprised. But here's a quote from NY: "People are either going to have to get with the program or get lost". Sounds like a pretty definitive statement to me.<br /><br />But it's wrong. <br /><br />Ironically, the article's author grabs what might be the most succinct rebuttal quote, and then misuses it in support of the lead. Marshall McLuhan did write "the effect of radio is visual". Let's emphasize: <b>the <i>effect</i> of radio is visual</b>. This is what gives radio its power. McCluhan did not say "radio <i>is</i> visual". It's not. Making radio visual will diminish it, turning it into television.<br /><br />Why do I say diminish? Because radio, done right, is a mind-expanding medium. A listener hears sound, and his or her brain goes to work filling in the details. If I say "giant airplane dropping a four-ton cherry onto a mountain of whipped cream" (borrowing from a classic radio example), the listener has to imagine an airplane - is it a Sopwith Camel, or a B2? Then imagine a cherry. Bing or Maraschino? With or without stem? Then the mountain of whipped cream - or is it Cool Whip?<br /><br />The beauty of radio is we don't know - the result is going to be a personal experience of the listener. <br /><br />Television (the non-news part) is a mind-limiting medium. If we tried to to the same thing on TV, we would have to decide all of the open questions in advance. Our choices are just that, ours. The viewer has to accept the result, or not. We have to instantiate the visual ideas. Unless we spend a lot of money, the result on screen isn't going to look anything near as good as what a listener's head can conjure. (Note there is a medium where that kind of money is spent. It's called movies.)<br /><br />The same holds for characters - "personalities" in radio-speak. In the old days of radio, everyone knew what Lamont Cranston looked like - he looked like every individual listener imagined him. This process of imagination was a cognitive investment, and that investment bred loyalty. But when Adam West did his campy Batman on television, the only investment a lot of former Batman fans made was to get up and change the channel - the creative choices made for television were at odds with a large chunk of viewer imagination. <br /><br />TV show developers live or die on getting those choices right enough to attract an audience big enough to make a profit for a network. It costs a lot to get a television program (even a bad one) to air. Therefore, television tends to be a highly risk-averse medium. When risks are minimized, the results are, by definition, predictable. Hence the state of commercial television programming as we know it.<br /><br />It doesn't cost a lot (beyond paying for good talent) to make great radio. This fact should encourage risk-taking (within the limits defined by station management and the FCC), because the cost of a failed attempt is not huge. Making radio more "television-like" will only add cost, and get radio on the glide slope to mediocrity-ville. Some folks might say we're there already, but that's fodder for another essay.<br /><br />Another obvious fact: voices age more gracefully than faces. If radio devolves into television, careers will be shorter, plastic surgery bills will be higher, or both. Look at any major market news show to observe the pathetic sight of aging male news anchors trying to maintain a youthful look. It's not pretty, and HD is going to make it so much worse. There are several syndicated radio personalities who have begun simulcasting their radio shows on television. Can anyone reading this honestly say any of those video broadcasts adds to the radio content or your positive impression of the talent? <br /><br />One last practical note: part of the appeal of a personal appearance by radio talent is for people to see someone they don't usually see. That gets lost if the talent is always in plain sight. <br /><br />Many people are getting swept up in the cresting wave of Internet video, and jumping to the conclusion that using the Internet to augment radio programming means that radio must make broad use of video. The Internet can be a very powerful tool in radio's continued fight for relevance. Hosting music videos or network programming can help draw viewers to a radio station's website. The occasional video skit from a station's talent can be the spice in that programming stew.<br /><br />But like any spice, use too much and it will make people queasy.Lou Mazzucchellihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06433422870345865172noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21459472.post-72263502736903317042007-02-11T09:52:00.001-05:002010-05-17T10:37:09.221-05:00Can Your iPod Do That?I've been commuting to Silicon Valley from New York for the last six months, and, to preserve my sanity, finally gave in and bought an iPod Shuffle. It changed my commuting experience completely. It let me reconnect with music I just hadn't had time to hear, which was like getting together with a bunch of old friends. The shuffle feature had the added advantage of presenting familiar music in new combinations - I've discovered lots of seques and sets that I hadn't thought of before.<br />
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From a Radio Refugee perspective, that's the good news. But the bad news is I'm now one of many millions to own a device that competes directly with radio for my listening attention. And, the automakers are piling on by making it easy to plug this device into car audio systems, encroaching on one of the last safe havens for radio (satellite or terrestrial).<br />
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The extreme pessimistic view that iPods and their ilk with destroy radio has already been surfaced, and a flurry of responses has been issued citing the unique ability of radio to provide time- and locality-sensitive information, like traffic, news and weather, or event calendars. But what's to prevent Apple of some other company from equipping an iPod with wireless communications capability, and allowing easy access to these information services over a cell network, WiMax or WiFi? Answer: nothing. See the iPhone announcement for a peek into that future.<br />
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Sounds like the bad news just got worse. But I'm not writing off radio just yet. Why? Because I don't have a personal relationship with my iPod's software. The iPod doesn't tell me it's feeling blue if it's a rainy day, or that it's excited because a great band is coming to town. The iPod can't make me laugh at a good joke that relates to some politician's recent gaffe. The iPod can't put music together that reflects what's happening where I am right now. Get it? The iPod can program <i>at</i> me, but it can't speak <i>to</i> me. <br />
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In short, the iPod can be a tool, but not a person. A person can know something about me. A person can care about me. I can have romantic fantasies about a person. A person can become a friend. My iPod can't be my friend.<br />
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But that voice on the radio is a person. That person can become my friend. I care about my friends - and I will choose to be with them over using my tools. Building and maintaining this relationship with listeners is the challenge for radio in the world of iPods.<br />
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Radio can be a listener's trusted friend. Can your iPod do that?<br />
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<strong>Random Notes</strong><br />
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Follow up on Jack et al: According to the Arbitron ratings, WCBS-FM is at the head of the middle of the pack in NYC, about where predicted a (ahem) year ago. I note with interest that both Jack in NYC and Max in Silicon Valley have added a unique new wrinkle to the format: people! What a concept...<br />
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If one wants a definition of "professional" in the music business, look no further than Prince's performance during the Super Bowl. Not only did he construct a set list that acknowledged the vastly heterogeneous audience, he delivered it in the pouring rain with nary a glitch nor complaint on his part.Lou Mazzucchellihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06433422870345865172noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21459472.post-1141003239814974382006-02-26T20:10:00.001-05:002012-04-18T09:52:28.245-05:00Jack: Dull Boy or Rising Tide?About a year ago, the “Jack” format oozed onto the radio scene. Like many subversive American media trends, this one also had Canadian origins – perhaps their deep-rooted need to hear Bachman-Turner Overdrive and the Guess Who was a contributing factor. In any case, the format spread to America, where it was diluted, of course. But it was picked up in many markets, mostly because of its novelty value. If your station is in the ratings toilet, almost any major format change will attract a larger audience for a while.<br />
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Some folks, like my friend Mike McVay at McVay Media, have weighed in on Jack's merits or lack of same:<br />
<blockquote>“Jack/Bob/Whatever is most valuable in those situations where your cluster has an inferior station with inferior ratings. To a station at the bottom of the heap, being mid-pack is an improvement. That’s how I continue to see Jack/Bob/Whatever. It’s middle-of-the-pack at best in most USA situations.”</blockquote>I think that Mike is right, for reasons that we’ll get to. But what Mike doesn’t mention is the positive influence that Jack (or its cousin, Bob, or Fred, or any of the “name” formats out there) is having on other stations in their markets.<br />
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I happen to live in the biggest radio market in the US. I’m sure some of you on the west coast heard the screams when WCBS-FM switched from their oldies format to Jack – it was quite an event. It turns out that, as part of the switch, WCBS also moved to HD radio, which gave them the opportunity to offer up an oldies sub-channel for those that cared – very smart. If Mike McVay is right, we’ll see a ratings pop in the next few ratings books and then a slip into “mid-pack”. <br />
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But, the side-effects of Jack’s entry into the New York market are much more interesting. Before Jack, I could depend on the top-rated rock station, Q104, to be playing Pink Floyd or Led Zeppelin whenever I turned them on – dependable and boring it was. After Jack, their playlist has expanded, and the expansion has been aggressively promoted. Before Jack, the top-rated AC outlet, WPLJ, sported a playlist that felt like about 25 songs. Just before Jack entered the market, their playlist got bigger, and the station ran TV ads touting “more variety” – prescience, or a pre-emptive attack? No matter – the net effect was that radio in this market got better, thanks to Jack.<br />
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I’m a big believer in big playlists – audiences will respond positively to songs that trigger old neurons to fire. But, as Jack’s critics have noted, a big playlist alone does not successful radio make. And, how many Jack listeners are already tired of the “automation + smarmy voice” sound? This is precisely what will ultimately lead to mid-pack performance. <br />
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Big playlists help provide two necessary ingredients of winning radio: variety and relevance. But there are other important ingredients that go into the recipe, and that’s where Jack somes up short. Is Jack better than PDRN (Petri Dish of Rat Neurons, see below)? I don’t think so, but the name is cooler…Lou Mazzucchellihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06433422870345865172noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21459472.post-1140399215003501762006-02-19T20:23:00.000-05:002006-02-19T20:33:35.006-05:00My Program Director is a Rat (neuron)I was reading the other day about researchers in Florida who have gotten a bunch or rat neurons in a Petri dish to simulate flying an F-22 fighter airplane in conditions that are almost impossible for us humans, and the little radio homunculus on my shoulder kept asking “if a bunch of rat neurons can perform this highly complex task, how long before some radio executive somewhere gets the bright idea to apply the concept to radio?” <br /><br />Now, I want to state for the record that just because some stations sound like they’re programmed by a Petri dish full of rat neurons, this has not been accomplished yet (to my knowledge). And I don’t think it’s all that likely to define market-winning behavior, even in the dark futures I tend to dream up.<br /><br />Why? Flying an F-22 simulator is effectively a “closed” feedback system – the rat neurons get a set of inputs that are limited to conform to airplane physics, which is unlikely to change quickly. Plus, the rat neurons are not expected to influence the source of their input as a result of their behavior. <br /><br />Now imagine a completely automated radio station – let’s pick an extreme and use WWV, whose sole function in life is to broadcast the time kept by an atomic clock. This is a prime candidate for programming by PDRN, since its listeners only ever tune in to get the correct time. Can you listen to WWV for an entire quarter hour? Only if your Thorazine has kicked in.<br /><br />Let’s move up a notch. Consider a completely automated station running music and advertising. Except that it’s not completely automated – the sales staff tunes the spot load and schedule to its advertisers’ requirements. Could the music format be replaced by PDRN? Probably. Can you listen for an entire quarter hour? Probably. Can you listen for an hour? Maybe – but only if there aren’t other options, like a more engaging station, or a CD or an iPod. Is this station likely to develop intense listener loyalty? Doubtful. Now let’s make a small change – instead of a pre-programmed music format, let the listeners weigh in with a “thumbs up” or a “thumbs down” on the music they hear and have that affect the music programming – this probably defines the limit of PDRN. A station like this should deliver better results, but it can still be beaten by adding (human) talent – if the talent is allowed more range we can get from PDRN.<br /><br />Why? Radio at its best is the most dynamic broadcast medium – it can adjust its format and content almost instantly in response to changing audience interests, tastes and needs (and note the “can” – how many stations can you think of that exploit this unique attribute?). People are the only way (today at least) to detect and react to changes in audience behavior and interest, both behind the scenes and on the air.<br /><br />And even good radio creates the most powerful and lasting relationship with its audience of any mass medium – think about it: how many people identify with a TV Station, movie studio, record label or book publisher the way they do with a radio station?<br /><br />My new pet radio programming benchmark is the Petri dish of rat neurons. Can your station beat it?Lou Mazzucchellihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06433422870345865172noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21459472.post-1139365486279764682006-02-07T21:18:00.000-05:002006-02-07T21:24:46.290-05:00TomorrowlandI had this dream: the radio woke me up at 7AM. It was a MegaChannel station. That wasn’t surprising – all the stations in town were owned by MegaChannel. Didn’t matter anyway – I was on the west coast, the station was voiced-tracked from Bangalore and I knew that “Johnny Buzzcock” was really some guy named Dilip. The big media companies had finally gotten the FCC to do away with that silly notion of locality, and so the new ownership rules let any one company own up to 45% of the national media market regardless of media type.<br /><br />What followed was pretty predictable. In the name of efficiency (spelled p-r-o-f-i-t), the big media companies began consolidating their holdings and trading with each other to gain geographic dominance – like you’d trade one yellow street for a green in order to get all three in a popular board game whose name escaped me…<br /><br />So it ended up that NoEnd Broadcasting wound up with Boston, MegaChannel got Chicago, etc. Of course, New York and LA were the last to be “rationalized”, but only after things got ugly and the Commissioner of Media was brought in to settle the remaining disputes. Like clockwork, the outsourcing wave swept through the media industry and sent 40% of its US jobs overseas.<br /><br />After the stock market got done digesting the improved earnings from that phase of consolidation, the media bigs needed to find new ways to grow. So they began buying up adjacent entertainment businesses: movie theater chains, concert venues, and amusement parks. Then, realizing that shopping was considered “amusement” by a large section of the US population, they began buying up retail malls. After the last mall got snapped up, the business analysts starting thinking about “vertical integration”, so the bigs went after the retail stores in the malls, and then the manufacturers of the merchandise in the stores.<br /><br />So that’s how it was that I got up, showered with MegaChannel soap, brushed my teeth with MegaChannel toothpaste, put on some MegaChannel jeans and a MegaChannel sweatshirt and headed to the kitchen for breakfast. I turned on the television while I was eating, and watched the MegaChannel news, which featured a story on the candidates that MegaChannel had selected to run in the cities it controlled. It was odd, but I couldn’t think of any of the candidates that were running against them. I mean, I hadn’t read anything about them in the MegaChannel newspaper, or heard anything about them on the MegaChannel radio or TV stations. So I guessed they really couldn’t be much of a factor in the election coming up…<br /><br />I woke up in a cold sweat. It took me a while to get oriented, and then I realized that I’d had a dream, and all that hadn’t happened, and everything was going to fine. I mean, who would let the US stock market reward growth-at-any-cost behavior? And wouldn’t our elected officials prevent the Justice Department from letting industries consolidate past the point of no return? And wouldn’t the FCC, a clearly non-partisan, apolitical body whose only motivation was to serve the long-term public interest, work hard to protect the system that encouraged locality, multiple viewpoints and dissent and fostered competition as a way to remain a vital part of our democracy? All three of those institutions would surely serve as barriers to the kind of future I had dreamed about.<br /><br />Wouldn’t they?Lou Mazzucchellihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06433422870345865172noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21459472.post-1138675769448911562006-01-31T10:36:00.000-05:002006-01-30T22:09:19.926-05:00You Know It When You Hear ItThere's been a lot of talk about obscenity and media lately, magnified by Howard Stern's move to satellite radio. We'll get to Howard soon enough, but before that I want to recount a radio spot I heard during the holiday season last year. It went something like this:<br /><b><br /> (sultry female voice discussing the history of mistletoe and people using it to get a kiss)<br /> .<br /> “…and if twigs and branches can get you a kiss, just imagine<br /> what a luxurious new Jaguar can get you…”<br /></b><br />There’s another one in the campaign that is more detailed, progressing from getting a “thank you” for flowers, to a hug for cashmere, to a “steamy kiss” for diamonds and then the big Jaguar payoff. Just so we’re all on the same page: the implicit message is that if you buy your woman a Jaguar, you’re going to get lucky.<br /><br />Now in this age of FCC behavioral retrenchment regarding indecency and obscenity, we note none of George Carlin’s favorite words, and no lengthy repetition, but what about that gray zone where “material panders, titillates or is used for shock value?” <br /><br />The cynics in the audience might argue that the above phrase defines advertising. Advertising folks reading this might call that copy “edgy” – and it is. It bumps up against the edge of something, but what exactly? We’re all grownups reading this (at least age-wise), so what’s the big deal?<br /><br />First, let’s suppose that my two daughters, aged 12 and 16, were riding with me in the car when this spot aired. My 12-year-old might ask: “Daddy, what would a new Jaguar get you?” – a reasonable question that shows the benefits of good production in getting a listener to pay attention to the copy. And I would sputter and mumble something like: “Well, sweetie, maybe an even bigger kiss and a hug to go with it”, and while I was saying that my 16-year old would be making gagging noises and thinking about a steamy scene involving a new Jaguar and the cast of The OC. And both of them would think about the expectation of a woman’s sexual favors in return for a shiny new car.<br /><br />I’ve got a problem with that, and I’m a guy. Can you imagine how a mature woman might feel listening to this ad? She might chuckle to be polite, but bet that deep down she’s offended in a most basic way at the suggestion that her virtue can be had for the price of some expensive metal (or gemstones, or any other product that’s pitched like this).<br /><br />Moreover (from the Radio Refugee's point of view), the station airing these ads is committing audience-cide. Jaguar’s agency thought this copy was clever, and sold their client, who in turn paid a radio station to run the ad. Now here’s the old codger talking: what ever happened to the idea of spot approval? The station I heard this on is a highly-rated AC outlet that prides itself on its strong numbers with upscale women. Think about that for a minute: the advertiser is running spots on this station that are almost sure to alienate the very audience the station works hard every day to attract.<br /><br />I don’t know about you, but to me, <i>that’s</i> obscene.Lou Mazzucchellihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06433422870345865172noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21459472.post-1138155159466498862006-01-24T20:50:00.000-05:002007-03-10T10:28:01.378-05:00Rationalizing the ProcessHere's the deal: I started in radio in 1971. Junior Achievement in Providence, RI had a program where you could apply to be part of a radio station "company" sponsored by a local station. We learned by doing -- sales, production and on-air work. I remember selecting Baba O'Reilly from the then-new Who's Next as the opening theme to our weekly show on WJAR-AM (take that, CSI). The next year we moved up the dial to WICE-AM -- that was cool because it was a non-union shop and we got to actually touch the equipment. Those of you in the proper age group will nod in recognition when I recall the transcription-sized turntables that were controlled by light switches mounted into their base plates.<br /><br />Looking back, I think it was the gadgetry that first got me hooked on this crazy business, probably followed by the thrill of hearing my own voice coming out of that little box (come on, admit it, you like it too even if it still sounds a little weird). And I needed more than just the school-year fix I was getting. So, in early 1973, I began aggressively hanging out at WBRU-FM, Brown University's Class B FM outlet, purchased for a song in the late sixties when no one thought FM would amount to anything. I ended up spending ten years at WBRU, starting as a techie, then a newsie, then programmer, Production Director and de facto weekend Program Director. During the latter part of my tenure, I generated the highest ratings ever recorded by the station while also doing a full-time "real" job. <br /><br />In late 1982, for some weird reason, I decided to start a software company. I went through an agonizing period of introspection and finally decided that making the company a success would take all of my focus, and I'd have to walk away from radio. And I did, literally. One Saturday afternoon during my last airshift, I asked a young intern helping in the studio if she liked radio. She said yes. I said "Good. Do my job", walked out, and didn't look back until about 25 years later. But I did look sideways.<br /><br />I've had the great fortune to travel all over the world. When traveling, I have always paid attention to radio -- scanning the dial, making station visits when I could, bringing back samples of local music. One of my favorite escapades was in the late seventies: I walked up to the BBC headquarters in London, introduced myself as an American radio guy, and spent a magical few hours in the studios of Radio 1 with Johnny Walker and David Hamilton as they broadcast to an audience of millions, talking about the differences between American and British radio (off air, unfortunately). Couldn't do that today...<br /><br />About two years ago, I began looking at what had happened to both radio and the music business since I left. The outcome of my research was a new startup that attempted to marry the worlds of music and advertising, and radio played a major role. It landed with a unnoticed thud, for reasons which will be enumerated later. However, during that time, I kept hearing the sirens of radio calling to me, and I've tried hard to ignore them.<br /><br />I love radio for what it can be, not, in the main, what it has become. I figure that writing this blog might be my last, best chance of resisting the call of the airwaves. Maybe if I bare my radio soul in print I can keep the smell of audiotape, the challenge of talking up a network feed, the frisson of a great seque and the satisfaction of building an engaged audience buried in the deepest recesses of my memory.<br /><br />Or maybe not. Stay tuned.Lou Mazzucchellihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06433422870345865172noreply@blogger.com0