What's It Going To Take...?

General Radio News and Comments, Satellite & Internet Radio and LPFM

Re: What's It Going To Take...?

Postby pave » Sat Dec 19, 2015 11:02 am

Radio Ads: Shotgun Fishing
Q: How easy is it for owners and managers of radio stations to completely disregard how truly shabby are their locally produced commercials? A: Nuthin’ to it, at all.
Accepting this shoddy circumstance is, apparently, natural and easy. Every local station – few exceptions - produces lousy spots. Advertisers accept them. Audiences hate them.

Even worse is the reality that a lot of radio management won’t or can’t even recognize the situation as being completely accurate. Here is a circumstance completely deserving of derision and criticism - targeted directly at ownership and management. Not only are these spots irritating and insulting to audiences, they are fraudulently represented to clients as being first-rate advertising content. Clients agree. Radio lucks out again.

“But wait! There’s more!” This ongoing practice of radio foisting garbage on advertisers and audiences alike does nothing to improve the fortunes of the very clients who look to us to help them improve the returns on their advertising investments. Fortunately for radio, almost all radio users have no idea about how wildly they are being bilked. I tenuously assume that some managers are painfully aware of the spot situation and of how their audiences are being similarly abused. (But, if they are, they ain’t sayin’.)

With much of the industry described as being precariously on tenterhooks – most outfits continue to operate as if all is well on the western front. Guards are let down and supplies are not being brought up. Gathering intelligence or sending out re-con units is no longer even considered. Situational awareness is not held as necessary or even a somewhat useful state.

Still, some might claim that since radio continues as a multi-billion dollar enterprise – all must be well and peachy keen. Seems like extreme and suspiciously weak posturing to me. However, if there is, indeed, a Gott in Himmel, She is a forgiving frau as She has been cutting radio a lot of slack for decades. But, even the gods, I am told, lose their patience. Radio insiders are reluctant to help themselves. Outsiders are indifferent.

Meanwhile, as to locally produced commercials: They do sucketh large! They are ridiculously insulting and irritating and juvenile and off-putting - generally. That they get aired with other, equally innocuous spots in bloated clusters is beyond goofy. This practice is obviously self-destructive. Does anybody else care to step up and cogently defend these strategies and the bilge we have been producing for decades? Anybody at all? Not so far. (“The clock is running.” sez Jim Lovell of Apollo 13.)

There are pundits and leadership in other (sometimes related) industries with a great deal more credibility than this humble blogger who have also noticed the degree to which radio has succumbed to taking the easy, lazy and ineffective way out of any programming/commercial challenges. That includes the obliteration of on-air talent, producers, writers and the commercials they, otherwise, might have generated.

However, even with an immediate influx of talent (the ol’ “live & local” chestnut), the future does not bode well for radio – not so long as the standard, traditional approaches to programming and spot-generation continue to be applied. Radio is neither a direct or an authoritative medium. Rather, it is an indirect medium with no authority to tell anybody to do – anything. Yet 95% of the spots we produce, especially locally, are no more than presumptuous, demanding and annoying “direct response” ads. The implications of such dodgy practices are staggering.

Weirdness lies in the fact that these same banal and brutal ads seem to be producing, at least, some results! This is spectacularly amazing! In spite of our least and worst efforts, radio can still deliver. The explanation of that is more about neurology than it is philosophy, but it becomes a long and somewhat dreary story, especially when I tell it to people who couldn’t care a whit. It is an important tale, to be sure. But, still and for most – it’s a snoozer. We ought to consider ourselves as just downright lucky that some results are still being delivered – despite our absolute, worst and horribly uninformed attempts.

By the way, I am not delivering these plaintiff wails from the rarefied air of my plush and secure, mountaintop compound. I am also a V/O Ho’. I am regularly reading the very crap against which I am railing. I voice the stuff; I summon my worst French-Canadian accent, me. I spend two minute in da penalty box. I feel shame, and den, I am free - to cash da check. I still do the “yell & sell” spots. Sometimes I painfully shred my voice in the process. I am a hypocrite, too. But, again, there are those checks. Yes, sometimes one’s personal integrity can be purchased – or leased.

There are more effective and more listenable alternatives readily available. The spots we are airing now are akin to fishing with a shotgun. We can only target those fish that are near the very top of the water. The shot is effective no more than a few inches below the surface. Blasting scares away the rest of the catch we might otherwise enjoy taking in - with better strategies. Plus, the noise annoys the hell out of the neighbors. The fish we do get are all torn up and full of buckshot. Ammo isn’t getting any cheaper. But, we do boat a few and - the industry survives.

Indeed, it is so easy to criticize, rant against and challenge modern radio. But, neither is it like cruelly kicking puppies. I write for radio professionals – grownups whose bones are hard and who have had every opportunity to improve their own fortunes by making significant improvements to their products and services. These are the same folks who have participated in the destruction of every functional dynamic of radio, or have colluded with those doing the damage directly. Instead, they all ignore or reject those opportunities - and chamber more shotgun shells.
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Re: What's It Going To Take...?

Postby pave » Tue Dec 29, 2015 5:23 pm

Radio’s Corporate Clergy
Though unlikely she would be aware of her nifty, bonus position, Cumulus’ newly minted CEO, Mary Berner, has also been ordained a High Priestess of radio. Enter the fawning company zealots - packing embossed creeds and liturgies. (Granted, they could keep her in the dark.) But, if she is fully briefed and given she has not had to drink the ubiquitous Kool-Aid, she might just identify the bull#*^# rolling in.

Many years and tears ago, “research” was generated that confirmed (essentially) the following: Audiences wanted less jock and more rock. And, of course: Audiences hated radio commercials. As to the former: That was not high quality research. It was, instead, a series of polls run on people who could not consciously define or report on their own values and motivations. The responders were not dummies. Rather, they were simply unaware of their own unconscious processing – just like the rest of us, today. The really useful information was never acquired, collated or applied.

As to the latter: Audiences were quite sincere in their derision of radio commercials. That hasn’t changed. Yet, obviously, millions are still willing to tolerate them. (Happy, joy-luck, good fortune for today’s radio!) Still, the programming decisions made from applying the implications of that so-called “research” have stuck and – become dogma. Suppressing and chopping talent was instantly justified. Those decisions contributed to a now-drained industry, ill-equipped to become dominant among other media platforms.

As with other organizations chronically dependent on dogma, radio’s clergy entertain no challenges. Credos are chanted. Hymns are sung and the same sermons delivered - often by leaders who are sincerely in agreement with the drivel they are expounding. Chats that fail to include the “so it is written – so shall it be done” edicts are not tolerated.

People do have this often extremely dangerous propensity to ignore evidence. Organized religions are not the only outfits that are based on some form of “blind faith”. For those operating out of any given “faith” position – evidence is not required. Likewise, should anything even resembling contradictory evidence be lurking about, it is either ignored or squelched – without prejudice or remorse. “There shall be no thinking in this organization!” say senior clergy. Mindlessly dependent underlings - the mewling monks - become agents of harsh reminders or cruel punishments.

I have yet to receive a strong or credible argument that is contrary to any of the alternative strategies and methodologies I have been providing in this and other environments. Other pundits have also been issuing warnings and suggesting some alternatives to radio’s leadership for quite some time. Again, to the “faithful”, even considering a discussion (thought crime) on these matters carries severe implications.

The overriding programming philosophies – including those that pertain to the writing and production of local commercials - were emblazoned on marble some decades ago. There are rumors those engravings were slipped across the border to Canada and buried under the building that once housed “The Big 8” – CKLW. I rather doubt this as ‘LW, in its glory, had nothing at all in common with the tight-assed, PC brand of missing-talent robo-radio foisted on audiences these last 25 years. I remember hearing, “Another hapless Woodward Avenue pedestrian, after being clubbed by an assailant wielding his Louisville Slugger, staggered into traffic and was strained through the grill of a speeding ’69 Mustang. I’m Bolt Upright – CKLW 20/20 News.” That took grit.

But, I digress. I agree that a return to local “personality radio” is essential. My first priority, however, is about applying the available training of on-air folk and copywriters in the powerful skills and strategies required to be a proficient broadcast communicator. Without that training, there can be no new “personality radio”. There is no one at any level of the radio-clergy who can successfully argue against the proposition that improvement of communications skills is necessary. They are compelled to take the same position as the faithful elsewhere and - ignore everything. Publicly sacrificing untrained people on the air would be the root cause of horrific and costly train wrecks.

Equally strange – and this applies outside of radio, as well – is how people will keep on doing what they are doing even after they find out it isn’t working. What is more bizarre is how they keep repeating what they were doing – only harder. The behavior, on one hand, is defended as one that demonstrates “persistence”! On the other hand, it could be suggested how continuing such behaviors demonstrates foolishness. Where radio is considered, however, and given a whole industry is behaving the same while generating unacceptable results, the scales tip, I submit, to the side of foolishness.

“But, it’s okay!” say the bishops of broadcasting. “We shall be delivered by our persistence, our beliefs – by our faith!” Meanwhile, I rather doubt Ms. Berner has been apprised of her other title at Cumulus. As a high priestess, she is expected to both accept and pay fealty to the dogma of radio programming and, by applying the dogma, to deliver the company from the Philistines – wherever they might be embedded. She might, instead of accepting the faith-premises, retain her own critical thinking capacities.

The real enemies of radio - including the clerics of Cumulus - are all inside radio. They may not be sporting the flowing robes, hush puppies or funny hats of other clerics, but they are the carriers and defenders of the dogma. The messages, particularly to outside interests, are fuzzy and without substance. But, the priests and priestesses are still swift to deliver the harshest of disciplines – with righteous indignation and, perhaps, some twisted glee - to those who might question the edicts. Alas, even with Mary in the pulpit, radio’s deliverance is not likely nigh.

What is more likely: Mary will be kept unaware of these poisoned programming dynamics. The programming gatekeepers will see to that. Verily, another opportunity to implement necessary improvements will have been squandered and dogma prevails.
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Re: What's It Going To Take...?

Postby pave » Mon Jan 11, 2016 6:20 am

My Big Bear Hunt
All predictions for end-of-the-world scenarios foisted on the population over the years by some or other credulous cult have been false. I say that with certainty and relief as - we’re still here! A new year’s article about radio, however, would not be complete without a tentative prediction. Here’s one: Radio will continue to be so, seriously pooched!

Now, that might be a little hysterical on my part. Possibly, a result of too many feast remnants and dancing visions of sugar plums, Yet, in addressing the prediction - like a hot air balloon that rises only because of the flame in the burner, radio, if we check the gauge, is running low on fuel. Maintaining altitude, never mind gaining altitude is becoming much more difficult. Some outfits are already skirting treetops and skimming over church spires, transmission lines and AM towers. Pilots are exhausted and flying under duress. They have to land, reassess, make repairs and gas up. And they must do so quickly – or else.

“C’est la vie.” say the French. “That’s life.” croons Frank. “%$#@ happens.” from Confucius, despite the accent. These are keen observations, to be sure. But, existential blurts will not provide radio any protection from harsher, oncoming realities and inevitable consequences.

Although I have always been prepared to deliver serious and powerful new content and processes, I was t-boned some time ago by my realization of the extraordinary reticence displayed by radio’s owners and leadership to accept the necessity of making drastic improvements to the most fundamental of our communication models.

Meanwhile, commercial radio continues to be at the largesse and whims of some major advertising categories. Fortunate it is for radio that many of these advertisers are more aware of the capacities of radio to deliver than even the radio ownerships themselves. I wait to meet an owner or manager who can even describe how, specifically, radio works! Good thing local advertisers don’t ask. Still, it is those local advertisers that radio must be attracting, particularly those stations that do not warrant buys from the majors.

My education and experience – over many decades - compel me to steadfastly maintain that radio’s main flaw is its failure (or refusal) to acquire and apply the necessary, fundamental communicative elements consistent with the medium. All these elements are supported by three main, critical tenets – necessary for developing more influential radio in the future.

Further, and as a more reasoned prediction for the New Year, I can posit: Those radio stations that do not go through a process of revamping their on-air and commercial, writing and production approaches will make no serious advancements. Many are more likely to continue losing business.

The three main posts on which the whole linguistic platform is built make up a base structure. They are not the totality of the program, but are the solid foundations on which to branch out on a discovery of more meaningful, listenable, influential and available strategies and methodologies. The benefits of making such improvements are multiple – audiences listening longer and more often, better audience responses to locally-produced commercials, greater, more enthusiastic participation from station staffs and as a bonus– serious difficulties for competing stations to replicate the improvements.

I will rehearse those three main tenets here – providing another opportunity for ownership and management to consider them once again, and to speculate on the possibilities of significant improvement of their outfits through the implementation of the methodologies.

Before spreading them out again, let me acknowledge that I understand how goading and jerking radio’s owners and managers around is hardly a preferred strategy for getting their attention or for building rapport or credibility. I learned this during a visit to the Calgary Zoo. We were witness to a visitor grabbing a birch branch and pushing it through the bars of the cage to poke a bear in the balls. Nothing good came of it. In fact, roaring at peak db, the enraged bear instantly charged, explosively clanging into the bars, whereupon our zoo visitor, terrified and frozen on the spot - had a massive and impressive trouser incident.

Here then, are the foundational tenets that impact the on-air and commercial production portions of every radio station. (For anybody who “gets” this – doors will be thrown open and ways will be revealed.)
1. Radio is an indirect medium (It’s in all the papers.) and works so much better and efficiently when delivered as such. There are no direct connections made between any radio speaker and any individual or group making up an audience at any particular time. “One-to-one”, therefore, is a ridiculous concept and an example of poisonous programming. The struggle to be “personal” on the radio is a singularly toxic activity. Alternatives are available.
2. Radio has no authority. Radio hasn’t accepted that. I know this because on-air folk and commercial readers are constantly making demands for behaviors – telling audiences what to do. Bad approach. Alternatives are available.
3. Human beings represent their experiences of the world in sensory terms - internally and externally. They hear, they see, they feel, they taste, they smell and they derive meaning from all those elements. (The last bit we like to call “thinking”.) Radio people do not purposely express themselves in sensory terms – thus, failing to exploit those deliciously powerful facets of listeners’ experience.

How else, I wonder, is a radio station to do a better job of anything until or unless it makes a significant effort to improve its most important services, namely: the on-air presentations and the quality of locally produced commercials?

Further, I do doff my hat to the account executives. I marvel at how well some sales people can do, particularly since they are going to the street with such tawdry products. Maybe they throw large chunks of raw meat into where their prospective advertisers are doing business. Given my own questionable and foul approach, my task may be to find bears that don’t mind being poked in the balls.
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Re: What's It Going To Take...?

Postby pave » Mon Jan 18, 2016 8:16 am

Playing Hurt
In the hilarious movie, “Young Frankenstein”, Marty Feldman plays the part of “Igor” (pronounced: eye-gore). Hunched over because of a massive deformity on his back, Igor’s movements are severely limited. Dr. Frankenstein notices and says, “You know, I'm a rather brilliant surgeon. Perhaps I can help you with that hump.” Igor looks rather confused and sincerely says, “What hump?” Radio, I posit, is similarly afflicted.

Like Igor, radio seems to have no consciousness of its own debilitating deformity – its “hump”. Now, I understand this is a claim that might generate a few unforced snorts of righteous indignation. Yet, I maintain: Any shouts of outrage are, essentially, a representation of “hump denial”. (I don’t know if shrinks have this as a category in their diagnostic bible, the DSM-V. But, there might be something in it for them – another opportunity to strongly suggest therapeutic interventions, and bill them out by the hour.)

In competitive athletic environments – both amateur and pro – the concept of “playing hurt” is well known. In practice, the behavior of continuing to play when injured is held in very high esteem, is taken as a demonstration of guts, integrity, willingness to sacrifice for a greater cause and is considered a form of nobility. The athletes, however, are usually aware of their injuries and have some input into whether they can continue to participate or compete effectively. (In hockey, it’s: “Yeah, Coach! I can ‘go’!”)

Radio is injured. The difference is that radio leadership either does not feel the pain, or, for the few who might be somewhat aware, discounts the severity of the situation, and the consequences of continuing in a chronically busted-up state. To the contrary, station managers behave as if they have all the programming bases covered.

A block to radio “snapping out of it” is that the industry is extraordinarily insular. That is, radio compares itself only to other radio outfits. The whole industry runs on the same dogma and suffers the same “schema” – a process of organizing patterns of thought into a shared, but still arbitrary reality. Thus, there are no communications invitations from Houston that would allow for: “We have a problem.” “Can we do this?” or a “Wtf?” from the boonies.

I am cranking these articles out for a group of professionals who have significant, vested interests in radio. Some (even academic) curiosity from these folks is not an unreasonable expectation. The propositions, strategies, methodologies, techniques, and suggestions for a more useful philosophical position I have been proposing could be met with, at least, some polite inquisitiveness. I understand that is unlikely as the first prerequisite is for somebody in leadership to realize the situation, and then exclaim, “Hey! Is this our hump!?” (In the meantime, it has been either howls of juvenile slander and outrage or: SFX: Crickets chirping.)

Meanwhile, as I park my cousin’s turnip truck, I might be forgiven for repeating a few seemingly innocuous but, possibly, revealing questions. These have to do only with on-air talent – live or otherwise.
1. Is there a useful reason to have talent on the air no more than a few times per hour?
2. Is there a purpose to having them spend most of their on-air time promoting the station – the one that the audience is listening to already?
3. Is there a justification to having on-air talent perform like non-sensory-experiencing, unthinking robots?
4. Is there value to having the talent perform in the one-speed, one volume, one tonality, and one intensity-mode?
5. Does “light, tight and bright” represent an actual, effective philosophy?
6. How did “show prep” get usurped by web maintenance and furniture dusting?
7. Is “consistency” a weak synonym for “bland” or “sameness”?
8. Does talent have any clear, verifiable idea of who in the audience is actually listening – never mind paying any attention?
9. Does it not bother anyone in programming that all the technicians at the auto dealership down the street are better trained than any local, on-air talent?
10. Are the talents also expected to be shills for “ET”? For what possible benefit?
11. How has the abject suppression of talent developed any more audience interest - never mind loyalties?

Those questions do not even begin to address the major, even more serious matters of consequence that have been crippling radio programming for decades. Nor do they take into consideration the scattered wreckage that is the writing and production of local commercials. The (above) only makes up the, so to speak, “hair on the hump”. It really is no wonder that radio teeters - hobbling along, smashing dishes, knocking over the furniture, wildly swinging its cane and shattering mirrors while refusing and resenting all offers of help. “Uninformed, unwilling to learn and cantankerous.” are, generally, apt descriptions for the principal players in the business who demonstrate such behaviors.

I was reading the comments of a pundit recently. “There is no reason”, he said. “For radio to be worried about external aggression. Interested parties would rather exercise patience and wait for a substantial cave-in. They can then move in and pick up the pieces for significantly lower costs.” There were no suggestions new owners would do any better.

Indeed, radio’s leadership does not seem to realize it is participating in the ruination of an already hurtin’ medium. The condition is not even one in which they would visit a medical professional and say, “Doctor. Doctor. It hurts when I do this.” So, they won’t get to hear the expected answer. Plus, since other stations are, likewise, dragging their hobbled carcasses around, the situation seems – normal.

There are no bonuses for playing hurt and “hump denial” serves no one. But, how could things be any different since no station has one? A hump, I mean.
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Re: What's It Going To Take...?

Postby pave » Mon Feb 01, 2016 6:24 am

Asleep At The Switch
For those who may not have been involved at the time, it may come as somewhat of a surprise to learn that radio started down the wrong track as early as the late ‘70’s and early ‘80’s – years before the consolidating clown-crews floundered in with their big, red noses, fright wigs, floppy shoes and overwhelming arrogance.

Radio’s under serviced diesel train, it seems to me, has so many blown gaskets that vital fluids are leaking, sometimes gushing, all over the tracks. Smoke billows off the manifolds. Ratcheting down the bolts puts pressure on the system and stems the flow a bit – short term. In the last 30 years, radio has tossed out the mechanics and thrown away the tools. I believe some really think they will get away with it!

When the formats that represented (essentially) all of Top-40 radio gained the most solid of footings in the industry, the formatic seeds for what was to come were already sown. Ownership and management priorities at the time, during the consolidation periods and now, had everything to do with corporate control. The policies had nothing to do with serving audiences. Plus, the means to meet the needs of local advertisers were trampled into dust and swept under every rug in the industry.

Other stations, particularly those who subscribed to MOR (middle-of-the-road) formats and who had been droning along for years – suffered likewise. Further, when an outfit experienced some form of success, the copycats came out in droves. This not only generated sameness in the industry, it also created a habit, and it was these habits that became the dogmas that plague radio today.

There has been a cliché floating around the business for years that goes like this: “There are no secrets in radio.” This was based on the idea that everything a station was doing was out there for all to hear – right on the radio. There is a presumption that everyone in management had the wherewithal to identify any major differences or subtle nuances the guys down the street were making. Indeed, there were very few subtleties to identify that were having much impact at all. Fewer today.

Still, programmers were fiddling around with music rotations, numbers of cuts, spot loads (stuffed), positioning of jingle elements, jock performances and formatic consistencies. These included blurting out the calls, first, at the front and back of each tune intro or extro. Nobody has ever come up with an acceptable justification for that innocuous little piece of business, either. At least, not beyond, “It’ll stick in their heads!” Really? How?

Some years later, the avalanche that was “consolidation” crashed off the mountain and buried everything, including the on-air talent and creative departments. The bodies were never found, but we still remember them – sometimes fondly.

It was in such a radio environment that I began to discover, learn, collate and apply the methodologies and strategies I have been promulgating over the years in this and other spaces. The success I enjoyed on-the-air and in the writing and production of commercial content was staggering – locally and nationally. But, and this is significant: I had read the tealeaves and made the decision not to share these strategies directly with anybody in management or programming. I worked undercover for about 10 years – experimenting with and polishing the model.

The exception was one GM – a standup guy who relished and supported talent. He also had the good sense to keep his mouth shut around ownership and the other executives. His rationale was that since my day-part (PM drive) was dragging in huge numbers and AAA rates from national advertisers, the less said – the better.

Over the next years, the ownership of this killer station gradually succumbed to the “More Tunes – Less Talk” chunk of newly minted dogma that was becoming pervasive. I saw the writing in the sky and – hit the trail. So, sometime later, did my allied GM.

After a few months of being “on the beach” while continuing to work with my ad clients, I met with the GM of a station down the street. My long-term rep for pulling in boxcar numbers was already established, so we easily cut a deal for me to do PM drive for his outfit. The challenge, though, was significant. The station was a “lite-rocker” – scued to females 25-54. But they were #8 in that demo. As to men, that was, of course, worse. The station was #12.

So, I went to work plying my majic and runnin’ my mouth – completely out of format compared to the rest of the station. The PD flipped out and complained to management. Dissatisfied with the GM’s response, the guy quit. About six weeks later, a new PD landed – full of piss and vinegar and certainty. After a couple of months (probably sooner), he, too, resented the bulletproof environment I enjoyed.

Before my shift, one Friday, the PD invited me out to lunch. He asked me what I was doing on the air that was so special. So, along with the pasta, I swallowed my better judgment and explained one of the principal posts on which my communications platform is based – that of radio being an indirect medium and how the “one-to-one” principle is self-destructive. We went back to the shop and I pulled my shift.

Maybe his head exploded over the weekend. Monday morning, I got called in to the station. This PD was frothing, and demanded I be fired. The GM - frustrated and oblivious to what was coming - caved. I was gone. The Book, meanwhile and with a horrible irony, was released later that same day. The rest of the station didn’t move off previous positions. Afternoon Drive, however, was different. Women: #1. Men: #1. Elapsed time: 90 days. But, the boys were already on the track that allowed neither right nor left turns or hitting the brakes. They couldn’t recant. There was a lesson available there, but these feckless guys were also asleep at the switch. Help, meanwhile, is still available.
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Re: What's It Going To Take...?

Postby pave » Thu Feb 18, 2016 11:01 pm

Hole In The Strategy
Those rare speakers who can hold the attention of, and influence others are so incredibly impressive. Sometimes, consciously and with discipline, they are applying the available, precise skills allowing for more purposeful communications. These individuals compel me to shut up and pay attention. Some are (unfairly) labelled “naturals”. Still, they are amazing. They are hardly ever working in radio.

Neither are those who might be gifted or skilled in such a way, likely considering radio as a medium of opportunity - one that will support their particular communicative attributes. For some time, I have been making the claim that being on the air at a contemporary music radio station does not represent meaningful work and, by default, is no choice of vocation for a grownup.

Meanwhile, Radio Ink recently published a substantial list of some of the management changes taking place at Cumulus, the #2 discounted bulk barn of American radio. On surface, these machinations might seem like the beginning of a process that could provide entry into a brave, new world of radio. This is extremely unlikely and I shall explain why.

The majority of programming managers involved may be experienced, senior people with tenure. Many of them would also be sporting wonderful personalities while oozing enthusiasm and sincerity. Still, there is trouble afoot. The harsh reality is that most of these folks have been spending many years in a corporate dungeon – unable to exercise influence or, gawd ferbid, attempt a little experimental radio as a “skunk works” – just to see what happens. If there has been any “outside of the box” thinking, they have learned to keep their own counsel and their traps shut.

Now, I don’t need to know what the company-think is. Nor does anybody else. If an individual wants to know what is going on in somebody’s individual or corporate skull, all they need do is pay attention to the behaviors! So, it’s not so tough to postulate that Cumulus is going to try to skate through all this by acquiring and bolting on super-duper, whiz-bang technologies and by cutting more folks from the rosters – all as an expedient strategy to address “efficiencies”.

The programming departments’ principal players, meanwhile and rather than being released to ply some intuitions and ideas about innovations and the like, are actually just being set up. They are being issued shiny, new collars and their leashes are being slightly extended. This is so they can get to the Kool-Aid coolers – all by themselves. Chances of them accomplishing much are grim.

As to programming having significant access to corporate resources: Bwah-hah-hah! Programming can forget about that altogether. They will be mandated to become successful armed with only what they have – stale crackers and the ubiquitous Kool-Aid. When this is tallied up, “available resources” will amount to little more than a crowd of resident, flapping scarecrows, a box of rusted-out car horns and an sfx that goes “boing”. Senior programmers, while momentarily enjoying new and lofty positions, will be required to work harder and longer, and are more likely to, one day, find themselves screaming, as Pvt. Hudson did in the “Aliens” movie, “This ain’t happening, man!!”

Meanwhile, I have often been accused of demonstrating an astounding arrogance. This is by my assertions to know stuff of which the rest of the industry is completely unaware. I assure any gentle reader this is not the position with which I began this little trek into the harsh, desolate and cruel radio wilderness. Nor does this make me any smarter than the average bruin. But, it does mean I have been uniquely educated and have enjoyed very strange but consistent successes by applying the knowledge and skills I have acquired over the years. My fantasy, early on, was that I would introduce these materials along with a litany of successes, and radio would go, “Wow! This is fantastic! Let’s get on with it – right now!” I was mistaken.

Further, it is not as if I have not presented – in more detail than I ever wanted – a number of the main communicative principles which, I submit, are necessary to turn this thing around. A radio organization can begin to build up the only components over which it would have complete and constant control. These include the on-air presentations and locally produced advertising - the spoken-word elements getting fired off the sticks.

Another advantage that would come from addressing these elements is that the stations down the street would be confused and have to contort themselves, consult tealeaves, OUIJA-boards and delve into the black arts to even begin to figure out what the hell was going on. Therefore, should any training take place, a non-disclosure agreement for everyone involved would have to be part of any arrangement. Plus, the immediate application of the strategies and methodologies by all engaged employees would have to be conditions of continued employment. These are not trifling matters.

Even as radio trundles along, it is easy to assert we are in trembling times. We are part of an industry that is committing Hare Kari – gradually. Audiences and advertisers have been bamboozled and abused for decades with shoddy products and services. Talent, instead of being encouraged, supported and occasionally sent off to a radio skool of some kind, somewhere, has been suppressed and/or eliminated. Many in the business have no idea how what is “normal” today is actually so totally unappealing, annoying and inefficient - unacceptable and injurious to the business.

Anyone, by the way, who would claim otherwise is not an informed, astute or studious broadcaster. They would, instead, be a person who just happens to be involved in some part or other of the radio industry.

Radio’s gaping, sucking, chest wound is its refusal to address a decades old “model-of-communications” – fundamentally. Any outfit that refuses the challenge is only widening the hole through which radio’s life fluids and funds will be spilling onto the floor.
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Re: What's It Going To Take...?

Postby pave » Mon Feb 29, 2016 7:01 am

All That - First This
In a recent release, media man Mark Ramsey made a number of astute observations about radio — observations that deserve greater dissemination and, even more, serious consideration. As regular readers know, this space has been dedicated to the insistence of and the providing alternates for radio’s continued and tragic refusal to make any progress whatsoever in a field (communications) that is, otherwise, overrun by innovations and experimentations.

Some of Mark’s comments (http://www.markramseymedia.com) are re-produced here:

“Fundamentally,” says Mark, “radio personalities and the folks who hire you need to recognize that your job is not to spin tunes. You are not an organic iPod, a playlist with a heart. No, no.

Here is why you exist:

To be in the moment, “live” with us
To tell us things we didn’t know, but are glad we do now
To lift our mood
To be a spokesperson for the culture that you share with us
To tell stories that fascinate or move us
To be a friend when we need one
To be that mirror that our best friends are
To anchor an experience we all share together
To help make our lives better in tangible ways
To make us laugh or cry or spend precious extra minutes in our driveway
To inform, educate, and entertain us
To be the part of our family that never lets us down
To share your musical enthusiasm with us, if the brand is built on music enthusiasts
To share your memories with us, if the brand is built on music with a history
To reveal your soul to us and show us your humanity
To know what we care about and care back.”

While absolutely the case, what Mark proposes also requires individuals who are:

a.) aware they are not yet, but who are willing, to be trained

b.) socially cognizant beyond their own peer group

c.) holders of an already, well-developed sense of humour

d.) educated and practiced enough to throw together at least two cogent sentences back-to-back

e.) versed in the intricacies of vocal timing, tempo, and tonalities

f.) being engaged by an organization that will support their progress as communicators, through what, in other enterprises, is called “the R&D budget”

g.) specifically educated enough to know the linguistic distinctions appropriate for electronic broadcasts, compared to those of other, analogue presentations

h.) a willingness to take on a Gulliverian lifestyle while toiling for management who never read the Emancipation Proclamation — all for minimal wages — and whatever else can be collected along the off-ramps.

My response to Mark included the comments: “…but, if you’re ready to get this project off the skids…so am I. Gawd knows the stations are in no position, nor are they motivated, to address these issues.”

While Mark’s comments are bang-on accurate, they do allude to the premise that all that need be done is for management to turn the green light on. If only. The hole we have dug for ourselves is a lot wider and deeper than a few heaping shovels of “personality” and a dash of “creativity” will ever cure.

While Mark doesn’t say so directly, it is no stretch to point out that it is the responsibility of every radio station owner to put in place the systems and strategies that will guarantee the results to which Mark alludes. This is not going to happen – not soon and not in any general, industry-wide context.

Now, I’m not saying the following is an issue for radio that is pervasive and invariant. What I am saying is that it is everywhere and a constant. I submit that, of the points I have suggested (above), the greatest among possible equals is g.) educated enough to know the linguistic distinctions appropriate for electronic broadcasts compared to those of other, analogue presentations. This is the matter of “Clarity and Precision in Communications” that was addressed in my last piece.

Until these communicative factors are mastered and applied, any other creative efforts run the risk of being rendered failed and inadequate attempts. Great “creative” — on-air or commercial — can be instantly ruined by failing to communicate effectively in the body of any given broadcast content.

While radio has had, pretty much, a free run of the place for decades, the encroachment by so-called interlopers, tourists, marauding corporate predators, and squatters will continue to ravage the territory that was once the exclusive domain of terra radio. It don’ matter a whit that we mosey across the range with our Colts-45s slung low in the holster an’ declarin’, “We don’t cotton to sheepherders in these here parts!” The shepherds have already overrun the territory; they’re pointin’ an’ laughin’ at us, and they are better armed.

Further, they continue their onslaught, secure in their conclusions that radio will not be launching a retaliatory campaign anytime soon. They are also safe in concluding that most radio management will continue to be frozen in their inactivity.

Even so, many radio keeners and apologists will smugly reiterate the (accepted) reality that radio still enjoys impressive market penetration. Fine. Like an old and now-useless trophy, it looks great on the mantle and is a gentle reminder of better days. No more.
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Re: What's It Going To Take...?

Postby pave » Sat Mar 05, 2016 7:18 am

Radio's Limiting Values/Beliefs
Unlike so many corporate producers of packaged foods, radio is not knowingly attempting to make consumers fat, sick, and crazy. Radio, however, does depend on consumer gullibility and ignorance to maintain its position as the number-five major media provider. Consumers, meanwhile, are waking up to how they are being skewered by any number of corporate and government organizations. They don’t seem to like it, either.

Although many of us “insiders” have been aware for decades of the systematic, cynical, and intended destruction of the very elements that provide the products and services that we are expected to deliver, audiences and advertisers have only just begun to catch on.

What, to my mind, is even more sobering than the decline in appeal and effect that radio is experiencing, is the acceptance the latest generation of owners, managers, and line staff have for the status quo of radio. Many are operating as if the way things are is the way things are supposed to be! In other words, they have little appreciation for those useful values that were available in the past, and no expectations for, or awareness of, potential improvements for the future.

In a previous piece, I told of a question that reveals beliefs and values. As a reminder, that question is: “What would I have to believe about myself and/or my environment in order for these (insert any undesirable personal behaviours) to be there?” Let us put the premise against some ownership and management behavior and note what oozes out.

There are no arguments against the following, so let’s go with this one: Ownership and management spend the least they can on on-air and spot-production talent. That being the case, one can consider the underlying beliefs and values that would have to be there to support the behaviors. There are a number of possibilities.

1.) This is necessary to maintain viability, if not profitability.

2.) Headquarters mandates these behaviours – as much as we may disagree.

3.) There are no alternatives available to correct these issues – and continue to make money.

4.) We have been getting away with shafting audiences and advertisers for decades, and I’m okay with that.

And there they are in stark and ugly clarity – the beliefs and values that have been driving radio for decades. Further, these positions are advertised in the foyers and reception areas of stations all over the country by the obvious displays of the bleached, staked skulls of former jocks, program directors, and copywriters. They serve to remind all who enter to “abandon hope.”

This is an untenable situation, of course, especially with the hordes girding their loins and mustering just on the other side of the hill. The odd reconnaissance-in-force from other media has already shaken radio to its core. Ownership has not been made so aware or are so impressed as the REMs (rear echelon mothers) that they are. I appreciate the beliefs and values as represented (above) are real – pink slip, kicked-to-the-curb real. But, they are not necessarily true. They most certainly are not useful.

I had a marvelous visit and supper with an old radio buddy last week who was one of the last to finally cave in to realities and sell out his stand-alone medium market stations (AM/FM) to corporate radio interests. His was one of the last stations in the market to maintain a “live and local” stance with his 34 full-time employees.

To his credit, he openly admits he was, with respect to expenses, in way over his head when he went up against “minimalized, corporate slick.” Further, he was operating on a traditional model of “live” radio that was, in hindsight, locked in by already established formats, traditions, and accepted dogma. The unfortunate fact remains: Even though the station was managed by sincere, lifelong, broadcasting professionals, they still weren’t very good at it! That was reflected in a lack of audience and advertiser participation, and that effective advertising was not being produced. Corporate came in, blew out more than half the staff, and managed to get along quite nicely, anyway – at reduced costs. Who could blame such a strategy other than those being gored by the company’s oxen?

Corporate radio may be finding itself in another very current and desperate situation – that of being in a position where talent in the affected departments will become essential – necessary – again. The problems lie in that management demonstrates they are in no position to find, identify, train, or pay for these required individuals.

Nobody in music radio can argue that we are operating on minimal talent in all areas, particularly in on-air and advertising production departments. That we have been (more or less) getting away with it for decades may always be a mystery to me. I believe, however, that boat ride is coming to a close, especially as other media get our range and may be about to put a couple down our funnels.

As to value/belief #1: Viability and profitability will increase only by generating superior programming and advertising content (see: “hordes”).
As to value/belief #2: Ownership can either choose to reconsider their position on these matters or wait until circumstances demand they do so – a terrifying situation with no assured, satisfactory outcome. It is still a “choice point” and there is still time.
As to value/belief #3: Of course there are alternatives – seminars, courses, trainings, and materials that will address these issues, the application of which will generate further, ongoing, and long-term success. These new techniques and strategies are also, quickly, becoming necessary components.
As to value/belief #4: Those who hold this position may find themselves in line to be bleached, staked, and mounted in station foyers right beside the jocks, program directors, and copywriters who are “no longer with us” – much sooner than expected. And, oh boy! Will they be surprised?!
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Re: What's It Going To Take...?

Postby pave » Fri Mar 18, 2016 1:47 pm

Radio’s JT8D
Despite the following, there is still a chance.
In the late ‘70’s, my agency pal and I started making bi-weekly flights from Calgary to Edmonton’s ITV studios to record TV spots for Sportchek – a provincial sporting goods retailer with its greatest, national growth still ahead of it. My associate, Billy-Bob, was the agency producer. I was the copy editor, V/O guy and on-camera presenter, with Bill (affectionately, I guess) tagging me as “The Meat”. (“Cue the ‘roast’.”)

The always-full flight only took about 45 minutes, but it was still an experience of extreme terror, from boarding to shutdown at the arrivals gate. The jet engines on the 737-200’s, although modern at the time, were the model JT8D’s. They produced about 800 pounds of thrust and were of the coal-burning variety. This is why a takeoff roll felt like it took up the better part of 2 counties before it was “rotate” and “wheels up”. The flaps stayed extended at 20-degrees for a suspiciously longer period. Passengers were trained to help with takeoffs by, on cue, grabbing their armrests and pulling up – forcefully. We would also be chanting, “Get up! Get up! Today! Now!!”

We would land at “Edmonton Muni” – an inner city strip that was about 3 blocks long. The safety stop measures were in the understanding that unless those thrust reversers worked perfectly, we were all going to be butted up against a building and bailing out of the emergency exits into the shrubbery – with soiled undies and in front of a pack of surly Edmontoni-ites.

Our own offices and studios were out by the Calgary airport, so, if we were outside, we could always tell when one of those beauties was leaving – by the billowing trails of smoke, the smell of burning coal and the shattering noise – much louder in winter… which was most of the time.

Eventually, reason prevailed and continuing the operation of “The Muni” was brought into question. Hearings were held, of course. The story goes that one of the more compelling pieces of evidence to support the closing was demonstrated by a substantial number of office workers who, for years, had a direct line-of-sight to the end of the runway. All of them trooped into the hearing room and all had a certain, facial “look” that was frozen in place. This was the look more famously known as the one Macaulay Culkin was sporting in “Home Alone” after shaving - and slapping on the lotion.

In the ensuing years, the fleet of 737’s improved drastically and became the most popular series of equipment in the history of commercial aviation. Today’s models are so powerful, clean, efficient and quiet, they can land and take off from a table napkin without anyone noticing, and without leaving a stain from the engines, the passengers or flight crew.

Now, about those JT8D engines: Did they all get scrapped as newer, better models came online? No, they did not. Radio bought them and wired/taped/stapled them to their stations. Even today, they get run up to full power with little or no maintenance. They are noisy, smoky, smelly, hard on coal-fuel and inefficient. The pervasive ownership and management position on these engines, however, is still: “So long as they’re turnin’ and burnin’ – we’re still earnin’.” Extraordinarily, like those in other endeavors – people can get used to anything. Things get weird, however, when the racket and pollution are being indignantly defended!

Radio’s equivalent of the JT8D engine is its “model-of-communication” - a model that has not changed one iota in 40 years, and more. As a result, radio hasn’t even begun to realize its own communicative potentials. This is directly because of radio leadership refusing to engage in any R&D – whatsoever. Radio also refuses to project itself into a future that includes major, significant improvements and dizzying prosperity, because the leadership demonstrates no belief that such a scenario is even possible or how to go about making such improvements.

Corporately consolidated radio blew its chance for any improvements almost immediately after a number of those leviathan consolidations took place. To be fair, radio before consolidation was also making no attempts at improvement beyond tweaking and tinkering. But then, it wasn’t slashing and burning either.

The (above) claim is, I realize, stupefying. It is also not a new assertion. So, I shall repeat it a little more precisely: The circumstances in which radio finds itself is a direct result of radio’s leadership refusing to engage in any R&D on how to communicate better and more effectively – whatsoever.

The line being expressed by radio people today and in decades past has been: “There are no secrets in radio.” The premise was that everything a radio station was doing was available in real time – right there, coming out of the box. Everything could be determined and copy-catted almost immediately. This is categorically inaccurate.

Not only have there been and are there many “secrets” in radio, ownership, management and those in the trenches are completely oblivious to the notion that these so-called “secrets” even exist! It is reasonable to assume that nobody is going to search out a treasure about which they have no knowledge. My challenge. My responsibility.

Nobody working in radio wants to be butted up against a building and diving into the bushes. But, so long as it remains so horribly underpowered, much of radio runs the risk of becoming a pile of scrap at the end of the runway. Sadly, for some outfits, this is likely. There is no chance the whole industry is going to start making the necessary adjustments required to proceed effectively, and to rescue itself. A smart and/or lucky few might be astute enough to take up the challenge. The prognosis, though, is grim.

Further, the 737’s of old had a maximum cargo weight that could never be exceeded. Modern, corporate radio is trying to drag itself into the air with extra tons of slag-debt tied to its tail. That’s spectacularly over the limit of every JT8D.
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Re: What's It Going To Take...?

Postby pave » Wed Mar 30, 2016 8:53 am

Too Deep For Sheep
There are certain kinds of research that are extremely useful. Radio asking audiences what they want is not one of them. Accepting those surveys as meaningful has only done radio massive damage. Ownership jumped all over the research that suggested how audiences wanted “more tunes – less talk” and, by deeming that research as significant, radio drove off the cliff.

Further, by the time radio had been consolidated, it then got bogged down in the exercise of limiting or eliminating multiple stables of high-strung on-air staffs and burnt out spot-cobblers. The industry-wide exercise did result in a slight whittling down of corporate frustrations. Timely, convenient, destructive and self-serving, that!

Meanwhile, there is the more recent phenomena of “on-demand everything”. Platforms are available where audiences can pick & choose their favorite tunes, design lists, separate them by genres, color them by category, order pizza and buy cut-rate car insurance. This is, supposedly, very exciting stuff. And I suppose it could be – for those whose interests are only “about the music” and who are also retentive enough to take the time and make the effort to go through the exercises.

We have dozens of music channels on our cable TV services and uncountable more online from which I can choose any number of uber-genres, sub-genres, particular favorites and transformational, hypnotic, Tibetan chants – all commercial and announcer-free. They, however and practically, serve me as no more than a background din. And frankly, I find I get bored fairly easily. A steady stream of “The Greatest Hits Of The ‘80’s” or some other iconic era just tuckers me out. I have a fairly low annoyance threshold that cranks up surprisingly quickly. I am not a better human being because of any of it.

Radio – at one time – would have been close to the antithesis of and relief from any ongoing, creeping banality. Non-stop music is nowhere near what it is cracked up to be. “Muzak” would cover it nicely. Radio, however, continues to behave as if it really is “all about the music”. What an incredibly lazy and unacceptable approach! There is a reason that bars hire bands. Ownership still has to sell some booze to make budget. The band is only a demographic targeting device. Big distinctions, too, in audience appeals, are obvious for both “The Skull Krushers” and “The Velvetones”.

Recently, a radio commentator suggested that stations begin approaching their audiences with “FOMA” (Fear Of Missing Out) elements in mind. I agree that’s worthy advice. Big-league morning show performers are attempting that. The single presenters who are working other day parts at almost every other radio station have no time, no opportunity and no permission to even make the attempt. (Whether they have the skills, and are even able to piece together and deliver a few of these gems is another matter.)

The ongoing, working reality for the vast majority of on-air presenters is one of “FOFA” (Fear Of Falling Asleep). They won’t be found scribbling down bits, gag lines or generating shtick – certainly not while Facebook, station website and V/T’ing duties are on their plates, or when toilet paper rolls have to be replaced.

Elsewhere, I enjoyed a video a while back of a large flock of sheep moving from one pasture to another. Capturing the scene was accomplished through the use of a drone at around 300 feet or so. What was remarkable was how, like massive flocks of birds, the sheep were able to move gracefully and in unison and to do so through – unbeknownst to me – a form of communication among the group that kept the whole process from becoming a video of sheep-carnage.

It is also unlikely the sheep had any sentient (conscious) awareness of however each of them was receiving and responding to these instructions to move this way or that. There was too much space between the camera and the flock for anyone to see or hear one sheep turning to his companion and saying, “Hey Gary. Did you get a message just before we all turned left?” It was during one of these viewings that I was struck by the similarity between this huge flock and the radio business.

Some pundit, years ago, made the comment: “Once you’ve heard ten radio stations – you’ve heard them all.” Seems about right. When radio was consolidating into overwhelming, toxic swamps of robo-matic noise - clogging airwaves and blotching the media landscape - did anybody stand their ground or attempt alternative, programming strategies? Why, no. They did not. Nor could they.

Over the ensuing years, has any radio organization found the status quo to be limiting and unsatisfactory to the degree they would try different approaches? Why, no. They have not. (Format changes don’t account for anything other than the equivalent of flapping a white flag.)

Has any radio organization made any attempt to engage or invest in, what the rest of the world calls “R&D”? No. They have not.

Has any radio organization ever pondered why it is they and their peers all respond to the same set of stimuli in exactly the same way? Not to my knowledge.

These then, I realized, are the behaviors of obedient, pre-programmed sheep! Sheep, by the way, have limited futures. They will either be sheared or slaughtered. (There are also other, disturbing rumors.) Those who are allowed to live a little longer will still become mutton – old sheep meat.

Radio cannot satisfactorily claim the ignorance of the beasts. Nor can leadership justify the colossal blunders in programming and ad creation that are being artificially maintained on life support. I have to assume the concepts of “change” and “improvement” are being considered as horribly painful and expensive ideals – perhaps even unnecessary. Radio requires more well-trained, “live & local” presenters communicating far more effectively - and much more often.

The awful irony is in that cures and relief have been available – for years. I wonder if there are any among the flock who can make these distinctions. Or, perhaps all this is too deep for sheep.
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Re: What's It Going To Take...?

Postby pave » Sun Apr 17, 2016 8:00 am

Merlin In The Mix

I think most radio-people would agree: We seldom, if ever, have the conversation about the innate power of radio - its ability, or perhaps better stated as: its certainty of impacting on the minds and emotions of listeners. That radio, in spite of its worst efforts, still maintains a mid-90’s percent penetration speaks directly to this innate power of the medium.

We don’t have the conversation because most people in radio would hear the comment and say, “Huh? What innate power!?” Radio cannot make any claims to generating these high penetration numbers because of anything the industry has done of its own volition and with purpose. To the contrary, radio has been consistently sabotaging itself – draining the blood and cutting away at the marrow and bone that support the broadcasting body. Plus, it seems to me, they do all this hacking and bashing with absolutely no consideration of any consequences.

The industry management and the line staff, to my knowledge, have never made “radio’s innate power” a topic of serious discussion - never mind research and development. One result of that is the ongoing presumption by programmers that radio presentations, particularly commercials, as they are produced today, are acceptable products that are arrived at by generating copy that is consistent with the “newspaper-of-the-air” variety. By that, I mean those spots that are all content – loaded with information, demands for behaviors and drastically failed attempts at connecting with audiences on a “one-to-one” basis.

I agree there is no argument that these “newspaper-of-the-air”, or, more commonly referenced as “direct response” ads do function to a somewhat satisfactory degree. Did they not, we wouldn’t have an industry about which I could bitch and complain. Nevertheless, we can all be accused of taking the medium for granted. The further debasing of radio – over time - to a cheapest, lowest common denominator of broadcasting has not received anywhere near the challenges and criticisms ownership and leadership have coming.

It's not as if, over the decades, we have not had every opportunity to study, learn and exploit any newly discovered or (sometimes) past, effective approaches that will enhance audience participation and advertiser results. Nor has any other broadcaster of my acquaintance ever made or accepted the most basic of distinctions that come from an audience member accessing the medium. That distinction: Radio has a greater impact as an “emotional” medium than it does as a “content“ medium. In terms of delivering radio, this is not an either/or circumstance. It is about the priority of employing the most powerful of approaches while maintaining only the necessary content.

When I say “emotion”, I mean a great deal more than a giggle, perhaps some pathos, or an irritated snort. I am referring to all those elements of communicating which engage and enhance the participation of audience members and the generation of feelings – of so many kinds. Only one example is the use of “sensory-based” language patterns. Radio’s presenters (on air and ad production) are in the practice of applying only the most base of communications – failing (almost) pervasively to apply the sensory predicates of taste, touch, sight, hearing and olfactory elements that every member of the audience can experience.

Providing just sensory descriptives alone fires off all kinds of neural-synaptic processes in an audience member. Great stuff. “Majic”. Radio, however, survives on “hard, basic content” – delivered poorly. And that’s not near enough to move a station or an advertiser toward more prosperity. I am afraid that any “aha” moments that might have gone on in the minds of ownership and leadership along the way have been either ignored or repressed into the basements of unconsciousness.

I might hope that broadcasters will consider these aspects of electronic (not print) communications – even at an intuitive level – as concepts worthy of immediate consideration and, possibly - application. My position is one on which the industry requires that these materials be implemented immediately. The evidence that supports these premises I have been presenting is already available. Some of the material is neurologically based. Some of it has roots in psychology. All of it has been tested, and all of it can be demonstrated. Perhaps most importantly, all of it can be learned and replicated by local. Line staffs.

Instead and over decades, we got caught up in depending on the tunes while debilitating the talkers and the writers - never realizing the extraordinary results that are possible by accessing the mammoth communications and influence tools to which we all have had access.

I was monitoring Saga’s new, so-called “radio” format called “The Outlaw”. This one is of the Classic Country variety. One of the splitters provided the following: “…and with no DJ’s to get in the way.” Yes, really! I insist that some factions of the business have completely lost their direction – that is, if they ever had one. This droning and toxic example of a real radio station is an embarrassment. It’s not “radio”. It’s “Muzak”. {I confess, the voice talent doing the promos and splitters had a nifty drawl, a fine attitude and an overall terrific delivery.)

Meanwhile and after all these articles have been presented, the need for radio to address its own models of communication has yet to be addressed. Put in a more ironic fashion: Radio is a communications industry that refuses to re-address its methods of communication. Shown this scenario, I expect leadership from other industries would be frozen in their tracks – aghast, stymied and stupefied at the lack of attention paid to the most important element of the radio world.

Still, radio’s innate power remains unexploited because ownership and management have no idea of its existence – never mind how to take advantage of it. So powerful is this innate property, it could be likened to “The Merlin In The Mix”.
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Re: What's It Going To Take...?

Postby pave » Mon Apr 25, 2016 1:31 pm

They Can’t Help It
A startling revelation for me during the last few years of providing these articles has been the intensity of so many radio people who come barging in - outraged, spitting cobra-venom, and hurling flaming defenses for music-radio’s status quo. One apologist even went so far as to insist that audiences “liked” locally produced commercials. Sure. As most of us also like being continuously poked in the forehead with a fork.

Uniformed and gullible keeners show up like cheerleading squads for a school team that is 0 and 16 for the season – as if there were some nobility or benefits in propping up or being “loyal” to a loser. Radio is not about demonstrating some twisted form of “high school spirit”. It is about providing high quality services to audiences and advertisers and being rewarded for those accomplishments. Given radio’s current condition, I am only speculating about responsibilities and potentials, neither of which radio is even attempting to address, never mind realize.

I have some suspicions that are based on the behaviors of the majority of radio enterprises. Well-known and spectacularly successful stations aside, there is so much delusional thinking foisted on station staffs by managers who would be – if not blissfully - certainly unaware of their own crippled positions. The delusional, however and because of that lack of awareness, also sleep well most nights. Further, these same folks are completely congruent in their sincerity when they deliver whatever toxic and/or useless instructions they supply to the troops.

Those in management who are slightly less secure about passing along whatever decisions are being handed down get only a little help from deodorants. A few of their colleagues still catch the telltale olfactory evidence. Distributing half-baked crusts like they were manna from Gott in Himmel can be a spirit-crushing exercise.

It is the desperate, however, that are generating those acidic aromas that come from living in a constant state of fear. It is they who suffer most. The truly terrified are producing a stench that could knock a buzzard off a honey-diver’s wagon at 50 paces. This current business of corporate music-radio is making them sick to their minds, sick to their faces, sick to their guts and sick to their pants. It is an ugly scene. Children are made to turn their heads and are gently led away.

As I sit here beside the kitty-litter box in my mom’s dank smd pungent basement, clutching my second-last bag of Tostitos and passing gas, I am reminded of the greatest of my revelations of the past years. It has to do with radio’s solid refusal to consider any approaches to the issues at hand. That is, unless deck chair frenzies constitute “addressing the issues”. Consultants won’t do it, either. (I would be remiss if I did not acknowledge those solid consultants who can work with talent – to some degree, and who are brought in to extinguish bush fires. Water bombing a single campfire, however, is still a little extreme.)

As a brief review and for the benefit of those who have come into the business in the last 20 years or so: Since consolidation, the new, corporate owners have spent these last decades applying their version of a “scorched earth” policy. Not realizing they had just bought into “show business” or “the communications business”, they began to burn off the talent – on air and in the creative departments. After all, they figured. It’s about the music anyway. Plus, the janitors can write spawts. “Research” was produced that demonstrated how audiences had no preferences for the talkers. It was all about the tunes. That remains the pervasive position. They were mistaken at the time and they are mistaken now, particularly given the number of sources of music that are available today.

Meanwhile, Cumulus has been a recent target-of-opportunity for massive criticisms – all of it earned. Although unfortunate, would Mary (Berner) even recognize an alternate and useful strategy for improvement - even if it were lavishly laid out on a fine linen tablecloth, a fancy set of dishware, sparkling cutlery and an interpreter standing by? More importantly, and in fairness to Mary: Who in the organization has those absolutely required-right-freakin’-now strategies? I suspect there are also gatekeepers on both sides of Ms. Berner’s office doors. (Not much gets in – not much gets out.)
“Deck chair frenzies” do nothing for results or morale.
Philosophically, it can be argued, radio is already bankrupt.
Still, there is some hope – for some organizations – maybe – I guess. But, not before a whole new communications model is understood, learned and applied – pervasively.

If it ever seems I am insisting that on-air and creative “talent” be brought back in droves – making everything alright again - I would be dangerously wrong and/or misunderstood. My position: Unless existing on-air and creative talent is thoroughly retrained to be proficient communicators, first, any attempt at bussing in another crop of potential writers, announcers, presenters or “personalities” would be more disastrous than doing nothing.

One of my more strident detractors put a sniffy, rhetorical question to me by asking: If none of the 13,000 radio stations were doing it “my way” were they all doing it wrong!? The short answer is: That’s exactly what I have been saying all along! Granted, if I didn’t know otherwise, I might also wonder about the arrogance of someone making such a statement. But, I do, so I don’t.

I am, of course, aware of many wildly successful radio stations around the country, and good on ‘em. My contentions have always been about the magnificent, but unrealized potentials for improvements and greater prosperity that are available to radio – including the biggies. While some nests continue to be feathered quite nicely, the industry is still holding down the number 5 spot on the list of preferred media. Many outfits don’t even get into the mix. But, that’s what happens when alligator hunters are brought in to run a stable of thoroughbred racehorses. They just can’t help themselves. They shoot the stock anyway.
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Re: What's It Going To Take...?

Postby pave » Sun May 01, 2016 10:41 pm

A New Revelation - Again
I have already confessed to spending a little too much studio-time in my mom’s basement. As damp, dark and creepy as it might be, it is still, however, a retreat from other pursuits I might follow – like getting a real job. Mom’s twin cats, “Ratshid” and “Ratshid”, stare at me with undisguised contempt. They are disgustingly aware I‘m the one who controls the food-flow and cleans out the litter – sometimes.

In this environment, I read a snide contribution from a radio manager who was determined to school me on the way things really are. His contention was that on-air presentations and the writing and production of spots was a small part of the business – “a very, very small part of the business.”

I heard a chip of my skull ricocheting off the concrete wall behind me. This was because a portion of my brain had just detonated. Internal, cranial pressures brought on by outrage are known to do that. I was, indeed, indignant – righteously so - when reading that poisoned missive. How, I wondered, could anybody make such a bald-faced and fatuous statement? This had to be “craziness-in-a-clown-suit”.

I must have roared. Mom hollered from upstairs, “Keep that ****’in racket down!” By then, I had leaped out of my chair and was leaning over the washing machine – hyperventilating. I realized by the acrid stink that the bare 60-watt bulb above the washer was scorching my hair. I jolted back and got tangled up; flailing at the extended, curly fly-paper strips that had been dangling there since the Eisenhower administration.

That’s when an overwhelming revelation of precise clarity hit: My caustic colleague was sincere – and he was correct! His was an accurate representation of his personal radio reality. On-air presentations and the writing and production of ads were, for him (and too many others), “a very, very small part of the business”!

“Holy crapoly”, I muttered to myself, as I was sticking my head under the tap to douse my still-smoldering hair. “Radio is and has been stagnant for the last 20 years because those exact elements have been suppressed and/or tossed aside. Yet, they are the only elements that can establish commercial radio as an even more dynamic medium! Yet, none of that is deemed to be important!”

“Sales” constitutes the first, and sometimes the only priority. Based on the overwhelming evidence of what radio has been producing in the areas of on-air presentations and commercial content, I am satisfied most radio-folk have little reference or perspective on these extraordinary matters of consequence. “More sales” is the salvation. End of chat.

I repeat: It would be easy enough to presume I am urging a trip on a “wayback machine”, and encouraging radio to start hiring a rabbit warren of “live & local” presenters, and more folks for the creative departments. I have never suggested that was an immediate option – not nearly as quickly or as easily as a number of concerned radio-people are suggesting that such is necessary.

I have plowed through crates of Tostitos here in Mom’s subterranean lair – cranking out articles that suggest nothing of the sort. I agree that, ultimately, the hiring of more talent is part of the solution. But, not until the existing staff have been taught, trained and become competent in a completely new and fundamentally different approach to broadcast communications – a great deal of which I have provided in previous articles.

Meanwhile, nobody has ever been able to successfully challenge the following propositions with anything more than bleating and defensive criticisms.
- On-air talent has been so suppressed and, often, eliminated to the degree that renders them as little more than hard-wire programmed, toy dolls of the kind that come with a pull-string and a ring that gets yanked out. This results in continuous, squawking - irrelevant noise belched out in almost every station in every market around the country.
- Creative has been stuffed into a bottom drawer and ignored – the results of which include spots that are banal, annoying, unappealing, insulting and not nearly as effective as advertisers, particularly the locals, deserve.

Complete Solutions – tried, tested and found-to-be-extraordinarily effective – are actually available. But, how many astute readers are even willing to consider any of them? None so far! The evidence, or rather, the lack of it, suggests any communicative issues were put to bed decades ago. These elements of the radio model, however, are not sleeping. They were enthusiastically smothered with a pillow.

I have been continuously asserting that radio is being squelched by dogma, traditions and assumptions of its own making. This dogma is being followed – religiously – by stand-alone operators and the largest of the consolidating corporations. It can be argued that, when it comes to the communicative elements of radio, they don’t know they don’t know while they claim to know. The following quote might shed some light: “It ain't what you don't know that gets you into trouble. It's what you know for sure that just ain't so.” – Mark Twain.

I have claimed before that radio, because of its electronic delivery, enjoys an “innate power” that is unique and consistent only with other electronic media. Without it and based on the cheap and shoddy advertising and programming content we (generally) provide, we wouldn’t be discussing the current, menial prosperity of much of the business. Rather than floundering around in its own basement, a radio organization could still be a “category killer”, and rise to the top of desirable and, most importantly, effective media.

My own expectations of personally impacting on radio-in-general are nil. Radio is likely to remain mired in a swamp of stagnation. After decades of discovering, collating and testing, I am also unwilling to reveal the details of my model because some unknown individuals make discourteous demands. I may, one day, be introduced to a leader who is cautiously interested or inquisitive. With that unique individual, I would have a meaningful and useful conversation – while introducing a new revelation.
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Re: What's It Going To Take...?

Postby the-real-deal » Mon May 02, 2016 12:09 am

Since no one else will comment, here, I will say this: (as I've said, before)

The road to HELL is paved with good intentions,

and,

At least you have a philosophy.

Good for you, son !


-TRD
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Re: What's It Going To Take...?

Postby pave » Sat May 14, 2016 9:47 am

As much as I do appreciate the sentiment, TRD, I am obliged to state that what I offer is less a "philosophy", and more a set of methodologies - tried, true and demonstrated to be extraordinarily effective. Besides, it's easy for someone to discount a philosophy - less so a set of strategies and techniques. (Although, that happens, as well.) :crybaby:
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