The Jacobs Media Blog

Don’t let today’s blog headline fool you. The future of radio is “Off-Air.” Or as it is also called NTR or just “Other.” In fact, if you study those new bi-annual RAB reports, “Off-Air” is the only radio revenue category that is showing any signs of serious growth. This little table speaks volumes about the changing […]

Fans of The Daily Show may be thinking it will never be the same because of Jon Stewart’s departure, and the many question marks surrounding his replacement, Trevor Noah. But you don’t know the half of it. Comedy Central announced last week the hiring of Baratunde Thurston, author, humorist, and social activist to oversee new digital content creation […]

As cutbacks over the last decade have taken their toll on station staffs, the impact can be seen and felt in many ways. Physically, many stations now have wide open spaces – rows of empty cubicles, vacant offices, and even entire building wings that no longer contain people. We don’t know just how much employee counts have shrunk, but […]

This week on JacoBLOG, the topic of radio doing a better job of marketing itself has wafted through each post. We’ve been talking about getting away from the numbers and telling some of those great radio stories about community, service, and connection. And today will be no exception. The difference in this post, however, is that some […]

The only thing worse than not being competitive in your industry is not knowing who you’re competing against. In radio, stations and broadcasters continue to spend money, time, and resources on consistently squelching the other stations in town, while often not understanding the larger, dynamic media lay of the land. At Jacobs Media, we will […]

We’ve all been there.  You work for a brand – or in the case of many people who read this blog – a radio station that is misunderstood and undervalued by advertisers. This radio problem very likely pre-dates Don Draper because radio stations are always in some sort of struggle with the “Mad Men” (and women) who appropriate […]

Radio’s hot streak continues, and the reasons why go to the heart of what the industry as a whole ought to be focusing on. First, Wells Fargo analyst Marcy Ryvicker upgraded radio earlier this week.  Noting the gains made by NextRadio with additional telecom acceptance, as well as singling out Entercom for both ratings and […]

No one loves a serious research conversation more than Larry Rosin and me.  When we first met, Larry had just started up Edison Research and we worked together at WBOS/Boston back when it was a Triple A station.  Over the years, we have sat in what seems like hundreds of conference rooms, staring at data slides, […]

Radio veterans acknowledge that content tends to have a short life span.  In fact, the vast majority of what is created by programmers and talent on the radio is never heard a second time.  It typically plays once and goes off into the ether. So how do most members of the audience find your content […]

It’s amazing how sometimes you look back on things that PDs did several decades ago – not in a nostalgic way, but in an effort to understand why the radio that many people grew up with was so captivating and memorable. Some say that radio was largely successful in the ‘70s and ‘80s because there was […]

From my perch as a consultant, the only thing worse than not being asked for an opinion on a key issue, is to get the question when it’s too late to affect the decision. So queries like “What do you think of our new billboards?” or “How does our new afternoon drive jock sound?” leave us […]

As my Uncle Bert used to say, “If you wait long enough, everything comes back into style.” Maybe he was talking about radio and the amazing press run the industry has enjoyed over the past few months. It seemingly began with the 93% reach number that made the rounds back in June, backed up by the […]

You may think this is a post about Fantasy Island, a place where Talk Radio is #1.  But in fact, there’s a real island where talkers are on top of the ratings heap, bolstered by happy listeners and strong ratings.  And Sean Hannity is nowhere to be seen. The mysterious story of that missing Malaysia Airlines […]

What are you doing tonight? Chances are you’ll be doing something you haven’t done in a while. Or maybe ever. The odds are pretty good that many of you will be curiously viewing the Republican presidential debate, along with what is sure to be a record number of Americans.  You might even want to turn it […]