A Sense Of History

As we all get ready the 39th annual Twin Cities radio meeting, I am reminded of an anonymous response back in 1996 to a "RadioIQ" (our client e-zene) report of CBS Radio President Dan Mason’s talk at the Upper Midwest Communications Conclave which continues to echo all these years later.
 

“Jobs on the programming side of radio will continue to be eliminated,” Mason correctly predicted back then. “For every position eliminated in programming this year, there will be three added in sales.”

Now that programmatic buying and selling is emerging, eliminating reps while making media sales more transactional and less seller-driven, I am reminded of an anonymous comment I got after that post from 18 years ago:
  

"…any medium which requires more effort to sell than to create is headed for a future no better than slimy posters on the brick wall of public consciousness."

I greatly respect Mason’s smarts and proven track record over the years since that Conclave speech, but I have always wished I knew who “anonymous” was.

That person may have been the smartest of us all.

Their comment remains true, now than ever.

The Best Salespeople

The most successful salespeople tend to exhibit:

1.  Strong character, with an ability to dominate others
2.  High persistence
3.  Debating ability, playing judo with the prospect’s own objections to land an order
4.  Patience to question prospects at length before making a closing argument
5.  High energy level
6.  Self-confidence to withstand repeated rejection
7.  Good work habits and organizing ability.

-- A little reminder to their coworkers from Psychology Today

Get More Remotes/Appearances

Talent fees can be a nice “extra” bonus, and it seems like certain air personalities have a few secrets that make them the one that clients request more than everyone else.

1. Ask for a tour of the business in advance.  You’ll be better able to talk about ‘behind the scenes’ stories you pick up.
2. Find out direct from the boss/manager what main points they want to make during your broadcast.
3. Never ask “how’s it going?”  Seldom will a client tell talent that things are going terrifically and they are making tons of money.  They’re afraid you’ll ask for a higher rate next time.  Asking for “strokes” during the live appearance is just setting yourself up for a negative.
4. Become expert at “small talk.”  Be positive.
5. Schmooze the employees of the business.  If they like you and feel you did a good job, the boss will probably hear about it.
6. If you’re having fun with their customers, the employees at the business will notice.  Your gig is to create an atmosphere where folks are enjoying themselves.  When they are, they’re more apt to spend some money.
7. Don’t hoard the key chains, coloring  books, refrigerator magnets, six packs of soda, etc.  Offer them to the people who came out because you asked them to.  You want them to perceive you as generous and giving.  The freebees should be handed out by the air personality and no one else.  Make them the last thing you put away after the broadcast ends.

Commercial appearances are not the time to do stunts.  It’s simply an opportunity to do informative and entertaining live spots from a remote location.  Use the built-in ambience to enhance your cut-in’s.  Create some excitement.  Show your personality in the confines of something that’s usually a tune-out.

Achieve that, and you'll make them more effective.  That's how to get invited back many, many times.

A “Job” That Gets Done Whether There’s A Person Doing It Or Not

It used to be that owners with just one or two radio stations billing less than a million dollars annually simply couldn’t afford a full time Production/Creative Director.

A good thing about the clustering of stations that began in the mid-90’s is that now even those stations have at least one person in the position.  Of course, that one individual is now charged with overseeing all of the production and writing - both imaging and commercials - for as many radio stations as humanly possible.

Wouldn't you know?

The job is not quite programming and not quite sales.  Responsibilities fall into both departments and that normally means that sales work that immediately drives money gets top priority and the majority of time, while branding the radio stations gets done as time permits.

Many of the production directors I have worked with tend to do the commercial work from 9 to 5 and save the station imaging for their evening and weekend hours in a home studio.

I’m not recommending a change in this, since the spots need to be great.  If clients don’t get results, they won’t be back.  Meanwhile, the typical Brand Manager/Programmer knows that great imaging can be extremely time-consuming and even though there isn’t a direct line from it to the top line of the station budget the creativity, localism and freshness of production pieces can make or break the ratings trends.

Cumulus VP Mike McVay puts it this way:  “The Sales Manager probably wants you, The Production Director, to be the in-house advertising agency, with the creative copywriting skills of an Addy-winning agency copywriter, the marketing sense of a behavioral psychologist, the engineering skills of a Hollywood record producer and the voicing ability to play many characters (sometimes in the same spot) with a voice that commands attention.” 

Sales wants you to crank out more compelling sales ideas at this level than anyone can possibly use, most of them good ones, turning them out under constant and impossible deadlines.

Programming asks for the same thing in spades, hoping for at least one or two new pieces of imaging every day as well.

You serve multiple masters and being a great Production/Creative Director means that you savor this pressure, know how to constantly juggle priorities set by others and yourself and take great pride in producing technically and creatively excellent work.

McVay taught me (and his many client stations over the years) that the Golden Rule of Production Director success is “figuring out what the other people want and instinctively knowing how best to give it them with a smile.”

Directing Traffic

If you build and maintain daily logs scheduling everything on your radio station other than music, I’d say that you and your station's music director are the "de facto" programmer and sales manager.

Most sales directors “get” this and the most skilled among them work hard to make the traffic person feel like they work for sales.

A great seller can close a deal, a terrific SM can manage the rate the client agrees to pay, BUT no money comes in until the spot runs, the account gets billed and the money collected.  The traffic department is the place where that all starts.  For this reason, it’s a rare radio station where sales doesn’t meet with traffic multiple times daily.

Meanwhile, I am constantly amazed by how distant many otherwise excellent Programmers/Brand Managers keep their traffic director.

Maintaining/helping programmers police and project commercial unit limits, balance and flow of commercial matter - that makes up at least 25% of every hour of programming - and accurately hitting financial goals impact everyone's pay checks.

It’s my experience that the majority of traffic people understand this and love being recruited as an ally of programming management.  They need backing and support in their attempts to keep a great radio station in balance.

Of course, they’ll get it from the Market Manager and Sales Management.

Can they expect it from the Programmer too?

I hope so.

The Hardest Jobs

Two jobs at any radio station require the folks assigned to them to be more efficient and diplomatic than almost any others.

They both fall into a gray area, not quite sales, not quite programming, not quite management with responsibilities which fall into all departments, even public affairs, community involvement and creative.

Traffic and production.

It takes a very special person to handle the all of the responsibilities they are expected to deal with every day from people skills, working to deadlines, honesty, judgment, organization, prioritization, just to name a few.

A bad fit in either role can quickly jeopardize a station’s ability to hit goals.

If you are a General Manager, Program Director or Sales Manager, here’s a reminder to "hug" your creative director and traffic person on a regular basis.

They can make you better at your job or undermine you.

If You're Not At Least A Bit Frightened, You're Not Paying Attention

First, we automated our radio stations and replaced live people with computers.

Next, we automated the buying and pricing process.

Now, listeners are also automating their listening processes.

Is any of this creating value for listeners or merchants?

So What Else Is New?

Radio isn't getting its fair share of marketing dollars and not only is that costing US money, but it's also making all traditional ad buys inefficient.

That's the conclusion of a ThinkVine study released this week.

Mark Battaglia, CEO of ThinkVine, said the miscalculations stem from brands relying on outdated marketing mix techniques or previous years' plans that don't take rapidly changing consumer behavior into account.  "Many marketers have started using big data to improve their campaigns, but very few are taking advantage of consumer data to optimize their marketing spend and determine the best media to reach their targeted audience."

The report says that instead of putting 19% of their budget to radio, it should be 26% for maximum impact and efficiency.

Sadly, radio receiving short shrift from media buyers is really nothing new.

Maybe some day, radio sellers will stop focusing on converting radio buys from one station to another and start looking outside traditional "radio money" for revenue.

Until we sell radio's effectiveness against other media, the trend will continue. 

We are our own worst enemy.

The Past is Prologue

Today's guest blogger:  SCBA's Thom Callahan:

You need not have an advanced degree in investing or have Wall Street insider information to see a trend that is so obvious, if we would only spend 10 minutes to really look at it.

2013 was a great year for Radio stocks with most publicly traded Radio companies doubling and/or tripling their 12 month performance. These stunning Radio stock increases can only be attributed to 3 key factors; a greatly improving ad revenue environment, a higher dividend to shareholders, and the realization from trading houses and investors that the ad supported, local Radio model works very well after all.

Why did it take these “experts” so many years to come to the same conclusion all of us in Radio knew all the time? Perhaps we need to understand that it takes most businesses a very long time to become established, profitable, and worthy of the public’s trust, like Radio has.

If the past is prologue, as suggested by William Shakespeare, then perhaps we need to be more cautious on what the financial/media experts are calling the “next big thing”. It is very difficult for any new medium to compete against Radio in the long term which makes investing in companies looking to compete with Radio a very risky proposition.

Here are just three glaring examples of why betting against Radio is a very bad investment decision. 
Let’s go back a few years, specifically to Feb 2, 2000. On that date, the experts were predicting that Sirius/XM would “crush Radio” and just like sheep, investors rushed to buy the stock, which on that date, traded at an inexplicable $59.90 a share. As we begin 2014, the Sirius/XM market share for listeners is barely 11% nationwide and their stock opened this week at $3.49. That is a brutal 94% loss in stock value since its inception. Also, if Liberty Media buys up the rest of the company as reported this week (it owns 50% of the shares now) it is widely known that stockholders will take another unfortunate hit as Liberty Media is a cable company with no long term interest in the Satellite music business other than acquiring its cash flow at bargain basement prices. Think under $3.00 at least.

Strike one for the “experts”.

Now let’s look at another “internet darling” from the more recent past. While Groupon was never a direct threat to Radio, it was treated like the next “big thing” from the “experts”. Based on all of its outstanding press and the “experts” strong buying signals, Groupon was supposed to revolutionize the coupon business and redefine the shopper’s experience for bargains. In fact, some suggested that Groupon posed a threat to Radio as the ROI would be more attractive than Radio commercials.

Really?

Well, Groupon Stock traded at a robust $20.63 per share in 2011, and by the end of 2012; the stock plummeted to $4.86 a share, but to its credit, has rebounded somewhat in 2013 and closed the year at $11.77. This is due primarily to “an evolving business model” that has nothing to do with its original premise. This still represents a nasty stock decline of 43% for Groupon since its inception.

Strike two for the “experts”.

Feeling a bit apprehensive about “expert predictions”? Well, you should be.

Pandora’s widely overvalued stock price and its “darling status” among the “experts” and the media still can’t get this company to grow. In February 2013, its webcast metrics as reported by Triton Digital recorded 1,918,000 visitors as being logged in to its URL with the average time spent listening recorded at 36.6 minutes.

From February 1, 2013 through October 1, 2013, visitor levels are slightly down to 1,891,982 with a more ominous indicator of the time spent listening loss down to 35.4 minutes. That’s a .3% loss in average time spent listening yet no one is reporting that. Can you imagine the reaction from the “experts” if Radio lost .3% of its national listenership in less than 9 months?

Once again, we must look to Pandora’s stock prices as the past is indeed prologue, at least as far as stock value is concerned. The Pandora investor has had a bumpy road to say the least. Pandora stock debuted in June 2011 at $18.91 and remained at that mediocre level for the next 2 years and 3 months. Finally, the stock started to move up on September 3, 2013 to $25.13, and began to show some financial life. It then went back and forth for the next 3 months and opened this week at $33.40. It has taken Pandora two and half years for its stock to rise by only $14.49 a share and only by $6.96 since October 3, 2013. How come?

Well…maybe everyone is starting to understand that this unprofitable business model cannot sustain itself over the long term, no matter how many Radio sales people they hire to prop up short term revenue gains. Remember Google’s attempt to hire Radio sales people for their misguided attempt in Radio “remnant” inventory?

If this is the next “digital darling” to watch, why has it taken 27 months for its stock to make any appreciable climb? And why has Pandora lost .3% of its average time spent listening in less than 9 months? Could it be that just playing music, with no local or human connection, is just not enough for the average listener?

Strike three for the “experts”.

If you are looking for a safe investment with decades of sustainable growth and value, I suggest you avoid all the “experts” and return to making money on your investments.

The stock we are recommending for the short and long term is called Radio and it has withstood and ultimately conquered every supposed audio replacement for the past 70 years.

If the past is prologue, history readily proves that Radio will be a great investment for many decades to come.

How many shares would you like?

How To “Make Things Happen”!

Sharing an idea with a co-worker.  Pitching for a new salary.  Trying to land an advertiser.  Motivating your station's Core.  

Whether it be an idea, service, product or point-of-view, the goal is to “make things happen.”   

Here are a few thoughts on selling (anything!) I learned from longtime Clear Channel programmer Michael Albl:

All objections to buying take on one of four forms: 

1.    No need

2.    No money

3.    No authority

4.    No hurry

These objections can be eliminated by using NaB & CaPTuRe:

Need:  Find out the NEED.  Verify, up-front, that your product of service matches, or is very close to matching, your prospect’s wants or needs.  Here you establish yourself as a good and careful listener.  And you will have uncovered an important need.

Budget:  Their budget for this need is your second sales stage discovery.  If they can’t pay, they can’t play!  Then again, if they got the money honey…

Commitment:  Who makes and when will a commitment to purchase be made.  You have to be talking to the right person(s).  And if you aren’t there with close in mouth (as opposed to your hand), when they are ready to buy, you might as well keep your mouth closed.

  

Prescription…without thorough diagnosis is malpractice in both medicine and sales.  An aggressive sales-person wants to go where the action is, not sit around gathering information about prospects needs so their diagnosis of the need is generally superficial.

Take...personal responsibility for making sure everything sold is delivered exactly as specified.  Get right on top of remedying the situation.  When all goes well, credit the support staff.

Return...to the customer within 30 days of delivery to see that all is running well.  When it is, then ask for referrals.

Other Media Preview Radio's Potential

As Pandora increases it's ad inventory, making longer commercial breaks and Apple begins hiring ad sales teams, it's pretty obvious that it's now a multimedia world and radio must grapple with the ramifications of what competing media and not just other radio stations are doing.

CBS-TV's victory over Time Warner sets a precedent that says broadcast content is just as valuable as anything else.  CBS CEO Les Moonves says of the NFL:  "They deserve what they get because they deliver great ratings. ”

It wasn't just a win for CBS, but for anyone who creates great content that viewers and listeners demand.

Meanwhile, the up's and down's of CNN, MSNBC and Fox News provide another clue as to where things are going.  When politics are hot, the latter two do best. 

When world event warm up, it is CNN'S turn to jump up.

Selling media in 2013 requires the ability to predict when a medium's audience is going to spike and to credibly pre-sell those opportunities at aggressive and justifiable rates based solidly on the size of the audience.

Those of us who produce content need to become alert to times when we have unique viral information or entertainment that can push metered ratings above average.

iAds and Pandora are going to find that music alone can't do that. 

CBS-TV has proven that exclusive branded content non-musical content is worth the big bucks.

Now, it's up to audio media as well to develop/pre-promote big audience-builders (which of course is nothing new to great radio personalities) and market those things well in advance to maximize the money they bring in (which the majority of radio sellers still come up short on).

Is Radio 48 or 294+ Markets?

Hopefully the old 'Diary Market Owner/Operator Caucus' is on the phone with Arbitron today.

Hopefully, "Radio's Roi in Marketing Mix Models" (click for the pdf) white paper sponsors Dial Global and Premiere, whose business model involves near total coverage of radio in all markets to hit their growing Radar® cume numbers, know what the research they have been a part of for the last two years is going to do to network and national business in all but the 48 PPM measurement DMA's.

It's clear to me why CBS, Clear Channel and Cumulus - which though they do tout their total national cume audiences on their websites but also dominate the PPM markets - are probably going to love this report.

If all you do is pitch to buyers using CPP and present using software - possibly even eventually completely eliminating the need for personal relationships with media buyers - radio is going to get a much larger piece of the media pie in markets where PPM data is available and maybe ultimately get it with a lower cost of sales.

Top 40 and AC stations - those with high cume - are going to reap the rewards, just as they have done at the expense of lower cume/higher loyalty formats.

PPM's "larger sample" (as cited in the white paper) is actually a lot more granular data from a much smaller group of individuals who remain in the sample for as long as several years.  If you want long term data on how those small groups of carefully-selected people use radio, PPM indeed does a better job than diaries which measure far less granular usage by a much larger group of different people over the course of a year or two.

Thankfully, local radio in markets under market #50 is still an excellent business for local owners.  And, equally luckily, ratings and shares have less to do in those places with who gets the buy.

Local advertisers know local radio works.  They place their budgets on stations which get results for them and they don't require computer models to do so or to know what the results they see coming in their front door are worth to them in cash register rings.

That's a good thing, because Arbitron and Sequent Partners as I read it, have just provided the metrics that will move more and more of national ad dollars to the top 48 and away from diary-rated and phone-measured markets.

The big publicly-traded companies are going to want to own larger shares in the PPM-size cities, but will your network or national rep even be interested in you if you happen to have a large audience share in a small or medium market?

Maybe the silver lining behind that cloud is that local owners will stop cutting their rates to meet CPM demands from national buyers and will realize that their real value is on Main Street, not on Madison Avenue or Wall Street.

Does Selling Local Digital Make Any Sense?

If you attended CRS 2011, I don't need to introduce you to Shelly Palmer.  His keynote which placed terrestrial radio in context with all the emerging techno gadgets, websites, mobile devices and media consumption trends, if you missed it last year, is worth downloading.

Never a boring speaker, always challenging conventional wisdom, Shelly is doing it again this week in the wake of last week's Madison Avenue Advertising Week:

I asked him how much he thought he should spend to create a website that would increase his business. “I don’t know,” he answered. “The one I have was free.”

When I reiterated that his free website was probably hurting his retail business rather than helping it, he asked me for some free suggestions that he could implement for free that would … yep, you guessed it … get him to the front page of Google.

This is a real conversation that actually took place. I’ve changed the owner’s name, but other than that, this is exactly how it went. Let’s review:

• A retailer with two doors, one in Manhattan and one in Brooklyn.
• A website that was created for him as a promotion by a template-using website company with the hopes that he would eventually pay.
• A business owner with absolutely no clue how advertising, marketing, sales and PR work in the 21st Century for local retail businesses in his vertical.
• A business owner with zero aptitude and zero headcount to implement even the simplest technological solution.

This week, I have seen about 20 pitches from companies offering hyper-local and location-based solutions targeting local advertisers. Next week I will probably see 10 more. Hasn’t anyone spoken to Harry?

There is no incremental local retail advertising to be had. The money simply isn’t there. If a local company is big enough to advertise, it is already doing it. If it is not big enough to advertise — there’s a reason. The myth of local advertising is that it exists at all. It simply does not.

Local online advertising a myth?

That will come as a surprise to Borrell Associates, which in early September reported:

1. Local online advertising is growing 21% this year.  If your operations are growing more, you’re gaining share.  If not, you’re losing share.
2. Our forecast might shock you.  It calls for 30% growth for 2013.  While it’s a bit early to issue accurate forecasts, our surveys of local advertisers indicate that this rate of growth is likely. If you find this hard to swallow, perhaps the information on page 3 will help.
3. Local media companies should be aiming for a 15% to 20% share of online ad spending in a DMR.  The upper limit is 42%.

However, percentages aren't the same as real dollars and when you start with the estimate that terrestrial radio will bill something like $15 billion in 2012, and you look at the measly portion of total revenues digital is contributing in that same Borrell report it begins to look like Palmer is on to something.

Wouldn't it make more sense to chase after a larger share of the 97-99% piece of our pie, let alone the swiftly-shrinking newspaper ink money, and permit the lemmings to trumpet digital growth?

Start showing your local merchants copies of Shelly's perspective and then share your "radio gets results" testimonials from their local competition using your station successfully right now.  Finally, pull out this video.

Believe it; champion it.   Local advertising is not a complete myth as long as we understand our medium's real strengths and teach those local prospects with budgets too small for the internet that by using today's radio we can help them grow no matter how many doors they own, even just one.

If we fail to do it while chasing pennies instead of dollars, we'll be responsible for making Shelly Palmer quite correct in a very few years.

I Can Dream, Can't I?

It's been almost four years since Interep cashed in its chips, making Katz the sole remaining rep company for most of radio at the national level.

Before that, media buyers complained that it was too complicated to buy radio and asked the medium to speak with one voice.

Now that we do, how's it going?

What I know about the national rep business can fit into a thimble other than the financial crash of 2008 seemingly took it down, only the strongest one survived and if David Kennedy ever writes a book, I'll snap up one of the first copies.

My perspective is formed primarily from what I hear from regular communication with Market Managers and National Sales Managers at client stations.  Judging from the cost per point levels of today's national buys, it seems like our voice is coming out as a whisper, pretty much dictating to radio stations what they need to do to get on the buy in a take it or leave it fashion.

Share of media day charts 2012

View more PowerPoint from PaulBarnes16

Those lovely stats are from England, but it's the same here. 

RAB on this side of the pond also convincingly demonstrates that radio's rates, based on time spent with media, ought by rights to be almost five-seven times higher than newspaper rates today, second only to television!

Wouldn't it be forward-thinking if each group of stations had its own advocate at the national level pushing back against media buyers cram downs, actually SELLING our medium to decision-makers based on value and results, working to justify higher rates and growth of our piece of the advertising pie?

Do You Feel Like A Wounded Gorilla?

Mel Karmazin, always the master of hyperbole: "...terrestrial radio, though wounded, they are still the 800 pound gorilla.."

Radio as gorilla works, but wounded? Naw.

For some exciting and fresh pro-radio facts, email Katz's Mary Beth Garber.

Before We Move On

"I'm a big believer of stations sounding real....no, best, most, baddest w/ blips, bips, zips, growls, and zaps.....that is soooo over......just communicate the core values (listener benefits) in as real and as brief a fashion as humanly possible....people are so burned on hype.....if at all possible let others speak about you, instead of speaking about yourself...attached is an example from actor Shia LeBouf.....all we do is identify him at the beginning, and that's it.....the rest of the "co-signing" is all on him....if we added anything else here it would have been piling on and way too much.....make your station sound real, listener focused, and genuinely fun, not goofy, not dated with lasers, and no chest thumping copy......is it any wonder we are a TSL challenged medium, a majority of stations continue to insult the intelligence of their listeners by still insisting they sound like 1986.....younger demos coming up today, just don't give a shit.....so please don't drive them away from our medium.....you are are free to disagree here....I will just close with this.... I travel a lot, and hear a lot of stations driving listeners away...if you are in a PPM market you know how important brevity, sincerity, and creativity are.....yup even more important than they were in the diary system.... " -- Jimmy Steal, VP/Emmis/Los Angeles

Do It Right "Orr" Else

Paul Orr: be certain what goes between your songs stands out ... in only the "best" ways:

• Use local lifestyle for imaging content
• When imaging flows into the music, you have extra momentum
• Listen to your competitors for claims that you might turn 180 degrees and use against them
• Use hooks as themes for imaging
• Hot new thing: produce jingles for song stamps so the integrate with your music and don't sound like "old" jingles
• For random audio: clips from remotes where the talent is very excited, after Listener Advisory Board panels
• Listeners doing imaging adds to ‘personal’ feel of station.
• Set up listener comment line to collect comments
• Sound real; communicate the core values and listener benefits in as real and brief a fashion as possible.
• Listeners are burned on hype; let listeners talk about you instead of us talking about us. No chest thumping.
• Think: brevity, creativity and sincerity.
• Use artists (or listeners) to explain a contest
• Add random but related copy to attract listener attention.
• Archive artist audio for music and contest promos.

Nick Michaels' Philosophy

If you've heard or seen Nick anywhere, at a seminar or even on his own website, you've no doubt been exposed to at least a part of his approach to imaging anything today:

"The secret of all great radio is great story telling. Great radio is made when intimacy and emotion are used to connect the audience to what is coming out of the speakers."

Understanding radio and what makes it different.

1: Emotion

Radio is an emotional medium. More than television, more than print, it is best at conveying emotion.

Radio messages work best when they are driven by an emotion. Take full advantage of radio's emotional nature by writing for it. The power of emotion over facts is evident on radio.

Save the facts for print. Print is where facts can be enjoyed, perused at leisure, re-read and referred to.

2: Give it a face and a name

When writing an image ad for radio, always try to personalize it by giving it a face and a name.

Instead of "When the weather gets bad , turn to News-Radio 1100, First with weather facts and school closings."

Try to build the message around a person not a concept.

" This is Marie Jenkins, her twelve year old son Ronnie has kidney disease. He needs dialysis or he could die. When Marie needs to know about weather, she turns to News-Radio 1100, Because to her, the weather, can be a matter of life and death."

This stresses the user benefit of the station and the personal nature of the message does not cause listener tune out.

3: In an over communicated world a whisper becomes a scream.

The environment into which your message is sent is hostile. Your message must factor this in from the very beginning or it is doomed to fail. Too many messages means only a few get through. Is yours one of them?

4: Don't burden the listener.

Never forget that the listener can only take home one thought. Trying to make the message carry more weight than it can causes the listener to be burdened.

5: Words are the enemy in a message.

Too many words. Wherever possible establish mood with sound not words.

6: Write powerfully, read humbly.

If the words are powerful, you do not need to add any power to them with your voice. Lose all the additional vocal power and let the word power shine through. If the words are not powerfully written, get better writers.

7: Creativity is perspective

Deliver your message from a different perspective. Be different.

Tomorrow: Journal Knoxville PD Paul Orr takes this all one step further for stations in competitive situations.

Country's Dirty Little Secret May Be A Future Strength

I love meeting with the sales teams at client stations during market visits and often tell them that country radio offers a unique kind of value-added that savvy media buyers expect us to give them for free and yet they secretly understand the power of it: 55+ listeners, lots of them.

Now, thanks to NBC Universal, we even have a name for the demo - “AlphaBoomers” (the affluent and active 55-64 demographic, a big part of country radio's extremely broad target audience of listeners) and this article in Mediaweek (click to read and print it out) may finally give us all the courage to ask for good money for our delivery of them.

NBCU President of Research and Media Development Alan Wurtzel “wants advertisers to know that, when it comes to consumer spending based on what they see in television ads, the 55-64 demo is the new 18-34.”

Reporter John Consoli says NBCU's new research “dispels myths about how adults 55-64 respond to advertising and spend as consumers.”

NBCU president and CEO Jeff Zucker said he’s hoping the findings will motivate tech companies like Apple, Droid and Bing—which are not advertising on CNBC news programs because they are older-skewing—will start doing so.

“What we’d like to see is these companies and their agencies start targeting AlphaBoomers as much as they do the 18-34 demo,” Zucker said, acknowledging that the presentation could also help other networks’ newscasts.

Research in the NBCU presentation shows that AlphaBoomers have a median household income of $69,000, dwarfing that of those under 25 ($27,000), 25-34 ($58,000) and close to those 35-44 ($75,000).

Other findings include:

• AphaBoomers spend more on home improvement products, home furnishing, large appliances, beauty and cosmetics and casual dining than adults 18-49.
• A similar percentage of AlphaBoomers have high-definition TVs, use DVRs and broadband as adults 18-34
• 70 percent of AlphaBoomers buy at least one product a month online
• 59 percent of AlphaBoomers send text messages via their cell phones
• Wurtzel: "people in that demo make buying decisions similar to younger demos.”

Anyone who's been to see a country concert has seen these folks face to face and knows how true this is.

To Fully Monitize PPM, We'll Need To Learn To Predict The Future

* Entravision’s Jeffery Liberman told Radio-Info's Tom Taylor that “more than 50% of all Hispanic men listening to radio in the Los Angeles-Riverside market” were tuned in to one radio broadcast during morning drive to some part of the June 11 opening match between Mexico and South Africa. Entravision has L.A.-market “El Gato” KDLD (103.1), Santa Monica and Riverside-market “Jose” KLYY (97.5). Jeffery expects even higher ratings going into the quarterfinals.

* During the February Winter Olympics, BBM reported that more than half the population of Canada was glued to their TV, watching their team's gold medal victory over the U.S.

Metered measurement is certainly demonstrating the immense power of "events" to drive huge audience shares, but it's one thing to know after the fact that something you did drew a big crowd.

Feels very nice, obviously. But, did you charge enough for the spots, naming rights and sponsorships?

The "art" of the future will be to recognize well in advance the big things your station is going to be doing in the coming months that will draw extraordinary listenership so that you're credibly able to aggressively price and sell out those broadcasts, so that when the ratings for them come out both the advertisers and your bottom line greatly benefit.

Smart managers have always been masters of the art of yield management, but PPM is taking it into the realm of three dimensional chess.