RADIO, THEN AND NOW
- The Radio Opportunity
I’ve written about this here before. I just wrote a letter to the editor of RadioWorld, the trade publication, trying to be positive about radio, in the midst of its apparent creative destruction period. An excerpt:
I believe a real opportunity exists in steel-tower radio for a new kind of operator: the hometown broadcaster. Notice, I didn’t say “local.” Radio people–and TV people, too–have rendered that word meaningless. I mean My Town radio people–broadcasters who see the opportunity inherent in doing an authentic job of communicating with, serving and celebrating their communities. Kind of like newspaper people….I’m talking about a radio station that throws away the industry practices handbook and creates the sound of its town, then sells it to listeners and advertisers with gusto.
I go further, and suggest current operators think of selling their stations to people in their towns who love the town more than they do. I believe the money is out there. Radio operators have mostly shopped the corporate station collectors, even in the era of de-consolidation. Stations are only being sold to more corporate types who are only prolonging needed change, maintaining the failing ways of the big corporations, with a temporarily clean balance sheet. Not gonna work in the long run, and the long run is getting shorter. I hope my letter gets printed and somebody gets it. I think it’s a good old-new idea. I hope we get some new-generation hometown radio owners.
- A Sirius Chat
A couple of weeks ago I got to talk by phone with the programmer who runs Pure Jazz 72, Sirius Satellite Radio’s 24-hour jazz station that, as the name implies, plays classic mainstream modern jazz. Jazz, traditionally identified as America’s only native artform (an assertion that might attract argument from certain other tribes), remains a low profile scene in music, a challenging, acquired taste. Like escargot, maybe. Those who get it, and love it, believe it’s better than chocolate. One of those would be me. Anyway, I emailed Matt Abramowitz, the public radio-trained steersman of Pure Jazz 72, poking him a bit about what I see as a too-tight pattern of repeated cuts, and a shortage of newer artists and newer sounds. Everything on the station, even the “new music”-labeled cuts, sound like 1959. This had to sting a little, because lack of variety is the default–and justified–gripe against corporate on-air music radio. To toss it at an authentic jazz station that does justice to a field built on freedom is like saying Thelonious Monk played too few notes. In spite of my rudeness, Matt offered to call and discuss it. I said great, he did and we did. It was a cordial conversation, in which Matt patiently explained that in order to promote jazz to surfing satellite subscribers, he makes sure that they’ll always hear a great example (as the Antiques Roadshow people would say) of the music. Classic songs, the best performances. He admitted Sirius isn’t pushing the envelope. You won’t hear The Bad Plus, for instance. This is too bad, I said, because this young piano trio doesn’t seem to me more outre than many classic performers — Monk, for example. I have to admit, though, I understand the broadcaster’s point of view here. I worked in radio, half an eon ago, and our jazz station — in 1959-60, as a matter of fact — played it fairly safe, too. We were “lite-er” by far than Pure Jazz in the daytime. Where we’d play George Shearing in the afternoon, PJ would play Bill Evans or Oscar Peterson. You will hear Shearing on Pure Jazz. You’ll hear everybody on Pure Jazz. Sure, I can carp about hearing certain “favorites” too often: Evans’s great Waltz for Debbie, Brubeck’s Take Five, or Dolphin Dance, Stolen Moments. But hey, these aren’t exactly torture to listen to. Except maybe — and I’ll never understand why Sirius thinks this is a classic — In the Land of Ooblahdee. Jeez. Never mind, it’s great to have a great jazz station, even if I have to pay for a hundred-plus channels to get it. Thanks, Matt, for talking to me. Keep up the good work.
- JERRY AGAIN.
This is just turning into the Del Colliano Fan Site. Oh, well. Jerry really only has one topic these days. But there isn’t much else to say about U.S. radio right now. So, despite the fact that his leads are a bit of a stretch sometimes, like today, Jerry still explains the radio mess better than anybody, including me. So, I humbly defer.
- Choked Channel.
Clear Channel Radio has sent out orders to its managers to cut more costs, immediately, like:
 ”all research monies after 2/1. All advertising and promotion monies after 2/1. All new sales hire guarantees not already implemented, effective immediately (do NOT hire any additional salespeople, effective immediately). All new hires budgeted but not hired, effective immediately (do not hire any additional new employees). Any/all discretionary monies (i.e., travel, meals and entertainment) for your market. Additionally, you are not to replace any departing personnel without specific approval from your EVPO.”
That’s John Hogan, the CEO, speaking clearly to his captains and majors. More at Radio-Info.com and other trades. These are the top stations in the country. Clear Channel put together the biggest post-deregulation stock play by buying them up with Wall Street money. Now they’re selling to private equity companies because they can’t keep Wall Street’s attention, and they’re having problems keeping the stock price close to its promised sale level. Not a pretty sight. CC already dumped a bunch of longtime employees at the end of the year. Now they’re clamping down on the expenditures you’d need to maintain the old winning ways those stations used to have. Of course, the rest of the big-market radio biz is in equally bad shape, so I suppose they don’t expect the competition to take advantage of this voluntary shutdown of growth-inducing action. Oh, well, when the big deal’s done, CC will no doubt emerge as an agile, progressive, innovative radio company, right? And aardvarks will grow wings.
- What he said, but…
Jerry Del Colliano is writing about Last.fm today. They’ve just opened up their music library for free requests on demand, with ads. Jerry says they’ll fail with young people, because young music fans want to own their music. Could be. Jerry’s reacting to a Motley Fool commentary that claims Last.fm will kill broadcast music radio. I agree with Jerry. Radio’s killing itself, no help needed from Last.fm or other Internet and music streaming services, which are not “radio.” He argues, accurately, that radio should be entertaining listeners, beyond playing music, and it doesn’t anymore. Jerry’s focused on young people and their music habits because he teaches at USC, and because as a veteran radio programmer he’s familiar with radio’s former love affair with Baby Boomers and the rock-n-roll revolution. But, here’s a thought: What Last.fm and other Net streamers and stores are trying to do is make a buck on downloading countermeasures — in cahoots with the recorded music industry. Maybe it isn’t young radio listeners they’re after. Radio’s already lost them, so the streamers couldn’t care less about radio. They and the record companies just want some trickle of cash from Internet music, from whatever source is handy. Last.fm is now owned by CBS, a big radio owner that’s returned to the record business, too, and they grabbed Last.fm to have a piece of the new pie. Last.fm may dry up and blow away. There’s sure to be other plays, too, so to speak. Take a quick look around Last.fm and you see plenty of apparently young people listening to young music. I hear they have over 15 million users. Is this what’s killing radio? I don’t think so. Jerry’s right. Radio’s drinking its own Kool-Aid. But, let’s not assume we’ve got the final truth about young people and music ownership. Tell them that enough and they’ll change, just to make you a liar.
- News Break, ala MarconiDreams.com
This just in: I’m sitting here listening to Dinah Washington on my computer, from Last.fm. They just rolled out free on-demand listening by artist. Just go to the site and type in an artist’s name, and bingo, you’re listening to that artist. You only get one track at a time, and there’ll be an on-screen ad there somewhere…I didn’t see one yet. I typed in Diana Krall, my secret crush. The sound is great in my earphones (you don’t think I’d listen on laptop speakers, do you?). Now Nat Cole is singing. I fell in love with Last.fm immediately and signed up, so I’m listening to a “radio station” of Diana Krall-like singers. Great. Ever tried to hear jazz singers on broadcast radio? Well, since about 1970? Last.fm beckons you to be part of their “community,” and you can upload what you listen to off your hard drive; freak, privacy paranoids. But I say this is part of the new on-demand world, where it’s O.K. to be surprised. I like it. … News item: A commercial station in South Florida is rolling out a format on one of their new “HD” digital channels, called: “Haney’s Big House 96.1 HD2.” This is the kind of thinking that’ll save on-air radio, maybe. One of the disc jockeys on the main oldies station came up with the music mix, inspired by a Louisiana road house of the same name. He plays “southern rock, blues, Americana, roots, and ‘real country,’ meaning Waylon, Willie and Johnny Cash.” This quote’s from a Radio World newsletter. What a concept. Somebody comes up with an idea for a radio station and the owner says, Let’s do it. Now if somebody could try one on the main FM station, and promoted it, maybe people would start expecting something special from broadcast radio again. Sorry, gotta go. Shirley Horn’s cooing in my earphones.
- And…we’re back.
My self-pitying tone of the other day notwithstanding, I’ve decided I’m not shutting down Marconi Dreams, the blog. It’s a good mental health device. I’m going to post here every day, if I think I have something readable to write. Because I care about your mental health, too. Speaking of which, I’m convinced that radio and television station people, and network people, too, I suppose, would benefit from counseling. They’re under the thrall of their own promos. Promos are those overproduced, hyperthyroid commercials for the station you can’t escape. Radio keeps them pretty short, to separate the overload of commercials they can’t seem to stop piling together in “breaks” every ten minutes or so. When the count of commercials per “pod” (that’s what they called them, I’m not kidding) reached three, radio was doomed. And they add their own little promos to that mess. It’s a wonder radio advertising still works, when each pod drones on for four, five, seven minutes of identical hard-sell non-entertaining coercion. How can anybody stay tuned? And TV. It’s all about how great the station’s newscast is — setting aside the frantic-desperate network promos for the moment — how right-there, breaking, where you want it, and on and on. The promos, thirty seconds or less, are hard-charging, hard-hitting, action-packed, electronic-effects montages. Turn it down, Margaret. Or just trance out. And when they promote an upcoming-at-eleven story, it’s always something violent or vile, or hyped up to sound like it could be. Anger or adrenaline stimulation is the goal, because that’s why we watch TV, isn’t it? Don’t get me started on TV or radio journalism. There isn’t any. But the radio and TV people undoubtedly believe sincerely that all that promotion is true and accurate and all of us out here on the other side of the signal love it to death, respond to it. Like most advertisers, they don’t have a clue whether we do. Don’t tell me about market research. That can be and is stacked to report what they want to hear. Broadcasters are worse off than store owners; they don’t have a cash register that rings, or doesn’t. Store owners only know something is working; they couldn’t tell you what. Broadcasters rationalize phone protests away, and don’t consider civilian feedback of any kind truly valid unless it’s screened through a rating service or “statistically valid” survey sample. Only ratings can move them. And ratings are less dependable in the new wide-open digital media age. They’ve suppressed their own visceral reactions to their product as “negativity,” which isn’t allowed in the office. I know the feeling. I used to make my living trying to guess what to do on the air. Or discussing same with peers and bosses. Trouble is, the system sorta worked for decades, because advertisers and media people were all locked into the same closed system of ratings, surveys and ad sales — and the fact that if you wanted music or video, you had to use a radio or TV set. That system is in advanced disruption because on-air-cable broadcasting is no longer a closed system. Wireless and wired Internet and cellphone networks have established new, attractive, user-moderated channels, and nifty new gadgets are cooler that the old ones. So, broadcasters’ tenuous grasp on sanity is slipping.
They only know how to cut the budget and keep producing the same stuff. Counseling is recommended. Self-examination. Personal growth strategies. Meditation. I used to say, radio people believe there are two kinds of people in the world: those in radio, and those who want to be in radio. It is time to snap out it, folks. Widen your awareness. The rest of us are getting over broadcast radio and TV fast.
- What he said.
I’m thinking of folding up this site. Or, at least the blog part. Which, right now, is all there is. Every day I open up my email and find Jerry Del Colliano, giving the radio business (and the music biz, while he’s at it) an ice-water enema. Excuse my coarseness. They need it. Maybe we all need extreme wakeup therapy. We’ve let industries and authorities get away with some outrageous stuff over the past few years. But that’s another story. Jerry writes today about how stupid it is for Radio & Records, one of radio’s so-so trades, to withdraw its announced award of its Lifetime Achievement Freedom of Speech Award from Bob Grant, one of the longest-running talk hosts in the business, who, in the second or third half of his career morphed from a sensible voice of reason to an utter extreme right-wing fire-breather. The award announcement set the protestation industry ablaze, and R&R rocked back on its heels and collapsed. Jerry, rightly, calls them to task for this. And he does it con brio, while with equal energy affirming that he hates talk radio, with its extreme right and left bile, equally. So, I’m thinking of quitting. When Jerry’s back in the fray, talking turkey to media power, and, importantly, from his platform of professional success, which makes mine look like a three-legged stool, what do I think I’m doing, trying to talk publicly about radio? The problem is, until Jerry’s reemergence, presumably after the expiration of his no-compete contract with Clear Channel, who bought Inside Radio from him four years ago, there was no, zero, zip contrarian voices in about-radio’s knowledgeable orbit. Nobody with the guts to speak anything but radio Kool-Aid-ese. I must admit, other than water-cooler grousing, I didn’t open my mouth until I was completely out of radio. There’s absolutely no room for dissent inside that business, which was never known for job security on any grounds. Oh, well. I guess I’ll post here once in a while and try to build an audience for the time when my novel of the same name is done and I can use the site to promote it. For now, though, just take it as a given that every day I’m thumbing you over to Jerry’s site and saying, What he said.
