War

It’s not a pleasant subject, but if you haven’t already done so, it’s past time to be sure your radio station is ready.  It's time to think through and write a plan of action in the event the scary events of the last week continue to escalate to the point our nation needs to commit troops.

1.  Instruct all talent to check your news service at least hours.

2.  Get them in the habit of checking for bulletins.  Then, make sure they know who should be phoned, what should be announced on your air.  How will you handle it?

3.  If you have a network affiliation, do you want to join the national feed or do something locally?

4.  Who should make that decision? 

Key question to ask as you make this call:  if you don’t go 100% live coverage now, do you run the risk of losing listeners to another radio station?

If they go to TV or the Internet, at least they’ll still be on your radio station when their normal pattern resumes.

5.  If it turns into another “Desert Storm” or “9/11,” you may want to create patriotic tribute songs or play the national anthem at benchmark times, like 6 am and noon.

Who makes this call?  Make sure that’s clear to talent as well.  If someone does this and the national mood isn’t as unified as when Canadian troops when into Afghanistan when the U.S. focused on Iraq, this can come off as corny.

Playing the same song every day at the same time is poor programming and can be a tune out if the time isn’t absolutely RIGHT.

6.  Request and dedication hours can be set aside for mentioning troops overseas and saluting their families here at home.  It’s always also a good time to get listeners involved in events helping the troops.

7.  Write a closing line for all regularly scheduled newscasts promoting the commitment you’ve made to interrupt regular programming to constantly keep your listener informed.

8.  If you have no network connection, contact local TV stations, exploring having one of their news talents voice your updates over a phone line from their newsroom for as long as the situation is dire.

9.  Check your active music library for songs as well as  all comedy bits and song parodies which might be in bad taste in light of current events

10.  Imaging must be very carefully re-evaluated and rewritten.  Don't be political, but when military is being deployed, it's not a good time to be bragging about who plays the most music.

Commit all of these decisions - including imaging scripts, produced intro's etc - to writing and place your policy in a place where anyone who's on the air can review it on a moment's notice.

Hopefully, you'll never need it.

Powerful Advice In Four Killer Quotes

You must read Russ Penuell's Country Aircheck article (click for the pdf) this week, "Boston And Beyond."

If that one sentence doesn't convince you, these will:

“The biggest challenge is determining what the most appropriate course of action is quickly. Thanks to Facebook and Twitter, the audience is becoming aware of major news events at the same time we are, not an hour later. As a result, we’ve got to react immediately.
  -- WGH/Norfolk PD Mark McKay

“Everyone at the station (it really is everyone at my station, not just programming) must know their responsibility beforehand,” King says. “Everyone who joins our staff is well aware we serve the public interest at our own expense. It’s better to do more than less every time. No one is surprised when they are called upon to go way beyond normal duties. It’s a given along the Gulf Coast where we regularly gear up for hurricane and severe storm coverage.”
  -- WYCT/Pensacola PD Kevin King

“If we ignore a news story of this urgency and magnitude, we tell our listeners we cannot be depended upon to alert them of things we know they care about."
  -- consultant and talent coach Doug Erickson

“A successful radio station serves its audience by every possible means available,”
  -- WKLB/Boston’s Mike Brophey

For A Day We All Live In Boston

Chairman/CEO for Boston-based Greater Media Peter Smyth's moving open letter to the industry bragging about his stations' response to the Boston Marathon bombings is radio at its best.

"I would like to express my sincere thanks Greater Media Boston Market Manager Rob Williams, Director of Programming Cadillac Jack and the entire staff for all they did to inform and comfort our listeners, their families and the community." 

Meanwhile, it's also hard to disagree with Denver-area media blogger, international consultant and talent coach Doug Erickson as he bemoans the inability of most radio operators to do anything in real time when suddenly disaster hits.

It's always interesting these days to scan local radio when any catastrophe occurs. Not one Denver FM music station had one word about the bombings during multiple times I checked out their frequencies.

So, what did you do on your stations?

It seems to me, you need a procedure for these things now. An emergency play book, ready to go.

If your station is in Boston, or a suburb -- and that includes a lot of major east coast cities -- I don't see how you can not go wall-to-wall coverage, regardless of format. But even if your station is in Colorado, what is more compelling content than a terrorist attack on the Boston Marathon? Taylor Swift? Seriously?

Country Aircheck Associate Radio Editor Russ Penuell started working immediately on a story on country radio's response to the tragedy by browsing station websites and social media pages looking (largely in vain) for any empathy in reaction to the senseless event: 

They were continuing with social media based contesting, etc, as the bombing story was breaking and as it unfolded throughout the day. We understand some of these are pre-set, time specific posts, so maybe some just forgot it was going up, but it nevertheless made for a pretty disconnected appearance, at least in that realm.

Part of the question to us, given the growing importance social media, is how or to what degree to address (or not address) whats going on via those platforms, or how important it is at all during tragedies, etc. It seems common sense to me, but maybe not.

It's frustrating how few have any policies in place, to - for example - avoid using social media during tragedies like Boston, resting any auto-contesting and Hoot Suite-generated posts not related to a response to the fast-moving situation during such an event.

Reviewing your library for insensitive songs seems like the very least a well-programmed radio station should do.

A&O&B's Becky Brenner notes that there is part of the right reaction plan that says "life must go on" or the terrorists win, foreign or domestic.

Having said that, it is certainly necessary to acknowledge what happened, send out thoughts and prayers for the victims and their families and give your listeners a forum to share their fears and feelings about such a horrific event.  It impacts every individual so differently that there is not a one size fits all solution to the challenge.

Now, less than 48 hours after the blasts went off, I am actually finding myself listening to news radio and watching less cable TV now due to all the repetition of the Boston info over and over which is starting to sound repetitious, making me weary, sad and helpless.

Is radio's role in a 24/7 "always on" info world no longer an in-the-moment reflection of what's happening in the listener's world?

Are we now just a safe place to escape from it, ignore it, where you can hide from reality that comes at you from every screen you own?

Has our role changed from "immediacy" to "apathy?"

I hope not.

All I Want For Christmas Is A Crank Radio

Here is the perfect radio giveaway item or a gift for the person on your list who has "everything."


Click to shop for these.


This one.
 
Cabela's has several of my fav's in stock now.


So does Radio Shack.

J. C. Penney's.


Amazon.



There is no shortage of types and places to purchase them.

.. which is more than you can say about electrical power during upcoming winter storms.

Local AM-FM radio will be there, of course.

Make sure you and your listeners have radios that work when they need you the most.

Proud

Just as there myriad stories for every light on Broadway, there are more than a million ways radio came through during Hurricane Sandy.

PPM seems to have delivered while Nielsen meters didn't.

Media coverage reinforced radio's importance:

During the arrival and immediate aftermath of Hurricane Sandy last month, those with power looked to television, the Web and social media for information. But large numbers of people, particularly those in the hardest-hit areas, also turned to the radio.

Arbitron, the radio ratings service, will report on Monday that from 7 p.m. to midnight on Oct. 29, when the storm made landfall in New Jersey, an average of just more than a million people in the broader New York region were listening to the radio during any 15-minute period. That is up 70 percent from the same period the week before. (Besides the five boroughs of New York City, the metropolitan market includes five counties in New York, nine in New Jersey and part of one in Connecticut.)

The audience skyrocketed in coastal areas. Stamford and Norwalk, Conn., had a 367 percent increase during that period; in New Jersey, that figure was up 247 percent in Monmouth County, and up 195 percent in Middlesex, Somerset and Union counties. These numbers increased even though some stations, like WNYC and WINS, lost their AM frequencies yet continued to broadcast on FM.

Arbitron's researchers added to the powerful, positive recap with more hard data:

"We know that radio consistently reaches 93% of all people aged 6+, but the storm-driven shift in listening only reinforces how well established our medium is in listeners’ minds. The data shows that listeners of all ages turn to radio when they need the latest information about their communities. When people living in the path of Sandy needed updates, they kept the radio on by tuning to their trusted sources, no matter what the format." - Jon Miller, Director of Programming Services at Arbitron

It was an unprecedented event for an area of the country that is home to a sixth of America’s population, but the fact that once again radio was there for so many people is not unprecedented at all.

We're all getting busy right now to assist with the next emergency, where ever and what ever it may be.

It's what we do.

Emergencies Separate Wheat From Chaff

When you search Google using the term "Colorado Springs radio" one station rises to the top.

It's a sad commentary that below that comes the nationally-syndicated religious broadcaster WAY-FM, followed by NPR stations from Minnesota and Boston.

Fortunately, Cumulus-owned 740 KVOR is rising to the top not just in SEO but also in its fire coverage as the city is under a mandatory evacuation.

The people inside the building at 6805 Corporate Drive today should make us all proud of what radio can be at its very best.

Is Radio Faster Than Twitter (When It Comes To Selling Our Strengths)?

So if twitter is faster than an earthquake. What's radio (both commercial and ham)?

Why couldn't we make a similar claim? Or at least be as creative?

When your station responds to an emergency, do you post-promote your coverage, linking the image to dependability and trust?

WZZK and 102.5 The Bull: Two Facebook Friends Worth Following

Tom Taylor's head: "Cox wins praise for its storm coverage in Birmingham" and a note last week from Townsquare Media/Billings OM Ray Massie "...with the southern storms, it's a great time to watch social media at work. 102.5 The Bull in Birmingham is doing an excellent job on Facebook," it's a timely reminder of the new channels we have to keep listeners updated.

Cox market manager David DuBose: "We were giving street-by-street projections on the storm’s path, and we continued warning as the storm approached Cullman and then into the western communities of Birmingham. By 9pm (last) Wednesday night, with many people hurting, without power, cell service, Internet and TV, only my radio stations stayed on the air all night providing emergency information, opening the phone lines, directing rescue teams to the injured, and helping to locate missing people.”

What's your website, social and on air plan for when the worst happens? Check out what Alabama broadcasters did last week as a stellar example.