passion

[gr8oldies]

Those same people who you say "get it" are still going to have to justify those large jock salaries that your propose to whoever they are proposing is going to front the money. Yes, the bank or venture capital firm is going to want to be paid..they're not going to finance Sir Roxalot's dream radio station out of charity, or becaude they think it would be a cool thing to do. You certainly would think if you are saying that listeners want more personality and more talk from jocks (flies in the face of all the research but I know, how dare we ask listeners what they want because we "know") one of those money-grubbing Wall Street types would be giving it to them.

Talking over intros?. Listeners don't like it. Any format. The perrenial number one station where I live has literally driven the same liners into the ground for almost 20 years. I saw some diary returns, and contrary to what you would think, those listeners spit them right back out in the comments section "I like K99.1 because they play a greater variety of my country favorites". Branding at work, and it's been very successful. And this company is not going to be filing bankrupcy because they have don't have jocks who are free-forming and not branding the station, as you apparently advocate.

 

[cheese]

"Rant away. Depersonalize radio even further. The sooner that you blow up your own companies, the sooner that radio stations will become affordable for broadcasters who "get it". I love this guy, SirRoxalot. Passion. He's got it and he gets it. Damn, I am glad there are more of him out there. What happened to the rest of you that made you give up? I guess you never were a good jock, like you said, David. You can't paint, but you criticize. This post is called "passion", not "how to continue destroying radio." This concept must be very hard to grasp for some, but really it's true...sometimes people (real jocks) can make a station. Wow, I know freaky..huh?
Gosh, you mean communicating?...talking to and knowing your audience? Get out of here!...research show people want more music. Do you want more music from your radio station????? YES, I DO! See there you go. Case closed. [EDIT-inflammatory] have 8 seconds to be captivating and make them want to listen to you. I've got the research right here.

 

[DavidEduardo]

. What happened to the rest of you that made you give up? I guess you never were a good jock, like you said, David. You can't paint, but you criticize.

Well... just about when my voice changed, I bought a CP and put my first station on the air. What were you doing when you were 17?

 

[12 In a Row]

Stating the obvious, 2008 and the landscape is much different.

Just a couple of decades ago, the smallest of markets had two or three stations to divide the advertising pie/money.
In most markets there are triple the stations, however the population and business hasn't increased, and in some cases has decreased.

Outside of morning drive, listeners don't care what d.j.'s have to say.
"Not once in 30 years have I seen a diary that said, "I would listen to to your station more often if you talked more."
Just the opposite. Try selling your business plan to any investor.
Slow growth, never been proven to work, much more competition for the same potential audience, but hey, give me the money.

Sure there are exceptional talents that have moved from playing music to personality driven talk radio.
Stern, Imus, Rush, etc.

ANY corporation is in the business of growth and profit.
Why else would you invest YOUR money?

 

[SirRoxalot]

Bottom Line

If you guys are right, why ain't it working?

Suffice to say, my investments are not in radio stocks - and won't be as long as people who think like you are in charge.

Apparently, a lot of other investors agree with me. More and more of us ain't buyin' what you're sellin'.

PS - Several stations in NYC - the largest media market in the country - underwent significant programming changes in the last year. ONE showed significant growth - WCBS-FM. Yet Dan Mason is "a fool". We'll see how CBS does under Mason, compared with their performance under Hollander. So, I guess I'll check back in on this thread a year from now. Until then, buy-bye.

 

[DavidEduardo]

Re: Bottom Line

PS - Several stations in NYC - the largest media market in the country - underwent significant programming changes in the last year.

Yes, that was because of the introduction of the Portable People Meter as the ratings methodology in the market. As we know from other markets and 4 years of prior testing, stations that play high scoring hits do very well in PPM. Those that are very niched and have longer lists do not.

ONE showed significant growth - WCBS-FM.

In 25-54, there is barely any difference between the Jack format and the new classic hits format. There was minimal growth.

Yet Dan Mason is "a fool".

Yes, because he is endorsing the PPM without qualification. This is wrong, since the PPM is a great idea but the sample proportionality, DDI, weekly vs. daily cume rates, etc. are not yet correct enough for PPM to be currency.

 

[TheBigA]

If you guys are right, why ain't it working?

You're making a judgement about investments and stock price on emotion and passion. That's not how investors think.

I own a diversified collection of stocks. What is hurting radio is that almost all of the companies are strictly radio companies. They aren't diversified with holdings in other industries, or even in other media. That is a huge mistake. So when radio growth has stalled, as it has for the past five years, the stock is a bad risk.

Until radio companies diversify, they'll stay where they are. The smart thing for radio companies to do is divert some of their profits from radio into investing in other media. Although this is a great move, it's not a short term strategy. It won't pay off for several years, and the stock price will stay low until then.

 

[gr8oldies]

I might believe that "everyone has abandoned radio because they want more DJ talk" when one of my loc al stations' popular Listener Appreciation Lunches have no one show up, two other stations' popular summer concerts have no atendees, and all the stations in the market have 0.0 ratings and no commercials.

Radio groups needing to diversify? makes perfect sense but isn't that what everyone on this board is complaining about? That "real radio people" don't own these stations?

I remember the shock I got with the first non-radio job I had. It was in an office where they had the heritage top 40 station on in the backghround. I would notice things like the regular jock being off for the day and a fill-in being on but NO ONE ELSE DID. What they did notice (since this station was a little loose playlist wise, even delving into oldies for an hour at 9am), was when the hits stopped and the oldies started (who changed the station?).

 

[TheBigA]

Radio groups needing to diversify? makes perfect sense but isn't that what everyone on this board is complaining about? That "real radio people" don't own these stations?

What's a "real radio person?" What are the qualifications?

Can a cigar maker become a real radio person? That's what Bill Paley was.

Lots of the people running these radio companies have far more experience in radio than the insurance companies and pottery makers that used to own them.

If you read the new book about WSM, they appointed a door-to-door insurance salesman to run that famous radio station. That wasn't last year, but in the 1950s!

The FCC doesn't ask applicants for radio licenses about their passion. Neither does the bank. They just want their money. When people apply for a job at a station, they often don't look into the qualifications of the owner. They just want to be sure they'll get paid.

I've been in this business a long time, and the one thing I've learned is that everyone thinks the boss is an idiot. It doesn't matter who the boss is or what his experience is. I've also learned that sometimes the people who know the most about radio aren't always the right people to make the hard serious decisions.

The fact is that Randy Michaels was a life long radio person, with years of experience behind the mic. How'd that work out for you?

 

[aaronk]

I just recently discovered this board, and this thread has been, by far, one of the most fascinating discussions I've read on any message board. I work in radio as an on-air talent, although I've always had a strong desire to program. This particular topic has perplexed me for practically all 14 years of my radio career. Since I am also a music collector and enthusiast, I've always leaned toward wanting to hear more than the tight playlists currently being heard on most gold/recurrent based stations. But I am probably not like the average listener.

Looking at the top stations in Dallas (where I live), I see that Univision currently has the #1 and #4 rated stations, and I'm guessing they are run by David. If this is the case, congrats! The other two music formats in the top 5 are KLUV and KHKS. I'm not too certain on the number of active titles they play, but I'd have to guess that Kiss-FM (CHR) is about 120 and KLUV (classic hits) is probably around 500. While I'm personally sick of hearing the same songs over and over, the numbers do not lie. The closest thing Dallas has to compare to KLUV, for example, is Jack-FM, which is jockless in this market. Jack also plays a larger variety of music---probably 800 or 1,000 titles. They are getting beat badly!

While I'm no expert in programming, I can share one particular example that supports a tighter playlist. I took over as PD of my college campus radio station during my senior year (volunteer job). At the time, the former PD probably had about 1,000 songs rotating--most of which were obscure indie rock cuts. I did a complete overhaul to the playlist, getting rid of most of the unfamiliar songs and cutting the playlist down to about 350 songs. Almost overnight, people were starting to call the station request line saying how much better the music had gotten. Also, our "sales" team (who collected donations rather than sold ads because we were non-commercial) had tried forever to get a local record shop to become a sponsor to no avail. Within two weeks of me making the playlist changes, they were calling us to become a donor. Sure, there are many unknown variables in this equation and no ratings data to back it up, but I never had any protestors outside the station from axing the indie rock from the playlist.

Currently I work at a station that plays CHR, and people often ask me how I can stand hearing the same songs again and again. My reply to them is this: I don't work there to listen to the music; I work on trying to create compelling content that I can put on in between the songs. I personally have very little passion for any of the songs on our playlist; however, I have a lot of passion to connect with my listeners and keep them happy. If that involves playing the top 10 songs 80 times per week, I'll do it, as long as it will win.

Honestly, if I found a station that played 1,000 songs in a genre that I love, I would probably listen all the time. Unfortunately, this does not hold true for most other people.

 

[12 In a Row]

I just recently discovered this board, and this thread has been, by far, one of the most fascinating discussions I've read on any message board. I work in radio as an on-air talent, although I've always had a strong desire to program. This particular topic has perplexed me for practically all 14 years of my radio career. Since I am also a music collector and enthusiast, I've always leaned toward wanting to hear more than the tight playlists currently being heard on most gold/recurrent based stations. But I am probably not like the average listener.

Looking at the top stations in Dallas (where I live), I see that Univision currently has the #1 and #4 rated stations, and I'm guessing they are run by David. If this is the case, congrats! The other two music formats in the top 5 are KLUV and KHKS. I'm not too certain on the number of active titles they play, but I'd have to guess that Kiss-FM (CHR) is about 120 and KLUV (classic hits) is probably around 500. While I'm personally sick of hearing the same songs over and over, the numbers do not lie. The closest thing Dallas has to compare to KLUV, for example, is Jack-FM, which is jockless in this market. Jack also plays a larger variety of music---probably 800 or 1,000 titles. They are getting beat badly!

While I'm no expert in programming, I can share one particular example that supports a tighter playlist. I took over as PD of my college campus radio station during my senior year (volunteer job). At the time, the former PD probably had about 1,000 songs rotating--most of which were obscure indie rock cuts. I did a complete overhaul to the playlist, getting rid of most of the unfamiliar songs and cutting the playlist down to about 350 songs. Almost overnight, people were starting to call the station request line saying how much better the music had gotten. Also, our "sales" team (who collected donations rather than sold ads because we were non-commercial) had tried forever to get a local record shop to become a sponsor to no avail. Within two weeks of me making the playlist changes, they were calling us to become a donor. Sure, there are many unknown variables in this equation and no ratings data to back it up, but I never had any protestors outside the station from axing the indie rock from the playlist.

Currently I work at a station that plays CHR, and people often ask me how I can stand hearing the same songs again and again. My reply to them is this: I don't work there to listen to the music; I work on trying to create compelling content that I can put on in between the songs. I personally have very little passion for any of the songs on our playlist; however, I have a lot of passion to connect with my listeners and keep them happy. If that involves playing the top 10 songs 80 times per week, I'll do it, as long as it will win.

Honestly, if I found a station that played 1,000 songs in a genre that I love, I would probably listen all the time. Unfortunately, this does not hold true for most other people.

You are right on target and will have a successful career in radio.

You clearly have seen for yourself, listeners want the "hits."
They just want to sing along with their favorite songs.

You also "get it" with the role you play.

Best of luck!

 

[aaronk]

You are right on target and will have a successful career in radio.

You clearly have seen for yourself, listeners want the "hits."
They just want to sing along with their favorite songs.

You also "get it" with the role you play.

Best of luck!

Thanks, 12 In a Row. I'll be honest, I'd love to see the tight playlist method proved wrong. I'd love to see someone throw the music tests right out the window and program by GUT and WIN. If it can be done, please provide the proof, because I really want to know how. I think that's exactly what David is saying. He's not trying to argue just for the sake of arguing. He's just saying that so far, stations who are playing more songs, especially the wrong ones, aren't winning in the ratings.

 

[12 In a Row]

Just give the people what they want.

A good friend of mine who is 3rd generation owner of a popular restaurant has tried to introduce new items on the menu.
Still the most popular are steak and chicken. And for 130 years and counting, the most popular selling ice cream is vanilla.

 

[SirRoxalot]

So, you've reduced a discussion over the fact that most people - especially people under 30 - no longer relate to radio, to an arguement over playlist size.

Nice. Carry on with business as usual. Your stock is still sinking, and your TSL is still dwindling.

 

[andreajesus]

Re: Bottom Line

PS - Several stations in NYC - the largest media market in the country - underwent significant programming changes in the last year. ONE showed significant growth - WCBS-FM. Yet Dan Mason is "a fool". We'll see how CBS does under Mason, compared with their performance under Hollander. So, I guess I'll check back in on this thread a year from now.

No need to check back in a year - the numbers that WCBS-FM have done SINCE its return to an oldies (alright, greatest hits) based format in July of 2007 have already MORE than proven themselves.... 8)

1) Their FIRST NYC ratings book (and this is 12+, iirc, NOT JUST 25-54!) AFTER their return MORE THAN DOUBLED the numbers that the former Jack format was doing (1.5 as Jack pre-7/12/07 - 3.7 FIRST BOOK AFTER 7/12/07 - need i say more??)
2) The station has continued to maintain and show continued ratings growth ONE YEAR after the BIG return...
3) The station has forged an identity for itself as "New York's Greatest Hits of the 60's, 70's, and 80's"...while STILL keeping the ORIGINAL CBS-FM brand name (and memories) alive for New York's faithful....

 

[DavidEduardo]

Re: Bottom Line

1) Their FIRST NYC ratings book (and this is 12+, iirc, NOT JUST 25-54!) AFTER their return MORE THAN DOUBLED the numbers that the former Jack format was doing (1.5 as Jack pre-7/12/07 - 3.7 FIRST BOOK AFTER 7/12/07 - need i say more??)

25-54 is the only important demo, unless you look at 18-54 as the near-100% universe for ad buys based on ratings.

And agencies do multi-book averages. Jack, in 25-54 had a 3.2 in Winter of 2007, and CBS FM had a 3.3 in the Spring 2007 book. In other words, this whole issue was one of public relations and not one of ratings. The cost of making the change will not be recovered by the few tenths of a share point gain by going "back" to a classic hits format.

Jack's last full book was a 25-54 2.8, not a 1.5, in 25-54. Then CBS debut book was a 3.9, surrounding a huge amount of publicity.. falling to a 3.4 and then 3.3 and 3.3.

2) The station has continued to maintain and show continued ratings growth ONE YEAR after the BIG return...

See above. It has been downtrending, not growing.

 

[DavidEduardo]

So, you've reduced a discussion over the fact that most people - especially people under 30 - no longer relate to radio, to an arguement over playlist size.

Nice. Carry on with business as usual. Your stock is still sinking, and your TSL is still dwindling.

Again, please explain why three of the top 6 stations in LA, KSCA, KIIS and KROQ, are nearly totally 18-34 targeted. One of them has a cume of 3.5 million in a market with 10.3 million 12+ persons.

Yes, TSL is off, but it is a slow erosion spanning the last 20 years and reflects lots of additional entertainment options that did not exist in 1988.

 

[TheBigA]

Carry on with business as usual. Your stock is still sinking, and your TSL is still dwindling.

So are you telling me you have a proven solution to increasing stock price and TSL?

 

[SirRoxalot]

So, high cume tells us that young people still tune in to radio hoping to hear new music, and falling TSL tells us that they tune out because of the lack of entertainment value.

So far, the only thing proven is that YOU don't have a solution to falling stock prices and dwindling TSL. Looking back to when radio WAS more successful, we find that there was more content that was entertaining and relatable to the listener.

But, pay no attention to any idea that doesn't fit your pre-determined corporate pathway to (your) wealth.

 

[DavidEduardo]

So, high cume tells us that young people still tune in to radio hoping to hear new music, and falling TSL tells us that they tune out because of the lack of entertainment value.

Actually, even in 18-24 and 18-34, most people tune in looking for familiar music, not new music. New music is a mood, explored as part of the overall music experience, but not necessarily the most important part.

Lowered TSL is a product of two things... improved ratings methods which get more precise indications of TSL vs. rounding... and the fact that people divide their time with all kinds of new technologies. In fact, the most significant impact on radio and traditional TV is gaming... 120 million consoles.

So far, the only thing proven is that YOU don't have a solution to falling stock prices

Nobody does, or the Dow would not have lost nearly 3% yesterday, affecting a lot more than radio. Washington Mutual, at around $4, was around $46 three years ago. How many radio stations do they have?

and dwindling TSL.

That's a fact of life. Radio has lost less percentage of its TSL in 20 years than GM has lost in market share in 5 years.

Looking back to when radio WAS more successful, we find that there was more content that was entertaining and relatable to the listener.

No, there was more content you, Roxsalot, liked. I do not see that at all.

But, pay no attention to any idea that doesn't fit your pre-determined corporate pathway to (your) wealth.

I made my retirement fund via investments. I am in radio for the fun and challenge. In today's economy, nobody is getting rich on their salary unless they are an entertainer.