Can be relevant to any rock genre music stations leaving like The Sound

This was posted within the last half hour by a Facebook friend, Dred Scott (who BTW had a stint at 100.3 The Sound during their first year on the air); posted here because I think the content is worth sharing:

"Letter to the excellent industry info sheet The Sands Report. I know the guy who wrote this and it's one of the best things I've read it a while. As the saying goes: sad, but true.
"Radio can not get out of its own way. We continue to read articles that tell us how great we are. That’s like being a Republican who watches only Fox News or a Democrat who only watches MSNBC. You hear what you want from people who think the same as you. This is dangerous and reinforces your opinion. Opinion needs to be taken out of the radio equation.
Pull 100 teenagers into a room and ask them if any of them own an FM radio or even care what one is. Then ask them where they discover their music and it sure as hell is not FM radio. Why would anyone under 30 tune into Alternative radio? It’s a joke. The majority of the titles being played are over 25 years old, only appealing to the safe generation that grew up on Nirvana. Embracing technology? Ha! Most medium/small market station’s websites are terrible.
The big boys will be able to play for a while, but not when we (as an industry) figure out that a bunch of old consultants from that heyday of Alt dictate what is on most major Alt stations. A few old dudes decide what 18 to 34 year olds supposedly want to hear. Shazam, streaming data, it all tells us this is off the mark. But sadly it is all radio has ever known. They were once great jocks. They became great PDs. Then they aged, and to stay relevant, we called them consultants...The formula has stayed the same all these years later. How does the industry expect to grow? Try to find people in radio under 30? Good luck. The kids see the future. We just keep reading our own news telling us we are great and a strong medium. My ass."
—PD’s name and station withheld upon request

Dave Beasing, PD of The Sound for at least a few more days, noted on the LA Radio Waves podcast this week how he attended last month's podcast conference in Anaheim, and the panelists there were all uniform in agreement that some time between 2020 and 2025 podcasting is set to leap ahead of radio for TSL. There is a coming shift to on-demand radio in podcast form, precisely, in part, for the reasons stated above about the lack of relevancy, creativity, artistic flavor,, and adaptability of today's consultant driven safe radio. Once music content inclusion licensing issues are resolved, in all likelihood, podcasting + streaming will quickly displace on-air radio in TSL, lamentably but understandably. It already has leapfrogged radio in terms of compelling content offerings.

david said:

Dave Beasing, PD of The Sound for at least a few more days, noted on the LA Radio Waves podcast this week how he attended last month's podcast conference in Anaheim, and the panelists there were all uniform in agreement that some time between 2020 and 2025 podcasting is set to leap ahead of radio for TSL. There is a coming shift to on-demand radio in podcast form, precisely, in part, for the reasons stated above about the lack of relevancy, creativity, artistic flavor,, and adaptability of today's consultant driven safe radio. Once music content inclusion licensing issues are resolved, in all likelihood, podcasting + streaming will quickly displace on-air radio in TSL, lamentably but understandably. It already has leapfrogged radio in terms of compelling content offerings.

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Sounds a bit skewed. I'd go as far to say that "talk radio" will make the jump to podcasting when the current demo ages out. As for music, I don't buy into podcasting.

SuperRadioFan said:

This was posted within the last half hour by a Facebook friend, Dred Scott (who BTW had a stint at 100.3 The Sound during their first year on the air); posted here because I think the content is worth sharing:

"Letter to the excellent industry info sheet The Sands Report. I know the guy who wrote this and it's one of the best things I've read it a while. As the saying goes: sad, but true.
"Radio can not get out of its own way. We continue to read articles that tell us how great we are. That’s like being a Republican who watches only Fox News or a Democrat who only watches MSNBC. You hear what you want from people who think the same as you. This is dangerous and reinforces your opinion. Opinion needs to be taken out of the radio equation.
Pull 100 teenagers into a room and ask them if any of them own an FM radio or even care what one is. Then ask them where they discover their music and it sure as hell is not FM radio. Why would anyone under 30 tune into Alternative radio? It’s a joke. The majority of the titles being played are over 25 years old, only appealing to the safe generation that grew up on Nirvana. Embracing technology? Ha! Most medium/small market station’s websites are terrible.
The big boys will be able to play for a while, but not when we (as an industry) figure out that a bunch of old consultants from that heyday of Alt dictate what is on most major Alt stations. A few old dudes decide what 18 to 34 year olds supposedly want to hear. Shazam, streaming data, it all tells us this is off the mark. But sadly it is all radio has ever known. They were once great jocks. They became great PDs. Then they aged, and to stay relevant, we called them consultants...The formula has stayed the same all these years later. How does the industry expect to grow? Try to find people in radio under 30? Good luck. The kids see the future. We just keep reading our own news telling us we are great and a strong medium. My ass."
—PD’s name and station withheld upon request

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Exactly. Classic Rock (or what we used to call "Rock n' Roll) stations are the guiltiest parties in this area. The Sound's idea of a new gimmick is "roll the dice", as in they play a bumper that will "roll the dice" to find out how many Led Zeppelin songs in a row we will hear next (anywhere from two to six depending on what the dice says). So many things wrong with this it is hard to begin, but we can start with the fact that Led Zeppelin hasn't issued a legitimate album since 1980 so the next 10-30 minutes will be filled with music that is at least nearly forty years old. Then, there is the aspect of insulting the listener's intelligence. Does anyone in 2017 really believe the DJ has control over what you are going to hear and he will play the tunes based on an actual roll of the dice? Please.

But that is just an illustrative symptom to the main point. The reason the Sound will be dropped when this sale goes through is simply that it is the weakest format with the oldest demographics of the bundle that they will get from CBS plus what they already have. Why? Because they never invested in their own product to make it fresh. Every day on the Sound sounds the same. Same songs from forty years ago, same DJs that have been around for years, and just a bunch of different ways to package the same songs, like "Triple Play Thursday" and "Roll the Dice Weekend".

They never invested any time to identify good local bands playing the clubs that may have a sound that is consistent with their product, never got behind a record that they identified that wasn't catching on like it should, never did anything different. In fact they never even did the easiest thing, which was to pluck some of the best stuff from KCSN and air it (so that KCSN does all of the hard work, the Sound gets all the benefit of their research and development). When they finally decided they needed a morning show, they went back to Mark, who had been on the competition's signal for decades. In short, they showed no imagination in their programming and gave their listeners no new reason to tune in. The only reason to tune in was to hear the same old Boston, Skynerd, and Journey records again and again. The market for that type of station is contracting by the day.

As I have said for years, Radio built Rock n Roll and will be the force that kills it. It's been happening for years.

ChannelFlipper said:

They never invested any time to identify good local bands playing the clubs that may have a sound that is consistent with their product, never got behind a record that they identified that wasn't catching on like it should, never did anything different. In fact they never even did the easiest thing, which was to pluck some of the best stuff from KCSN and air it (so that KCSN does all of the hard work, the Sound gets all the benefit of their research and development). When they finally decided they needed a morning show, they went back to Mark, who had been on the competition's signal for decades. In short, they showed no imagination in their programming and gave their listeners no new reason to tune in. The only reason to tune in was to hear the same old Boston, Skynerd, and Journey records again and again. The market for that type of station is contracting by the day.

As I have said for years, Radio built Rock n Roll and will be the force that kills it. It's been happening for years.

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The Sound is a Classic Rock station.

By definition, they're not going to play new music. The only change that happens is some titles age out of the format and some titles age in as the geezers gray out of the format and Gen-X fills in the middle of the 25-54 demo. Most classic rock stations play no 60's titles anymore (or if they do you can count them on one hand) and now play songs into the mid 90s.

I'm 46. I went from someone who loved New Wave and Alternative to avoiding Alternative and Active Rock radio somewhere in the mid 90s because I just couldn't get into acts like Linkin Park. I haven't really gotten back into Alternative radio since, even though now that it's more poppy than it was, when I think Alternative I think of all the crap they played when I got out of college and hated. But I'm comfortable with classic rock because they play stuff I've always liked. There will never be a new Journey record. (Okay, there probably will be one, but it won't be with Steve Perry so it's going to suck.) The point is I'm not sick of all the Journey songs I grew up on. I probably split my listening between Classic Rock, Classic Hits, and AAA.

There's an argument to be made that Alternative should cede its gold to Classic Rock and just play new music. Heck, the record people would love that. But every time they spin Come As You Are they're doing it for the guy my age who didn't abandon the format and gives them their 25-54 numbers, which is where the money is. So they won't put down the pipe.

What everyone forgets is that, starting in the early '90s, hip-hop started capturing the ears and the imaginations of suburban white kids, previously a monolithic rock-listening bloc. I've worked with such people -- now in their 30s and 40s -- and can tell you that rock, in any form, old or new, interests them very little. Their musical tastes have gone almost completely rhythmic. What they listen to as "throwbacks" are Snoop Dogg tracks, not Green Day. Rock is a dying, fragmented genre, unlikely to rebound, especially as the demographics of young America continue to evolve.

SuperRadioFan said:

Pull 100 teenagers into a room and ask them if any of them own an FM radio or even care what one is.

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Stations like The Sound, that attract mostly people over the age of 50 aren't helping this stereotype. Teenagers didn't listen to The Sound. If the goal is to attract teens to FM, you have to play their music and hire people their age. The Sound didn't do that. When you look at the demos of stations like KIIS and KAMP, they are exactly the kids people say don't listen to FM. Guess what? They listen. They may not admit it. They may not be fans of stations as their parents were. But they listen.

david said:

Once music content inclusion licensing issues are resolved, in all likelihood, podcasting + streaming will quickly displace on-air radio in TSL, lamentably but understandably. It already has leapfrogged radio in terms of compelling content offerings.

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Huh? "Music content inclusion licensing issues?" Has anyone talked to the music industry about that? They aren't budging on resolving the high cost of using music in podcasts. It's not going to happen. Their royalty is their only revenue stream now that no one's buying music any more. They will not consider ANY discount in music royalty in podcasts. Looking to the future, podcasts will continue to be mostly spoken word.

TheBigA said:

"Music content inclusion licensing issues?" Has anyone talked to the music industry about that? They aren't budging on resolving the high cost of using music in podcasts. It's not going to happen. Their royalty is their only revenue stream now that no one's buying music any more. They will not consider ANY discount in music royalty in podcasts. Looking to the future, podcasts will continue to be mostly spoken word.

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Spot on reply. You're absolutely right.

stewie said:

Spot on reply. You're absolutely right.

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You can back slap each other here on the non-authoritative RD yet at the Jacobs Media Strategies “Broadcasters Meet Podcasters” session at Podcast Movement this past August in Anaheim Libsyn’s Rob Walch, Scripps’ Rob McCracken, Triton’s John Rosso, Market Enginuity’s Sarah van Mosel, and NPR/NPM’s Bryan Moffett all agreed the 12+ podcast audience will surpass the 12+ radio audience as soon as 2020 and no later than 2025, and we all know the 12-35 component of that audience does not listen to spoken word. It's music; and the industry sees it coming to podcasts. Where there is market demand there are revenue model opportunities. Only a bad negotiator, puts their head in the sand and says they're not budging. Royalties from licensing podcast networks for inclusion of music will happen. A statement like "They will not consider ANY discount in music royalty in podcasts" is foolish because when revenue opportunities exist, and they surely do here, negotiations, flexibility, compromises, solutions, and discounts all come into play.

I know many here are marketers as well as radio industry professionals of all jobs in the field, the above poster KNOWS MARKETING INSIDE AND OUT and could school a few of you!! What he says makes an AWFUL lot of sense, it's where it's at in 5 years or less. Kudos, david

david said:

A statement like "They will not consider ANY discount in music royalty in podcasts" is foolish because when revenue opportunities exist, and they surely do here, negotiations, flexibility, compromises, solutions, and discounts all come into play.

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I deal with people in the music business every day. Their view is they'd rather make NO money than give a discount. They're looking for an INCREASE, not a discount. If they wanted a discount, they would have accepted the NAB deal 8 years ago, and they would have been getting a royalty on broadcast revenue. It's the one thing they want, but they want full rate, not a compromise rate. So they get nothing. That's all you need to know about their willingness to provide a discount.

TheBigA said:

I deal with people in the music business every day. Their view is they'd rather make NO money than give a discount. They're looking for an INCREASE, not a discount. If they wanted a discount, they would have accepted the NAB deal 8 years ago, and they would have been getting a royalty on broadcast revenue. It's the one thing they want, but they want full rate, not a compromise rate. So they get nothing. That's all you need to know about their willingness to provide a discount.

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I don't know anything of the specifics of this situation, but I do know a lot about negotiations and almost universally, time (sometimes a lot of it) provides the solution. Parties that are getting no revenue and when they could be getting some eventually come around. david and Super are talking 3-8 years in the future; that may be enough time to change paradigms and negotiating positions, especially for a dying format such as FM radio.

And yes, FM radio IS dying. The only people who think otherwise are in radio. Radio people like think that just because their usage is still up, even among teens, that there is no problem - hey the money is still flowing right? But what the radio people don't get is that the teens use radio as a last choice. They prefer Pandora, Apple music, Spotify (the ones I know really like Spotify) and other online and phone choices. They are not even choosing radio's online choices like iheart and Tunein (they may be using those services, but for their other offerings. Not one teen has ever told me they tune in their favorite local radio station online via an app). The writing is on the wall, radio people just don't seem to want to read it.

I don't see podcasts replacing radio in the car. The people who want to listen to podcasts while driving already are listening to podcasts through mobile device, ipod, etc.

People listen to the radio in the car, not just for music, but for traffic updates, weather forecasts, etc. If I just wanted to listen to music, I could just listen to my own collection.

I see radio as continuing to be relevant, not only because of cars, but also because I think the cost of internet data is only going to rise as more and more people drop paid TV and the cable companies need to replace that revenue. Hell, they might even charge by the gigabyte the way other utilities are billed. That makes things like Antenna TV and antenna radio a comparatively much inexpensive form of entertainment.

ChannelFlipper said:

david and Super are talking 3-8 years in the future; that may be enough time to change paradigms and negotiating positions, especially for a dying format such as FM radio.

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Here's a question for you: If FM is dying, why is the music industry hell bent on getting a percentage of its revenues? Isn't that just poking a dead horse with a stick? Obviously there is a lot of money there. And they've been fighting this battle for 50 years, and aren't any closer to it now than they were when Frank Sinatra was testifying for it.

As I say, just because streaming is growing doesn't mean FM is dying. Streaming is replacing cassettes and CDs. Thirty years ago, people listened to CDs & FM. Now they listen to streams and FM. In about the same percentage as they did 30 years ago. What's dying is physical purchase of music, and that has the music industry very worried. That's why they won't negotiate with anyone about rates, and why they keep asking for rate increases.

tjguitar85 said:

I don't see podcasts replacing radio in the car. The people who want to listen to podcasts while driving already are listening to podcasts through mobile device, ipod, etc.

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Podcasts existed 10 years ago, even 15. But we've never had big media really pushing podcasting until the last 1-2 years. I see no reason to believe podcasting won't grow substantially in listener-hours.

People listen to the radio in the car, not just for music, but for traffic updates, weather forecasts, etc. If I just wanted to listen to music, I could just listen to my own collection.

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Traffic data from the radio is completely outclassed by real-time data from an app on your phone - no waiting for "traffic and weather on the 1s", and the report is specifically for your location, not an interstate junction that may be 25 miles from you. If I bought a radio station, I would drop traffic like a hot potato, unless its sponsorship revenue made it immensely profitable.

I see radio as continuing to be relevant, not only because of cars, but also because I think the cost of internet data is only going to rise as more and more people drop paid TV and the cable companies need to replace that revenue. Hell, they might even charge by the gigabyte the way other utilities are billed. That makes things like Antenna TV and antenna radio a comparatively much inexpensive form of entertainment.

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It seems to be going the opposite way. Mobile data is getting cheaper because of T-Mobile and Sprint making their networks more competitive with AT&T and Verizon. Also, I'm not sure how TV operators are relevant, only one TV operator has a wireless carrier (AT&T/DirecTV). Verizon sold nearly all of its wireline services years ago, embracing wireless as the company's future.

PTBoardOp94 said:

Traffic data from the radio is completely outclassed by real-time data from an app on your phone

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Except if you're driving, you can't be fiddling around with your phone.

Here's the thing: Pull media, podcasts, apps you dial up, and play lists you create, all take time and effort. Not everyone wants to go through all that. People don't all want the same thing, or do things the same way. For those who want stuff delivered to them, there's FM radio. For those who want to seek specific things, there's the internet. Two different functions.

It seems to be going the opposite way. Mobile data is getting cheaper because of T-Mobile and Sprint making their networks more competitive with AT&T and Verizon. Also, I'm not sure how TV operators are relevant, only one TV operator has a wireless carrier (AT&T/DirecTV). Verizon sold nearly all of its wireline services years ago, embracing wireless as the company's future.

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Verizon still has fios in several markets. As far as I know they didn't sell every market to Frontier ? The wired internet carriers matter too though. Comcast is a massive provider for both internet and TV. If you are expecting mobile data to replace cable and DSL as the primary home internet wifi provider, that's going to be a massive increase in data in going through the cell towers and I don't see how that could happen without price increases on the data. Google's entire cell phone service model is based on charging people for the data they use.