There Ought To Be A Law

There are some things that our advertisers do that are illegal and then there are others that should be.

In both situations, it's the listener who gets punished when programmers fail to police these instances even before a fine comes the radio station's way.

Things every creative director needs to be on the lookout for every day:

1.  End dates for copy.  Nothing sounds less "live and local" than a spot for a Thanksgiving Day Sale on the day after the holiday.

2.  Updates.  Every time-dated spot or promo must have a "tomorrow" and "today" version.  Would anyone tell a friend "sale ends November 20th" ON November 20th?

3.  Sirens.  No, it's not illegal to broadcast one on radio, but has anyone not been in a vehicle when one came on, felt deceived after pulling over to the side of the road, realizing they could have caused an accident?  Surely, there's a more original and creative way to command attention than this hackneyed gimmick.  Let's protect the ears and traffic safety of our listener and offer to make something better for the brand, gratis.

4.  "The first listener to get to (remote location) wins..."  Actually, this one could get you sued if someone causes a collision after speeding up to get your prize.

5.  Anything that contains "prize, chance and consideration."  But, you knew that. 

I wish we'd handle numbers 1 through 3 as strictly as we do that one by using the phrase "I can't let you do that."

Broadcast 101

A.J. Clemente joins Steven Tyler, Tom Hanks, Bob Beckel, Joe Flacco and many others - not to mention Howard - in an infamous club.

It was ironic that all three major network morning show personalities. including NBC's, seemed to relate in the aftermath to the faux pas. 

I'll leave it to others to decide whether this latest incident sets a precedent or is a cautionary tale, but before you count on "a light touch" from regulators, my advice is to live by that simple rule we all learned during the first day at broadcast school:

Treat every microphone as if it's ON.

Questionable Advice

1. In the March 26th issue of Radio Ink magazine, the Director of Media and Digital Marketing for La Quinta Inn, Amy Bartle tells radio that our stopsets are too long.

We train our sellers to really understand the buyers' business needs before pitching our wares, but it always seems that media buyers are at the ready to tell us how to run our businesses.

They are only one set of our customers and if their suggestions to stop promoting long sets of content listeners love were taken, we'd deliver fewer sets of ears to hear their ads.

Suggestion: if you want to be the only commercial in a cluster, pay a higher rate and if you pay enough we'd be happy to make your spot the only one we play. But, of course, that would be wasteful, given radio's efficiency and research-proven ability to hold listeners through stopsets.

Focus on creating more engaging commercials and they'll be up to 40% more effective for the same money, no matter where they run.

You want to see clutter? Read your newspaper or watch TV.

Your spot on radio is at center stage when it's on and, unlike TV, most listeners don't skip it.

2. In comments filed with the FCC for its media ownership proceeding, NAB says the current caps, tiered by market size, as well as the AM/FM subcaps that limit how many stations of one service a group can own in a market can no longer be justified and no longer serve the agency’s diversity policy goals.

Small broadcasters have no representation in Washington other than the NAB and perhaps their state broadcasting association, whereas Clear Channel reportedly spends $700,000 annually on their four lobbying firms.

Did the NAB really need to provide stats from Clear Channel as part of their filing?

Certainly, the big guys exert powerful influence on NAB, but hopefully the thousands of small business local owners across America the organization also speaks for got a chance to share their views on further consolidation as well.

I am not necessarily against revisiting the ownership caps, especially when it comes to newspaper crossownership - since many local newspapers have been great stewards of their radio licenses over the entire history of our medium, often providing better local news and public affairs than anyone else in town - but I do wish the NAB's filing had included supportive comments from many of them, instead of CBS and Clear Channel.

Spins And Spin

Spanish Broadcasting System sent out a press release last week announcing that it is finalizing plans to roll out a network-style, legal pay-for-play program in overnight hours at its 21 radio stations.

Chief revenue officer Frank Flores says the Musical Infomercial program is intended to monetize fringe dayparts and level the playing field for independent artists.

The bundled airplay has been approved by the company’s legal department, including one package of roughly 48 plays a week per station. Each song will be billboarded with an announcement that it is ”brought to you by” the sponsoring entity from 11 pm-6 am and Saturday-Sunday from 11 pm-10 am.

"Ideally this could serve as a launching pad for new artists.” Flores says that SBS hopes to gain more buy-in from indie labels and artists.

Decoded: 48 plays a week on enough stations means that it could be possible to "buy" a top ten chart hit, which actually could receive no airplay at all at times when the sun is shining and the majority of listeners could hear it. This will be a launching pad for new artists and indie labels whose bank accounts are larger than their talent.

The irony: this comes at the same time the music industry is pushing for radio stations to pay labels and artists a performance royalty for airing their music.

Decoded: we'll pay you lots of money to play the songs and artists whose quality won't justify airplay without the paid spins. If you want to play songs and artists your listeners like and enjoy, radio needs to pay us for that.

Premiere’s “After Midnight” is also after record label dollars. Blair Garner’s new web video feature “Fresh Catch” gives new and emerging artists a chance to promote their music.

Garner sees it more about helping break new artists. “This new web feature gives the public a chance to check out the best new talent, learn more about them and even buy their music online.”

Decoded: ... if they have the money to pay for it. The FCC has no pay-for-play rules online, just on air. I do have to say that since this approach won't distort airplay charts, it's more acceptable to me than paid "group" spins. If Blair's listeners like the new artist music online and the songs start to test well enough for broadcast airplay, that could prove to be a win for everyone.

ARB CEO Michael Skarzynski: “Over the past nine months, Arbitron has made significant advancements to improve sample quality,”

Decoded: Total installed persons in New York in September are at their lowest levels all year, down by over 300 meters since last December. Arbitron is having long-term difficulty with 35-44 year-olds. In another PPM market, for example, I just printed out a ranker on 35-44 and 45-54 women and out came five or more pages of stations with zeros in their audience estimates! What are buyers supposed to do with that information, just not buy any radio during the end-of-summer weeks and the Labor Day holiday?

H.R. 1147 (The Local Radio Community Act) directs the FCC to “ensure that licenses are available to both FM translator stations and Low Power FM stations. And that such decisions are made on the needs of the local community.”

Decoded: interference is acceptable to lawmakers if it comes from schools, churches and other community-based organizations? Sounds like another Docket 80-90.

The Sound Of Localism

David Oxenford's "Broadcast Law" post on Localism Without Government Regulation makes radio's case against FCC-mandated local programming pretty well.

This comment from Tom Taggart it prompted makes it even more potently:

"Each winter we do a "coats for kids" drive. It's sold, but it's a lot of work. We put barrels at sponsor's stores, and have two dry cleaners who clean the donated coats. The coats then go to churches and community agencies. One bank sponsor has locations 50 miles apart we need to service. Under FCC's rules, we would get little credit for all this work. Now, if we ran four or five hour long discussion programs each Sunday on the need for coats for poor kids and that the government needs a program to solve this problem, why we could fill up the public file issues folder quite full."

Meanwhile, CJJR/Vancouver morning cohost Clay St. Thomas distributed this message to his listeners today:

"The weekend of August 14th to 16th, I'm going to be walking in the Weekend to End Breast Cancer. It's 60K of walking, spread over 2 days. Not bragging, just saying ;) Well, maybe bragging just a little...with that level of commitment, all the walkers on all teams are obviously serious about wanting to do something to end Breast Cancer. I'm a cancer survivor myself, and my mom lost her fight with cancer. Sadly, my circumstances are not unusual. 1 in 3 people will eventually be diagnosed with cancer. This disease runs in everyone's family, and the rate of increase in Breast Cancer specifically is nothing short of epidemic. So here's the pitch: Please consider heading over to http://tinyurl.com/qq8sj9 and making a donation. I know times are tight, which is honestly part of the reason why I'm doing this whole 'hat in hand' routine. Thanks for reading this, and especially for any support you can give. I really appreciate it. Yours in blister pads and damp socks, - Clay"

PS: his cohost Karen Daniels is doing it too!

There are some things you simply can't do with smoke and mirrors. That's the sound of genuine localism, actions thousands and thousands of radio personalities and their stations take upon themselves every single day, which move millions of listeners to get involved too, amplifying already-impressive individual efforts like Clay's and Tom's.

A sound of genuine "localism" in radio: running shoes on pavement. Just try to stick that in your Public File!