Isolated at our summer home in the wilderness of the Adirondack Mountains, our lives instantly change. We have to drive 20 minutes to the gas station to pick up the local newspaper, and the nearest grocery store is 30 minutes away. Pine and birch trees, water and mountains surround us. There are no billboards, and we have no local television. Without inundation by media, we relax and live a slower pace. Radio reception in the mountains is spotty, but here, radio is the lifeline to the community.

One of the first lessons I learned as a radio programmer is that reflecting the community and being a part of the community are keys to success. Today, many stations around the country pretend to be local when they are not. Saying a town’s name when giving the weather is not community involvement, yet often that’s the extent of it. People may listen to your station anyway because they like other elements of the station, but it’s next to impossible to fake localism. Your community listeners know when you are truly one of them.

Here in the woods and small towns, radio is the accessible media. You listen to find out local news, local events, who died, who was born, whose dog is lost and who has an old washing machine for sale. It’s localism at its best.

I’ve chided radio for losing its soul, for being too formulaic, for lacking creativity and for not being local. I’ve changed my mind. This summer, I spent a fair amount of time in the car, driving through a number of towns in the region. What I heard was refreshing.
Indeed I heard McRadio in a number of places, with the same tired, old lines about “biggest hits, better variety, best hits of the ’70s, ’80s. ’90s…” BORING. Would it still work if it were put up against something fresh and innovative?

What was not boring were the small-town voices. Some were 100-percent live, some were automated or satellite operations, yet many of those stations still managed to be the voices of their communities. In some cases, what I used to consider bad radio was refreshingly good. Why? Because it was real: not hype, not contrived. On one station, I heard a kid with a cracking voice. He wasn’t slick or affected, yet he was very funny, and everything he talked about had a local reference. It felt like bygone days, when I would cling to every word, when radio was exciting and fun.

In this hectic world, there is nothing better than a cross-country drive, listening to small-town voices. In those small towns, one can still find vestiges of our radio heritage: local involvement, innovation created by the necessity to survive, and some folks who understand that formulas and hype are not real. These people, forced to be in touch with their communities, have realized that the slick sound on many radio stations is not so appealing to locals. This is where radio is still alive, creative and refreshing. I can’t help but wonder if adopting this homespun, small-town approach would appeal to audiences where every station is over-produced and a little too slick. Is it time for big metropolitan radio stations to become small-town voices?

8/23/04 Radio Ink Magazine. By B. Eric Rhoads

Friday morning, Harrison Hill Elementary, Mr. Wolfe’s 6th-grade math class: We had a big test, and I didn’t know the answers. I glanced to my right, I glanced to my left — and copied as many answers as I could. All three of us failed that test. Later, I was paddled in front of the class for copying. The humiliation, the F, and a glowing red behind taught me never to copy again.

Mr. Wolfe is needed desperately at the Radio Advertising Bureau. A recent headline in the RAB daily e-mail reads: “2000 Radio Scripts Now Online.” I cringed when I saw that announcement. Copying other people’s scripts is lazy. Encouraging it is bad for radio. Facilitating it is shameful. (I could almost agree with publishing successful radio scripts if RAB placed a bright-red warning that people should NOT copy the ads, but use them only to stimulate new ideas.)

The spot you copied may be creative, but it probably won’t solve your clients’ marketing challenges. Worse, it probably won’t work for them. For too long, copywriters or AEs have grabbed a spot, changed only the name of the client, put it on the air and watched it fail. How many more advertisers have to say, “I tried radio and it didn’t work,” before Radio finally teaches its people to write?

Today’s busy account executive rushes in on Friday afternoon, bangs out a spot in 10 minutes (or copies one from the RAB database), gives it to Production and then begins planning Monday morning’s explanation to the client of what went wrong. We are fools to think our average account executive is prepared to write radio copy.

We are in the business of words, but we do not study them. Functional illiteracy is the disease that’s killing radio.

Radio groups are spending fortunes on research to refine their programming, yet they spend nothing to learn how to make ads work. Commercials are the life-blood of our business. Doesn’t it make sense for us to study them? The answers are available, but most broadcasters don’t realize the nature of the problem: Closing the sale isn’t the finish line; it’s the start of the race.

Because of pressure to hit goals, today’s account executives sell schedules they know won’t work. In addition, illiteracy is not just a problem with AEs. Most sales managers, GMs, market managers, regional VPs and group heads don’t know how to write ads, either. We hide behind the idea that it’s Someone Else’s job. Hey, maybe when we locate the mysterious Mr. Someone Else, we can have him explain to Wall Street why we’re not hitting our numbers.

Mr. Wolfe slammed my backside with a paddle when he caught me copying because he knew that I would be less effective in life if I were a copycat. Likewise, Radio is getting its behind paddled, and its glowing red rear is its pathetic share of ad dollars in the marketplace. The difference between us is that I knew my beating came as the result of copying, but radio has never quite figured out why it’s being paddled.

9/06/04 Radio Ink Magazine. By B. Eric Rhoads

“I’m thinking about getting out of radio altogether and focusing on a new career.”

I said it and I meant it. It happened during a casual moment just a few weeks ago. I was boating across a lake in the Adirondacks with a prominent young executive from one of America’s largest radio groups. The occasion was my 50th birthday. The question had been entirely innocent: “What would you do if you didn’t have Radio Ink?”

My friend was stunned with my answer: “But I thought you loved radio.”

My response was honest: “I do, but I don’t feel I’m making a difference.”

“What about NAB? With Eddie Fritts potentially leaving in a couple of years, wouldn’t you take that job?”

“Unfortunately, I tend to say what’s on my mind often at the expense of my own business. That’s not what NAB needs. I’d be kicked out of Washington within a week.”

“What about RAB? Gary Fries won’t stay forever. Wouldn’t that be a natural place for you?”

“RAB has a big board with differing agendas. Some want it to be a small-market support organization while others want it to support only the big markets. Some want it to be a sales training organization while others think its only purpose should be promoting radio to advertisers. Besides, Fries needs a successor in their late 30s or early 40s, a person who will be perceived as young and vibrant.”

“What about the FCC? They’ll be looking for a new chairman soon.”

“I like to break rules, not make them. If I were chairman of the FCC, I’d probably reorganize it altogether.”

“What about us? Can we hire you?”

“Nothing really happens until a board of directors decides that the pain of staying the same is greater than the pain of change.”
“But radio needs you. You’re the conscience of the industry.”

Though I was flattered, and my ego was overly inflated for a moment, the discussion made me realize what it is that Radio really needs most: Young, passionate, irreverent voices that aren’t concerned about making enemies and are willing to question the status quo.

Are you willing to be one of them?

9/20/04 Radio Ink Magazine. By B. Eric Rhoads

Unless someone out there has been doing a really good job of keeping a major announcement quiet, I predict the buzz at this year’s NAB convention will be about Clear Channel’s “Less is More” initiative.

Will it catch on? Will it hurt the industry? Is it a Wall Street ploy? Will John Hogan lose his job over it? You’ll probably hear the rumor that Mark and Randall “slipped this one past Lowry while he was in the hospital.” Sadly, much of the buzz will come from radio’s ever-present drones explaining all the reasons “it can’t work.”

Every good thing is met with resistance; Less is More will be no different. The unimaginative, the cowardly, the backward and the small will cry out for solidarity against “the oppression of Cheap Channel, the evil empire.” How they think they’re being oppressed I don’t really know, but they can always spin it somehow.

A number of months ago, I wrote an editorial suggesting that we reinvent they way we sell and place commercials so that we:
1. reduce cluster lengths to keep people listening,
2. give advertisers a more favorable environment,
3. sell premium waterfront real estate by making the first spot in the break the most expensive, and
4. re-evaluate why :30s and :60s are priced the same.

Frankly, I think we should abolish :60s altogether and make most of our inventory :15s, especially if you believe, as I do, that Radio is a branding medium. A cluster of :15s sure beats a cluster of :60s and :30s. But it’s never going to happen if Radio backs away from John Hogan and leaves him to fight this battle alone.

John Hogan founded the “Less is More” initiative, and he had to sell it in every direction. So far, he’s been met with tremendous resistance from his own managers, who understand how hard it will be to do. If the initiative fails and the numbers go in reverse, we’ve probably seen the last of John Hogan. And that would be a shame.

Less is More is bigger than Clear Channel. It needs a commitment from all of radio.

The only issue I take with Clear Channel on this initiative is that it’s expecting too much too soon. Less is More is the right idea. It will work; it will change the industry and will powerfully benefit radio’s advertisers. But can it work in 2005? I doubt it. Clear Channel’s board may or may not see the results they need to see within the timeframe they consider to be reasonable. I hope they will be patient. Less is More will work, but it’s clearly a three-year, not a one-year, initiative.

If someone other than Clear Channel had introduced Less is More, the other groups would have immediately jumped on board, and the buzz at this year’s NAB would have been whether or not Clear Channel would commit to it.

Reader friend, we’ve known each other a long time, so I hope you’ll forgive me for asking what needs to be asked: Are you big enough to get past the fact that “your enemy” was the one who suggested this?

10/04/04 Radio Ink Magazine. , by B. Eric Rhoads

The NAB exhibit floor was anemic. Vendors that have been radio-industry leaders for decades are pulling out of radio or going out of business altogether. It appears there soon may come a day when broadcasters are offered only a single choice in some product categories and no choice at all in others. Lack of competition increases prices and makes broadcasters vulnerable to lower-quality products and dismal service. When competitors disappear, bad things happen.

Competitors are disappearing because no one is buying anything. Budgets have been tight for too long.

When vibrant and innovative vendors are inventing new tools that allow stations to improve their quality, radio is on an upswing. When broadcasters try to outdo one another, everyone wins. The station wins. The listener wins. The advertiser wins. The vendor wins.

Right now, nobody is winning. What went wrong? Why is there so little innovation within radio’s vendor community today?

The answer is simple: Innovation is stimulated by incentives and competition. When incentives go away, innovation disappears. Wall Street’s pressure on broadcasters to perform financially has triggered a near-decade of relentless corporate cost-cutting. The result is radio with a look and feel reminiscent of Russian technology near the end of the Cold War.

Managers have been told to “make do, make it last,” until the average station is sending its signal from an exhausted, old studio to an antique transmitter held together with shoestring, baling wire and chewing gum. Traffic and billing are generated from a tired, old software system that sends a monthly invoice that whispers, “We’re out of touch — nothing new happening here. If you want innovation and change, you must look somewhere else.”

Exacerbating the problem is the fact that most big groups have standardized to one supplier in each product category, making group-wide purchases at prices that barely allow the vendor to survive. As a result, suppliers are forced to cut quality and completely ignore research and development. Sadly, they have no choice.

One vendor recently confessed to me that he was selling below his cost because he needed the cash flow to survive. I’m betting the big group that maneuvered him into the deal will soon be calling the company’s tech-support number only to be greeted by a recording that says, “We’re sorry, but you have reached a number that has been disconnected or is no longer in service.”

Hey, I know you have to “hit your numbers.” And I know you’ve been told “maybe next quarter” for the last 27 quarters. Even so, I encourage you — no, I beg you for the sake of our industry — to seriously consider making one or two long-overdue purchases NOW. If possible, spread the purchases to multiple companies to help keep them alive and competing. Increase your budget for capital expenditures in 2005.

If radio’s vendors don’t see an immediate increase in sales opportunities, you and I have seen the last better mousetrap in our industry.

10/18/04 Radio Ink Magazine. , B. Eric Rhoads

Roaring applause shook Symphony Hall as he strode to center stage and leapt to the podium like an Indy car driver hopping into the cockpit. Arms raised heavenward, fingers twitching on his baton like thoroughbreds in the starting gates, then a single down stroke of his white-gloved hand unleashed sounds that echoed through our souls. He was a great conductor.

But what if he suddenly rushed into the woodwind section, shoved the clarinet player aside, grabbed his instrument and began to play the part? Then with clarinet firmly in his teeth, what if he snatched the drumsticks from the percussionist and began thumping the tympani as he scurried to chastise the cello?

I know radio managers who conduct their orchestras that way.

An orchestra conductor would never attempt to play an instrument during a performance or be critical of a player in front of the audience. Conductors audition and hire the best players, rehearse them on the music, add a bit of their own interpretative style, and inspire everyone to do their best. They don’t play an instrument. How do you suppose a great conductor would respond if the concert hall owner suggested the music be played a little faster so he could squeeze a second matinee on the schedule?

Likewise, a manager should be an insulator between owners and employees, not a conduit between them. Good managers protect employees from the sticky, green stress that oozes like mud from the boardroom. They do not transfer it. When a manager begins to reflect the mood of the owner, the music is about to get ugly.

Great managers create great cultures and hire people who will fit into them. Then they quickly step out of the way, giving guidance rather than commands, leading those people rather than driving them. They manage individually, rather than managing everyone alike.

When a musician in an orchestra keeps hitting the wrong notes, a replacement is made quietly but swiftly. Great managers likewise know they can’t keep great employees if they retain weak ones, so they hire slow and fire fast.

The best managers, like great conductors, appear confident, invigorated and passionate throughout the performance. Like great conductors, they make it look effortless, always providing a great experience and a wonderful show.

Here’s a crazy idea: Why not invite the conductor of your local symphony to lunch and ask them to share their secrets of leadership? How do they get the players in step with each other; how do they handle squabbles or raise the bar? I honestly believe it would be a fabulous investment of your time. You up for it?

11/01/04 Radio Ink Magazine. B. Eric Rhoads

I’m about to make noises like a dinosaur. I hope you’ll forgive me, but hindsight is 20/20, so I like to look backward before going forward.

I was a little kid in Fort Wayne when stereophonic sound began gaining momentum. I remember the day my dad brought home a state-of-the-art “stereophonic system,” along with every stereophonic recording that was available: a big box of beautiful music on clunky, reel-to-reel tapes.

Dad was excited as he gestured toward the left and the right speakers when different sounds emerged from each of them. It was the coolest thing I’d ever heard. A decade later, FM radio stations began broadcasting rock ’n’ roll in stereophonic sound. It was an Indianapolis station — WNAP — which finally gave me Rock in stereo. I’ll never forget those guys. I was excited, the public was excited, and once advertisers saw significant audience shares, they were anxious to hop on board.

Sirius and XM are rapidly gaining subscribers because they’re offering two things that are exciting and new. First, their experimentation with goofy, eclectic formats is repositioning broadcast radio as being “predictable and lacking variety.” Second, like computers and PDAs and MP3 players and cell phones, their signals are digital.

If ever you’ve heard me, hear me now: Every radio station in America must invest in HD radio today, while there’s still some interest among the receiver manufacturers. Remember when AM stereo came out? We delayed so long in adopting it that the receiver manufacturers finally lost interest and drove the last nail into AM stereo’s coffin? We’ll do that again if we’re not careful.

Even though it’s the essential first step, HD broadcasting alone would merely elevate us to the level of our competitors. What can broadcast radio offer as a selling point that would set us apart and energize America? Consider this:
1. Just about everyone has upgraded his or her home stereo system in recent years to include 5.1 Surround Sound.
2. The record labels are dying to find something that will get people to purchase records again.
3. If radio got with the big labels and convinced them to reissue the top songs in 5.1 Surround, and…
4. If leading stations immediately went digital and began a collaborative, nationwide radio campaign to “Surround yourself with 5.1 DVD RADIO,” people would get enthusiastic again.
5. It would be a brand-new experience for them, and we would have taken a giant step above everyone else.
6. There’s no reason we can’t do this. Nothing stands in our way.
7. I believe that if we don’t seize this opportunity, we’re nuts.

“You’re listening to WYOU in High Definition Surround.” Do this, and radio will become RADIO again.

By B. Eric Rhoads. Published in RADIO INK 12/06/04

Armchair quarterbacking: We’ve all done it. (Heck, some people say it’s what I do best.) How many times have you thought or said, “If I were running Clear Channel, I would…”?

But you’re not running Clear Channel. Even if you were, you wouldn’t have the freedom to do the blah, blah thing you say you’d do. The problem with publicly traded companies is that they’re owned by people who have no idea how to run them: stockholders. Can you imagine answering to a nervous board of directors that is being yanked by a group of investors with no real qualifications beyond inheriting a pile of money from their parents?

Today’s Clear Channel was formed in much the same way as the old Soviet Union: Previously independent republics were co-opted into a growing monolith “for the greater good.” Not surprisingly, CC and the USSR shared the same initial problem: the integration of dissimilar styles, methods and belief systems into a single, seamless system. The situation created hotly contested turf battles and culture wars, and there were many casualties.

When Randy Michaels sat in the CEO’s hot seat, he took the bull by the horns, and that bull pinned him to the wall. Remember when Clear Channel was drowning in a sea of controversy and negativity? Everyone in the industry, everyone in the press, even the man on the street was down on them. In the midst of that storm, John Hogan was handed the skipper’s cap and instructed to sail the ship into calmer waters. I’m betting that cap felt a lot like the blindfold they give you just before they march you in front of a firing squad.

I met Hogan and liked him, though I secretly felt he wasn’t taking action quickly enough. His methodical approach, however, may have been the right thing to do. Wrapping your arms around 1,000+ radio stations and 25,000 employees can’t be easy if you plan to do it well. Slowly, miraculously, Hogan turned the tide of negative publicity and introduced some meaningful innovations.

How would you like to have been Hogan the day he told his board of directors that he intended to walk away from several million dollars in record-promotion contracts? As an encore, would you tell them, as he did, that you’ve decided to go against decades of traditional wisdom and incur the wrath of advertisers by announcing Less is More?

Time will tell if Hogan will be remembered as a revolutionary genius or as a man ahead of his time. In the humble opinion of this commentator, Less is More was the right thing to do. If indeed it fails and Hogan loses his great wager, the Mays brothers will find another skipper to pilot their massive ship. But if Less is More succeeds, Hogan will have changed radio history forever. When was the last time we saw that kind of leadership?

Whether the ideas prove right or wrong, radio needs more innovators. It’s extremely unlikely, though, that there will ever be another innovator who will risk so much on a more beautiful dream. And that, my friend, is why we chose John Hogan as the recipient of this year’s Radio Executive of the Year Award.

Congratulations, John

By Eric Rhoads. Published in Radio Ink Magazine 1/03/2005

It was logical… my column in an art magazine should not show my photo, it should be a painting. We started putting out feelers about who was good, who was hot, who was up and coming and who fit the style of our magazine. It was Timothy R. Thies.

"I don’t paint from photos.. or at least I prefer not to. When can you fly up to see me," said Timothy. A couple weeks later I arrived in Coeur D’Alene, Idaho at Timothy’s studio.  We had a cup of coffee, I checked my email and then it was time… sit still for several hours.

I’m a portrait painter myself but most of my work has not been "from life" and I have never been on the other side of the brush. I had no idea what to expect and I found the experience to be better than expected. I sat very still at the same angle for about six hours with a break every couple of hours. Many portrait artists don’t want you to talk. Fortunately Timothy Thies was an exceptionally nice man and was willing to chat throughout the whole day. When was the last time you got to chat casually for eight hours with someone you barely knew, someone who lived the life of an artist? I think that was the best part. A new friend, new thoughts and ideas and a chance to learn a lot about his life, his experiences and his thoughts on just about everything, including art.

There is something very special about seeing your portrait beautifully framed and hanging in your home and knowing it might hang somewhere for hundreds of years… especially when it is painted by a fine, highly regarded artist like Timothy Thies. 

For hundreds of years the only way to record a likeness was through portraiture. Even after photography was invented the wealthy aristocrats in France and the US continued the practice. It is a wonderful experience to visit someones home and see portraits of past relatives lining the walls. Oil portraits are so much more elegant than photographs.

Most portraits today tend to be of captains of industry for corporate board rooms or private clubs, college presidents, supreme court justices and U.S. presidents. Though some wealthy people I know have been preserved in oils it is a very small percentage. Frankly, I’d like to see more of it. Oil portraiture is a fine tradition that will have a life longer than any photo and a chance it won’t get shoved in a drawer after you’re gone. I highly recommend it.

– Eric Rhoads