Let Me Second That Motion

The announcement from Country Radio Broadcasters that Jeff Smulyan will be given the 2015 Tom Rivers Humanitarian Award during the opening ceremonies of Country Radio Seminar 2015 is another great decision from the seminar's board.

If you want to peruse the many, many wonderful giving works Jeff has spearheaded and been involved in, click here to read the complete press release listing a lot of them.

I'd like to add a personal reflection on what Jeff has created for the people who work for and with him, which in today's corporate radio competitive environment is another level of humanitarianism.  As their company website notes:  "Emmis is the 9th largest radio group in the U.S (based on listeners) and has been voted the Most Respected Radio Company in a poll of industry CEOs."

Other owners wishing to establish a positive productive "family" environment for their employees would do well to go to click around Emmis.com and learn about a winning culture. 

He purchased my hometown baseball team, reunited two guys named Griffey and turned a losing ball club into a winner, though it wasn't a winner for Jeff.  He used radio marketing tactics and rallied a community to the team's side, getting attendance up after years of apathy by local fans.  He lost money on the deal, but made baseball fun again for Puget Sound fans.

That's when I first observed that this was a guy who did the right thing first and worried about bottom line secondarily.

"Emmis" is the Hebrew word for “truth," and I first got a chance to work with the company when they purchased "KIX" (now "The Arch") in St. Louis from Zimmer.  

We had a very good run and thanks to a wonderful group of people, managed to make a pretty good showing against a powerful incumbent.

In Nashville I was a fly on the wall when they made their first presentation to the Music City community after buying the now defunct KZLA, which was very impressive.  

Of course, from Terre Haute, Indianapolis and many other legendary radio stations, they have shown their ability to win long term in many markets.

I brought up the no-doubt painful Mariners, KZLA and KIX situations for two reasons, having seen Emmis' greatmedia.greatpeople.greatservice^® mission in action for a very long time, even in situations where circumstances led them in the infamous "other direction."   

Their people and the culture Jeff and his team have innovated show "class" even in places where it's not easy to do so, living Eleven Commandments of doing business with a humanitarian tone indeed.

Charitable works are terrific, and Jeff has performed many, but the way you live your life in all aspects is even more noteworthy.

Our entire industry is better because of the values exemplified every day by Jeff Smulyan.

Who Do You Trust?

The stage is set for a terrific 2013, but nobody is going to hand us anything.  We live in a highly competitive world and just like virtually any other business, success will require us to be at our very best.  Our listeners and customers have nearly limitless choices.  So if our content (on-air or digital), service and execution are anything less than excellent, we will lose them.  At the same time, the opportunity to gain new customers from other media is greater than ever before.  We are a superior choice for any customer looking for enormous reach, local activation, and strong engagement at an attractive price.  No other medium can match us across these criteria.

With the start of a new year, each of us is awarded a fresh start.  A chance to raise our games, build on our strengths, and recommit ourselves to achieving our full potential.  Let’s steel ourselves with the determination to overcome our challenges and make the necessary changes to set a new standard of excellence in our work.  Let’s make 2013 a year of great accomplishment and pride.  

I trust David Field.

It’s a major breakthrough.  It changes the dynamic — and this is something that is going to make a lot of sense to the American public because they’re getting this for free and they’re not consuming data, so we think it’s a major step.

I trust Jeff Smulyan.

But let’s be clear about what this agreement involving certain Android and Windows phones is, and isn’t. Many smartphones already contain an FM chip (that’s the long-held belief of Emmis CEO Jeff Smulyan). But you can’t just wave a Harry Potter wand and activate that chip. It needs software to make a “tuner,” and not software you can download from an app store in the cloud. In other words, this victory will have to be realized one new phone at a time – it’s not retroactive to the one you’ve got in your pocket or purse. The Emmis Interactive-developed NextRadio app is one way to control the tuner on your next phone, but there will be others. It’s probably not a coincidence that Sprint offers unlimited data – it doesn’t “meter” usage by customers. So its economic incentives line up particularly well with broadcasters who’ve been lobbying the wireless industry. Other carriers have the meter running, and they benefit when their customers listen to radio over the Internet, using a data plan. But even so, the NAB and the other enthusiastic backers of FM chips on cellphones like Smulyan and Clear Channel CEO Bob Pittman call the Sprint deal a breakthrough, after years of talks (and sometimes ridicule).  

I trust Tom Taylor.

More than anything, I trust the Consumer Electronics, mobile dashboard, cable, satellite, internet, and phone industries to want to charge their customers - our listeners - more and more for what once was "free radio."

Ultimately, I trust that the average media consumer will want as much as they can get without having to pay for it.

Jeff Smulyan Optimistic About Radio

What to feel better about the future of our biz? Head to the http://emmis.com/ corporate website and read "Q&A with Emmis Communications CEO Jeff Smulyan:" Read More

Did All Radio CEO's Really Want To Be Morning Jox?

Sounds like it..

Outgoing Jefferson-Pilot Radio President Clarke Brown took his lumps during Wednesday night’s annual John Bayliss Foundation roast in New York as industry buddies teed off on Brown.

Emmis CEO Jeff Smulyan: “All of us wanted a job in radio, but Clarke got a job at Jefferson-Pilot.”

Interep President/Sales Jeff Dashev: "Let’s face it; he’s in the twilight of a mediocre radio career.”

Brown got the last laugh: “When Jeff’s wife said she wanted him to buy her a diamond, he bought the Seattle Mariners.” He then claimed that the youthful-looking Smulyan has benefited from botox and plastic surgery.

As proof, he flashed a “before” picture on the big screen — a photo of Mel Karmazin.

Radio 2015: Perspective From A Very Savvy Friend

I want to turn on the echo chamber today:

Reed Bunzel is a veteran media executive with over 30 years of service in the radio, music, and digital media industries. He is president of Bunzel Media Strategies, a full service consulting and analytics firm that assists companies with industry research, analysis, business strategies, platform development, and communications/marketing.

     Remember the movie Sybil? That's the 1976 miniseries and film starring Sally Field, whose main character was alleged to have up to 13 different personalities, all struggling to coexist inside one body at the same time.

     I mention this because this week at the NAB/RAB Radio Show in Indianapolis I was having a conversation with a respected broadcaster (name withheld upon request) who compared the U.S. radio industry in 2014 to the Sybil character. Not in the sense that he thought the business was fraught with mental illness or that it needed psychotropic drugs in order to maintain a "normal" life, but because at any one time there are a number of distinct personalities inside this industry that give voice to its collective persona.

     While the analogy could be perceived as a bit of a stretch, a distinct parallel can be drawn between Sybil's internal voices and the discussions I've had with radio broadcasters these past few days at the Radio Show. All of these conversations (and some comments made at general sessions) have been fascinating, some of them are scary, and many of them contribute to a universe that seems founded more on perception than reality. Depending on whom you talk to, the American radio industry is a) healthy, b) doomed, c) challenged, d) blind, or e) all of the above.

Here's what I mean:

• In her now-traditional role of the industry's statistician, Wells Fargo Securities senior analyst Marci Ryvicker insisted radio's revenues will remain flat until broadcasters prove her wrong, with local and national spot revenues most likely going nowhere this year. She has a strong record of accurate forecasts, so her macroeconomic view can be trusted. Her prediction of "flat" growth is not a truth many attendees in the audience wanted to hear, but as Ryvicker so eloquently put it, "radio has a lot of shit."
• Several major group heads insisted that the radio remains strong and, while saddled with the uncertainties of change, its strengths far outweigh its weaknesses. Example: Cumulus Chairman Lew Dickey, while acknowledging myriad challenges, observed that radio is "America's daytime medium" and emphasized that its greatest audience occurs during the time when most commerce is conducted.
• RAB President/CEO Erica Farber stressed that digital is radio's most direct and imminent path to growth, a position self-avowed BS specialist Bob Hoffman (author of "The Golden Age Of B.S.") almost immediately refuted by declaring "online advertising is a fraud." While Hoffman quickly clarified that he really was referring only to display advertising, his "WTF" moment resonated long after he left the stage.
• Univision Radio President Jose Valle stated that digital audio streaming is a $20 million revenue line that produces cash flow for his company, and noted that "we don't abandon our over-the-air audience but we have to be where our listeners want us to be. Listeners dictate."
• Seconds later Emmis Chairman Jeff Smulyan insisted he's never made a dime from streaming, stressing instead how critical it is to get NextRadio functional in every smartphone sold in America, so consumers have access free FM radio rather than pay the near-usurious rates charged by major phone carriers. This move, Smulyan insists, will almost single-handedly propel the radio industry into the future.
• Of course, a healthy contingent of tech-heads are adamant that it's too late for either NextRadio (which is at the mercy of AT&T and Verizon) or HD Radio to shift the digital tide that has begun to rise - a tide, they insist, that will not float all boats.
• Then there's the die-hard cheerleaders who point to radio's 92% 12-plus reach and insist that all is good in the world of radio, despite measurable TSL erosion among younger demographics and the growth of such online digital services as Rdio, Spotify, iHeartRadio, and Pandora.
• These folks also tend to be harsh Pandora critics who don't grasp that the streaming service is a company, not an industry, and that if it didn't have to pay the performance royalty fees dictated by the Copyright Royalty Board (from which AM/FM radio is exempt), its margins actually could be far greater than those of many radio companies serving the same number of listeners.
• And then there are the "rapturists," those individuals who are convinced that radio's apocalypse is imminent, and nothing can be done to save it from the four horsemen who are fast approaching from the other side of the digital horizon. 

     I want to stress here that I am not trying to simplify the passions or opinions of radio broadcasters, or to declare the radio industry "psychologically unstable" or "mentally unfit." Far from it. But today (Sept. 12), as the Radio Show closes here in Indianapolis and we all go back to our regular roles in the radio business, we need to recognize that it's impossible to color the radio industry with one broad stroke. I'm constantly asked "what's the big take-away" or "what's the buzz at the show"?

    I understand the questions, but I don't have suitable answers. No one does. And that's because the radio business is comprised of many interconnected parts, with multiple priorities and goals, and no two perceptions (or personalities) are alike. Each of us knows what we know about our own corner of this business, and we are influenced by the factors that affect us personally and professionally.

     For instance, some broadcasters are being chased by debtors who have no option but to let them to continue kicking the can down the road in an endless game of tag that causes many folks to doubt the overall health of the industry. Others are ruled by fear of change and cringe at the approaching reality that spot revenue might just not be enough to get them through to retirement, or to identify a reasonable exit strategy. Still others are managing to generate small revenue gains through hard work and diligence, and are accepting that digital and social media can push real dollars to their bottom lines.

     In the movie and TV miniseries, Sybil was affected by what today is known as multiple personality disorder*. It's important here to draw a distinction between that and what I've mentioned above, which is radio's multiple personalities. Period. (Whether there's a disorder involved is open to discussion.

     My only point here is to initiate a conversation about the U.S.. radio industry as we head into the fourth quarter, and to introduce my new initiative, Radio 2015. This new "media intelligence platform" is designed to engage everyone in this wonderful business in a discussion about our collective fates, futures, and fortunes, and to offer actionable analysis and information to ensure that we are guided by intelligence rather than fear.

     You'll be hearing a lot more about Radio 2015 next week - and in the weeks to come. Meantime, I invite you to email me with any questions or comments you might have regarding the radio business, as well as suggestions about what you think needs to be addressed as we set our sights on tomorrow...and the next day.

*In a book titled "Sybil Exposed," author Debbie Nathan maintains that most of the story Shirley Mason, the "real" Sybil, was fabricated.

34% Of Employees Are Truly Loyal In "Walker Loyalty Report"

Reporter Dana Knight at the Indianapolis Star's coverage of the national survey by this Indianapolis-based firm took on a even more interesting feel when reporter Knight included Jeff Smulyan of Emmis Broadcasting as one of his key sources.

"The most important thing is to know if you want people to go through walls for you, you have to show them you'll go through more walls for them," Smulyan said. "Create a culture where people know they will be treated fairly and want to stay."

Employee rankings
A national survey of more than 2,500 employees by Indianapolis-based Walker Information put the workers in four categories:
• Truly loyal: 34 percent feel positive about their jobs and are going to stay.
• Accessible: 6 percent feel positive about their jobs but can't say they will definitely stay due to outside influences, such as children at home or a spouse's mobility.
• Trapped: 28 percent feel neutral or negative about their employer but feel they have to stay.
• High-risk: 31 percent of workers feel negatively about their jobs and are looking to leave.

How would your station do if a reporter locally asked your employees about their loyalty??

Et Tu, Ramsey?

There is a spirited and intelligent debate going on at Mark Ramsey's blog in the comments section in response to his post FM on Mobile Phones? Be Careful what you Wish For.

I don't understand how Mark can cite the fact that Arbitron is still working out the complexities of measuring ear bud listening in PPM measurement as a reason not to have FM on smart phones at all.

Most of the other proponents and opponents can be grouped by their financial interests.  

Count me with Jeff Smulyan and the NAB.  My financial best interest, and perhaps yours will be served by making sure that analog radio's multi-billion dollar business continues for as long as possible, driven by the fact that more than nine of ten people in the U.S. and Canada use it every week, ten times the reach of streaming media.

Sure, let's keep working on digital radio too.  Make the product more listenable and unique.  Find a way to improve the financial model so that it's possible to make a comparable profit to FM and AM radio today while continuing to serve local communities with quality content.

On the other side:  CEA and CTIA.  If listeners can't get "free radio" anymore on FM/AM in their vehicles and mobile devices, they make more money since we'll be paying them for the bandwidth that analog radio makes so ubiquitous.  No wonder that they don't want us on their platforms.

Where Ramsey's opposition is coming from is less clear to me.  I assume it's idealism and a drive to push us all as rapidly as possible into the future, since his financial interests are supported by today's radio too.

Of course, the future is definitely coming at us lickedy split and we are in the midst of rebuilding business models to capitalize on it, but that's no reason to shut the doors and turn out the lights while radio just as it is today remains so important to so many folks (FM Chips in Cell Phones Survey Results - NAB).

I think Voltaire was right, Mark Ramsey.

Your New Defensive Front .. News/talk From An FM?

It's nice to see Jeff Smulyan and Rick Cummings going private with Emmis. Very savy. Hopefully, others will follow suit so radio can start doing the long term investment in future growth that our digital imperatives demand right now.

One sidebar to that story, as Bonneville buys Emmis' CHR/Rhythmic KKFR (Power 92.3)/Phoenix and decides to drop the station's format in favor of News/Talk, initially simulcasting KTAR-AM.

Washington, now Phoenix. You're going to see a lot more talk programming on FM in 2006, I'd wager.

Meanwhile, R&R reports that Bonneville President/CEO Bruce Reese said the company hopes to move Power 92.3's format to another frequency and operator, thus preserving the longtime Rhythmic station in the marketplace.

Does Your Audience Have YOUR CEO's Direct Line?

The direct phone line to Jeff Smulyan, the founder and chairman of Emmis is (317) 684-6530. Emmis is Hebrew for "truth." The phone number appears in the Code of Business Conduct and Ethics posted on the Web site of Emmis Communications.

That "Hot line to the CEO" is getting lots of action lately, thanks to Hot 97, NYC: (read more - Errol Louis-NY Daily News) (read more - HipHopDX)