There are a lot of radio loathers out there – notably people who worked in the business at one time but left (their choice or someone else’s). And some are still employed in radio but don’t use their real names when they comment on posts. It’s been a tough several years for the rank and file of radio. But if you think radio has issues, turn on your television.
Because if you need evidence that local media has declined in recent years, look no further than Conan O’Brien who appears to revel in incompetent TV journalism.
This video contains what feels like an infinite reservoir of lame anchors from all over the country reading the same piece of copy – ad nauseam. Well, you’ll get the idea, again and again.
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It’s hilarious until you realize that the joke’s on us. As belts tighten and less qualified talent sit behind the desk mindlessly reading canned stories, our quality of life suffers as a result. In some ways, this is nothing new – newscasters have been ripping and reading wire copy since there was AP and UPI. But the reliance on inexpensive, unqualified talent leads to a shoddier product. And it’s getting harder and harder to find decent hometown journalism on TV.
But in radio, we have no right to gloat or laugh along with Conan because as every year goes by, the localness of radio erodes a bit more, leaving cities and towns with more generic sounding radio or shows pumped in from out of town.
And while these stations sound competent because the voice
s are good, the shows are prepped, and the product is consistent, something’s being lost here, too.
A couple years back we took an inventory of Premium Choice stations and ended up running into Maria Milito more often than you see reruns of Seinfeld on TV.
Maria is a good jock and this is no knock on her. But radio audiences deserve a local product presented by area people who know the turf and are on the ground.
With so much “radio” piped in from satellites and servers, it becomes more obvious by the year that broadcast radio’s recipe for success in the new world of audio is the same one that most of us grew up with when we first discovered Elvis, the Who, Britney Spears, the White Stripes, and Mumford and Sons.
Voicetracking and syndication may be more cost-effective in the short run, but their long term costs are brand erosion and audience indifference. The quality of the product deteriorates as resources are cut and less qualified managers and talent are installed to save money. More and more, consumers can tell the difference.
Support the companies, the clusters, and the brands that are holding fast, waving the live and local flag because it’s not easy in this environment to do this kind of radio. But if we’re seriously playing a long game, it’s the only strategy that will matter once the dust settles, and everyone has a smartphone and a tablet, and drives a car that allows them to be seamlessly connected.
What will separate your station from all those other choices?
In the meantime, we’d better hope that Conan doesn’t go after “local radio” next.
Jacobs Media has consistently walked the walk in the digital space, providing insights and guidance through its well-read national Techsurveys.
In 2008, jacapps was launched - a mobile apps company that has designed and built more than 1,300 apps for both the Apple and Android platforms. In 2013, the DASH Conference was created - a mashup of radio and automotive, designed to foster better understanding of the "connected car" and its impact.
Along with providing the creative and intellectual direction for the company, Fred consults many of Jacobs Media's commercial and public radio clients, in addition to media brands looking to thrive in the rapidly changing tech environment.
Fred was inducted into the Radio Hall of Fame in 2018.
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While I think discussions of what is or isn’t radio are silly and fruitless, for those who disagree…when you dismiss Pandora as “not radio”, shouldn’t you also consider whether a product that’s voicetracked with no local input is “not radio”?
Isn’t the out of town programmed/tracked station radio’s equivalent to the foreign customer service call center rep who responds to key words with prefab answers rather than listen to the problem and react? Is that customer service? Is tracked, mass produced audio with no local input radio?
My answer btw would be, who cares what they are, they both suck and fail to deliver what they represent themselves to be.
I think you make some great points & it’s interesting that Alfred Liggins touched on some of these issues in his investor call yesterday. And yes, I can’t help but agree with your last line – they’re insufficient and don’t deliver on the promise. Thanks, Bob.
“An unfortunate result of this process [watching TV] seems to be that, as time passes, they know less and less about more and more until, at last, they will know almost nothing about almost everything.” – Steve Allen
As you point out Fred, anyone who argues this is not happening in radio is only fooling themselves.
Painful, to be sure, Ken. Thanks for the comment.
It’s OK, you can admit it, if you voice-track a station or two for your cluster.
It was not my intention to denigrate this way of making an employee more valuable to the station/cluster/company or earning some extra money. The industry’s air personalities didn’t come up with this system. They are stuck trying to implement it and make it work. Thanks, John.
This is the second piece I have read in the past 24 hours that labels “voicetracking” with a broad brush stroke. It is very easy to paint “voicetracking” in a negative light.
In reality voicetracking can be a very useful tool. I’ll quickly share some examples where it works for us in delivering on listener expectations. First…..we spend the money on research year in and year out to know what listeners expect from all three of our stations. On our A/C the 10A-1P personality who happens to be our promotions director, our 1P-4P personality is our Operations Manager both utilize a mix of tracking and “live” during their shows. They are never more than 30 steps from the studio. The all night personality uses a combination of tracking and live as our stations are staffed 24/7. Our all night A/C personality is also jumping in “live” with weather and other info. on our NewsTalk AM. We just had a weather event last night and I am looking at emails on my desk from listeners thanking us for being there with the latest information.
Our Classic Hits station features two 35 year market veterans. They voice track their daily shows but don’t attempt to fool the audience by doing things like 5 hour old weather forecasts and passing them off as “now” by guessing the temperature. Instead our six person local news staff provides hourly one minute news updates and up to the second weather forecasts and conditions.
Voicetracking gives us the opportunity to maximize our resources by having at least one live body in the building every second of the year. It also allows us to move additional resources towards things like local news. While our stations have had a local news department for decades, we now have more news people today than we did 15 years ago.
Voicetracking utilized correctly is a positive tool.
OK, I will step down from my sopabox.
Thanks for allowing me to vent.
Mike, perhaps the fault is mine by using the term to describe all things prerecorded by DJs. In your case, your voicetracking is local and allows you to get the most of your staffers. The fact that you are prepared in the case of an emergency to go live differentiates you from many stations that blindly voicetrack. I was really talking about the national voicetracking issue where DJs in NYC are providing breaks and content for dozens of stations in markets all over the country. Next time, I will be more specific, and I appreciate you taking the time to discuss the differences.
Fred, no problem, it’s a no fault Friday. I knew where you were going with your piece. I just think it is important for the industry to recognize if used correctly it is an extremely valuable tool.
I was fortunate to be involved at the dawn of voicetracking. While getting my degree at CSULB, my paying job all four years of school was at KWOW in suburban Los Angeles. The Wickstrom family who owned the station bought a Schafer 8000 automation system in early 1971. My boss Jon Wickstrom gave me the opportunity to be involved in the programming. Over 18 months of trial and error, Jon created a flawless REEL TO REEL voice tracking strategy that made the station at 1600 on the dial “cook” for I think nearly 15 years. Despite it being tape technology it was a hot sounding oldies station featuring such voice track talents down through the years as Mark Elliott, Tom Watson, Mark Denis, Jeff Robbins and others.
I would be re-miss if I did not say that I was so lucky to work for the Wickstroms for four years. They gave me a great foundation of learning to take advantage of emerging technology and operate within a budget that expects a respectable return to the bottom line.
Have a great weekend and thanks for taking the time to share the thoughts of you and your team everyday.
Mike
Mike, thanks for adding the history and perspective.
Mike. I think you make a very valid point, I would imagine most managers do not have it this well thought out.
story: A few years ago, while I was still living in South Florida, it was a Saturday and I had just finished watching the space shuttle appear to burn up on re-entry on CNN. I scanned the dial for news on the event once I got in the car. The news/talker was running a Rush rerun. Music stations were playing, well, music and no one was mentioning it. The only place I could find any news was NPR. My “live and local” news source was a national feed from NPR. And indeed this was a “local” story here if Florida.
A couple of years ago here in Austin, there was some nut running around campus with a rifle. The school was shut down and unfortunately the coverage on the radio was just almost non existent. This was morning drive and most everyone was live and local. I jumped around the dial to hear how it was being handled. The local alternative was playing music and doing wacky bits (shame on them, they should have owned it), the news/talker was running Rush. The local AOR was on top of it like whipped cream on a sundae. They nailed it, taking calls and owning this “news” space. They had the experience and background to “know what to do if the President got shot.”
A few months ago we had a pretty wide power outage here in Austin. I was living i a condo just south of the river and could see that the outage was pretty much everything east of downtown and south of the river. Pretty big chunk of property. I got out the hand-crank radio to see what was going on. up and down the dial. voice tracked or in “the dark” jocks. The news talker was running a gardening show re-run. Nothing. Four hours later the lights came back on, and four hours of radio listening with nary a mention.
We used to own the space of immediacy, now it almost feels like we rent complacency. A generation or two of programmers who take all orders from the mother ship and talent with no idea what to do “if the President gets shot.”
And this is just one symptom, breaking “news” that I’m pointing out. (although it’s not really “news” it’s really community.)
But, if you can’t nail it when you are handed the “keys to the kingdom” with a breaking local event, how can you win it every day when you have to actually work for it. But hey, our facebook page looks great!
John, thanks for the real life horror stories. We wrote a blog last year about how WRAT – Greater Media’s rocker – won the award for best news coverage for their Hurricane Sandy broadcasts. https://jacobsmedia.com/2013/07/03/and-the-award-for-best-news-coverage-goes-to%E2%80%A6/ It reminds me of the Austin rocker, and that’s another aspect here. You don’t have to be a News/Talk station to be meaningful in people’s lives. Chaz & AJ at WPLR are truly the voice of New Haven, and their station plays Led Zeppelin several times a day. There is room for any great station to step it up during this vacuum. Thanks for the comment.
Fred, you are totally, completely right.
One of the important points about being real and local is the ability it gives you to differentiate your product from everything else on offer. When it’s Tuesday in San Antonio and it’s raining, your station should SOUND like it’s Tuesday in San Antonio and it’s raining. The only way is live, local. And this quality allows you to better connect to your audience. It makes you different from everyone else. It may be hard for a P1 to verbalize this in research, but it’s real.
And differentiation along with focus are the keys to success.
Appreciate that, Craig. As radio gets its head around its exponentially growing competitive challenges, I believe this is the conclusion many will eventually come to. So how IS the weather in San Antonio? Thanks for taking the time.
You write:
“Support the companies, the clusters, and the brands that are holding fast, waving the live and local flag because it’s not easy in this environment to do this kind of radio.”
And you are correct as are others who have made this observation. I feel a more helpful discussion would be how you get Clear Channel and Cumulus (yes, by name) to change their policies that support the “in the box” trend, and roll back time to live and local? This is the real world question. The big guns control much, if not most. How do you get them to change?
Brock, thanks for the comment. You’re not going to persuade a major company to change its policies with a blog or philosophical argument. The only way (IMO) to affect change is to prove that your model is better, more successful, and builds long-term brands. As hard as it is to do radio the other way (money, time, people), other operators will have to show their way is ultimately more effective. No one said it would be easy.
The longing for live an local to grow again is over.
You said someone needs to show how to do it better.
TV had 40 years and radio had 70 years of owning live an local before deregulation. If there was a way to do it better and profitable it would have been done.
The next generation coming up will grow up on status updates for news headlines, twitter for breaking local news, and Pandora will be blended with terrestorial radio.
Cumulus is leading the way with brands like NASH an calling their morning show “America’s Morning Show”. Artists can make one stop and cover 15 markets then having their labels take them on a radio tour.
And the public won’t care.
It’s a shame but technology, as great as it is, is what will leave radio sounding more polished but less personal and the public will take it because it is the only offering.
You may be pragmatically correct about it, Bill. But not every company or brand can or wishes to do NASH-FM or Premium Choice. Maybe the answer is that there will also be blended broadcast approaches – some network stations, but some local ones, too. Or not. Thanks for the perspective and thoughts.
I miss the radio days when radio connected with our community through phone calls. I do it but I realize it’s not the norm. I had a listener call recently who was surprised that I answered the phone, he was shocked really. He said he just figured no one was there but wanted to try anyway. He inquired about an accident on a snow coated highway in Grand Rapids. I could answer his question, and he was happy. Local radio isn’t local if you don’t/can’t connect with your audience locally, on some real level. Great read Fred! Thanks…
Appreciate it, Kim. When basic service becomes a rarity or a surprise, that says a lot about where the industry has gone. You made a listener feel heard and good when you acknowledged him. From small things, big things come. Thanks.
You hit the nail on the head. I’ve been on the air every day for a long long time and still have a job because no one is being trained to replace me. Today’s voice trackers don’t have the skill set guys like me possess. Of all my co-workers from the 70s 80s and 90s, I think I’m the only guy left standing. I’m number one and currently beating five syndicated shows (I believe.) There just aren’t people hanging around clamoring to be on the radio anymore. And those that are, aren’t willing to pay the dues of low pay and long hours and climb to the top like we all had to do. Success in radio is a process not an event. Oooh that was profound.
Brian, I think it may be somewhat profound, supported by Malcolm Gladwell who says it requires 10,000 hours to become proficient at a craft. You’ve made yourself indispensable to your operation (a linchpin as Seth Godin calls it). As you point out, radio does very little on the recruiting or training end to attract young people at a time when they are being wooed by startups and digital companies who want them on board. There was a time when an organization like Conclave helped train fledgling broadcasters but it receives insufficient support from companies and may have also veered away from its mission. Bottom line: You’re right, and it’s hard to figure out where the next generation of Brian Pierce’s are going to come from. Thanks for the perspective and the time.
What an important conversation this is. Fred, as you know, A&O&B’s annual “Roadmap” online perceptual for country stations shows in numerous ways that even this format with its tremendous younger demo growth, high “very satisfied” and low “would switch if a new station came on” five year trends needs to worry more about personal media than about other traditional competition. https://aoprep.blogspot.com/2014/02/am-fm-xm-too.html
Correct, Jaye, and thanks. Even though the power of Country music is at an all-time high and has vast generational appeal, the potential for erosion is there if broadcast stations don’t connect, localize, and build relationships. Lori Lewis’ takeaways from CRS very much reinforced the personal treatment programmers receive from the artists – the same fundamental qualities that broadcast stations should emulate.
this popped up this morning…
https://www.radioink.com/article.asp?id=2760112&spid=24698
Nice to see we’re seeing some of the same things but from different angles and POVs. Thanks for sharing, John.