Another holiday weekend and another disaster.
You might even be wondering which disaster I’m talking about. Well, if you live in Southern California, it wasn’t a very pleasant 4th of July. After decades of just mild tremors, the earthquake returned to the region with a vengeance. And in the process, millions were terrified, scrambling for accurate information.
No, this isn’t another post extolling the virtues of stations that actually covered the event. Nor is it a castigation of those who voicetracked their way through the weekend, with at best, a single staffer in the building.
Instead, it’s a commentary on the changing times in which we live. If you watch the cable news channels, BREAKING NEWS has become a constant, seemingly starting and ending every segment. Some of this, of course, is a mechanism to get us to keep watching. But much of it is a true commentary on the amped up news cycle of our lives.
There is no such thing as a “slow news day” anymore. Every day – whether it’s Wednesday afternoon or Sunday morning – is chock-full of important news stories that demand our attention. NOW.
And while I know of no tracking data that would support this, it sure seems like there are more explosive stories these days – natural disasters, political shock, social unrest – than at any time in our collective memories. We can conjure up all sorts of reasons – rational and irrational – for why this is. But it just IS.
And so as radio operators – whether you run a music station, you’re in a top five market, you’re all-news, or you’re a public radio Classical music station – you can’t just execute your format and call it a day. The times demand an immediacy, a point of reference, a sense of place.
Think back to the hurricanes in Florida and Texas, the wildfires in California, the false alarm nuclear attack on Hawaii, the rampant flooding throughout the Midwest, those deadly tornadoes throughout Oklahoma – the list just goes on and on. And that’s just the weather.
But wait there’s more – local shootings in schools, movie theaters, churches, mosques, and synagogues. They’ve become so commonplace, it’s easy to just shake our heads and get on with our weekends. But when one of these tragic events occurs in your community, it becomes very real and immediate.
And then there are the socially significant moments, from the deaths of stars like Tom Petty and Prince to the U.S. Women’s Soccer Team taking another championship, the need for radio – spoken word or music – to keep an audience informed and in the moment has never been higher.
We’ve discussed the crazy coincidence that most of the above mentioned BREAKING NEWS stories inconveniently broke during weekends, or in the case of the recent earthquakes, over a long holiday weekend.
Translation: The worst possible time for most radio stations.
While the rest of the media world has become adrenalized by the super-charged news environment, radio has moved into a hibernative state, often missing the opportunity to cover a key event and serve its communities.
Yes, even if a handful of Southern California radio stations were actually on the ball when the ground shook, many were not. And that’s the case virtually every time one of these events strikes – especially during the nighttime or weekend hours. A holiday makes it especially challenging for even the biggest clusters in the largest markets.
But what price, if any, does radio pay every time some tumultuous event occurs, and radio is ensconced in voicetracking or pre-recorded programming.
None of us knows the answer. Is there collateral damage when consumers punch on a radio when something happens, only to hear a song, a business report, or “Wait, Wait…Don’t Tell Me!”)?
There has to be an erosive effect that worsens over time, breaking down one of radio’s true “steel swords” – being live & local. Broadcast executives 
give lip service to that key asset, but too often, their stations no longer walk that walk, instead immersed in robotic, cost-saving auto pilot programming that assumes all is well and nothing has gone wrong.
But listeners can tell, especially when the “order” breaks down in their market due to one of the many aforementioned unexpected events or tragedies. A “DJ” who somehow doesn’t know there are flash floods all over TV news or the death of an iconic core artist is blowing up on Twitter becomes about as useful in the moment as a Spotify playlist or listening to “The Bridge” on SiriusXM.
What started a few decades ago as an economy of scale technique that could be deployed in “unimportant dayparts” has become an industry-wide crutch that conspires to remove broadcast radio even further from the excitement and tension of being in “real time.”
Far from suggesting that radio companies wean themselves off the addictive voicetracking drug, perhaps a more workable idea would be for companies to implement emergency plans that virtually guarantee a “designated broadcaster” at nights and on weekends assigned to drive to the station and take it “live.” There are some programmers who just do this, but as another decade of prerecorded radio slips by, fewer and fewer have been trained to know what to do when something out of the ordinary happens.
Here’s the ironic part – if you’ve ever been part of the news coverage of a tragic or life-changing event in your community or the world, you know just how satisfying and even exciting it can be. To deliver information, perspective, and that local context is nothing short of a rush – even if it’s a horrific tragedy. For so many younger broadcasters, those electrifying moments are now just the folklore of working in radio.
It is impossible to measure just how damaging radio stations being “out of it” when these crucial moments occur truly is. But just like during 9/11 or other lighting rod moments, people vividly remember where they were and what they were doing. They recall the medium that delivered the goods, while forgetting the ones that dropped the ball or just didn’t know what the hell was going on.
In much the same way habit-forming listening on the morning commute was formed over years of consistently solid personality radio in a.m. drive, those same routines can be broken or shifted to other media outlets that prove to more reliable, in the moment, and live during crunch time.
Yup. Live & local.
It’s not just a slogan. It’s what radio needs to rekindle…again.
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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Thanks, Clark!
Amen, Fred! Well said— I now use Twitter to find connection with people during live major events, breaking news, and before and after huge concerts. Radio no longer offers companionship with real people during these moments. And entertaiment/broadcasting platforms should be all about connection and engagement 24/7.
When radio become undependable for these types of things, it’s a scary sign. Thanks for the comment, Julie.
Fred: Once again “Bulls eye”!! FYI, in markets I work with, we have designated on air staff that can and have been at the stations in 5 mins from the start of an event. In this way we serve our communities and this attention to detail has come back to us in loyalty and the bottom line. Credibility is on the line here. Thanks once again to you and the gang for pointing this out.
Much appreciated, Jay. Thanks for reading the blog.
Once upon a time there were “go to” stations in most markets that could be depended on to be on top of everything. As a listener it is disheartening during a storm situation or other event that negatively affects a community to tune it in and find no information. This has had to cause damage to Radio’s credibility, taking away the need/desire to listen at all.
Couldn’t agree more, Hal. Thanks for the comment.
Well said. Just for kicks, I tuned to a fairly well known station in the path of the earthquake on July 4th. Nothing but tracked, canned Happy 4th of July greetings. Surprised me. Stations need to have a well thought out plan in advance of any disaster to avoid having to scramble.
Couldn’t agree more, Joel. Again, the post was not about naming names – lauding those who were all over it and dissing those weren’t. But radio managers need a plan for when these things happen. Thanks for the comment.
This is a great example of the “reach” number being less and less important. All it takes is one short cume event to ring that bell, but big events are just another thing that radio has ceded to other media.
When you play to run out the clock, inevitably the game ends. Its not a quick death, but rather one by 1000 cuts. As my mother used to say, “had that horse down to one grain of oats a day and the damned thing went and died on me”.
Exactly, Bob. Andy Bloom used to refer to this as the old kids game, Pick-Up Sticks. You keep removing them and eventually the entire house comes down. Erosion is a gradual process, but an inevitable one, too. Thanks for commenting.
Spot on Fred!!
Thank you, Tim!
Great article, Fred. Agree with my friend Clark about live and local. Found a station out west, KXL FM 101 in Portland, Oregon that’s an excellent example of being connected 24/7 with news, weather and traffic – with real people in the air chair. What a concept. Thanks again, Fred!
Appreciate it, Michael.
Listening to reelradio.com airchecks is an ear opener. While they don’t have the impact they had live, they are still more engaging than most of today’s voice-tracked mediocrity.
Hi Fred,
Reading this a couple days late, but great post. While of course, the first and best line of… offense… would be for stations to be on the air and “present” when these kinds of major events happen… you make a great point about our evolved world, now in a constant breaking news cycle via social media. It’s not just the story of the day… but the story of the minute. #whatstrending
Follow me on this… in the old days of the stage coach, the church bell would ring to call attention and communicate with the towns people. Or… the town square clock tower at city hall would remind you that the work day was over. I read a great essay once about the “communication power of the old bell tower”.
And I’ve read so many posts about the power of radio during tornados, flooding or hurricanes. All true. The storm itself delivers a “clock tower effect” for radio… at its best.
But times are a changing Fred.
I look at that megaphone graphic within this post, and my first thought was… “notifications”.
Radio is, hands down, not harnessing the power of notifications, coupled with mobile for driving live, real-time content… or the massively neglected opportunity for more short-form, shareable and searchable on-demand content.
Yes, I see some radio groups dipping their toes in the pool. I get the occasional notification from the “big radio apps”. But in most cases it leads to a dead end… and the experience could be so much more relevant to me, so much more topical and so much more immediate.
And if you can’t drive usage back to live broadcast content due to your empty studio… maybe you can drive listeners back to exclusive mobile content, a short form audio report or even to your social media pages.
The tragedy is that you even have to be talking about empty studios. It’s so much more than that too.
Perhaps the “value” that was lost over time for staffing the studio, is over-due to be re-evaluated and re-justified. Perhaps with a new vision for the stations content eco-system, and how people consume content today… especially with the ability to drive breaking news value for news stations and spoken word talk stations / sports talk stations too… all could exploit massive multi-platform opportunities with personalization, notifications and short form content, video content, etc.
There is an art and a science to notifications, and not to be taken lightly… as you’ll loose your listeners to the dreaded “unsubscribe”.
But… there is a reason that you don’t turn off your notifications for Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, Facebook, or even LinkedIn. Why? Because it’s personalized and it’s relevant to you as a user. There’s a really good chance that it’s something that you want to see. You post a photo or comment on a story you care about… and you want to see that “red badge” notification.
I know your team knows this, and you’ve done great webinars that touch on some of these strategies and tactics.
Radio can do this too. Radio needs to re-evaluate what breaking news means to today’s mobile consumer. Radio has to do this, yesterday.
(Sorry for the length, I was inspired… and I’m passionate about it)
Great to hear from you on this, Gil, and thanks for the truly inspired comment. Radio is still trying to get its head around the fact the media and news environments have changed. Redefining “What job radio is being hired to do?” or even could be doing at this point, goes to the core of the questions you raise. Thanks for this. I love when our posts become discussions.
You and I both know how right you are. Unfortunately, Wall Street does not.
🙂