Probing The Presidents

This Friday in Vancouver, I am moderating "The President's Panel" at the 65th meeting of the British Columbia Association Of Broadcasters.  Again this year, they have an amazing slate of impressive speakers and presentations.

Further proof of the pace of change affecting the media business:

A month ago I figured that most of our discussions would center around Bell Media's multi-billion dollar (just the RADIO assets are valued at more than a billion dollars) acquisition of Astral Communications which was announced as a continuation of the company's "four screen strategy."

I had been planning to talk to the executives about what their companies plan to do in the wake of that.

Then came the even more recent news that Vista Radio, with new backing from Westerkirk, is buying the Haliburton group, adding Haliburton’s 24 Ontario stations to fill in a geographic hole for Vista, which owns 38 stations in British Columbia, Alberta and the Northwest Territories.

Just last week,  Rogers Broadcasting announced its intent to acquire Métro14 Montréal (CJNT), enabling Citytv to expand its footprint in Quebec.

Almost immediately Citytv announced an affiliate agreement with the Jim Pattison Broadcast Group that will deliver Citytv programming to new audiences on a long-term basis on all three of Pattison’s television stations in Western Canada.

Is everyone else going to have to get bigger or go home?

I'll try to get your answer to that on Friday.

Making A Big National Difference All In One Amazing Day

Astral Media's National Day of Caring for Kids Radiothon is happening simultaneously today on 60 radio stations across Canada (click their Facebook page to see what's happening), in support of children’s hospitals and health care facilities.

Double KUDOS to VP/BC Operations for Astral Brad Phillips who is also President of the British Columbia Association of Broadcasters and is simultaneously playing host to their 64th annual convention in Kelowna just as his 99.9 Sun FM, AM 1150 and 101-5 EZ Rock originate the one-day “Have a Heart” Radiothon event for Kelowna General Hospital.

This live broadcast calls upon listeners to help raise much-needed funds to support care for young patients, enable the acquisition of new specialized pediatrics equipment and provide parents with support services. The “Have A Heart” Radiothon will run from 6am to 6pm from Orchard Park Shopping Centre in the Sky Court.

This year, the focus is on raising funds for specialized equipment for the new pediatric trauma and waiting rooms at Kelowna General Hospital. One hundred percent of the money raised during this one-day, 12 hour event will stay in our community to help babies and kids.

BCAB Video Rewind

Now, I know what you can spend this beautiful spring weekend doing, watching videos on your computer, replaying last week's British Columbia Association of Broadcasters' convention in Victoria.

Mark Ramsey (click to watch it): "The way we think about our industry needs to change. We need to broaden the focus and broaden the language."

Bob Garfield tells us we are all doomed (but then he offers a plan and some hope): "Listenomics – listen to customers and users, monitizing those conversations. We must be a master of all platforms, text, audio, and video. Whoever does the best job of listening to the audience and provides what they want will be the winner, who may not even exist yet given the fact that the barriers to entry are falling very fast."

Larry Rosin (click to see his presentation): "How can we push advertising messages that are of interest to our website viewers? Radio station web sites are improved but TV and print sites are leading the local battle. Forty-eight percent say that radio station Web sites have gotten more interesting compared to 17 percent believing them to be worse or less interesting. However, monthly visitation to radio station Web sites (16 percent) among persons 12+ lags visitation to local TV and local newspaper Web sites."

John Parikhal: Five trends impacting your success: Demographic shift, The disappearing middle, Always on, The filter factor creating a Power Shift from "us" to "the end user."

The radio "Presidents Panel:" Denise Donlan CBC, “In a world of choice, why us?” Corus' JJ Johnson, "Radio is still all about great content and great people. Stop living in fear – think forward and do something about it." Chris Gordon, CHUM: "We are leaner and meaner. Now that we seem to be coming out of this recession and the revenue is coming back we all need to invest in brand extension and staff training. The battle for radio is clearly to continue to own the mobile platforms." Pattison's Rick Arnish: "I am very bullish about the future. We have valuable brands & great relationships with advertisers and listeners. Culture is important. We use TTI (Total team involvement) and it helps our culture. We allow our market managers to make decisions, because they know their market better than anyone." Vista's Terry Coles: "The more things change the more things stay the same. We still need to create great content so we can do a better job of serving the audience."

Thanks, BCAB for one of the best meetings I've attended this year, making me excited to see what they have in store in Kelowna in 2011.

Gerry Siemens, British Columbia 2010 Broadcaster Of The Year

At Friday night's awards dinner in Victoria, the BCAB cited his years of building and dedication to the industry, his service as a past multi-term President of the BCAB, the founding of Pattison Group/Vancouver's Basics For Babies, the formation of The Peak Performance Project and his overall passion for challenging everyone he works with to improve and grow radio.

I first met Gerry when he came to CJJR 93.7 FM and what was then AM-600, energized the stations and more than doubled the cume (not to mention revenues and profits!) of both within just a couple years.

Of course, he would be the first to tell you that he didn't accomplish that alone. That's what makes him so special.

Gerry Siemens is a leader, a manager who builds effective teams and then inspires and motivates them to do great things, year after year and in situation after situation.

Thanks, BCAB, for recognizing his numerous impressive accomplishments!

Heard At BCAB, Victoria

"There is no such thing as the TV and radio business. It's the MEDIA business and the unit of measure is ideas."

"Take inventory of what you're good at and extend it out to new areas OR think about what your customers need and work backwards. Learn new skills."

- Mark Ramsey

"The audience, thanks to the Internet, is bigger than ever. All we need is a business model."

"The revolution will not be monetized."

"Shut up and listen to the group formerly known as the audience. They are not listening to you, they are listening to each other talk about you as if your content, your brand all belonged to them."

"The winner will be he who listens best."

- Bob Garfield

"Research's unit of measurement up to now has been the household. No more. Now, it's the cell phone and the individual."

"Stop calling it 'new media,' mobile broadband is ushering in the era of 'better media,' contextual, participatory, with location-based applications. Everything we now call 'radio' is very soon going to reside in the cell phone. If you think 'radio is the original social medium,' you don't fully understand what makes social mobile media so revolutionary."

- Larry Rosin

"Innovation is not the same as creation. Take what you've built and introduce something new. Constantly. Have a formal innovation plan."

"Meet emotional needs: accompany me; reassure me; thrill me; reward me; teach me; help me escape, imagine or dream."

- John Parikhal