Why Are We Doing This?

You have to hand it to Arbitron. Many of their client stations and groups complain that they don't listen or act on suggestions which seem quite sensible, but whether that's true or not, the company certainly does a very impressive job of telling clients and consultants on a consistent basis what they are working on and why. For example, during the latest PPM conference call/update, they released these stats on how PPM ratings compare to diary estimates, so that advertisers can understand the differences between diary audience shares and PPM listening levels.

Radio sales reps have a very difficult job in the PPM markets, as they present weekly AQH persons, AQH shares and cost per point, since before they even start the sales process they must first 're-educate' the buyer on why what they previously paid $100 for is now worth $118 if the target is 18-49, $123 if it's 18-34 and $114 if the client wants to reach 25-54.

All of this is based on the standard measure of radio ratings for at least six or seven decades, the "average quarter hour." Why does five minutes listening inside a quarter hour equal a quarter hour? Once upon a time, radio was programmed in fifteen minute blocks. Advertisers from the 1920's to the 1950's wanted to know how many listeners were tuned into their fifteen minute program. In the late 1940's, the "diary" was invented as a way to measure audiences and the standard of measurement remained the average quarter hour. It's been like that since.

PPM shows radio's many strengths as a medium in so many other ways, in terms of both reach and accountability in a much more believable and granular way than the diary ever could.

Today's PPM is capable of measuring listening behavior down to listening units of a minute or even shorter durations. Canada's BBM is now measuring radio and television audiences and the standard unit will be average minute audiences, which seems to be a more accurate measure, requiring no math to allow an advertiser to know how many folks watched or heard their ad, something they could never have done with diary data.

Isn't it time to stop playing games to get listeners artificially to spend the 'right' twenty minutes inside four quarter hours so that it appears that they listened for an hour? Why not simply drop average quarter hour as the standard for ARB PPM measurement and show how large radio's audience is in every single minute, seven days a week?

Michael, Farrah And Radio's Role In Their Lives

From my inbox:

In the passing of Michael Jackson today, I was very interested to see how radio might mark this event. As a child I was always inspired by how radio would capture momentous events and you would always later remember "Oh, I was listening to Wild when the Rodney King riots were happening" or "I remember when Johnny Cash died, I heard it on Q105" (the same day John Ritter died) I remember being 12 and when the Gulf War started I listened to X100 for updates (they brought the morning newschick in at 7pm) Or, it could be that I am just a big dork...but be that as it may.

SO - I turned on my FAVORITE R&B station - the one I have been listening to since like 2000. I RELIED on them to capture what had happened with Michael and pay tribute to him. They did SOMEWHAT - but the moment I turned on the station it was actually a Prince song. Once they got into their tributes (almost 2 hours after his death) the jock seemed rather flat and didn't reset the fact that MJ had died for a half an hour. He kept saying it was a tribute, but never said when, why or how MJ died (and this was a time when people were leaving their offices and may have been stuck in meetings or spreadsheets all day not knowing the news)

To say the least, I was disappointed. Not to sound morbid, but I thought this kind of station would have been somewhat prepared for this (due to Michael's frailty) I am sure in this stations defense, they are preparing for a tribute weekend

To sound even more morbid - I would hope that our genre has a better plan in place and can think a bit more on it's feet should we (God forbid) lose one of our modern legends.

Signed, Disappointed in Wine Country aka Joss (from KFGY, Santa Rosa)

But, not everyone forgot:

E.j. Becker sent a Facebook message to the members of KMBZ-Kansas City's Morning News.
Subject: what a day!

as i sit here like so many others (i can tell because the stream is so slow) watching thriller on youtube, it's hard to believe that jacko is gone.

he was one of the few entertainers around today that touched every generation -- either as a member of the jackson 5, as a solo artist, or because of the myriad odd things that brought him attention in the years after his entertainment career became less prominent.

we'll have the latest on the death of michael jackson, take a look back at the life of farrah fawcett, talk with steve forbes and bring you the week in review (think there's not plenty to talk about?) friday morning from 5-9 on kansas city's morning news with ellen and me.

see you then!

e.j.

And, here's KSON, San Diego:

From: Tori Peck

With the sudden death of Michael Jackson, we have a few interviews to help cover.

Cliff got a Cardiologist to discuss heart attack at a young age and reminder of how to take care of yourself

Jill from UltraStar Theatres. They keep a diffibulator in their theatres.

Michael Orland from American Idol. His partner from IDOL has worked with Michael Jackson for years.

Two interviews that were already set up are Martina McBride (7:20) and Blake Shelton (8:20). We can talk to them about this as well.

Morgan will have audio to include in her news broadcasts.

Then, from Rod West (800-279-0014) at Brandon D'Amore Productions: came this link to a retrospective for Farrah you can download self-contained free for your air, and also workparts if you prefer to build your own tribute.

Download Farrah Fawcett Promo Package
(includes: mixdowns and Adobe Audition session)

Download Farrah Fawcett Promo Package
(includes: mixdowns and Protools session)

Did you remember? Or, did that part of your relationship to your listeners' lives die along with them?

Localize Everything

Successful personalities MUST always strive to be local and topical. Take advantage of every opportunity to be "one on one" with a listener (one person by name as opposed to 'an audience,' which is impersonal and generic).

From "the old ideas are often the best ideas" department:

* Every time mention is made of "a listener" calling the persons name, city, and even audio should be used.

* Keep a list of people who call your morning show and relate back to them in the future. i.e.: "..Joe from Everytown called last week and pointed out...." This really puts you in touch with the Everytown audience and imagine how "Joe" will feel when he hears his name back on the radio.

* Every place has an employer in the area where "everyone either works or lives next to someone who does." Intro all contest players on the air by name, city, and occupation, which is always followed by "and a part time security guard at (company)". This tongue in cheek bit is not only fun but adds some great local spice and your own way of doing so.

* Do the same thing with Song Parodies/produced bits provided by the national comedy services. Tell listeners that the song or idea was sent in to you by a well-known local musician, or comes from a secret recording studio in a small nearby town with a funny name, if you can't re-lyric the parody with some sort of local reference or angle.

* KMPS/Seattle's Ichabod Caine announced on the air each day for many years where he would be going at lunch to "prepare tomorrow's show." He literally did his writing and brainstorming in a different local park, restaurant, museum, or other public place each day. The discipline of "going somewhere specific" each day and sitting down for two hours with the public before going home after leaving the radio station forces Ichabod to prep AND gives him lots of fresh grist for localisms every day. He drops names of people who come out to see him and solicits content from everyone who does.

* Take 30 listener winners of your station's at-work salutes to lunch each Friday. Present Grand Prizes at the weekly event. Take a digital video recorder to the lunch and collect listener testimonials about the station, reactions from the winners, as well as fun human stories that these folks share with them. Use the audio on the air next week and the video on your website.

* When using phone calls on the air you do not have to air the entire phone call, and in most cases you would not ever want to. Edit "on the fly:" Introduce the caller, where they are calling from and a lead sentence setup for their story as if you know the person instead of wasting any time asking them their name, etc. on the air and cue the audio up to "the point" of the call. Clip the playback immediately after the main point of the call has been made. Make it SOUND like every one of your callers never wastes time, does small talk, or says anything that it's right to the point and worth using.

And, of course, you know their all of their names, where they work and live, what they want to tell you (because you asked in advance off the air), making you the "local authority!"

Sony Prep: Montgomery Gentry Join The Opry

Eddie and Troy have become the newest members of the Grand Ole Opry.

They were inducted last night, and you can get the whole story - including audio clips - just by clicking here.

Sugarland's First Network TV Special Airs August 3

The night before their follow-up combo CD/DVD, “Live on the Inside,” hits stores on August 4, Jennifer Nettles and Kristian Bush make a network TV debut with footage from their show at Rupp Arena in Lexington, Kentucky, which was shot by a crew with 20 cameras in an unforgettable night featuring some of their biggest hits (“Settlin,’” “Stay,” “All I Want To Do” and “Something More”), as well as never before televised performance footage.

The ABC-TV special will air in HDTV with 5.1-channel surround sound and Spanish subtitles via secondary closed captioning.

Ordinary Event = Extraordinary Results

Team JRfm/Vancouver's Weekend To End Breast Cancer Bake Sale was a fun on-air event that put morning cohosts Clay and Karen out in the community, but more importantly raised an incredible $3500.00.

"Country listeners are community conscious and will help out any way they can, whether its Basics For Babies, Union Gospel Mission or the Weekend to End Breast Cancer. Perhaps they respond to our appeals because we are their connection to the community. That position didn't happen by accident." -- Gord Eno, PD, CJJR

It's The Internet, Stupid

Zogby shows that only one in ten would choose radio as their only source for news, but when it comes to "trust" our medium does better and the 'net does worse.

Implications?

Drop or trim down the length of 'news' and integrate talk and info about what's important right now into everything you do making use of your 'experts,' every minute, every day.

No, it's not as easy as doing six five minute newscasts per day and telling yourself that you still do news, of course, but self-deception can be that way, sometimes.

The need for lengthy news on radio is inversely related to the growth of the internet. That's somewhat new, but just because you have sponsors willing to pay for something, doesn't mean listeners care a whit about it.

That isn't new. Savvy programmers have been fighting that battle since formats replaced block programming six decades ago.

Loose Ends

Mental folders I opened recently, which deserve at least a mini-post to tie them up:

1. The 2009 Radio Mercury Award winners are indeed very impressive uses of the creative potential of the audio medium, worth listening to and learning from. Let's bury them in great radio entries next year.

2. Watch and listen to Taylor Swift to understand how Gen Y is changing country music and radio. What kid doesn't want to date her?

3. Krash Bassett's clever blog on an iPhone app for country imaging poses an only slightly terrifying question: why do we all use the same voices and stationality techniques? Resolve to challenge yourself to be different. I'd love to come into a market, scan across the dial, recognize all the usual suspects .. until I get to your station. Can we please stop leaning on "professional voices" so much and put the job of branding our stations into the hands of real people, our listeners?

Can The Crowds Change Iran? Can They Change Radio?

Social networks and word of mouth marketing appear to be making history in Iran.

Now, in San Francisco, the same thing could be happening to a radio station's playlist, thanks to a new internet startup called "Jelli."

Having spent my career feeling like research and carefully-scheduled music improves cume and time spent listening, I suddenly feel a bit like the Ayatollah, wondering where all this is going, if I've lost control.

Their position statement: "Don't Change The Station, Change The Song."

I'll be listening Sunday night. Will it be anarchy or democracy? Or, will that matter to the audience?

Two 90's Country Superstars Aid "Cat" Causes

Coincidentally, two very active "Cat Country" radio stations, one in Colorado Springs and the other in Pensacola, have undertaken two great causes and two class acts, Tracy Lawrence and John Michael Montgomery are lending a hand.

Lawrence headlines an already nearly sold-out benefit for “Aden’s Friends” – named for the cancer-stricken 6-year-old son of Citadel’s manager, Mike Knar. “Cat Country 95.1” is donating all proceeds through the Aden’s Friends charity to Childhood Hematology Oncology Associates, where Aden is being treated for leukemia.

Montgomery is doing a free show for the troops, their families and the listeners of "Cat Country 98.7" on board Naval Air Station, Pensacola.

Hats off to the two stars, who continue to prove they know what it means to go that extra mile to give back and the two owners of WYCT, ADX Broadcasting, and KATC, Citadel Radio, for working hard to give back to their communities.

Well, They Sure Did Break The Rules

On March 12th, Marc D’Avignon, a former VCU BrandCenter student and current W&K employee, interviewed Mercury Chief Judge Rick Boyko on W+K Radio, making brash statements like "radio doesn't have to be bad, it can be good .... everybody says it's a joke, radio advertising sucks" and they made it sound like their goal was to change radio, in a very superior and condescending tone.

Well, the winners have now been announced and it looks like the judges liked their own creative a lot and hated what radio submitted, which makes tomorrow's awards ceremony in New York - there were no winners from radio's submissions - the joke.

Hey, RAB: they sure taught us a lesson, didn't they? I hope you all enjoy the self-congratulation among the Med Ave geniuses who will gather to pat one another on the back tomorrow, but don't be surprised if there are no entries at all from radio in your competition next year! Dissing it is no way to motivate and promote a medium.

Be Prepared

The Boy Scouts are right. And, to prove it, Scott Shannon has built his legendary success as a programmer and personality around three simple words: "Preparation, Concentration and Moderation." He famously even has posted them next to the control room clock in studios from Tampa, to Los Angeles, to New York.

"Prep" is not only a great motto, coined by British Army Lieutenant General Robert Baden-Powell, it's also a crucial tip to anyone who talks on the radio, especially morning people.

Sometimes a great bit will come to mind in the middle of the morning show. Ask yourself if you are really prepared to deliver it now, or better off to think it through after you are off the air.

It is important to have your game plan in hand each day when you walk into the studio and stick to it as closely as possible.

Have you ever thought of a great bit while you were on the air, rushed it on right away and thought of better ways you could have used it later on?

Few topics are so timely you cannot allow yourself the time to prepare them for the next day, week, or next opportune moment. As a matter of fact, one great source of content for tomorrow's show is simply making a note of the "clever asides" that occur to members of the team in the midst of THIS morning's show.

Rather than just DOING the fun stuff as it comes to mind in mid-set and being guilty of doing several different streams of consciousness, SAVE those thoughts, refine them and USE them once they are fully developed!

Sound Matters As CMA Fest Ends

Nashville's Tennessean has complete recaps of each day of the amazing 2009 festival.

Behind the scenes, a team of Starkey Hearing Foundation staff, Nashville area volunteers, celebrities and sponsors from Big Machine Records and Music City Merchandise brought the Gift of Hearing to Nashville children in need during the CMA Music Festival yesterday (6/14), who then went to the closing performances.

More than 100 children and adults were fitted - at no cost - with digital hearing instruments at the Nashville Renaissance Hotel Ballroom.

CMA CEO Tammy Genovese, Big Machine Records President/CEP Scott Borchetta, and artists including Chuck Wicks, Sunny Sweeney, and Kate & Kacey were on-hand to encourage these children as they were fitted with digital hearing instruments and began hearing clearly, some for the very first time. (thanks to Big Machine's John Zarling for the photos)

Starkey partners with local hearing professionals, school districts, and special education centers to identify and aid local children with hearing loss. Since 2000, the Foundation has distributed nearly 340,000 hearing instruments to those in need around the world.

KMPS Takes "Rock Band" Live

Until live-band karaoke, the only time most people could strut in a rock-star fantasy was in their heads or aided in their living rooms by a karaoke machine or video game like "Rock Band." But this version of karaoke lets amateurs unleash their inner idol — with the help of a live band and in front of an actual audience — and revel in three minutes of fame. -- Nicole Tsong, Seattle Times Eastside reporter

A Rational Take On The Performance Tax Battle

Jesse Walker writes:

"For decades, record companies have been begging radio stations to play their music. Sometimes they do more than beg: Few sorts of scandal reappear as reliably in the music business as a payola scandal, in which agents of the labels are caught bribing broadcasters to air their wares. In the Internet age, the AM and FM dials aren't as important to promoting music as they used to be, but they continue to play the preeminent role in the process. As Clive Davis, a dominant figure in the record industry since the '60s, told USA Today just this month, "Radio is still the leading force of determining what songs and artists break through." Now the Recording Industry Association of America and a coalition of other industry groups are backing a bill, the Performance Rights Act, that would require those same stations to pay a new fee for the right to air those records. An industry that is infamously willing to pay for airplay apparently wants to charge for airplay too."

Leave it to the libertarian publication (click to read the entire article) to place radio and the music business's Congressional battles in a very well-reasoned context.

XTU Is XXV

"Philadelphia's Country Station" celebrates its Silver Anniversary and says "thank you" to listeners with its free annual appreciation concert. 92.5 XTU presents Big and Rich, Phil Vassar, Zac Brown Band, Kellie Pickler and James Otto.

92.5 WXTU has been a Beasley Broadcast Group station since it went on the air in June 1984. Hats off to VP/GM Natalie Conner and PD Bob McKay's great team!

Big Research Tracking: "Day Trips" Are Hot This Summer

81.6% of consumers surveyed say they are looking to trim their vacation budgets while indulging in a little summer fun name day trips as what’s hot in June.

Outdoor entertainment was a hot topic as well, with beach vacations (66.4%), camping (64.8%), and backyard firepits (63.6%) also rating highly.

Twitter is all the rage among those 35+ (hmm…have the younger, trendier crowds moved on already?!), while young men are all about Conan O’Brien and Megan Fox, likely for vastly different reasons.

What’s Not? Hawaiian shirts…keep those lei-ing in the bottom of your dresser drawer this season (unless you're KSON/San Diego PD John Marks who has been wearing them to work every day whether survey says they're hot or cool for many decades).

J. C. Penney Has A Rascal Flatts Bonus Track

You can get a preview of the song "American Living" here, but if you want to play it on the radio, it looks like you may need to go to Penney's and buy a copy of the LP being sold there only (and of course know that you'll be playing the new JCP jingle).

Need an idea that would dominate a summer concert? I love the "Rascal Flatts Towers" being constructed by fans, using kits provided by the group. Could you get your brand on them somehow?

A Refund I Plan To Frame

It looks like the folks at Billboard/Nielsen/Radio & Records are not just timely in sending out renewals and bills, but they have been equally quick in refunding pre-paid registration money for the fall convention.

I got mine the day after we all learned that the publication was no more.

My first radio convention was R&R in 1974. I paid my own way and by employer at the time let me take the time off without counting it as vacation time. I learned so much that I did the same thing the following year with CRS.

My first thought when I received this was a hope that NAB would honor these registrations in Philadelphia. Then, when I realized how many great experiences I've had at R&R conventions over the years, how formative they have been for my career, I'm now glad that they didn't do that.

This credit slip belongs in a frame on my office wall, as a memorial to "Chunky Leader" Bob Wilson's genius and vision. The publication on that closed its covers a very long time ago, sadly.

Did Radio In The U.S. Begin In 1909? Or, 1920?

As KCBS celebrates its 100th anniversary and credits the needs created by the San Francisco earthquake as the birth of broadcast, there's one thing for sure in the "who was first?" competition: CBS radio owns two very historic properties!