Country Radio's Diversity Problem

I have been writing about the coming of the Millenials into country's target for more than twenty years, so this week's revelations from Edison Research at the Country Radio Seminar should not come as a surprise to anyone who's been paying attention to our evolving target.

Today (from the country/new country section of Nielsen's State Of Audio Today 2014):

Tomorrow (from Edison's CRS research as reported by Inside Radio):

It's not going to be simple or easy as our creators of music open their sights beyond the traditional themes and sounds of America's South, as our personalities evolve to understand how to be relatable and entertain in broader ways and today's upper demos accept these changes.

Of course, it has to happen in a way that "country" remains uniquely "country" or we'll be surrendering the values which make us so appealing and strong, but anyone who would predict that it can't happen or won't work doesn't know our listeners very well.

The evolution has already begun, it's helping us grow right now.

The intelligent way to see and embrace this change is to see it as "country's diversity opportunity."

What's In It For You?

When it comes to excuses on "why I don't need to do that," I've heard them all.

1.  "I don't need to do remotes or other personal appearances.  It kills the theater of the mind I create.  I'd prefer to use the magic of radio and have them picture me the way they want to.  If they meet me face to face, that's gone."

Nice try.  My theory on this one is that this person is naturally shy and insecure.  Maybe they got into radio so they could be outgoing and be themself without ever having to face rejection.

As their manager/coach, assure them that everyone is insecure and shy and those of us in the entertainment business can't be as successful as our potential if we don't face and overcome that demon.

Sometimes you simply have to force them out of that comfort zone, placing a set number of remote broadcasts and public appearances in their employment agreement so they have no choice but to do them if they want the job.

Make them get out in front of the broadcast desk close to people, looking each listener they meet directly in the eye and repeat the listener's name as least three times as they interact with them. 

Often, this alone fixes the problem as they begin to realize that people who come wanting to meet them enjoy their personality and they have nothing to fear.

2.  "I don't do social media.  My entire show is social."

No, it's not.  It's a broadcast.  If you get too personal on AM/FM radio by playing every request people ask for, using every phone call you get on air without editing them, your ratings are going to go down because your show will be loved by the folks who call, but boring to the mass audience.

If being on the radio for you is just to have people call you and tell you how wonderful you are because you do your show just for them, you're never going to be as successful if you talk to everyone, but do it with a "one to one" vocabulary.

Your task when the microphone is open is to curate everything that is going on right now.  Choose only the best material and maximum value to the listener who chooses to sample you.

Keep them listening longer by being as entertaining and engaging as possible.

Use all of your social tools to build those personal relationships one person at a time.

Tailor which social platforms you use to the tastes of each individual listener.  Use them all, but don't broadcast one post to all of them.  Consider what makes a user of each platform choose that one and make sure they know you understand what makes them unique and special, not just a number in your database.

Need a good example of how this is done?  I have one word for you:  Ellen.

If her great example along with those intellectual/logical explanations don't work, I go for the jugular and tell the personality that failing to use every medium at their disposal in exactly the way its users expect will cost them competitively in the ratings.

To #1:  if you don't get out into the community and also use social and expect the audience to grow every day, you better be the most consistently entertaining personality available to your target in every minute of every day so that they never get tempted to try anything else.  Cume is always going down unless you work hard to keep it growing.

To #2:  If you knew exactly who had ratings diaries or was carrying a Personal People Meter right now, wouldn't you want to take extra care to find out what they are doing, what they like and dislike?

Try this experiment:

Go to the mall and randomly ask people if they have ever participated in the radio ratings.  If you ask 100 people, you'll be lucky to find five who say yes.

At your next public appearance or remote broadcast, ask the very same question (do NOT do it on social platforms or you'll probably get delisted!) and you'll find that as many as one in ten (or even more) answer in the affirmative.

The point is not to do stealth marketing, but to prove to your recalcitrant talent:

The people who reach out to you socially and come out to say hello to you are more than twice as likely as the average person to participate in the radio ratings when they receive that call.

Don't you want as real and close a relationship with them as you can possibly have?

Impersonally Personal

Creating universally relatable emotional experiences driven by personal stories:  that's what the best of AM/FM audio media does to engage more than 90% of the population every day of the week

You can only do that by talking to as large a cume audience as possible - one person at a time - when the microphone is open.  That's called intimacy, and it's our greatest strength.

Each listener feels that you are talking only to her personally, even if he is riding in a van pool with six others.  At some level, they know they are an "audience," but due to theater of the mind it feels like you're talking only to each individual.

When the mic is off, all other hours of the day, live appearances and social media require a completely different approach.

Change gears.  Genuinely talk to each person.  Listen to his story, being as personal in response as possible.  Make each individual who "likes" and "follows" you feel as if you want to get to know him by name, face to face.  This is what makes being an AM/FM personality so important.  As a bonus:  it feels good to do.

There is no other medium that can equal the real, enduring relationships built on mutual trust that doing it consistently well creates.

It's Not Personal

There's a battle of the vehicle and mobile brewing.


No wonder.  Edison Research president Larry Rosin in New York at IAB Digital Audio Agency Day last week:  “We don’t see a lot of evidence of people listening to less AM-FM radio.  It’s that they’re listening to more internet radio.”  He says the research continues to show more ways to listen to audio is driving up total consumption.  

Inside Radio created the chart from Rosin's presentation.

Adding even more credibility, as Pollack Media's Pat Welch blogged, that the 89-90% number comes pretty close to Nielsen's (92%) estimate also just released.

The percentage jumping off the pages is 18-34's use of "personalized radio" and "on-demand music" twice as much. 

“The main advantage of AM-FM remains very much in the car.” Rosin points out that 81% of 18-34s listen to AM-FM while in cars and trucks, compared with just 30% who listen to web radio in that listening location.  In other locations, Millennials report listening to web radio while at home than those who turn on AM-FM (63% vs. 48%).  At work, 41% told Edison they listened to web radio in the past week compared to 31% who said broadcast radio.  “It all breaks down on the nature of the work.  If people are facing a computer screen all day, they’re very likely to be listening to internet radio.”  Digital listening also scored higher among young adults in locations like at the gym, walking around or on public transport. 

“In all of these other (non-car) locations internet radio is being used more,”  according to Rosen.  Edison’s research found reasons include more choice, clearer signal, song ID, more convenient, stations outside their local area, and live event listening.  At the same time, 40% of those same folks told Edison that they’re actually listening to more AM-FM than a year earlier and another 40% said that they're listening about the same amount of time.  Just 20% of 18-34s claimed to be listening to AM-FM less at the same time 70% of them are using more web radio too.  “Audio is a booming category right now and young people are spending more time with more audio options than they have ever before.”

The findings are based on a 2013 online survey of 3,016 people age 12 funded by TuneIn, Spotify and Pandora.  A video of the entire day is posted on Kurt Hanson's RAIN website.

Jukeboxes are not new.  Top 40 radio was famously created when a smart programmer back in the 50's noticed that the majority of people were putting coins in the machine to hear the same songs over and over.

People have been willing to spend money to hear their favorite tune immediately for as long as live performers have been willing to play requests.

AM/FM radio has never been about personalization.  It was smart of the researchers to create new categories of "radio" for this study.  Our success - the "need" we can still fill better than anyone else - is building community with information, universals, relatables and entertainment value.  I don't see anything in this new info on uses of emerging technology to change that.

It would be a mistake for today's AM-FM radio to try to be something new technologies can do better, just as it has been to cut the resources that create the things nothing else can do as well.

The quality of the service - what our talent talk about and music we select - provides to them has more to do with how much time listeners give us than competing technologies.

Those are the best weapons to take to this inpending on-the-road battle.

We all had better take that very personally.

2014 "Facts Of Life"

Country radio must fight for Gen X's time if we hope to continue to grow at the amazing rate we have done in the last five years in the coming decade.

Generation X and Millennials are related (parents and their children) but you don't reach them both in the same ways.

The three generational cultures that we serve today are all aging, altering their priorities.

Change is accelerated for 18-34, but 35-44 tastes appear to be more stable as social network trends indicate.

Linking all of 2014 generational cohorts:  "immersive experiences"

Gen X feels more stress.

They worry that their "high hopes/tough relaity" lives won't be as good as their parents.

Many are moving downtown and most country format historical hot zips are in the suburbs.  We have some geo-targeting mining to do.

The Workplace is changing, requiring fresh at work listening tactics.

They were more materialistic as teens than their children are today.

Listener expectations are not one size fits all.

What are you planning to do in 2014 to hold onto the young females who came our way in the last five years while increasing loyalty with 35-49 men and women as well?

My Inscrutable Blog Post

Sometimes attempting to "explain" something that simply didn't make much sense in the first place only serves to further cloud an issue.

I hope to avoid doing that here.  My New In 2007; Obsolete In 2013 post made sense, I hope, to the people I work directly with since it was designed to serve as a somewhere coded, confidential and personal reminder.

However, a comment came in over the weekend from an innocent reader who can be forgiven for feeling that it was...

Completely biased and useless rhetoric. I have no idea what this post was intended to accomplish. Could you clarify? I mean, how does an iPhone age and model relate to an elder and youth relationship? And what is the goal of a new phone as compared to the goals of each an elder and younger in a mutually satisfying relationship? What are you saying?

I appreciate the feedback and emailed my commenter:  "As I travel and listen to radio, I hear too many personalities talking to an audience that maybe existed at one time - "next hour, we'll..." "more details on our website" etc etc and I keep trying to get their attention and tell them to talk like real people do by reminding them that the only way to avoid cultural obsolescence is to be sharing emotions and telling stories each time you open your mouth. I use Dick Clark and Ed McMahon, rest their souls, as examples as I coach this point by noting that Dick was remaining relevant right to the end as he counted them down every New Year with Ryan while Ed was selling adult diapers and insurance to old people.  Staying fresh, current and contemporary is a personal choice, requiring the breaking of deeply-ingrained old habits which die hard.  Am I a voice in the wilderness?"

My correspondent replied, perhaps teaching the lesson far better than I did...

I believe the essence of radio has always been company, entertainment, and information for the masses. But it has always been one sided. Interactive media like web blogs, chat, and social sites like Twitter have influenced this, clearly, as they cater to individual interaction. The question may have become how can radio become more interactive? Less pretense and more camaraderie is appreciated and demanded by the radio audience today, in my view. And to at least sound (believably) interactive is crucial.

Why didn't I think of that?

Any time you read this blog and feel like improving on it, please add a comment or clarification.  Help me to "at least sound interactive."

New In 2007; Obsolete In 2013

An internal Apple memo now calls the original iPhone, launched less than seven years ago (to put it more kindly) "vintage."

How are you doing in that department?

Fortunately, there aren't many areas of our culture moving faster than the tech world, but move they do.

If you're still talking to the same "personal listener" you created when you first got into radio, it's likely that you're as "today" as American Family Publishers.

Every parent knows:  young people aren't going to make the effort to understand and relate to their elders.

If anyone in an older person to younger person relationship is going to "speak the language" of the other person, only the older of the two is fully-equipped to understand and communicate to the other.

Take a bite out of today's "apple" before it takes a bite out of you.

Once You Learn The ABC's Of "Y," Here Comes "Z"

Kudos to Russ Penuell for a terrific recap of A&O&B's client seminar session on connecting with the Millennial generation.

As I said, we really don’t need to work hard to understand millennials because almost all of our new superstars are them.  If you simply follow the trend in music and understand what they’re singing about, what their lyrics are saying and what their shows are like, you’re probably going to figure it out.

Like Blake Shelton said yesterday about his new LP Based On A True Story:   “It’s the best way to put into a song my personality, and the kind of people that I hang out with.  (the album’s lead-off track “Boys ‘Round Here” which features Pistol Annies)  This [song] is about the guys back in Tishomingo, OK and every town around this country.” 

But if you’re determined to be the you that you’ve always been and aren’t going to change, you have about three to five years to figure out that’s not going to work before your ratings figure it out for you as the audience evolves and the demographics shift.

WDAF/Kansas City PD Wes Poe and WUBE/Cincinnati PD Grover Collins are two programmers whose ratings prove they "get it."

• “We’ve all encountered people who are fake or who turn it on when they’re around us, and those people are often avoided for lack the ability to have real relationships.  We need to let our guards down and be real. For example, we use a music-quantity position that is clear and honest about what we offer listeners and we deliver on it. And we’ve been lucky enough to come out on top in the Country battle several months in the last year. When we do, we sincerely thank our listeners for putting us there and explain what they’ve helped us accomplish and what it means to us. If you’re a radio station with empty promises and fluff, your days are numbered in my opinion.  But authenticity won’t stand alone in a world with Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn, Instagram, Flickr, Socialcam and more."
• “We’re rolling out a new wake-up app exclusively for the morning show that will work like an alarm clock.  They’ll set it and wake up to Chris Carr & Company. It’s just another feature for people that are not listening to regular radio first thing in the morning, but streaming more with their smartphones.  With the exception of the digital and tech aspects, I consider [millennials] to be a lot like everyone else.  They want to be entertained, they’re looking for quality content and they’re looking for things that intrigue and engage them. Our job is to keep them coming back.”

MediaPost's Jack Loechner calls it "Generational Progress" as the segmentation of the marketplace has fallen into several categories, but none so ubiquitous as age or generational similarities. He notes that William Schroer, SocialMarketing.org, hasthoroughly described population cohorts in a convenient fashion for planning purposes, including the NEXT one we need to start to think about.

Generation Z
Born: 1995-2012
Coming of Age: 2013-2020
Age in 2004: 0-9
Current Population: 23 million and growing rapidly

While we don’t know much about Gen Z yet...we know a lot about the environment they are growing up in. This highly diverse environment will make the grade schools of the next generation the most diverse ever. Higher levels of technology will make significant inroads in academics allowing for customized instruction, data mining of student histories to enable pinpoint diagnostics and remediation or accelerated achievement opportunities.

Gen Z kids will grow up with a highly sophisticated media and computer environment and will be more Internet savvy and expert than their Gen Y forerunners. They are also loving country music, so for more to come on Gen Z...stay tuned!  (.... To THEM.)
 

More On Country's Youth Movement

Listening to country, there is a certain authenticity and sensitivity that is hard to find in other styles of music. Many of the themes in country music are about dealing with loss and change, something that resonated with me as I entered the next chapter of my life. Perhaps the best example is Trace Adkins telling me “You’re Gonna Miss This,” teaching me that each stage of life is filled with apprehension so one must embrace and thrive in any situation.

While many hailed fun’s “We Are Young” as the anthem of youth, I feel that Jake Owen’s “Barefoot Blue Jean Night” perfectly captured a carefree spirit and painted a perfect picture of simplicity and carefree enjoyment.

From the lovelorn Hunter Hayes, the down-home revelry of Jason Aldean and the vigor and heart of Luke Bryan, I can only wonder what new personal gems will find their way onto my iPod as country music and the stories that come along with it enjoy their spot in the limelight.

Country music may not be for everyone, but for my money, country is where the heart of storytelling is in music. As Paisley sings in “This is Country Music,” “This is your life in a song.”

  -- Christopher James, a Loyola University junior in Monday's campus newspaper

"Y" Not?

Nashville Tennessean writer Jaquetta White picked up some seemingly-contradictory quotes as she solicited reactions to the debut of "The Bobby Bones Show" on WSIX and numerous other Clear Channel stations:

“We’re targeting the show to the 20- and 30-somethings, which hasn’t been done in the country format,” WSIX Program Director Michael Bryan said. “If you look at the artists, what we’re doing is a reflection of what’s popular. We have to do this if we’re going to raise a new generation of country listeners.”

I recommended radio programmers take a cue from census data, which indicate that today’s 16- to 33-year-olds, estimated at about 78 million people, as a group are not only larger than the generation immediately preceding them, but also larger than the leading edge of baby boomers.  “You don’t even have to target younger. It’s just that America is becoming younger because of this generational cohort.  I don’t think the average country station has to do anything to attract the younger generation. All you have to do is play the latest hits by the latest stars.”

Twenty years ago, the topic might not have generated the same level of interest, said Sean Ross, vice president of music and programming at Edison Research.  “There wasn’t any music that a self-respecting teen would have been interested in,” Ross said. “There wasn’t as much tempo. There wasn’t as much of a rock edge.  We have gone from ‘We don’t want anybody under 25 or maybe even 35. But if they come along for the ride, that’s nice,’ to ‘Hey, kids, win a contest to have Hunter Hayes visit your high school.’

• “All advertisers are trying to reach certain targets.  I have a suspicion that (country radio) may be attracting 25- to 35-year-olds now at a little bit higher rate. The question is, is that at the detriment of other groups?  I think a lot of people are looking at the ratings service as an indication of the move on the format. I don’t look at the ratings service as research,” said John Dimick, vice president of programming and operations for Lincoln Financial Media, which operates 15 radio stations in Atlanta, Denver, Miami and San Diego. “I think country’s appeal continues to be mass in nature.”
• Specifically courting a younger demographic is not necessary, said Chris Huff, program director at  KSCS-FM 96.3, Dallas, because the music has broad enough appeal to pull in all age groups.  “In country music, it’s really not as segregated musically. There are people of all ages who are fans of Luke Bryan and Jason Aldean, and you have younger listeners who are fans of the older stars,” Huff said. “Just by its nature, it’s going to attract a sizable audience.”

I think we all told her basically the same thing, even though when we spoke with Jaquetta we didn't know we were engaging in what would appear in print to be a conversation.

As long as Bobby (and the rest of us) understand and adhere to the fundamentals of the culture, lifestyle and music which unite a mass audience of all ages of country fans in many areas of the world today, we'll have a very bright future.

Millenials have already impacted our media and social relationships, no matter what age group you belong to.

I will speak more about why I feel that way at the Albright & O'Malley & Brenner client seminar in Nashville.

Then, let's spend the rest of CRS week thoroughly discussing your point of view on it too.

That's what has made our format incredibly dynamic for many generations.

Seek, Scan, Preset, Unfriend

I lunched yesterday with a friend who has two of her children still living at home.  One is an upper-teen and the other is 20-something, so my friend gets daily lessons on life as a member of Generation Y, the Smartphone cohort.

She lovingly described her kids this way:  "we probably coddled them too much when they were children.  Now, they feel entitled and very special.  When they were young, everyone who played got a trophy, no matter whether they won or lost.  The result is that they have high hopes, great aspirations and consider those 500 "friends" on their social networks part of their identity.

"If you do or say something they don't relate to or approve of, they simply "unfriend" you and that way they never have to hear from you ever again."

Translated for radio in 2013:  their parents discover new radio stations by seeking and scanning and once you get on their first preset, you're set for a very long time.  Do something they don't want or like and they'll leave you for a few quarter hours.

Teens, 18-24, and 25-34 are unique.  Fail to relate directly to them, and in an instant they may "unfriend" you.

Forever.

Yesterday, "loyalty"to a radio station or personality was driven largely by habit.  Today and tomorrow, it's all about what are you doing for someone exactly like me right now.

Graphic from "Millenials Rising"

“Where were you when…?”

A recently-released Sony/Nielsen survey asked those-sampled to recall their most memorable TV moment, and if they remembered where-they-were when they watched history happen.

The top 5 moments were:

1. 911
2. Hurricane Katrina
3. O.J. Simpson verdict
4. Space Shuttle Challenger explosion
5. Osama bin Laden death

#42 was the final episode of M*A*S*H.
#43 was The Beatles on The Ed Sullivan Show.
#44 was the “Who Shot J.R.?” episode of Dallas (the-revival-of-which, incidentally, is Summer’s top TV hit).

Drilling-down to demographics:

• People age 55+ rank President Kennedy’s assassination a close second to 911.  
• To young people in the sample, President Obama’s election night speech was #3.
• To women, Princess Diana’s funeral was #4.  To men it was #23.

A reminder to all personalities to constantly update and freshen your demographic target relevant historical references from news talk consultant and friend of A&O Holland Cooke, who reminds me of the great line from the prophetic 2000 book "Millenials Rising:"

"One generation's headline is the next one's punch line."

Be Like Taylor

As the size of the generational cohorts comprising the age group which has already started hitting retirement now won't peak and start downward in proportion of the population until the 4.3 million babies born in 1957 during the baby boom have fast forwarded 65 years to 2022, it's inevitable that many country stations which once prided themselves on having a mean age right in the middle of 25-54, now find themselves with an audience whose average age is moving up into the mid-to-high 40's.

Last week's New Yorker offers a wonderfully-flattering in-depth profile of the woman who may have changed that course for us, Taylor Swift. Writer Lizzie Widdicombe makes it clear that Taylor wasn't trying to do anything so calculated as target the nation's next very, very large emerging generation of country fans - today's teen age girls and 18-28 females - in the article titled "You Belong With Me: How Taylor Swift made teen angst into a business empire." She's just being herself.

For those of us who hope to remain relevant from a perspective of several decades older, clearly we have some learning to do and even the descriptive phrases Widdicombe uses provide a list of traits not normal to an X'er or Boomer that we need to incorporate as we work to hold not only the Swift generation, as their values impact the entire culture.

• Radiates unjaded sincerity no matter how contrived the situation
• Writes her own material
• Like Dolly Parton, writes autobiographical story songs that relate to her target audience
• In the Internet era, (that) is also a clever marketing device
• Doesn’t drink or go to clubs. More "wholesome" than her parents' generation was at her age
  
• Emotional and personal in universal ways
  
• Her mother and father remain a big part of her life
• Spends most of her off time with band members, friends, and family
• Approaches her career with the seriousness of a C.E.O

Anyone who opens a microphone on a country radio station would do well to run through that checklist each time they prep and deliver.

At Least We're Not Dr. Scholl's (Yet)

Country music radio, in spite of Taylor Swift's amazing success, (click that link to see her artistic sensibilities in the current issue of Marie Claire!), remains largely a Boomer brand, with a big bump in our demographics 45+ (click that link to read the article and blog comments on it which prompts this post).

"No brand can ever rest easy with one target audience, but brands that have relied heavily on Boomers for their success really need to think like Mercedes and consider how they will engage the wave of Gen Y consumers that could be the key to their futures."

Cole & Weber United President/Ad Guy Mike Doherty made me think of the great run country has had for the last 25 years, thanks to the good fortune (brilliant strategy?) of bonding with the boomers back then they were 25-34 and how, now, like Saturday Night Live, CNN and National Geographic, our long heritage requires rethinking our entire approach as we seek to draw the 80-million strong "Millenial" generation, who now dominate 18-24, 25-34, thus 18-49, and within just a few years, 25-54.

"For Gen Y, formats like CNN that were once revolutionary are irrelevant. Headlines along with a touch of analysis are available everywhere. Check out this article for a good read on CNN's woes.

"For Gen Y, content can be informative and educational but must also be very entertaining in the process (à la "The Daily Show" or Huffington Post). There isn't time for both entertainment and information digestion separately. Content providers could learn from sites like www.funnyordie.com and www.break.com. For National Geographic, it seems that with a new face and new ways to distribute its content, it could be reborn as the the content source for conscientious Gen Yers passionate about environmental and cultural issues worldwide."

You can reach all three generations which straddle 25-54 today, but it requires a different mindset and actions now:

• Show that your brand cares about them by involving them in a wide variety of aspects of your business.
• Collaborate with cachet brands (thanks, Taylor!)
• Avoid hype with a simple and clean style that feels fresh, hipper
• Be an active participant in pop culture and embrace the lives of all listeners, including Gen Y. For example, SNL’s Facebook campaign to get Betty White to host is an obvious example of Gen Y's cultural force. They saw how hilarious she was in her Super Bowl spots and turned her hosting gig into a mission. This is particularly interesting as it proves that like Betty White's brand (no offense to her), you don't have to be a new brand to appeal to Gen Y.
• Tell stories. Be informative or educational, but you had better be extremely entertaining in the process.
• Other boomer brands like Tylenol, Bayer, Advil and even Band-Aid could learn how to relate to Gen Y from brands like Vitaminwater, which helped the generation care about staying hydrated.

Need an example closer to home?

Brad Paisley (among, lucky for us, many others) pulls it all off just by being himself. His authenticity, mix of sensitivity, self-deprecation and humor, yet fearlessness in singing about what he stands for may be an even more applicable role model for most of us.

Having something to say and lots of talent completes the package.

Is that you?

It better be if you hope to keep from being seen as the audio equivalent of orthopedic insoles.

Lucky For Country, We Can Watch And Learn From How MTV Keeps Up (Or Not?) With Youth

An Economist Profile on MTV head Judy McGrath may offer country music a clue to what the Taylor Swift generation is all about:

"I think the major strategy is that you have to be open and flexible, and probably change it every day."

MTV knows its mainly young audience well, but it is also battling to keep their attention. The people to whom MTV has always appealed are the same people who now spend their time on MySpace and Facebook and watch free video-clips on YouTube. Ms McGrath describes MTV Networks’ main audience as the “on-demand generation”—young people who are used to getting the content they want, whenever they want it.

Before You Open The Mic, Give This Some Thought...

"People aren't all that interested in what the talking heads have to say. Instead, they want to participate, control the content and communicate with each other."
-- Alan Levy, CEO, BlogTalkRadio, on Edison Research's "Future Of Webcasting" webinar

Boomers were the 'me' generation.
Gen X'ers are the 'us' generation.
Gen Y is the engagement ("you") generation.

What's your pronoun?

18-49 Attracts ABC Radio, R&R Chart Explains Why Perhaps You Should Retarget Too

The ABC Radio Press Release

"...To be successful, we must ensure our pipeline is full of new products geared toward serving our advertisers, including more offerings focused on the 18-49 demographic..."

(ABC Radio Networks Names Carl Anderson SVP Programming and Distribution) today reminded me of the above, from the front page of a July R&R. If you target 18-34 and 18-49, it's time to figure out what makes Gen Y tick!