OLD technology shows us a thing or two about NEW technology

By Don Keith N4KC

Leave it to a prime example of old technology to bring us an example of rapidly changing new technology.  Now don't get me wrong.  USA TODAY was pretty innovative in its time.  No one believed there could be a national daily printed newspaper that could include breaking news and sports updates from surprisingly late the night before...and do it with color!  But those guys did, and so far have been successful with it.  We'll see how long that lasts.

But that is not the subject of this post.  I just thought it was ironic that USA TODAY did an article and a video about how the car dashboard entertainment system is changing.  See it here:
http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/cars/2013/03/24/radio-future-pioneer-electronics/2009821/ 

This confirms what I have been preaching here for a long time.  When broadcast radio is minimized on the auto dashboard, it is in some serious trouble.  Yes, I know that AM/FM will still be a choice.  But unless traditional broadcasters start putting something on their air that can compete with all the other possibilities now available, people are going to be much less likely to hit that icon.

Eventually advertisers will notice that ratings (not shares...share of people listening to broadcast radio has been the Holy Grail of broadcasters when selling ads...ratings are the percentage of all people...shares will remain what they are but ratings will plummet) are dropping and will find more efficient ways of advertising.

The dashboard is traditional radio's last bastion.  It is in serious danger of falling.

Daily printed newspaper VS. digital editions

By Don Keith

Well, it has now been since October that I have discussed in this forum the major changes in my hometown's daily printed newspaper.  If it has not happened where you live, wait, it will.  I do hope the implementation is better for you.

What happened was THE BIRMINGHAM NEWS decided to stop publishing a daily "paper" newspaper.  We now get a thin bundle of newsprint thrown in our driveways (or, in my case, far beneath the crepe myrtle bush down a steep, ivy-covered embankment) three mornings a week--Wednesday (grocery ads), Friday (car ads), and Sunday (lots of inserts but not many other ads or classifieds anymore).

The same thing happened with co-owned papers in Mobile and Huntsville, both in Alabama, which are owned by the same folks.  We were promised much more in-depth coverage in those three editions while immediate news coverage would be handled by the commonly owned web site AL.COM.  Another part of the promise was that the site could be customized, would feature the same reporters and columnists from the old tree-killing paper, would provide video and audio, and would be much faster with updates.

OK, sounds good to me.  Now, how do I think they have done after half a year?  I should confess that one impetus for this post was a recent multi-column article in a Sunday edition.  It was written by Kevin Wendt, the "vice president of content" (lower case theirs) for Alabama Media Group, the company's name after all the changes.  The article was headlined, "An update on our progress."  How do they think they have done?  I can save you the trouble of looking it up.  The gist is "pretty damn good!"  Wendt writes, "Digital growth has been explosive, circulation exceeded our expectations, our commitment to quality journalism and serving our communities remains steadfast, and Alabama Media Group's first-quarter business performance met our objectives."

Hey, I am merely a subscriber, but I can only say, "Well, whoop-de-doo!"

Frankly, I see the printed edition dwindling in size.  I am apparently missing all that expanded content.  I know they furloughed just about anybody who had a pulse at THE BIRMINGHAM NEWS.  They are pooling coverage among the few remaining journalists at all three papers.  Then they are expected to not only write a story but blog and update incessantly.  All without benefit of editing, apparently.  Typos and grammar errors abound!  Yes, abound!

By the time I get a paper, I have already seen or had the opportunity to see on the web site at least 50% of what is printed .  The paper sometimes seems to try to be slow so I have to go to AL.COM to get updates on stories.

Example: there was a story in a Wednesday morning paper about a spectacular accident the previous Sunday--SUNDAY--in Birmingham's eastern section in which a car ended up inside a store.  The story cryptically told us the driver "appeared to be injured and was taken away by ambulance."  There was no name, no condition of the victim, no mention of how the accident happened.  Just a picture.  Surely between Sunday and deadline Tuesday night, somebody could have followed up!

And sports scores.  Deadline must be about sunset.  If Alabama or Auburn play a game that ends after about 9 PM, forget about seeing a story or, usually, a score in a paper the next day.

Now to AL.COM.  What a mess!  I know user interface is subjective.  And this subject hates AL.COM.

First, it is about the most cluttered site out there, with all those peel-downs and dancing ads.  When I make my first visit there each day, it takes my computer a good 30 seconds just to bring up the page.  But even more disconcerting is the fact that it locks the whole thing up for that entire half minute as it flings untold scores of tracking cookies and junk onto my hard drive.  And before you say to upgrade my machine or web connection, let me make it clear that this is the ONLY web site I ever visit that treats me this way.

Try finding what you want to see on AL.COM.  Yes, I could probably personalize it some and filter out some of the out-of-town stuff.  But then I don't know what I'm missing.  Use the "Search" feature.  I may as well be typing in URLs at random.  If I get results, I could still be searching for hours, scrolling through miles and miles of totally unrelated and cryptic headlines, just to find the one I was looking for.  And I still have to click on it to see if it even  remotely resembles what I was looking for.

Forget following links that show up in the printed paper.  They are often wrong or take you to a general page on which you still have to scroll and scroll to find what you want.  Example: they do a neat little music feature in which a local artist or band records a video in a little travel trailer parked  behind a local club.  The paper does a short article on the group and refers you to AL.COM/entertainment to watch the video.  I swear that is the URL in its entirety.  Good damn luck!  Every time I've tried to find the video, I still end up having to search for the band by name, and that often takes me far, far afield from the video I'm seeking.

Those email updates.  OK, at their urging, I subscribed to a series of emails with links to updated stories on AL.COM.  First thing I noticed was that they often had the same story linked in both the left and right columns of the email.  Trying to make it look as if there is more content than there actually is?  That's my guess.  (Hey, the printed paper even does this.  They still have those huge weird-looking blank white spaces at the bottoms of pages that could hold at least one more story and picture...if they had one.)

The links from the emails usually work, thank goodness, so I can at least find the stories. Quite often, they are poorly edited and sometimes go days without being updated.  But why send me a link to the morning traffic update...at 9:10 AM?!?  That's when I receive that one each day.  That wreck on Highway 280 at 6:20 AM is almost certainly gone by then.

Sports?  You really need to watch some of their sports videos.  Most appear to have been done with a cell phone.  Their features on things like recruiting or spring practice, with a "host" and a couple of guest "journalists" are the most amateurish productions you will ever see.  So are their audio podcasts.  Frankly, they are unwatchable and unlistenable and rarely informative.  That is especially the case when there are feeble attempts at humor.  These seem more like high school media students' work, not that of competent, professional journalists.  And certainly not those adept at audio and video.  Maybe they are high school or college students.  I don't know.

Okay, I'm getting nit-picky now, I guess, so I'll quit.  But despite Mr. Wendt's gushing update, I'm afraid that this one media observer/subscriber is not nearly as happy with how things are going as he and his company apparently are.  Maybe they are trying their best.  Maybe it will improve.  But man, it has to.  Could it be the simple fact that we have no other newspaper choice be the reason business is so good?  And that they are so gosh-darned happy about their early results?

(PS: I know and you know a lot of people lost their jobs in this transition.  Yet almost immediately, a big ad starting appearing in the Classifieds under "Employment" saying "We are hiring!"  It's easy to see it since classified ads have almost disappeared from the printed paper.  Yet, if you go the site they direct you to, there are practically no jobs listed as being open.  At least that was the case last time I went there.  What's the purpose of advertising jobs that don't exist?  Are we supposed to think, "Wow, these guys are doing great if they are continually hiring new folks?"  I dunno.  Maybe Mr. Wendt can explain that.  Or maybe the same folks do their employment pages that do the rest of AL.COM and I have to jump through some other hoops to see open positions.  No thanks.  My hoop-jumping days are over.)

Self-pleasuring at its purest

By Don Keith N4KC

Well, if that post heading doesn't get your attention, nothing will!  I'm back, once again poking fun at the folks at INSIDE RADIO, one of those trade email pubs that caters to radio broadcasters.  They seem on a mission to find any tidbits of good news they can report, or slivers of bad news they can spin positively, all about the medium of over-the-air radio.  Here's the headline that caught my eye this week:

Survey: Traditional media still tops for reach

My first reaction:  "Well, whoop-de-do!"

This one falls into the "So, Mrs. Lincoln, otherwise how did you enjoy the play?" category.  Look, advertisers and marketers know that sometimes there is still value in reaching as many people as you can with your message.  That is especially true if you're advertising the BRAND and seeking plain, old-fashioned awareness.  Or if your product or service is geared to every-damn-body with a pulse.  Then yeah, reach and its cousin, frequency, mean something.

On the other hand, advertisers and marketers in the 20-teens are more interested in reaching potential customers, and doing so more efficiently, effectively and measurably than ever before in history.  And despite INSIDE RADIO's attempt at feel-good self-pleasuring, people who sell goods and services have the mechanism to do it now. That means search, pay-per-lead, pay-per-click, SEO, social media, smartphones, and exotic terms that scream for what broadcast radio insists on calling "non-traditional media."  It's not even necessarily social media, though that can certainly be a part of it.

Shoot, my old college alma mater changed the name of their "communications" school from "Broadcast and Film Communication" (what it was when I was there before the Internet was a gleam in Al Goes's eye)  to several other things before settling on "Telecommunications and Film" a long time ago.  Telecommunications!  No mention of radio, TV, magazines, newspaper.  When academia leads industry, industry is moving way, way too slowly.

Radio, TV and newspapers--in their traditional blast-to-the-masses form--can never be as efficient or as measurable in reaching somebody who is searching Google for which specific Toyota model and accessories they want and which dealership has the best deal on one.  Wonder why you see fewer car dealer ads in the newspaper?  And, believe it or not, fewer on radio and TV.

Not when that potential Toyota buyer can hone right in on what he/she wants to see, build the car on-line right down to carpet color, compare all dealers' stock, pricing, financing and more, see reviews of dealerships and cars by actual customers, have other makes and models suggested, get ads served anytime he/she is online looking at other stuff that encourages the searcher to look at something new from Toyota, a competing brand, or a dealer, all specifically targeted to where and at what that person has been looking, and a bunch of other info only the web knows about him/her.  And sign up for a text when a specifically-equipped car comes in or there's a special price or financing deal available.  Plus, the dealer likely doesn't pay a dime for all the advertising unless someone who is a prospect clicks on something or signs up for something.

Try doing all that in a 30-second ad in a five-minute spot break between a bunch of "the most and best music with fewer commercials" on Q97.4...even if that potential Toyota customer is part of that station's marvelous "reach."  And only charge the advertiser for the ad if someone actually calls up the dealership.  Or charge a bit more if that person test drives a car.

You want to see a radio station owner's heart stop, mention that sort of sacrilege in his presence.  No, they prefer self-pleasuring.  Look how great and effective we were as an advertising medium in 1972.  Hell, look at our reach!

In case you didn't click on the link from the headline above, here's the gist of the article:

Digital may be the darling of Madison Avenue, but at least for the time being traditional media is still the best way to reach Americans.  A survey by KPMG International shows television and radio score best for reach.  The study found 74% of those surveyed reported listening to radio in the previous month, and 88% said they’d watched television.

Let me do some coaching from the bleachers and tear this paragraph apart.  First, digital is not necessarily the darling of Madison Avenue.  At least not just yet.  Many advertising agencies--and especially those in mid-size markets--are still too lazy or simply don't understand digital/search and continue to buy radio and TV the way they have for almost a century.  Why?  Reach is one.  Big numbers--like 74% or 88%--impress advertisers.  But the main reason is that it is easy.  They can show a client that they bought 150 gross rating points for $100 per point with women 25-44.

Whoop-de-do!

That means they are plugging numbers into a computer program and negotiating with the stations to hit some arbitrary reach, frequency and cost per 1% of people watching TV.  Or percent of people listening to radio.  Based on "estimates" of audience purchased from Nielsen or Arbitron.

Self pleasuring!  And they do this while doing less than an efficient job of helping the client move widgets in the stores.  Media buying is a science, they say.  Use the numbers.  Make clever ads.  Show the client how many awards you have won.  Then go drum up another client when that one somehow fails to sell any widgets regardless the reach and frequency the computer showed he got.

How many of those 1% of people watching TV are planning on buying a car?  Shopping for a Camry?  Narrowing choices to the two dealers with the best deal using the web or a smartphone app?

And those "impressive" numbers from KPMG's survey?  In the last month, 74% of respondents listened to the radio and 88% watched TV.  I'm shocked it was not 100% for each.  Is there anyone who doesn't flip on a radio or TV sometime during a month?  Who did KPMG survey here?  Cave dwellers?  An Amish enclave in Ohio?

The INSIDE RADIO article quotes another survey--in an effort to be balanced, perhaps--that marketers will put considerably less focus on radio, TV and print this year.  And they end the article with the shocking pronouncement:

Marketers say they’ll spend more time figuring out how to make online, mobile, and social media work for them.

Well, welcome to 2013!  Did these duds who responded to the survey go to sleep in 1990 with the alarm set for the 21st century?

It's time somebody in media stepped up and broke some rules.  They'll take some knocks and get bruised, but that will be the only way for them to survive rapid technological change that has changed everything these guys know.  And no amount of "wow, look how many eyes and ears we reach!" will pull them out of the morass they have waded into blindly.

I call that self-pleasuring.  Whoop-de-do!

A medium with a death wish

 By Don Keith 

Regular readers of this blog know that I often castigate broadcast radio and the gutless corporations that now hold the keys to those tower-on-a-hill facilities.  At a time when rapid technological change and the way consumers expect to access media offers traditional broadcasting so many possibilities for creativity and momentum, those dunderheads are stuck in low gear.  As a successful former broadcaster for 22 years, and a guy who either marketed to radio owners or bought advertising from them for the next 22, I continue to be amazed at how these guys remain stuck in 1998.  When they most need to do bold things, they stick to the tried-and-failed.

Here is what inspired this latest fit of pique. Cumulus Broadcasting, the second-largest group operator by number of stations owned (behind behemoth Clear Channel) purchased an FM signal in New York City.  Over the last few days, they employed the oldest trick in the book to try to create attention: the "Wheel of Formats."  Back in the day, we called that old saw "stunting," trying to drum up excitement as people heard all different kinds of music and talk programming presented on the station's air.  Listeners were supposed to work themselves into a frenzy trying to guess what the station's new "format" would be.  

Here is what it sounded like.

Of course, most radio listeners don't have a clue what a "format" is.  Nor do they really give a damn.  Only radio geeks pay any attention to things like this.  It is so inside-radio.  People like what they like and have no trouble finding it--be it music or talk--in an unprecedented variety of places.  Places that don't live and die by Arbitron ratings.  That includes the FM radio band (AM radio is dead and rigor mortis has long since set in, all because of the same thick-headedness that is now destroying the FM band).  But oh, are there so many more choices now than there were back in 1974 when this sort of junk actually worked!  

That includes the Internet (Pandora, iTunes), iPods, tablets, XM/Sirius, computers, smart phones.  In some of those places, users can even pick and choose which songs they want to hear, and the source will learn their tastes and add in other songs the computers think the listener will like.  Radio stations will never be able to do that!  So what do they do?  They play the same 400 songs that "fit the format" over and over until what listeners that remain vomit and give up.  

People can hear any kind of music they want to hear free, usually without commercials, screaming promotional announcements about how cool the radio station is and how many songs they play between those dreaded commercials, blathering disk jockeys who read the same insipid slogans over and over, try to be funny when they are not, and insist on telling you that was Kansas singing "Carry On My Wayward Son" for the umpteenth time--all the junk that makes broadcast radio almost unlistenable.

This was a chance to some things right in the nation's most major market.

For a day and a half, though, the new NYC country station's Internet-stream web page did not even list the names of the artists and song titles.  A city without country music radio for so long may not know who Little Big Town or Billy Cunningham are, or why they should care that a spot on the FM dial was now playing a kind of music that was previously available to them on over-the-air radio.  Same thing, though, on the air.  See, there is still no human being conversing with all those potential new listeners between the songs.  Instead they have those irritating produced promotional things that they are jammed in between each song played.

No warm, welcoming voice, telling Staten Island or the Bronx who these singers, musicians, and songwriters are or why New Yawkuhs should care that Nash 94.7 is on the air.

I doubt the music mix is customized for New Yawk, let alone individual New Yawkuhs.  No, if they are sticking to form, Cumulus is playing the country songs that are getting the most "spins" on all the other country radio stations around the USA.  That is the ultimate tail-wagging-the-dog.  And probably the top 200 oldies that people most want to hear according to tests that are done in hotel ballrooms around America.  Tests in which a hundred folks are recruited, paid $20, and sit for an hour or two, listening to 10-second bits from mostly the same 400 songs each time and asked to rate them.

Look, it has been a long, long time since I programmed a radio station and plenty has changed since then.  But I maintain that the medium is about to become an afterthought.  Mark my words: FM will follow AM to total darkness.  

That is simply because radio insists on taking what they deem to be the safe path.  Put on some tested-to-death tunes, eliminate everything that has ever been considered an irritating tune-out, do only what has researched well in the past, remove any risk, use a pat and constantly-repeated slogan, play one song after the other, and tell listeners over and over--beneath a wooshing cacophony of electronic sounds and using an emotionless but deep-voiced announcer--just how great and wonderful Nash 94.7 is.  Not what makes it different.  Not what makes it worth their attention and time.  Not what makes the station any better than all the other places they can find the exact same music on a multitude of listening devices.  Not what should make them run, not walk, to Facebook and Twitter to tell friends about the new station and how great it is.

They play songs sung by Taylor Swift and Carrie Underwood?  So?

For God's sake, let's not give Wall Street analysts or stockholders any reason to suspect we are doing something risky.  So what if we become just more background noise, right along with Pandora, XM/Sirius, or iPods.  No, we can't beat all those other sources of streaming music, so let's just stream it ourselves and keep convincing advertisers that our 10 share in Arbitron is still the same number of actual warm-blooded listeners today as it was in 1998.  And that those listeners are as involved in our station--and our station in their lives--as they were in 1968.  Tell them enough how great we are with those over-produced things between the songs and they will believe it.  Heaven forbid that we even try to be creative, other than having some poor production sap in Atlanta put together that 10-minute montage Nash 94.7 ran for the switch to country yesterday morning.  The switch that occurred at 9:47 AM.  See, we are being clever!  And bless him for splicing together all those country stars saying their names out loud.  You know, I bet any country singer alive, with the knowledge that an FM station in the nation's largest radio market was about to begin playing country music, would have popped into a studio somewhere and recorded a custom bit, welcoming Nash 94,7, giving a shout-out to Queens and Manhattan, the Nets, and the Yankees.  But somebody would have had to ask.  And collect all that digital audio.  Too much trouble.

But no.  A chance is missed.  You don't get a second chance at a first impression.  A chance to do something creative and compelling right there in the midst of Big Media, Madison Avenue, and 8.5 million souls who have not heard good radio in 20 years.

We don't get to meet--right out of the chute--the warm, human personalities who will introduce the Big Apple listeners to what's happening in country music.  That and otherwise brighten their days from now on, not only with the music they play just for them, but with the human interaction that made radio such a personal medium from its very start.  No, Cumulus did all that insider-radio "stunting," screamed incessantly about "formats," and ran the grandiose and overproduced transition "stager" that some poor guy in Atlanta had to produce (and you can bet will be played in its entirety on all of the other 86 Cumulus country stations around the nation as they transition cookie-cutter-like to the "Nash" branding).  They chose to insert those irritating recorded "drops" between every single song, telling us how special it is that NYC has a real, live country music radio station, even if those who preferred that brand of music had myriad places to find it even before Cumulus gifted them with Nash 94.7.

Oh, they will run commercial-free for the next little while, too, further reinforcing in the minds of listeners that commercials originate from Satan.  And when they do begin to run them, I'll bet you they have at least a quarter of every hour filled with those commercial announcements, assuring any listeners they may have attracted will go running back to all those other sources of streaming music that is still right there at their fingertips.

I will also bet that when actual human personalities do begin "interrupting" the music, except for the morning show (which will play only minimal music but will bust their guts to be topical, edgy, and funny), will be done by pleasant-voiced people who reside far, far from NYC--I'd guess Atlanta--who record those inserts and digitally zap them up to the robots in Manhattan the day before they are to air.  Will they know the Nets won a close one last night, that sewers are backed up in Times Square, or even that Travis Tritt is playing at a little club in SoHo?  Will Travis drop by and tell a few stories on the air while he's in town?  Can they break "format" and play just the perfect set of songs for a dark, gray, snowy day?

How ironic it is that the same day I heard the Nash 94.7 stream and the stunting-to-new-format mess on YouTube I also saw the cover of the new issue of ALABAMA HERITAGE magazine.  There is an article in this issue about the late radio personality Joe Rumore, a fixture in Birmingham radio in the '50s and into the early '70s.  Most nowadays would consider his shtick corny but he knew his audience.  And his audience knew him and loved him.  He got fan mail from all over the country.  One Christmas, he received 40,000 Christmas cards from his listeners.  He sold goods and services for his advertisers.  He was an integral part of so many peoples' lives, their friend, and they felt they knew him even if they never met him.  They forgave him if he played a song or two they didn't like.  Or if he talked about something that didn't interest them because whatever else he said or did would be entertaining and/or endearing.

Joe wasn't the only one.  There were so many others that I call "wizards of the wind."  They were the glue between the songs, the voices in the night that provided companionship and friendship to go along with the music.  (I wrote a novel about them:  WIZARD OF THE WIND.)  That warmth and interaction is, I believe, the only way over-the-air radio broadcasting can continue to be a factor, the only way the medium can hope to prosper in the wake of rapid technological change that is so rapidly rendering broadcasting obsolete.

The answer certainly is not format "stunting," long-distance voice-tracking, and streaming the very same songs people can get in so many other ways without all the dumb hype and cold delivery.

But there is some risk involved.  Personalities get sick, want to be paid, and can cross the street and take listeners with them.  Playing music that might not fit some consultant's definition of a "format" can cause listeners to wander.  Why take a chance?  Why not just do it the way Nash 94.7 is doing it?

Because the damn medium itself will be an after-thought in a New York minute if somebody doesn't step out of his comfort zone and try something creative and innovative.  And make the investment to deliver it to consumers in every way possible, not just from a transmitter on the mountain and a half-assed web site and off-air music stream.

I hope I'm wrong on this one.  But I don't think I am.  And that is a crying shame.

So many topics, so little time

By Don Keith N4KC

It is difficult to keep up with rapid technological change and how it affects media, society and amateur radio. And even more difficult to keep this blog updated on that subject.  Some quick comments on some cogent topics in a feeble effort to keep up:

• Is it just me or will the FCC (Federal Communications Commission) issue an unlimited number of FM translator licenses to existing broadcasters?  Apparently all you need to get multiple FM signals (albeit relatively low power but on the air nonetheless) is an AM license in a city.  There are some here in my hometown that give a station identification as "Birmingham" but are so covered up by other signals on a typical car radio that they are unlistenable.  Will the broadcasters be able to make money with these things?  Costs are likely very, very low, but one assumes they will have to garner some ratings or give advertisers some results if they are worth fooling with.  All I see them doing is cluttering up the FM band with more automated music or talk programming and further diluting the listenership of the other full-powered stations...all of whom are carrying automated music or talk programming.

• Pending the approval of the government regulators, Arbitron will soon be sold to Nielsen.  Arbitron is "the leading supplier of radio audience listening estimates," as we were always required to say when I worked there.  Truth is, they are really the only one that sells radio ratings.  We were seeking a partnership with Nielsen, the TV ratings company (among many other things), when we developed the PPM device that could measure any medium that made a sound.  That included radio, TV, internet streaming, and more.  Nielsen showed signs of seeing the value of such a partnership since it would finally allow them measure TV viewing in sports bars, hotel rooms, and other places unreachable by their set-top boxes.  Ultimately, though, they shunned such a seemingly good marriage.  Now, with the purchase, it appears they see not only the value of the technology but Arbitron's monopoly on radio.  Only problem is Arbitron is joined at the hip with radio at a time when the medium is in deep, deep trouble and one has to wonder how much longer broadcasters will cut that huge check to Arbitron for estimates of a smaller and smaller piece of the media pie.  Stay tuned.

• Just did a delightful interview with Nick Gale, a book blogger based in Great Britain.  Nick's an example of an entrepreneur who is using the virtually free platform of the internet to build a publicity business for a niche market.  It helps me promote books and my books helps him promote his site and services so it works well for all involved.  You can see the interview HERE.  We discussed everything from WIZARD OF THE WIND to THE SPIN to the state of self-publishing and how it is affecting the traditional book-publishing business.  Nick wants to do another session and delve more into that realm.  Followers of this blog know how I love to talk about that subject!

PS: Note that I now have a byline at the top of my blog posts.  Google is making changes again and their robots dearly love having names in bylines at the beginning of content.  And whatever Google loves I adopt! If they tell me I should put flying monkeys up there, I put flying monkeys up there.

 

www.donkeith.com

www.n4kc.com

www.untoldmillions.net

When your life depends on it

 Many topics to cover in this blog but so little time, what with the holidays, some traveling, and the publication of two new novels.  (See THE SPIN and ON THE ROAD TO KINGDOM COME for more on those.)  I absolutely do want to talk about the upcoming sale of Arbitron, the radio ratings company, to Nielsen, the TV ratings company, and its potential impact on media, advertisers and consumers.

  

But today I need to pile on my old medium of choice, broadcast radio.  The holidays bring back many not-so-fond memories of my days in radio when we had to scramble to make sure our stations were staffed during the holidays.  See, in those days, we thought it to be important that someone live be there, playing music, giving news and weather updates, answering the telephones, and communicating with our listeners.  Yes, even on holidays.

That is no longer the feeling, of course.  Most radio stations are on auto-pilot most of the time, but especially on holidays.  Syndicated programming or deejay voice-tracking are the rule.  When severe weather threatened our area on Christmas Day, James Spann, one of the local TV meteorologists (his blog is the first choice of anyone who wants up-to-date and detailed weather info), even warned people NOT to rely on broadcast radio for alerts during the holidays because "they will be unmanned."

He was absolutely correct.  Fortunately, my area was spared, though we are still nervous after the killer storms we have experienced in the last couple of years.  But just down the road an EF-2 tornado struck Mobile, Alabama, on Christmas Day.  The potential for such a storm was known and disseminated by all media for several days prior.  TV stations used their "weather cams" to broadcast live the funnel cloud as it touched down.  Station web sites fed updates and images live.  Facebook and Twitter were full of eye-witness reports.

Radio played Christmas music, rock and roll, country, or syndicated talk.

That meant people in their cars or otherwise out and about--unless they were also fiddling with their smart phones--had to rely on the "old reliable" broadcast radio stations for a warning.

God help them!

Here is a post by one frustrated person in Mobile that appeared on a local blog:

Mobile radio was nowhere to be found when it came to tonight's tornado emergency.  Even after a confirmed tornado touched down in one of Mobile's most populated areas, none of the stations could be bothered to break away from their programming.  It wasn't until well into the warning that Cumulus finally switched all their stations to airing Local 15 TV's audio, but by then the tornado was long gone and all that was left was assessing the damage.

To make matters worse, the EAS alerts that passed through the audio from NOAA weather radio were awful.  Clear Channel's was audible but delayed by what seemed like a minute or two compared to Cumulus, and Cumulus' audio was almost unintelligible at times because they had such a weak signal from NOAA it was static-laden. 

Tell me again why anyone here or anywhere else should trust local radio to tell them ANYTHING in a timely fashion?  It was an embarrassment.  Yes, I realize this is a holiday and everyone's gone home for the week but this storm system was being hyped two or three days ago, plenty of time for SOMEONE SOMEWHERE to put in a contingency plan. 

No, that would make too much damned sense.  Gotta play Jingle Bell Rock for the umpteenth time, gotta put on Delilah or whatever, gotta air those ads.

Thank God for the internet, right?  I got timely text updates from both the NWS Mobile, some of the local stations and even James Spann from ABC 33/40 in Birmingham… I got live streaming video from WKRG's website… but I couldn't get a god forsaken weather report on my car radio to save my life.

This is it.  I am done.  Between the poor sound quality and processing, the narrow playlists, the faux local voicetracked DJs, the lack of local weather & news and the 6 minute commercial blocks, I am DONE with local radio.  Screw it.  They can continue to play to the lowest common denominator and rot in hell for all I care.

Sense his/her anger?  Again, at a time when broadcast radio is facing the biggest challenge since TV came along to confront the medium, it appears that those who hold the keys to those facilities have thrown up their hands and given up.  If they don't even care enough to prepare for a potential devastating, life-threatening event, then what will they do to connect with listeners in less crucial ways?

That continues to irk me no end, since I still believe in the innate and potential power of the audio medium.  And, in this case, their lackadaisical attitude could have killed some people.

Don Keith N4KC
www.donkeith.com
www.n4kc.com

Surprise! Less listening to broadcast radio

The ratings for broadcast radio are finally confirming what many of us know intuitively.  Media users are spending less time with their old friend, the "radio."  See this recent article in one of the radio trade publications that has heretofore denied such erosion:

Weekly time spent listening declines by 28 minutes.
The average American aged 12+ spent 13 hours and 51 minutes listening to radio a week, according to Arbitron’s RADAR 113 report, which covers March 31, 2011–March 28, 2012. While that’s a healthy number – nearly two hours a day – it’s down 28 minutes a week from one year earlier: 14 hours and 19 minutes. More alarming are year-over-year declines among young adults.

I can hear the spin already.  "Statistical quirk."  "No problem since folks still spend two hours a day listening to radio."  "It's that damn PPM device!"  (PPM is the device Arbitron now uses in the larger markets to measure radio listening as opposed to the old methodology: asking a sample of listeners to keep a diary of their radio usage for a week.)

Oh, and the one I expect to hear most: "Doesn't matter.  Radio is an average-quarter-hour medium."

Without going into detail, average quarter hour (AQH) is a measure of how many people are listening to a station in an average quarter hour during the time period specified.  Radio has always loved this number since listeners tend to jump around from station to station.  But if someone who is keeping one of those diaries for Arbitron indicates listening to a station for only five minutes out of a fifteen minute period, the ratings company gives that station credit for keeping the listener for the whole fifteen minutes.

Advertisers, on the other hand, want people to stick around long enough to hear their commercials.  And ideally hear them more than one time.  That means they care more about time spent listening to a station (TSL).  And the newer PPM methodology does a much better job of measuring that parameter than the diary ever did.

Simple fact is people have far more listening choices than ever before.  That more and more includes in their automobiles, the traditional bastion of broadcast radio.  And at the same time, the nature of over-the-air radio broadcasting today is that programming is less and less innovative and compelling, surrendering precious hours of time spent listening to other sources of entertainment, information and companionship.

So actually it is no surprise whatsoever that people are listening less.  And believe me when I tell you that they will continue to do so.  At least until someone offers something on the airwaves that makes them not only listen more often but for longer periods of time.

Don Keith N4KC
www.n4kc.com
www.donkeith.com
www.untoldmillions.net