Why are you reporting?
Local Radio Still Rules?
Going Backwards With Radio
A Storm Is Brewing
Telephonic Surveys Now A Waste Of Time
A radio group announced last month that they were severing ties with Arbitron, citing problems with measuring audiences in smaller markets and rural areas, and was going with a telephonic measuring system called the Eastlan group.
New Northwest Broadcasters owns over 30 stations in four western states- Oregon, Washington, Montana, and Alaska. In my opinion, this move is like going from playing music from hard drive back to throwing two turntables and bringing back 45's and 33's into a smoky studio with live on-air talent 24/7. In other words, they're going backwards technologically, and logically, this move makes absolutely no sense.
Ten years ago, as more and more folks got cell phones and dropped landlines altogether, call out research tanked on just about everything firms were trying to get a handle on. The first question I ask folks is this- if you see a name of a research group or a company you don't recognize on your cell OR landline phone, are you going to answer it? I am safe in saying 9 out of 10 folks I have asked that question to have told me no, for various reasons. Some don't have the time. Others have the time but simply don't want to be bothered after a long day at work. It's an election year, so there will be many other companies not affiliated with radio station research calling homes and cell phones as well.
Methodology of these type of surveys is also suspect. There isn't much a company can do when you're sending out diaries for people to fill out to "help" them if they're confused. In call out research, however, there is an ability/opporunity for the company to reach out to folks that will "help" the listener (the caller they've reached) determine the station they listen to if they don't know it. Many call-out companies will try and get a definitive answer, and although they are most times instructed not to give call letters, they have a job to do. They claim they don't lead the listener, but about 12 years ago, I got a call from this group. I didn't tell them who I was and gave them vague answers. Since we didn't commission them, I waited to see if they would drop a frequency name down if I mentioned a specific format. Ours was not mentioned. Theirs was.
When a group announces they've signed a major deal involving several markets with a research firm, it is almost a guarantee that stations owned by that group will show well in telephonic surveys provided by the vendor, in this case, Eastlan. Some call it buying a survey. I can only think that if my group is the one that has commissioned these people in my market and 7 or 8 others in 4 states, we're going to do quite well. We always notice that the stations owned by this group that have commissioned this telephonic survey group do well in other markets. If they were that good, why are the Arbitron numbers so vastly different from their survey numbers? Telephonic survey organizations don't leave a return phone number, either. So if you truly DO want to talk to them, but they miss you, well, they miss you. Timing is everything.
Demographically, the older a person is, the less likely they'll have a cell phone and/or answer a call from an outisde interest group no matter who they are. Fraud is on the rise across the country, including telephone fraud, and older demographical listeners are more skeptical now more than ever on who, or what, is on the other end of the telephone.
Finally, the group across town had a station sent "below the line" in one survey because of on-air tactics used during the survey period. "If anybody calls you and asks what station you listen to, and you say K---, you COULD win 92 dollars and 50 cents in cold hard cash." I recently heard a promo that said, "Here's what happened the last time," meaning the last time one of their listeners was reached by a member of their staff was recorded and actually won money.....but the promo is at least 5 years old! One of the oldest tricks in the playbook is to make the listener- even those that just sample your station briefly-believe they will win money by giving call letters out that may not correspond to the actual favorite station of theirs, only to find it's the research firm, and not the promotions department of the radio station.
Telephonic surveys are a tough animal to not only execute properly, but the margin of error seems to be quite high. I'm not a huge advocate of mail out diary surveys, either, but given the choice, I would prefer the Arbitron method. Despite the anomalies you may find with unranked markets and year old county wide books, it's a much more time tested method of measuring audiences. People meters aren't the answer either, but call out research will soon be a memory along the lines of lava lamps, bean bag chairs, and ash trays filled to capacity in every studio in your building
5 Easy Steps
Right now, today, there are five easy things you can do that can make your radio stations sound better, and improve employee morale. Of course, many of you may do all of these things, and to you, kudos. You’re doing many of the right things to make you a winner. But, most PD’s that multi-task (have more than one station to program) can sometimes forget that even ONE station is important enough to keep it on and critique it. Though we’ll never be able to listen with “listener’s ears”, here are some great, simple ideas that can help you. 1. LISTEN TO……YOUR COMPETITOR. Though there is truth in paying attention to what you do on the air and that it indeed dwarfs anything the other guys might be doing in importance, just what are they doing that sounds good? EVERY station has its strengths. Did they recently start to play more currents, talk less, maybe put a jingle package in? Have they gutted their playlist? You won’t know the answer to those two basic questions unless you make it a habit to listen to them, objectively, once or twice a week for awhile. Maybe you’ll always believe that your station sounds better, and you have better talent, but you should never tune away thinking they simply don’t do ANYTHING right. Respect your competition, but never fear them or react to a major on-air move they’ve made by a knee-jerk reaction. PROACTIVE programming ALWAYS beats anything done in a reactive mode. 2. LISTEN TO…..THE ON-AIR SIGNAL. Truthfully speaking, if you’re both solid with the audio chain from studio to processing to STL to transmitter, most listeners will not notice the difference. But you, as a PD and radio fanatic, do notice subtle differences. Louder doesn’t always mean better! Consider the format, listener fatigue, and always try to be technologically better than your closest competitor. It does make a difference in the long run. 3. COMPLIMENT YOUR PEOPLE. Many stations are too busy in the course of everyday business to thank their clients, but just as importantly, they forget that each employee is as important as the next. Part-timers need to know they’re appreciated too. It doesn’t have to be a big scene, but simply an appreciative comment can go a long way next time you need a jock in a pinch to do something out of the ordinary day to day routine. If they know they’re appreciated, they’ll show you that respect in return. 4. KEEP AN OPEN MIND. No idea is a bad idea; some are simply better than others. When a co-worker, or a listener, comes up with an off the wall idea that you may not implement in 100 years, thank them for thinking of it, and if you do brush it aside, make mention to that person WHY it won’t work in that situation. I’ve had some incredibly goofy ideas thrown at me from some employees, but even one good one out of a hundred that you can implement is better than none. And give credit where credit is due to that person. I once worked for PD who nay-sayed all ideas from all of us, only to implement them in a couple of weeks and took full credit for it. 5. IMPROVE AND MAINTAIN YOUR WEBSITE. Yep, it’s another “non-traditional” radio task but a big necessity. I am amazed how many stations haven’t updated their website in months, with bios of talent long gone. Some have even flipped formats. The listener’s main connection in the 1970’s and 1980’s was the telephone to your station(s). Now, it’s your website. And if you can’t afford a webmaster or a vendor, keeping it simple is just fine, but make it neat, and CHECK YOUR SPELLING AND GRAMMAR. Remember, we’re in the communications industry. You may have all of these bases covered, or have people in place and THINK that these areas are covered. If you’re the PD/OM, though, it’s ultimately your head if these areas fail miserably, not necessarily the one you’ve assigned tasks to (engineering, production, promotions). A little follow through will go a long way.
Spanning The Globe
About a year ago, I received an e-mail from a listener of our classic rock station from Wagga Wagga, Australia. We stream our signal on line, and through a website that gives people a menu of stations that fit their listening habits, Jeff found our station and loved the music mix. Through correspondence of e-mails, I found Jeff to be very funny, down to earth, and knowlegable about music. But, there are obvious differences in how the English language can be interpreted. Still, he promised one day that the next time he visited the United States, he would stop by. We’ve had numerous e-mails from listeners from all over the country, and a few from abroad, that listen to any one of our five stations. Many that may be vacationing in California (10 minutes to the south of us) have made the trip up to meet us and see our studios. But never from “the land down under.” This past week, we got a very unusually early snowfall here. Though we’re used to snow, it never seems to amount to much this early. And, as I returned from lunch today, there was a rather large man with an accent I could barely comprehend talking to our receptionist. You guessed it. Geoff Read, from Wagga Wagga, Austrailia, had made a special trip from Southern California just to see the studios of the station he listens to while selling vehicles at a Hyundai dealership. Through two plus years of listening to our station, he knew much about our city, area, all of our disc jockey’s names...and was the center of attention for about two hours here. We had him live on all of our stations. It’s not every day that a person makes a special trip just to see the studio of the station he listens to every day. Well, at least not halfway around the world. Streaming on-line is cost prohibitive for some, but we’ve found it to be very beneficial to our cluster of stations. Though the local advertiser can say their product means nothing to a listener in another part of the country, or the world, Geoff mentioned 10 or more businesses off the top of his head that he had heard about and wanted to visit while here. They don’t have a bowling alley in his hometown of 60,000. So we comped him so that he can do something that he couldn’t do at home. His on air banter was quite good....and he complained that Australian radio “sucks and blows at the same time, mate.” For some stations, it’s probably not in the cards to stream audio for various reasons. We do it ourselves and have a room set aside with several servers and many daisy-chained computers so we can accommodate hits on all five stations. There are very reputable providers that will stream your station for a service, though. I don’t know any by name, but they do exist, and it’s a way to showcase your stations to people all around the world. At the end of the day, we knew some things about a part of the world we didn’t know before. We certainly made a new friend, though he’s thousands of miles away, living in a country where it will be 100 degrees in his hometown Christmas day, where cricket is massively more popular than baseball, but there are some common denominators, too. The biggest would be the music. Good music is good in any language. And, this is just a big reminder, in a little way, that we affect lives every day with what we do with our radio stations and on-air personalities. They may live next door, or half way around the world, but the magic of radio is still very much alive.
Award Winning Award Show
There seems to be an award show every weekend of the year now. I even got a flyer in my junk e-mail box this week about an award show for SHOELACES coming up in December. Not joking. Maybe it’s because of one too many elbows to the head in crowded places on my vertically challenged frame, but I’m not big for real crowded places. I deal with them. And there is a crowd at the New Music Awards. It’s just a different crowd. This show is unique in the aspect that it gives you the glitz and glamour of Hollywood, a red carpet entrance, and one of the most historic and popular venues in music history at the Avalon Theater, but you also feel as if you’re surrounded by friends once inside. That’s because you are. From the musicians, to the magazine staff, to the promoters, to the radio folks that can attend, it’s a show that is anticipatory every year. It marks the end of a long, hard year of work for all involved and all in attendance. It’s a time to celebrate, a time to relax and enjoy the fruits of our labor, even if it’s just for one night. (The only other “awards” show I enjoyed more was being the MC for our local Miss America qualifying Pageant. Any single guy would love to be backstage for two long rehearsals and the pageant with 18-24 beautiful, single, awe-inspiring women. But, I digress). Paul Loggins works the room like Barack Obama on election night. Smooth as butter, always a pleasantry for you, and will help you find your seat, find a cold beverage, make you feel as if you’re the only one he’s been waiting for to arrive. If Paul ever looks for another line of work, I would suggest Welcome Wagon, but, I’m not sure they could pay him enough. Seriously, find Paul after the show at the Tropicana Bar at the Roosevelt Hotel. He’ll be a little more relaxed then. And, like years past, I'll be able to find all of the single women in one spot by just finding Paul. I hear he’s somewhat attached now ladies, so a different path for us “run of the mill” fellas will have to be implemented this year. Larry Weir will look similar to the man that stayed up for 5 days in a row during the Apollo 13 mission as depicted in the movie. Very little actually goes wrong during the show, but that’s because Larry’s covered his bases times ten. However, don’t be surprised if you ask Larry directions to the restrooms and he answers you with, “Hey, buddy, how you doin’?” The show itself gives folks an opportunity to hear some great new musicians, see a few surprises, and recognize those in the industry that deserve it so much for their hard work this year. If we could, we’d give a “co-editor of the Year’ award to Paul and Larry. It is even more incredible that they now have offices in LA and Nashville and still do what they do week after week. Nobody really knows what will happen with radio, and records, and music in the not too distant future. Some say at least 7 percent of radio’s workforce has been laid off this year, and more cuts could be on the way. So the general idea this year is to “party like it’s 1999” and hope that 2009 will be good enough for all of us so we can do it all again next year. We all have a common denominator in this industry, and it’s brought even more to light by association with New Music Weekly and the New Music Awards. Welcome to Hollywood. Enjoy your stay, stick around a bit to sight-see, and I’ve been told that the Big 7 records table (country) is the best place to go for wayward PD’s, MD’s, and general radio folks to get a cold beverage. That’s insider information, or so I’m told. That doesn’t qualify as payola, it’s just “payback”....for those seemingly endless phone calls!
Anohter Banner Night In Tinseltown
It happened just a little later this year than usual, but the weatherman held out a perfect weekend for the New Music Awards held November 22nd at the Avalon Theater.
Congratulations to all nominees, and winners. And congrats as well go out to the house band that sounded like they had played together all year long. From the pre-award festivities to the glad-handing and consuming of beverages that transpired into the wee hours of Sunday morning, I would have to say the NMA's were a resounding success.
I'm not David Letterman, though one day I would like to be the house announcer just to say I did it once. But I do offer a top ten of this year's NMA's. Since it isn't Lettermanesque, it's not supposed to be funny. I'll do my best here, but I'm just taking some of the positives and writing about them.
10. BUCK MCCOY'S VERTICAL LEAP. Tim McGraw has nothing on Buck. He goes with both legs in the air, guitar in hand, and makes some NBA players look silly. Too bad he can't dribble. A basketball, I mean. Seriously, Buck hosted the show with grace, talent, and professinalism as always. Great job.
9. CHARLIE ALLEN. And his voice. His guitar. And a microphone. Enough said.
8. MINI TURKEY BURGERS AT THE AVALON. Hey, they've been serving these finger foods pre-event for the past three years and this year was the first actually planned my meal schedule around them. An amazing appetizer and the staff is always courteous there. I'm not sure what the hell is really in them, and maybe I don't wanna know, but.....hella good.
7. YOU CAN CHECK OUT ANYTIME YOU LIKE. But you never really leave the Hotel Roosevelt. An amazing place to stay if you're from out of the area. Yep, it's somewhat spendy, but you get trend with the spend. I'm thankful Larry and Paul couldn't hold this round mound of sound up long enough to complete the deal of tossing me in the pool, but the Roosevelt is probably as much of Hollywood as the Walk of Fame, Groman's Chinese Theater, or my second favorite hangout, up one from last year at number 6 (I really didn't do a countdown last year).....
6. HOOTERS. Right on the boulevard, right on the price and a great place to get a beverage and enjoy watching whatever it is you like to watch. Oh yeah....there's a TV in every nook and cranny too, in case you want to watch a game.
5. KADY MALLOY. Far from the Britney Spears imitation days of Idol, she reprised the role for a rendition of Womanizer with the band and nailed it. Simply nailed it, and did it on very short notice. She has a new project available that could be multi-format radio friendly for top 40, AC, and country (ala Carrie Underwood or Taylor Swift) so keep your eyes out for it. It was EASY to keep your eyes on her, though, during the show. She came out to LA from Houston on short notice after opening for Air Supply the week before. Look for great things from Miss Malloy.
4. LARRY WEIR AS THE MAD DIRECTOR. He never really breathes until the show is over, kind of sucks in air now and then, but boy, he loosens up quick once the curtains are down. Again, a great job from Larry and brother Tom who provided the excellent sound crew. Yep, missed the tour of Studio City Studio again. Maybe next year. Masika handled the green room duties quite well....when do we get to see Masika ON STAGE?
3. PAUL LOGGINS AND THE BOND GIRL. She WAS in one of the Bond films. I'm convinced. But if Hannah hasn't been, she should. Congratulations Paul. This was the first year your guest's picture was probably taken more than yours.
2. LADOT. They may not speak English, but those cab drivers get you where you want to go in a freakin' HURRY.
...and the number 1 thing about this year's New Music Awards?
.....the promise that has yet to be broken that next year's will be bigger and better than EVER.
A great time was had by all, and thanks once again to the weatherman for the 75 degree days and great nights that made it even more special. We beat the rain- by a week.
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