I grew up with two great loves - radio and music. They were inter-related, but separate. The result of my misspent youth was a career spent around the dial, bouncing from AM to FM, small towns to real cities, living in four states - NC, CT, VA and PA. It was like a military career without the benefits.
That old medium I loved isn't what it used to be. It's death, apparently imminent, is completely self inflicted and still avoidable. Not by returning to the past - you can't go back - but learning from the past. What made radio thrive was it's unique, compelling stations. Stations that weren't mere music delivering commodities, but a pulse on their listener's lifestyle. If we can recapture that vibrancy, we'll recapture our life's blood. If not, we'll follow the daily newspaper (and the horse and buggy, the 8-track tape, muskets, suits of armor and togas) into oblivion. 'Ball's in our court.
All the rage over the past week, aside from flocks of birds dropping dead in mid-air all over the planet, was the discovery of the golden-voiced homeless ex-drug addict, Ted Williams. Hey, we all love a good comeback story and I wish Mr. Williams well, but there's a bit of hint at what's wrong with radio in the tale.
Ted's homeless. He's a recovering drug addict. A panhandler. With an incredible voice. You know the story. He was discovered and now he's getting more jobs offered to him than Clear Channel eliminates in a month! The Cleveland Cavaliers, NFL Films, The Ohio Credit Union League, MTV, ESPN, WBNS-TV and a yet unnamed Pennsylvania radio station have reportedly expressed interest.
Now, assuming Mr. Williams can master inflection at all, even in a listen and repeat mode, he can have a fine voiceover career (if he can keep the demons and lack of personal responsibility that wrecked his life in the first place in check). And I hope and pray that that unnamed Pennsylvania radio station is seeking him for just that purpose - voiceovers. Record a few sweepers to run between records. But I fear they have other plans for our story's hero.
As our beloved medium has regrettably devolved from "must listen" radio stations with an attitude and personality all their own to music delivery commodities, the heart, the passion, the uniqueness of radio communication - one on one between the radio personality and his or her listener, has become nothing more than slick positioning statements and marketing messages that the sales staff couldn't fit into the stopsets. It's no wonder we don't connect with listeners anymore. Who can relate to a silver-tongued liner jock with nothing to say?
Far too often, any personality has been banished to the morning show, if not banished altogether. The edge, the attitude, the personalities that made this business - gone! Today's over-researched radio "product" is as bland and boring as every other product that has ever set out to be "safe". (There's nothing safe about playing it safe, I always say.). A wall-to-wall barrage of well-testing songs with the call letters inserted between each one, with innocuous jocks who think they're "doing radio" reciting :10 second liners from a script their PD wrote as they go into the stopsets. You can listen all day and not fine anything wrong with it, but you can't find anything right with it, either.
I wish Ted Williams well, but unless he has a unique personality to go with that golden voice, I hope he sticks to the voiceover business, and I hope the radio industry has the good sense to realize that a great voice, while a valid tool in any air personality's toolbox, is among the least important tools they have.
It occurs to me the greatest challenges to success my stations faced during my programming career were usually internal, not external.
Free pronunciation tip: the 't' in "often" is silent. The word is pronounced "off-en". Please inform TV's various talking heads.
Some people can be counted on to fall in line lockstep, and others can be counted on to think. I prefer the latter.
Personal branding in the social networking age - You can only be known for one thing. So what do you want to be known for?
I wonder, inundated with marketing as we are, how much money you'd spend if you purchased everything you were marketed in a 24-hour period
Sometimes, there's something to be said for saying nothing at all.
I once heard one of the Masters commentators on ESPN, in a failed attempt at southern imagery, say "sit on the porch & sip an azalea". Don't fake it if you don't know it.
Dove for Men. Right! Good-luck with that
Clearly smart and stupid aren't opposites. I'm increasingly surprised at how many people I know that demonstrate both traits.
Great radio stations stand for & against certain things. Mediocre radio stations are mere commodities.
I know many wise men. I know many arrogant men. I don't know any arrogant wise men.
Indecision is the worst decision
Originality is the art of concealing your source
Perhaps we never put ourselves in more imminent danger than when safety becomes our only priority and pursuit
If we all wore personal "classic rock" t-shirts, mine would be tie-dyed, not black. How about you?
Intrusiveness is dead! Interaction, on their terms, is everything
it occurs to me that there is nothing safe about playing it safe.
Television has always cited it's obvious advantage over radio - pictures. You can watch it, give it your undivided attention, a full color electronic medium. How could you ever do radio in technicolor?
Early in my on-air career, I had a Program Director who was a great mentor and talent coach. The late Paul Franklin, then of Z103 in Beaufort/Atlantic Beach, NC made his mark on me early on, and when I began my own programming career a few years later, I passed on a lot of the wisdom he shared with me about effectively communicating and generating a
repoire with your listener - essentially the difference between being a disc jockey and a personality.
Oh, there were extensive lessons on show prep - not just telling me to do it (which all programmers do) but actual
ly teaching me how to do it (a novel approach that should be obvious but somehow isn't). Concepts like working in top-of-mind and local references became staples of my approach (and the dread of every young air talent I would later critique). But another concept he stressed was talking in "word pictures".
Word Pictures, quite simply, are visual phrases. It's the difference between saying "I got in my car and drove down the road" and "I crouched down behind the wheel of my lime green '74 Pinto and bravely pulled out into afternoon rush hour on Sunset Boulevard." Get the picture?
Now, the theory behind word pictures came from someone Paul had worked with at 94Z in Raleigh. I forget the gentleman's name but he was a deep thinker, the kind who ponders things and comes to realizations. He had concluded that people think in pictures and, therefore, related to pictures in a way that they didn't relate to words. So if you spoke in word pictures, people could visualize what you were saying - helping you cut through the clutter of a subconscious medium.
For years, I repeated this theory as fact. But I'm kind of a thinker, too. And I started to realize something. I can't speak for everyone, but I most definitely do not think in pictures. I think in words - then I create the pictures to illuminate my words. I suspect everyone does, but I don't know. But that didn't damage my belief in word pictures. Far from it.
See, I still realized that the word pictures definitely cut through and stuck with you. They did stimulate another sense. Instead of just being words that you heard, these phrases encouraged you to create a very specific accompanying visual. (By the way, radio friends, this is the power of the spoken word, not of pictures and video - so it's our strength! Imagine the images we can create on a budget of zero!).
Well, since I realized we were just using words to stimulate the memory of another sense (yeah, the memory - I know what a lime green pinto looks like and I've seen afternoon traffic on Sunset Blvd., but we weren't actually seeing either when I used that phrase earlier) it dawned on me that we have five senses! I can hear things, I can see things, I can feel things, I can taste things, and I can smell things. But if the spoken word is powerful enough to conjure up vivid images (from your past experiences) then words could probably be used to fire up the sensation of the other senses, as well.
Hmmm, as I sit here writing this an hour from the Outer Banks of North Carolina, my mind drifts to the sandy beaches and hot, summer afternoons navigated between the beach umbrellas and bikini-clad sunbathers, and I can smell the salt air coming off the ocean. Don't you feel the hot sand between your toes, scalding, actually, until you make your way into the cool, frothing Atlantic surf? And when we meet up at the cottage afterwards and fire up the charcoal grill, throw some fresh, succulent jumbo shrimp over the coals until they're hot, with just a trace of grill marks, then dip them in melted butter before popping them in your mouth, well...
Get the picture? With a little effort and some planning, you can become an on-air communicator that taps into the full sensual repertoire of your listener. Let your competitors continue to be a music-dispensing commodity dwelling in the background. Burst through the subconcious, connect with your listener on an emotional level, stir their senses, and learn that you can, indeed, talk in technicolor!
Counter programming. Incorporating tactics specifically designed to counter the strength of a competing radio station. We've all done it. 'Nothing wrong with it. Sometimes it's essential to survival. Sometimes, though, it's suicidal.
No matter how good the motivation to counter-program a competitor, it is inherently a defensive move, a follower's tactic. Instead of being motivated by your audience's expectations of your brand, you're making a move to blunt the impact of a competitor. Often these moves are inconsistent with your own brand identity. Then you're chipping away at yourself, with little to gain. There is almost always damage to your own brand, so you better think it out.
Right off the bat, if you're the market leader in your format, it's probably a good rule of thumb to never counter-program. Ever! That's right, never! Just like Coca-Cola does best when they concentrate on being Coke and just promote drinking soda, like McDonalds was at it's best just being Mickey D's and pushing the burger market to new heights, as Budweiser soared highest when they were content to be the King of Beers and promote drinking beer in general, a healthy, well-branded radio station that leads it's marketplace and commands true audience loyalty is best to worry about their own brand, and promote their own format. If you're the top CHR in town and the listening audience for hit radio is growing, your audience is going to be growing. Don't be distracted by an also ran, even one with the sex appeal of being "new". And, for heaven's sake, don't be distracted by a non-format competitor. That's a guaranteed disaster!
Look, it's better to be first than to be better, that's basic Ries & Trout stuff. The old adage "it's easier to get to number one than to stay number one" is exactly wrong. Historically, once you attain number one in your category it takes something catastrophic on your part, usually combined with something majestic on the part of a competitor, to topple you. Be true to your brand, be true to your audience, be the best you can be at being you and ride it out. You'll come out on top! Start changing to counter the also-ran and you just might end up being the also-ran. Start changing to compete with stations you were never meant to compete with and you'll most definitely end up an also-ran.
I recall the 94Z Raleigh story. They came out of the box around 1984 or 1985, guns blazing, big marketing budget, hipper, cooler and fresher than the market's legendary format leader, G105. 94Z was also riding the crest of the Z100 wave, complete with a very funny Morning Zoo, while G105 was hanging with market legend John Van Pelt. With each book, the challenger drew closer to the champion, finally pulling even. Then, the master stroke. 94Z hired Van Pelt away from G105, putting him in afternoon drive, while leaving their very impressive Morning Zoo in place. The pale of death was in the air...until the next ratings came out. G105, sans Van Pelt, still bounced up. 94Z went down for the first time ever. And the trend continued. The last time I checked, G105 still dominates the format in Raleigh/Durham/Chapel Hill. 94Z was out of the format before the end of the eighties.
For second tier stations, effective counter programming can serve a purpose, in small doses. Primarily it helps to create an association with the format leader in the format listener's mind. Oh, Station B is doing that like (or because, or instead of) Station A. Ahh, Station B must be like Station A (as in, a station for me to consider). Let's be honest, all counter programming can be categorized as either imitation or insulting. You're trying to do something they do, or putting down something they do. Either way, you're really just drawing a comparison for the format's listeners. (Again I ask, why would a format leader do this?)
Even with second tier stations, counter programming has it's limits. Ultimately, you have to establish your own identity, legitimate reasons for listeners to be passionate about you. Being like your competitor isn't going to do it, unless you're content being the first place they go for a song when their favorite station happens to be playing something they don't like.
For whatever reason, most of my programming career has found me taking the reigns at fallen heritage stations, where I was then charged with restoring them to their past glory. On more than one occasion I arrived on the scene to discover a station that was nothing more than a collection of counter programming tactics. Everything they were doing was in response to something that was happening on another radio station in the market, often in a different format. (On a positive note, if you find yourself in this situation, it's incredibly easy to fix it, and make yourself look like a genius!).
I've known GM's and programmers who revamped the station's music library and position based on the website of a non-format competitor. I've known PDs who'd add any "classic" song they heard on a competitor. I've known stations who's entire promotional campaigns were always duplicates of their competitors campaigns by design. I've known of one market leading PD who would make changes to his station anytime the brash upstart made fun of something they were doing on the air. In his case, he was played by his challenger like a violin. The more logical something he did was, the more likely his competitor was to lampoon it, and every time, he changed it...until his station fell in the ratings and he lost his job.
If I've got the market's format leader I'm not counter-programming anyone, ever! Period! If I'm occupying a different rung on the ladder, I will use counter-programming tactics carefully and infrequently, when it's been well thought out and it truly helps us blunt the strength of the market leader. And my format's market leader is the only station I'd ever consider counter-programming. And I don't mean a related format (Classic Rock isn't Active Rock isn't Mainstream Rock isn't Alternative; Traditional Country isn't Modern Country; CHR isn't AC isn't Hot AC, etc.). To do otherwise, I'm convinced, is to counter-program yourself out of a job!
I remember when MTV was new on the scene. As exciting as it was to have a 24/7 cable channel showing non-stop music videos, hosted by veejays, trying to add the video dimension to radio (remember that? MTV was like that once, right?), many of my peers in radio saw it as doom and gloom. (I guess it didn't help that they launched the channel with the Buggles' "Video Killed The Radio Star"). When Sirius and XM launched their first birds a few years back, the reaction in the terrestrial radio world was the same. I wonder why?
Oh, I get that they're new competition. But radio is all about time spent listening, so anything a prospective listener spends time with - another radio station, Sirius, MTV, NBC, the latest Harry Potter book, the toilet, or a quiet car ride in the country - is competition.
First of all, competition should make us better. It should drive us to rise to the occasion. Has it? I don't think so, at least not yet. We've let the accountants take the wheel, and they've reacted to increasing competition and a shrinking slice of the pie by cutting cost, and our ability to compete in this bold, new world. But that's not the point of this blog. Still, homogenized music playlist, the same, old boring imaging, jump through hoops promotions and liner jocks who are nothing more than schills for the station (or, worse yet, the advertisers) don't create a very compelling radio station. It's been years since I listened to the radio for pleasure when I was traveling. It has seemed like homework for two decades or more.
But the real point of this blog is, for those of us in the programming side of the business, these new mediums are opportunity. What? I'm supposed to be loyal to terrestrial radio? Like a Harris FM Transmitter is what got me all excited about the business in the first place. No, man. It was the connection. It was the relationships - the relationships between listener and station, listener and jock, it was the role that a really cool radio station played in your life. It was all the things about radio (mostly long lost things, I'm afraid) that made radio stations something people were passionate about. Come on, no one has a favorite TV station. 'Never did. TV stations, for all the power of that great medium, have always generated about the same level of passion among their viewers as insurance companies do with their customers. Yea, Allstate! Prudential sucks! Imagine hearing that cheer in a crowded bar one Friday night!
So, really, if you're driven to make that kind of one-on-one connection, if it's all about relationships with a listener and bringing out your personality, does it really matter if the deliver mechanism is an FM transmitter, an AM transmitter, a satellite, the Internet, a podcast or anything else. I'd rather do compelling radio on Citizens Band channel 14 than lackluster stuff on a 100,000-watt blowtorch.
The new mediums are just more opportunities for the talented people, and the passionate people, to work their magic. Welcome them. Embrace them. They're your friends. Ultimately, they still may drive over the air radio to get better. They also add to the potential employment market for good communicators. Either way, they well may empower you to do your thing more than terrestrial radio ever has on it's own.
One of the common practices of modern radio is utilizing voice-track technology to share an air talent on multiple stations in the same market. Aside from the legitimate question of how high quality a performance one person can do when hosting multiple shows, there is another concern. These types of number-cruncher driven decision are easy to sell to management, but a real blow to the strength of the individual radio station's brand, and the given personality's credibility.
If we can get back to the real, long-lost meaning of the term "out of the box", I think you'll see my logic. Out of the box, by the way, doesn't mean "be creative". It means see things as your customers (in the case of radio programming, your listeners) see them. We work inside the box (the radio station, in this case). We see things from our perspective, "inside the box". Our listeners, on the other hand, are "outside the box". Their perspective is strikingly different from ours.
Listeners have favorite radio stations, but not favorite radio groups. Having a rock radio background, I've long known our core audience and the CHR core audience, even though they may share listening with each other, have an almost inverse definition of cool. Meanwhile, great radio stations have long been more than musical commodities - they've stood for certain things in their listeners minds. And they've stood against certain things. In the mid-80's, when we all were concerned about the famine in Ethiopia, a universal issue, rock radio listeners still didn't embrace USA For Africa's "We Are The World". Noble as it was, it was a cheesy pop song and the presence of some real rock stars on it didn't overcome the Lionel Ritchie/Michael Jackson association. Meanwhile, Nirvana's hits may have gotten airplay on the CHR stations, but their grunge lifestyle was toned down into a mere teenage fashion statement for that audience. Their anger, dispair and rage didn't cross over when their music did. These are just a couple of off the cup examples - we could do this all day.
The great personalities have always been advocates for the listener - period! They weren't schills for clients, they weren't voices for hire, they presented their station and the station's attitude and lifestyle with passion and conviction. They meant what they said and they thought like we thought (or at least they convinced us that they did). So imagine the devoted active rock listener discovering his favorite brother in arms air personality is simultaneously gushing over Lady Gaga's latest stunt on the local CHR station. Or the CHR devotee finding that "hot" girl on his station every afternoon is also playing Brad Paisley songs on the country station each night. Suddenly, our industry's greatest advocates, the air personalities, are reduced to schills, mere company men.
All actions and decisions have unintended ramifications. Part of good, long-term decision making is to try to think these through and anticipate them. Unfortunately, when budgets are tight and the pressure is on, we have an amazing (and self destructive) ability to talk ourselves into thinking anything is a good idea. (Sure, I'll stick my head in the oven. That should cut the cost of our natural gas bill, since my head will displace some of the gas, right?) These are trying times indeed, and we're all trying to cut cost in every way we can. But often times the money we save in the short term is spent on another nail in our own coffin. And where's the wisdom in that?
The guys that subscribe to Playboy - they don't live the Playboy lifestyle. Nobody lives the Playboy lifestyle accept Hugh Hefner. Most guys probably don't even really want to. That's not the point. The Playboy lifestyle - enjoying every moment to the fullest, devoting yourself to "the finer things", going through life in your designer robe and slippers, in a palacial grown-up playground of a house, surrounded by playmates, high end electronics and every gadget imaginable, garage full of stellar cars, fine food, fine wine, world travel...it's a nice escape from reality, huh?
You don't have to actually crave it. It doesn't have to consume you. But don't overlook the critical importance of the Playboy lifestyle. Without it, Hugh's rag is just another softcore collection of pictures of naked ladies. Reading the magazine, maybe even being a fan of Hef, gives the readers a connection to a world that often seems a lot cooler, a lot easier and stress free, than their reality. Note - this doesn't even mean these guys would trade their reality for Hef's. But that vicarious connection to a different world packs a mean punch. That's what seperates Playboy from a host of forgettable competitors.
Think about it. Hef's readers don't drive the cars they write about. They don't own the electronics the magazine raves about. They don't read the books or listen to the music reviewed in the periodical. They certainly don't have access to Hef's "girls next door". Sure, they may dabble in it - a few songs on their IPod that they first read about in Playboy, a book or two on their bookshelf. But they're more likely to talk about those cars, toys, music and books than actually indulge in them. But through the magazine, that world is opened up to them. And don't think Hefner doesn't know it. That was the plan all along. The lifestyle. It's the difference between Playboy and every other magazine you've ever seen that was trying to be like Playboy. It's the difference between Hefner's brand, and his competitor's commodities.
This is a lesson too many of us in radio have never learned. We don't think of our stations as brands, as a lifestyle, as standing for some things and standing against some things. We don't place a premium on "cool". We don't develop air talent to be advocates for the listener and representatives of the station lifestyle. We don't embrace the things we should with the passion we should, to become something more than just a source of background music for our listeners.
If we don't evoke the passion, if we don't create the consistent image, if we don't convey something they want to vicariously connect to, we complete miss the power of a great medium. And, worse, we fail to capitalize on a unique strength of radio that most of our new competitors don't have. There's never going to be an IPod lifestyle. The Internet isn't poised to connect with people on this emotional scale. This goes beyond the music. In fact, it mostly happens outside the music, between songs or off the air entirely. In fact, the music becomes just one more element of the lifestyle, of the cool.
But like Playboy, you've got to define the lifestyle, the image, and you've got to consistently reinforce it with every fiber of your being - the music, the talent, the morning show, the promotions, the marketing, the website, the events, even the commercials. Yes, the commercials! No inconsistencies. No contradictions. Ever seen a budget beer ad in Playboy? Every read an article defending traditional marriage? (Trust me, most guys who read Playboy want a traditional marriage...but not in "that" part of their lives.
Never let reality intrude on the perception. Never take the lifestyle for granted. Never send mixed messages.
That said, understand that you only get to dictate the attitude, the lifestyle, the image, when you're brand new. After that, it's set. The best you can do is identify what it is (the listeners will tell you) and live up to it. You can't change it once it's set. But you can still capitalize on it. And never be distracted by some clueless guy in a suit who says "yeah, but your listener doesn't really live this lifestyle".
