A long time ago, in a network TV world far, far away from Squid Games and Ted Lasso was a Sunday night variety program – The Ed Sullivan Show. Ed had no discernable talent, save for his expertise in discovering and attracting whoever was hot and entertaining at that moment.
The term “trending” did not exist yet, but that’s what made Ed a successful impresario. Every Sunday night at 8 o’clock, CBS-TV carried The Ed Sullivan Show. And America watched. In droves.
As most know by now, the Beatles made their U.S. television debut on Ed’s show – on three successive Sunday nights in
February of 1964. While Ed came off as a very mainstream, establishment host, he had that knack for finding – and securing – the biggest names in entertainment.
And in addition to the mega-stars of his day, Ed presented a cavalcade of weird guests – people who did bizarre stunts. They were novelty acts, but very respectable. Think of them as “benchmark bits” – viewers in droves looked forward to their appearances on the show.
In Ed’s stable was Senor Wences and Topo Gigio – a couple of corny bits that made America laugh, and repeat their lines the next day – much like many of them still do with SNL.
But my favorite was Erich Brenn – “the plate spinner.” He is pictured in the GIF at the top of today’s post. His schtick was to get five glass bowls spinning on sticks at the same time, while also spinning eight plates.
There was a manic quality to Brenn’s act. He ran back and forth, giving those bowls and plates a last second spin as they were about to succumb to those gravitational forces. Just watching the guy was enough to make you nervous. Could he pull it off?
Could he miraculously keep those precious plates and bowls all spinning at the same time?
I have thought about Erich Brenn a lot over my years in radio – in fact, every time the ratings come out. Since deregulation allowed for companies to own five or six stations in a market, I think of managers and programmers like the plate spinners of radio – it’s one thing to have a couple of highly rated stations – it’s another when the entire cluster is in the winner’s circle.
While it was possible for Erich Brenn to pull off this improbably feat, radio operators have generally found it elusive – like achieving a perfect game in bowling.
Last month, Cox Media Group’s San Antonio stations pulled it off – all five FMs occupied the top 5 positions in adults 25-54 – a very Brenn-like accomplishment.
These rare successes usually aren’t due as much to what those winning stations may have done last month or even last year. Much of their ability to have multiple cluster stations in the winner’s circle dates back to the strategic approach they took way back when as they selected complementary formats with intermeshing strategies. The idea is to align multiple brands to bring benefit (and protection), not just to one station in the group, but to several of them.
That’s what makes radio people so special. They often think in terms of clusters of stations, and how each might work in confluence with the others to collectively win the most valuable pieces of demographic real estate in their markets.
And that bring us to Mark Zuckerberg – not a smart, savvy cluster programmer. How do I know that? He is letting his own hubris interfere with his company’s strategic goals, throwing his “cluster” of social platforms out of sync.
Let’s look at how he’s built his social media portfolio since starting The Face Book at Harvard in 2004, originally an idea to meet girls.
Back then, social media was a very nascent digital platform. MySpace was the big dog, and there was also Friendster, Hi5, Orkut, and other scrappy players, most of which went belly up.
Zuckerberg’s Facebook – as we now know it – quickly became the biggest thing out there – like being #1 12+ with a 20-share.
We radio veterans remember dominant radio stations like this in the pre-FM days.
In Detroit, it was WJR, “The Great Voice of the Great Lakes.” In New York City, WABC – “Musicradio 77” – ruled. KMOX was “The Voice of St. Louis,” a roost it ruled for decades. All these stations achieved monster success up and down the generational spectrum.
But with the advent of FM radio popularity came fragmentation. Soon, there were several different varieties of AC, CHR, Rock, and Urban stations. The entire programming spectrum splintered.
When it became possible in the ’90s to add more stations to a market portfolio, most owners looked for ways to group stations together by format, demographics, or both. That’s when “cluster strategy” – as we now know it – came into being, in virtually every market in the country, from Los Angeles to Louisville to Lansing.
We worked for a number of clusters that built “rock walls” – that combination of mainstream, classic, and alternative rock that covered the genre from 18 to 54 year-olds. The bet was these groups were solid individually, but even stronger collectively, able to squeeze out those who dared to encroach on their rock turf.
Zuckerberg realized early on that in spite of its heft, Facebook was fragmenting. He could see the stress cracks as Facebook grew among AARP members, while its original constituency – college students and teenagers – were asking themselves, “WTF?”
The question of whether a single social media platform could hang onto the whole market was answered when Facebook bought Instagram in 2012. It became a social media “duopoly” – an acknowledgment that young people were already moving on from Facebook, turned off by their parents and grandparents invading their sacred social network.
When Facebook added WhatsApp two years later, these holdings became a “cluster.” And it became even more obvious
Zuckerberg’s strategy was to expand by portfolio addition, allowing the company to capture different demos with its more diverse social holdings. Now known as “Meta,” the cluster has been officially branded. Who else in the social piece can truly compete with Zuckerberg’s collection?
But seemingly, his move to “meta” has gone to his head. Zuckerberg is talking about ditching older Facebook users, and retrenching in a young direction. The New York Times’ covered this land grab in a story last week aptly titled, “Facebook Wants the Young People Back.”
Writer Shira Ovide notes Zuckerberg’s Facebook is willing to “turn itself inside out to get more young people.”
But if that’s not enough, take Zuck’s own words at face value. In a conference call reporting Facebook’s financial status, Zuckerberg explained his new master plan:
“We are retooling our teams to make serving young adults their North Star rather than optimizing for the larger number of older people.”
Zuckerberg has a reputation for bloviating. And like most PDs, he’s got a very apparent paranoia streak. Still, going after America’s youth 17 years after forming Facebook? That’s like trying to make New Kids On The Block competitive with BTS.
But Facebook’s hold on young consumers dissipated long ago, as the social media platform enjoyed its mass appeal status. And the company has made untold billions from its mature, adult base with no end in sight. Meantime, younger people are rejecting Facebook in growing numbers.
Is it realistic to get them back? Like a Classic Rock station playing the new Olivia Rodrigo single next to the Stones, it is hard to imagine Facebook can simply pull off a double-reverse, even if it intends to play a long game to win the youth market back.
Why would Zuckerberg start to skew Facebook younger, risk alienating its Boomer and Gen X base, while potentially harming Instagram’s popularity among the world’s youth?
Journalist Ovide seems to be perplexed as well, noting that Facebook “can stay rich for a very long time without (younger people).”
Nonetheless, hot tech startups almost always focus young, at least at first. Zuckerberg is well aware of that trajectory, and may be frustrated by Facebook’s inability to have cred among today’s youth corps, the same demographic that put “The Social Network” on the map.
And Ovide provides another theory, culled from those leaked papers from whistleblower Frances Haugen:
“…Facebook is worried that teens are spending less time on Instagram this year, that its user base is aging fast, and that young people who love Instagram aren’t gravitating to the Facebook app as they get older.”
It is truly challenging to make a cluster strategy work across all those different brands. Like trying to get those plates all spinning at once with none of them breaking.
Where is Erich Brenn when Zuck really needs him?
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.
- When Did Radio Stop Advertising? - December 27, 2024
- Radio Listeners Don’t Get Tired Of Music, Only PDs And Music Directors Do - December 26, 2024
- It’s The Most Wonderful Time Of The Year - December 25, 2024
It is interesting to see how he is aiming to get the younger demos to re-engage.
Is there something wrong with over 40 dollars?
Excellent piece Fred, as usual. Well formulated, argued and written.
Much like the frustration we Classic rock & Oldies programmers face.
Zuck & advertisers don’t want an older demo.
But how does David Muir do it?!!(every ad is big pharm)
Great column Fred. I remember having this kind of conversation with you – when research showed some headroom available on the young end, you outlined the risk of having two diluted positions rather than one strong one. We agreed to stay the course and in retrospect, that was the right move.
In F*ckerberg’s defense, at least he’s realized that there’s an eventual Facebook cliff and that the future is with younger people who will age into their peak earning years and stay with the platform for a long time. He may be worried that Facebook is more analogous to an oldies station than a classic rock one – where the oldies station’s media age grow by a year every year, while classic rock has managed to become relevant to younger listeners, despite the ago of its music. So he’s smarter than most radio CEOs.
That said, adding Billie Eilish to an oldies station and keeping the sunglasses/Kool 107 logo won’t attract high school students anymore than hipping up Facebook will. A new social media concept (create or buy one) aimed at his target now would probably be a better path. Its also really late – a lot of people much less smart than him realized that once the boomers latched onto Facebook, it wouldn’t take long for millennials and their younger counterparts to abandon it. 2021 and post TikTok is very late to that party.
F*uckerberg widely viewed as an evil genius – so its wise not to count the genius part out. For a social outcast with a high school diploma and no business experience, he’s done pretty well. Better almost surely than all of us critiquing his latest move – which seems ill advised, at least in the way he’s doing it. But if someone had bought stock in my as a college sophomore and him, the return on him would be immeasurably better.
Let him misstep. The resultant dose of humility would do him good.
K.M., you’re right. Zuck could use a healthy portion of comeuppance. Chances are, even if this is an epic fail, someone else in the chain of command will meet the underside of a bus. Thanks for the comment.
As Bob Bellin says, maybe “A new social media concept (create or buy one) aimed at his target now would probably be a better path. ”
Social media and platforms development move too fast and it’s really difficult to keep the pace, even for Mr. Zuckerberg…
Great post, Fred.
Tito, Facebook clearly got bigger than Zuckerberg – or anyone – could possibly fathom, especially when you go back to those Harvard days. Appreciate you chiming in.
Zuck bashing aside, and he certainly deserves much of it, let’s not overlook the stellar accomplishments of Keith Hastings and his team at Cox Media Group/San Antonio. I first met Keith when he was piling up Herculean numbers doing nights at WIOT/Toledo during their powerhouse days when 12 and 13 shares were the norm. Just a kid, Keith was eager to learn, quick to act, and relentlessly curious about how to improve his show and contribute to the growth of his station. Those same characteristics propelled him to a long and successful run with Saga Communications before he found his way to San Antonio where’s he’s been lighting up the scoreboard for Cox ever since his arrival. The “Royal Ratings Flush” is something rarely (if ever) seen in this day and age. In typical fashion, Keith is quick to acknowledge his team as instrumental to this success. Look at his picture… that’s what a real leader looks like.
It’s truly an amazing accomplishment, Dave, especially in a highly competitive market. Keith and his team deserve much credit for keeping those plates spinning. Thanks for the comment.
Fascinating discussion that is right on the money, especially about the impact of the change in ownership rules. Fred, do you remember when you knew things had permanently changed due to clusters? As a direct marketing consultant, I was at a client station when a PD called me into his office and started whispering. Why? Because they didn’t want the PD in the next office – who was truly one of their biggest competitors for listeners and now owned by the same company – to know about his marketing plans. That’s when I knew for sure the game had changed.
I do remember – awkward moments at the kitchenette when DJs and PDS would run into each other. Years later, it’s all part of the routine. But in the late 90’s, it truly got weird. Thanks for the comment, Mark.