After spending most of the past week in Las Vegas hanging out with fellow broadcasters, I couldn’t help but notice a number of people comparing today’s industry to the one where they got their feet wet. It’s natural to talk about the good old days. We all do it, whether we’re 30 or 70 years-old.
Most of the time, the things we miss simply aren’t attainable or realistic anymore. I wish there was still a Radio Show where radio people gathered to learn and hang out with each other. I enjoyed the natural camaraderie that organically formed among fellow radio people, all gathered in the same hotel and/or conference center. I have no idea how many “radio people” showed up at this year’s NAB. But among the 65,000+ attendance, it seemed like they were fewer and farther between.
That perception could easily be refuted. And if we compared the number of radio pros in attendance this year to last, it’s very likely there was an actual increase in this year’s totals. Lots of my perception is driven by where the show is located. In a massive setting like Las Vegas, its cavernous convention center, and its hotels spread out up and down The Strip, it is easy to not see anyone you know as you’re strolling the grounds.
Hanging onto traditions for the sake of continuity or nostalgia is never a great idea, especially in a changing environment like the one we’re in right now. Still, there’s something to be said about the radio medium when literally everyone listened in the days before there was an Internet, streaming, satellite radio, and podcasts.
Back in those days, a great book was an instant excuse to knock off for the day and hit a local watering hole. The entire staff – sales, programming, traffic, continuity, and engineering would stop what they were doing to celebrate the moment.
One thing hasn’t changed. It’s a group effort to squeeze out a great book. If you’re lucky enough to get a breakthrough book – when an underdog station rises to the top – it’s something very special. Back in the 70s and 80s, these were moments where the entire team deserved a break to celebrate the accomplishment.
A true story: I was consulting one of my David vs. Goliath battles – the upstart Classic Rock station versus the heritage Rock station in the market. It was on a major stage – Chicago. It was WCKG
versus the world famous WLUP, a truly great station with bigger-than-life personalities in every daypart. CKG was an exceptionally well-programmed station, well-supported by a great owner, Cox. We had research, marketing, and staff, along with corporate guidance from Bob Neal and Nick Trigony.
The first two monthlies looked good. And we actually had a chance to scratch out a victory with a great third month. All the calculations had been done, redone, and rechecked 100 times by PD Tim Sabean and GM Marc Morgan. And I made the mistake of booking a market visit on the day the numbers were coming out.
On the way into the station that day, Tim called me at my hotel from his drive. He and Morgan had just spent an hour on the Dan Ryan Expressway rehashing ratings scenarios. The book was to come out at 10 am and I begged Tim to call me, win or lose.
10:15 went by. No call. It couldn’t be good, I’m thinking.
10:30. Still nothing. Now I’m getting concerned. If the book was good, surely they would’ve called by now. But if it was somehow bad….well, that explained the silence.
11 o’clock. Not a word. Without cell phones or text messaging, it’s just a matter of Tim or Marc calling me in the hotel. But still not a word. It had to be bad. We must’ve tanked in Month 3.
11:15. Now I’m listening to the station, trying to judge by the midday jock’s voice what might be going on. Any celebrating in the background? Does he sound a little happier than usual? Or maybe he’s a little down. Damn! He sounds like he always sounds.
11:30. I’m climbing the walls. Let’s give it 15 more minutes and then I’m calling the station. I’m prepared to deal with whatever the Arbitron gods have dished out. I’m now second-guessing our book contest, our TV spot, those Classic Rock Block Weekends. EVERYTHING! It’s obvious. We blew our best chance to ever beat the Loop. We’ll never get this opportunity again. We’re screwed.
Noon. I call the station. Tim doesn’t pick up the private line. His assistant isn’t in either. I call the main number, the receptionist answers, and I ask for Tim. He’s out of the building, she tells me. Is Marc Morgan in? No, he’s out, too.
At wit’s end, I explain how Tim was supposed to call…and didn’t. Does she have any clue about those ratings?
She does…sort of. She “thinks they’re good.” The entire station has emptied out and is over at their unofficial local bar. (In Chicago, there’s one of these on every block). I grab a taxi only to arrive to see the party is in full swing. It goes on through much of the day. The market visit? Totally unproductive. But the excitement of being with a winning staff on the biggest day of their careers is priceless, and something most consultants don’t usually get to experience. I was fortunate to have been there.
Today, it’s often a every different story. We can blame the lack of book celebrations on COVID, but it goes well beyond that. There are many reasons why a great ratings book now gets a mention and a nod in an email – and then it’s right back to work:
1. Ratings are continuous – Back when rating periods were only four weeks long, station staffs had more time to collect themselves, acknowledge the moment, and prepare for the next rating period. Today, most stations in most markets are already well into the next ratings period when the book comes out. There’s no time to take in the moment and party.
2. Staffs are smaller and not always in the same location – When 30 or 40 people came to work every day to the same building, all hands were usually on deck – or close by. It was easier to gather groups. Somehow, even without email, texts, and social media, the entire staff got the message there was a party at Mac’s, the Painted Pony, Mr. Joe’s, or the McCoy’s. Today, there may be three people in the station or even on staff. A gathering of three people doesn’t feel much like a party.
3. Market clusters make it harder to celebrate a single station win – When there are four, five, or more stations in the building, not everyone’s going to have a good book. In fact, it may be just a single station that experienced a genuine ratings victory. Over the years, station employees and managers have learned not to be overexuberant so as not to make others feel bad. As a result, celebrations are tempered and perhaps even nonexistent. That’s why email has become the generally accepted way to dole out the “atta boys” and “girls.”
4. The ratings don’t mean as much as they used to – As demand on broadcast inventory has diminished, so has the elation that accompanied a great book. Back in the day, sensational rankers in key demos (assuming it couldn’t be written off a “fluke”) almost always translated into a revenue spike. It wasn’t unusual for new rate cards to be written and printed within hours of that package in the mail or the phone call from Arbitron.
It’s sad, too, because as the old saying goes, life’s too short. And these days, a radio career is an even great commitment and a bigger sacrifice than it was when I walked in the door of a radio station each morning. When the numbers come in big, that moment should be celebrated and shared.
As someone who’s enjoyed numerous ratings celebrations, both as a station employee and a consultant, these are the moments you remember. Like in the world of sports where champagne is sprayed around a locker room and hugs are plentiful, take the opportunity to be in that moment and relish it.
As we all know, it’s important to recognize those victories because the losses are inevitable, too. When we take the good books in stride but take the bad ones seriously, we’re doing a disservice to our stations, our staffs, and ourselves.
Celebrate those wins.
P.S. If your station/company still parties when those victories roll in, please tell me about it. – FJ
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#2 – who’s gonna celebrate? The shows are all voice tracked from out of market. The morning guys uses a Comrex to do his show from his home. The program directors are all located in different cities. Sales? nope, they only come into the office twice a week. The production director does all his work from home and uploads completed spots to the server. The engineer is a contract guy who stops by once a week.
The ops manager and GM can go have a beer across the street with Norm and Cliff, and that’s about it.
In a growing number of situations, Scott, it’s hard to argue with your comment.
Celebrate? As part of a hub of stations, I was told not to celebrate getting to #1 because “salespeople would only sell your station and not the others”…huh??
Painful, Chris. And not the first time I’ve heard that.
Our special practices that created great radio need a rerun. The right music, great personalities, essential local information and sound connection were all that was needed. We still have the embers. Don’t cause fires….. just light up the sky with new, fresh air. PS. Regular celebrations with your real radio regulars is a great start and time honored tradition. Especially when it’s only tip and tax with a lot of laughter and team spirit.
Thanks, Clark. I know you’re a veteran of many a ratings celebration.
A similar theme is that there appear to be few outlets in the U.S. that actively publicize their ratings.
I was fortunate enough to know ahead of time that Spain’s ratings were to be released this week, which allowed me to devote enough time to looking for post-release statements. Even though there was plenty of spin (with some of the low-rated main brands essentially ignored by their owners), I was surprised at how many statements I came across–and that many of them were posted on the outlets’ public/listener-focused content sites. Here, it might not hurt that the topline national numbers are posted publicly by the provider.
(Basic rewrites of a lot of those statements were posted Wednesday–the day of the release–at http://guiadelaradio.com/category/nacional.)
Thanks for sharing this, Eric. Obviously, much different here in the U.S.
Kind of snickering….I tried to bring the “celebrate the book” mentality to Public Radio in the early 2000s. After people got done looking at me as if I had four heads, I realized I had some ‘splainin’ to do. Then they showed me that pub radio types can party just as hard as their commercial siblings. In fact, it was a classic “be careful what you ask for” because they got used to it, and of course then looked directly at me for the revenue payoff! Ha. No good deed ever goes unpunished.
I think it’s different in commercial radio where there’s the ever-present fear a few bad books could lead to a format change or the head rolling the goes along with that. Thanks for relating your story of irony about public radio and the ratings.
Such a great story!
Yes, we did have some great ratings celebrations. I’ve got the scars to prove it. Most of them are a blur, but I have a memento from one of the best ones ever.
After a year working for you and visiting the best Classic Rock stations across the nation (and Canada), I went back to WYSP, where we finally beat WMMR. There’s a legendary poster with a slogan that Howard Stern created for a certain then Morning Zoo-Keeper. Every member of the staff wrote something to me and signed it. To this day I have that framed poster. I had it on the walls of the stations I programmed. It served as great inspiration.
Savor those moments when they come and take your staff out, no matter how small, and even if sales and admin don’t come with you. They are too few and far between.
It is true that you remember those moments. We had a few of them. Thanks for conjuring up some of those memories.