Recent Posts

Someone recently asked, “Eric, if you could gather all the big publicly owned broadcasters in one room, what are the biggest concerns you would share with them?” Here are my concerns: Cost-Cutting: In our efforts to cut expenses, we have cut into the bone. We cannot grow the business by more cost-cutting, because there is little left to cut without seriously hampering operations. All efforts should be focused on growing top-line revenues and overall radio spending. Top-Line Growth: The misconception is that the RAB’s efforts to promote radio to national advertisers will solve this problem, yet national advertising is only a small percentage of radio billing. Though this effort can help, top-line growth will come from investing in our front-line troops locally — the 65,000 people selling radio. Most are ill equipped and poorly trained. Without excellent training, relevant messaging, and an understanding of how radio really works in today’s environment, they will be unable to create growth. Quality Content: Radio is not investing enough in quality talent and programming. If Hollywood had overly automated, no one would go to the movies anymore. Hollywood may be containing costs elsewhere, but they invest in their product: quality writers, directors and actors. We do not. Loss of Experienced People: We’re burning out our people with unrealistic expectations, enormous pressures and little job satisfaction. We’ve lost many of our best people [...]

A famous cartoon has General Custer on the front line, battling Indians with handguns and rifles. Standing in the wings is a salesman with a Gatling gun (early machine gun). The caption reads: “I haven’t got time to see a salesman. What we’re using works just fine.” Of course, he lost the battle. Infinity recently announced that it had developed a list of preferred vendors to be used by the company. It evidently means a restriction to certain hardware and software vendors. The company also will use only certain consultants, and managers must select from this list. Picture this: A cluster manager explains to Steve Rivers, head of Infinity programming, that a ratings disaster resulted from using “XYZ Consultants,” who directed the station with the poor results. Rivers might instantly think, “I’m never using those guys again; they screwed up one of our radio stations.” Maybe he did not have time to gather all the facts. If he were to phone XYZ Consultants, he might hear that the consultants documented that the station followed only 20 percent of XYZ’s advice and that XYZ had many proven successes when the program was followed properly. Maybe the station manager thinks XYZ Consultants were actually to blame. Or maybe the manager knows she did not follow XYZ’s advice, and she wants to avoid censure. Scapegoating research and consultants is an old [...]

When Steve Rivers came to work for me at a high-tech start-up, he told me that one reason he did not take the job as head of programming for Clear Channel when his company AMFM was merged was that he did not want to deal with the spot loads the company was running. He said that if Clear Channel did something, such as increase inventory, AMFM would follow suit, because Wall Street expected it. Two years ago, when John Hogan took the Clear Channel helm, I told him that he had an awesome responsibility: Not only did he have the company’s future in his hands, he also held the future of radio. As everyone watches and stock analysts track the industry’s largest company, he should assume that his actions and practices would be adopted industry-wide. Radio is often an industry of copycats. A successful format is copied everywhere. If a major company increases spot loads, everyone else thinks they should do the same. Leadership, therefore, becomes an important responsibility when our industry leaders’ actions usually become industry-wide standards. I applaud Clear Channel for taking the lead to reduce spot loads and sell premium positions. If they can pull it off across the chain, it will have a positive impact on our industry, though it will require a great deal of training and discipline at the station level. This [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

“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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]