The End (hold your tears)

So I’ve finally reached that time of the semester when I’m expected to reflect on what I’ve learned during my experience blogging about commercial radio.  I think a few of my most recent posts may suggest that I did not learn anything, that I’m stuck in my beliefs and I have not really allowed new ideas to permeate my brain.  But you know, I really have learned some things.  I’ve learned about ratings more in-depth, networks, and syndication, but most importantly I’ve realized how frustrating these all are.  I knew before this class that I wanted to go into a public radio field, and studying commercial radio definitely solidified this goal.  I have learned what I specifically would love to change about the radio industry, but also that anybody succeeding in making such changes may be a long shot.  I want to change the things that have shifted recently in radio, but I learned that the industry has made such a strong cookie-cutter formula that I cannot do it alone.  There will not be one person that can make some revolutionary show that breaks the mold and brings everyone back around to the sounds of radio.  This new generation of radio leaders (for lack of better term) has to come together and show the general public that radio has something to offer by making many radical changes.  And the most important that I learned during this semester are really suspicions that have grown and are now confirmed as a result of my studies.  These suspicions of the industry culminate in what is wrong with commercial radio; these are the things that “my generation” needs to change.  Here are what I found to be the problems that need a change.

            Radio is a nearly impossible market to enter and succeed.  You have to do everything in the manner that it has been laid out for you.  You can start out as a small market DJ or producer, but you are not going to rise up as if it was a farm system based on your talent.  You are going to rise up because you showed your superiors that you can handle multiple roles adequately.  Your musical choices are worthless; you are not paid or recognized for artists that you break because that is not the DJ’s job anymore.  Music is not even the actual programming any longer, it is the personalities.  Press the right buttons, get your voicetracking done decently, and never say a cuss word: You’re golden.  You do not want to stand out, you want to perform adequately or slightly above so that you get noticed by your boss and you can get his job in another region.

            Adequacy.  That word disgusts me.  This group of students needs to find their voice and step outside these bounds.  I think that public radio is the only forum in which I will be able to say what I want, and tell the stories that should be told.  I think that others should certainly be shaking things up in commercial radio, because if we do not, we can kiss it goodbye.  The medium is declining because the consolidation and formulizing of radio is making it worthless.  If there is not a radical change in ten years, no self-respecting advertiser will want to buy a spot on air because they will soon realize that no one actually cares.  If people want to continue to buy into industry choices of music and news, maybe I’ll be wrong.  But I think the public is coming around, and it’s only a matter of time before radio is phased out of our consciousness.  Sure, I could use what I’m learning at Hofstra in another audio field, but radio still has so much potential that I think it is worth saving.  But we need to show that to the outside world.

            I think that the result of this work is that I am more motivated to prove something once I get out into the real world.  I did not expect this at all, I figured that I would be discouraged by commercial radio, but I am ready to fuck this shit up.  I have faith in my peers.

Thanks for reading!

"Before the Music Dies"

So it's Spring Break for me, and I just gave up my search for a website to watch the Celtics-Knicks game for free (since I have no access to TV for the night).  Instead, I decided to watch a film available to anybody on Hulu (with ads, a minor frustration) called Before the Music Dies.  It's a remarkable 2006 documentary about the state of the music industry, inspired by the final words of director Andrew Shapter's deceased brother.  In class we recently watched a similarly-themed documentary, with a more empirical approach to examination of the music industry with more small-time names, called "Money for Nothing" which was pretty outdated.  I think that this newer film - partly in its administrative aspects (editing style, budget, and execution), partly its recent production, and partly use of big industry names/performers - creates a better critique of the entire network of companies that makes up the arms of the beast that is the music industry.

Covering radio, record labels, music writing, aesthetics, Auto-Tune, short-term business models, piracy, constantly changing distribution formats, alternative labels, competition and formulas, the film interviews music fans, managers, executives, writers, big-name and indie artists alike (Eric Clapton, Bonnie Raitt, Dave Matthews, Erykah Badu, Elvis Costello, Widespread Panic to name a few) for an unmatched picture of the industry.  There is a decided focus on the manufactured aspect of the industry; very few labels allow radio stations or musicians to work entirely on their own accord, because the goal is always more green.  We get to hear about the fall of the industry from artists who watched it fall and those who persevered alike, and at times the movie can be a bit depressing, like the industry is too far gone.  But the end message is one of hope, it asks those who buy and those who make music to try to rebel against the system that is clearly broken at this point.

The film also puts a decent focus on an artist that has been sort of left by the wayside by record labels, although in part by his own choice because of his poor experience.  I read an article about this artist, Doyle Bramhall II, years ago when he was in Eric Clapton's band, and his story is pretty amazing.  I was disappointed that the movie didn't delve into his incredible past, but learning about his struggle with the industry was also great.  Bramhall's father, Doyle I, was great friends with Stevie Ray Vaughn and his brother Jimmie and the two lived in the Bramhalls' home for quite some time.  As a result of all those legendary guitar players hanging around while he was growing up, the younger Bramhall picked up the guitar all the time, but as a lefty was forced to turn the guitar upside down, and still managed to teach himself the instrument under the influence of very skilled players.  And Bramhall still plays the guitar in that manner, with the strings opposite of a normal guitar because he still plays it like it were a right-handed guitar upside down.  (Contrary to popular belief, even Hendrix didn't play like that, it's very difficult)

Everyone who every listens to music to watch this movie, even if you think you understand how the industry works.  I hope my professor will consider "Before the Music Dies" for the next round of this class instead of "Money for Nothing"

"Voicetracking: 2011 Radio Reality "

I've been using Friday Morning Quarterback for a lot of these blog posts this semester, and at this point I'm a bit lost as to the readership of this site.  I was referred to it by my professor, and it seems to write in a way that suggests that it lives up to my expectation that radio industry-types actually read this to stay on top of what's hot in radio.  But as I return to FMQB each week, I see far more articles about business of radio, which certainly affects radio programming by extension (and not very far extension at that), and less about ways to stay relevant (or, god forbid, important) in radio today.  Most articles that actually pertain to running a station well seem to be obvious to me, and I'm still just a student of radio, imagine how obvious it must be to those in the industry.  I see a ton of articles every time about an executive moving from one media conglomerate/record label to another; I mean who really cares?  Executives may have all the say, but do they really do anything?  I am beginning to think that in order to get out of the funk that radio is in, the people on the air - or at least in the building in which the study resides - are the people who need to run the show, and the only way to do that is to actively take it over.  No matter how many times I hear a DJ say that his boss doesn't him to play this or say that, I want to hear something that is important and they fall short every time.  This is a trend that certainly plays into many places in American life, but why don't we take a real stand - let's reject the arbitrariness of of executives and put the people back into broadcasting.  I'd certainly appreciate it.

But on to the topic about which I actually intended to write.  I needed to get that rant out there, but why don't I explain the article that got me started.

The Program Director of WLAN-Lancaster wrote this article about outside voicetracking, which is so common in radio today that I knew of it when I was still in elementary school.  I mean, come on, no matter how much you tailor your vocabulary and subject matter to something that you think interests the listeners of the station you've sent that track to, it remains decently obvious.  I didn't need Jeff Hurley to tell me that voicetracking from the outside is a reality in radio, and has been for some time, and yet this article is on FMQB for radio insiders to get their hands on.  I also feel like I know enough about teamwork and synergy and communication to do a decent job of something like this.  I will certainly say that I picked up a few tips for the road here - like the fact that there's still at least one person out there who considers DJ's to be creative.  But yeah, that was about it.  Obviously you need to utilize social media these days - a business or public figure without it is unfortunately pretty worthless.  Clearly you need to be in touch with the expectations of coworkers and listeners - it is more difficult across a great distance, but again that's an unavoidable aspect in any business in the developed world.  Jeff Hurley, I've got no problem with your article, but maybe it should've been in a communications textbook instead of a site that claims to consists of "high quality unique content, insight articles and news."  Don't expect my next post to come from FMQB.

AM in Decline

I don't think that I'm making much of a stretch to say that the friendly old AM radio band is rarely used these days.  The band may be going as strong as FM, but its programming is regulated to mostly news (whether its 1010WINS style or talk) or sports (whether that be talk or actual games).  There really hasn't been music on the AM dial for a long time, although when I scan the dial for some reason, I do come across a lot of Spanish-language stations that might include music.   I concede these points, but if anything in radio is fading, it's got to be the AM band, predominantly because of the quality which has an effect on programming for stations on that band.  So it really should not come as a surprise that Entercom is essentially moving AM stations to FM frequencies.  Now read that story and you might assume quite the opposite; the picture that's painted there is that the FM station is not doing as well (even though it's a "ratings leader"), so to attract people to the station they will simulcast the AM talk station to the FM dial.

There's the point though: Listeners spend their time on the FM dial, some newer tuners don't even bother with the AM (on MP3 players and the like), so to attract more listeners to the FM station that may be struggling to compete with other stations using the same classic rock playlist, they make the news/talk station simulcast the front of the FM station.  The classic rock station is still broadcasting on the web, and the secondary HD-FM channel, so listeners with the newer tuners can still listen in, but they might be surprised, even intrigued to hear issues debated where they thought the Stones might be rocking the same tune one more time.  I think this does clearly point out though, that AM is fading.  FM is certainly struggling, but perhaps by joining together the two dials can make a more consolidated and interesting set of programming for the listeners.

Maybe this is the saving grace of radio.  Depending on your market, there are a lot of stations, and too many that compete to get the same listeners, even though they have pretty much the same playlists.  Classic rock stations aren't really going to diverge from one another, unless they decide to aim for older or younger versions of "classics."  Might as well phase the talk radio back in.  As with my post last week, it's the personalities and opinions that keep listeners engaged these days, not the same old tired tune.  Perhaps AM will become the band for community radio, or more emergency frequencies can be put there.  But with the digital radio system, it's easier for a station to put multiple broadcasts on one frequency, so each media giant can have one small area of the band for each of their programming formats.  And if you like the way that Clear Channel does it, you can keep your radio on the Clear Channel frequency, and just change which station plays as you decide to change format.  Ok, maybe that's not that likely, but it's an idea.  I do think that AM will not be the wave of the future for radio, and this trend is probably on going to continue.

By the way, there is a lively and interesting discussion from the people who know these stations best on Radio-Info's online community boards if you'd like to see what actual people from Buffalo think of this change, although the change has happened elsewhere, too.

A Word of Advice from FMQB

Friday Morning Quaterback's Bob Quick declares in his latest article that music is no longer content for radio.  As he sees it, the generational changes have led to a generation simply uninterested in music as it comes from the radio.  As a member of this generation, I completely agree; it's simply way easier and more fun (and yes, even 'cooler') to steal it or download it from the internet.  I shouldn't have to detail the history of this, but the end result of radio's evolution in the past two decades has left the music content subpar, and clearly radio managers can't even afford to focus on it.  Quick seems to think, and probably correctly so, that radio is coming full circle by returning to a focus on personalities.

Personalities have been unique to radio since its inception, and with the removal of the Fairness Doctrine, personalities became the ideal item to get listeners.  And with music radio losing its grip, the only thing that it's got left is the unique personalities, which stations are constantly trying to steal from one another.  It makes perfect sense that this is the last stand of radio, but....who cares?

If radio does collectively decide to leave behind any musical focus, it will simply put the last nail in the coffin that contains my commercial-radio-self.  Quick is really just voicing something that has been happening forever, and if he thinks that personalities can save radio, good luck to him.  Radio really still holds a lot that has yet to be tapped, namely in news formats, where NPR and other public radio shows continue to experiment.  Maybe music radio has reached its pinnacle, and we're simply in the denouement of pop and mass-produced crap.  With all the music out there, there's still an opportunity for radio to be the place to discover music, to be the cutting edge.  But instead, radio continues to be about money, and money has only killed every genre, artists and personality in the music industry.  Quick is probably right that music is unimportant to radio, but that's only because radio decided that with its "gold rush."

Network Radio Grows in March 2011

I've posted previously about the Arbitron ratings of terrestrial radio, and the ratings group has released its RADR Report (Radio's All Dimension Audience Research) for this month.  This report focuses on advertising, and the most noteworthy statistic from the report is that approximately 74% of persons 12 or older have heard a network radio commercial during an average week this month.  After the jump, you will find more age specific statistics, but all fall around the same percentage.  This figure is apparently a growth of 3.6 million from the figures from last March.


These figures don't seem to line up with the statistics from my previous post, in which Arbitron reported 93.2% of persons 12 or older listened to radio in a week last year, although both figures showed growth from the previous reports.  Perhaps this is an indicator that listeners don't really want to hear the ads (surprise!).  While it's still hard to avoid the advertisements, as is true anywhere else, many people are apparently dial punchers and successfully avoid the ads.  What does this mean for programming?  Well, at the very least, it means that it's still better than the ads.

Programming vs. Playlisting

Clear Channel's Bob Pittman (Chairman of Media & Entertainment) gave a speech at an investor conference in Miami last week, focusing much of his time on the differences between his company's radio and internet playlist sites that call themselves "internet radio."  The main difference appears to be programming in Pittman's mind.  He considers sites like Pandora and Spotify to be another stage of private "music collections," while Clear Channel's stations continue the tradition of actual programmed radio.  Pittman claims that terrestrial radio is "curated and dynamically changes," but neglects to remember that sites like Pandora allow their listeners to choose which songs they like, allowing for changes whenever the individual listener wishes, instead of the music director.  Pittman compares music programming to a miracle: "So as you’re getting tired of a certain song, it begins to disappear. As you discover a new song, miraculously it appears and starts being played more and more. And every week, every month, every year the station is constantly changing in reaction to changing consumer tastes."  He thinks that this is better than a Pandora-type service because internet stations are simply a playlist, and after a time everyone gets tired of any playlist, and simply make another one.  But Pittman complains that these sites shuffle playlists from "the same group of songs."  And while Pittman doesn't say he has anything against this system, he claims "it ain't radio."


Bob Pittman: Idiot, liar, or just another guy who doesn't listen to radio?
The way he describes internet radio services seems to better describe the radio stations that his company runs.  Especially in pop radio, even if the single is changing over the course of a few weeks, it is simply replaced by another one from "the same group of songs" performed by only a handful of artists.  It has little to nothing to do with "consumer tastes," but rather what hot single by the same tired artists is hot that week.  And the only reason that someone might get "tired of a certain song," is because radio stations play the hell out of the singles, embedding it into the consumer's brain until he or she cracks.   If Pittman wants to make programming the difference between his radio and the new wave from the internet, he should probably take a second look at his own system.


Pandora actually allows for more personal programming.  If you're sick of a song, you simply press the thumbs down button, and the program never brings it back to your stations.  Sure, this is the same concept as a playlist, but at least you don't get sick of a song and then the radio continues to pound it into your brain.  The consumer's taste are even more relevant in this situation.  Pittman shouldn't make claims that internet services are not radio when in reality, their programming format is a bettered form of radio.  The consumer has been left out of recent radio, even though radio was created as public service.  Pandora still aims to sell listeners to advertisers, but at least it attempts to give the listener a chance to put the music he/she wants on the station.  Pittman is right to be scared of Pandora and company, and the only reason I can see for this weak defense of Clear Channel is his fear.  Look out Clear Channel!

Charlie Sheen doing the best work on commercial radio

Gee, what do you know? There's more crap on commercial radio!

Maybe it's the fact that we got to look at Public Radio and its worthwhile programming last week, or simply looking at commercial programming is frustratingly shallow in my mind.  In any case, it makes perfect sense to me that the recent obsession with Charlie Sheen (and whatever is wrong with him) has been so prominent on radio.  He has called into several stations, most recently Philadelphia's WRDW "Wired" after they flew a plane over his house asking him to do so on Friday morning.  In a word, yay.

On the same day, SiriusXM announced an entire channel for Sheen's ridiculousness, appropriately named Tiger Blood Radio.  The channel only lasted 24 hours this past weekend (Saturday morning through Sunday), but I'm sure it did the damage.  It looks like Sheen is cashing in on the public's reaction, after all his new Twitter account got to 1 million followers in less than 24 hours before he even tweeted anything.  I have assumed that this madness is a publicity stunt for a new film, or something he can write a best-selling book about, but it may be that something else is afoot. In this article, it appears that Sheen's stocks are not quite as "WINNING" as you might think.  Hmm, then what could all the public nonsense be about?  Could the man who earned nearly $2 million per episode of Two and a Half Men actually is broke ala Willie Nelson? (or anybody else...)  Why, it's almost as if he wants to make money off of his public appearances!

What I'm trying to get at here, is that radio is becoming as a big a joke as Charlie Sheen has in the past few weeks.  SiriusXM doesn't appear to make any real money, so why not try to get new subscribers by putting out a limited time station about the hottest crap (excuse me..."topic").  WRDW probably doesn't get many listeners either so it makes perfect sense to come through on a promise of Charlie Sheen on air.  God forbid there's an intelligent forum on the Middle Eastern upheavals on the radio, I need more tiger blood!  And if you tell me that radio is a business and you've got to sell those listeners great, that's why I hate the rest of big businesses.  (Anybody see that Live Nation's losses tripled last year?  Because I couldn't stop grinning when I did. I personally can't wait to not pay their ridiculous service charges, blasted monopoly.)

Pardon me for all the sarcasm, but I may or may not be getting fed up with popular culture.

From Left Field - A Look at NPR

My class' assignment this week is to take a look at the NPR website and make some comments.  This comes after a panel/class discussion on the merits of public radio.  Many of my classmates did not know much about public radio, didn't care for it, or were simply uninterested in the topic.  I, however, have been listening to public radio, predominantly NPR, for my whole life.  My mother is an avid fan listening at all possible times, and I have grown to see how it has affected my views on the world outside, and found a huge respect for the style of programming.  So while surfing the NPR website for some is difficult or boring, for me it is almost a daily occurrence, and a place from which I get a lot of news.

I also really appreciate the music and sports reporting that NPR does.  One of my favorite programs of any media is called "It's Only a Game", with Bill Littlefield.  And while this program can't provide the video highlights that I eventually become addicted to while watching SportsCenter on ESPN, this show is a fantastically compelling program bringing great perspective to sports.  Like NPR's news and music, "It's Only a Game" looks at its stories differently.  But on to other things.

As a play on the title of one of NPR's most prominent news shows All Things Considered, Bob Boilen and others from "All Things" created a music show called All Songs Considered for alternative music.  This is one of the best shows on radio today, in my opinion, even though I am not in love with all of the music that they showcase.  I just love the way that they strive to showcase new music, and music that you just don't hear in mainstream media.  Although it's a weekly show, there's probably enough content to create a daily program, but there's so much online that "All Songs" makes up for that fact.  They provide discussions/forums, live concerts, in studio performances, interviews, guest DJ's, and LOTS of online blogging that sometimes doesn't make it to the audio program.  And they don't narrow their sights to any one genre (no matter how much you claim "Indie" as a"genre").  Last summer, I went to the music festival Bonnaroo and "All Songs" sent several representatives to report on the exhausting festival.  In addition to recording many of the shows in full, they created an hour long podcast reviewing their personal experiences at the shows throughout the weekend.  As an attendee of Bonnaroo, I found this report to be awesome once I found it a few weeks later.  And even though Bob Boilen and company were at very different shows than me, the reporting on the podcast is awesome.  For something more recent, I'd like to take a look at last show of "All Songs" which focused on the 1990s music scene.

Here's the link for the full story, with an audio link on the page.  The 1990s were, quite simply, my childhood.  I love 95% of the music that came out of that decade.  As a longtime amateur musician (very amateur), I think that I recognize boring or simple music, but even when 90s music falls into that zone I can barely turn away.  Grunge, hip hop, rockpop, even some of the earliest "Nu-Metal" was just all so catchy but fantastic.  "All Songs'" large panel discussion looked at a great variety of music from the decade, criticizing some of the more pop records, but clearly in a similar love with the dirt that emerged from the 90s.  They pointed out that 90s popular music seems to stand up to time, while music from the 80s does not seem as relevant today.  Even the one hit wonders that dominated poprock still sound great, no matter what the rest of their catalog is like.  If you existed in the 1990s, check out the show at the link above, a very fun and laid back look at how awesome that decade really was.

Whew, that's probably enough, you're definitely sick of my ramblings by now.  Until next time, when I will probably return to the evil world of consumerist commercial radio programming.

An Inside Look at Ratings and Programming

A very good article (though it could have used some more proofreading) this week from Friday Morning Quarterback written by Gary Marince, who is Vice President of Programming Services and Development at Arbitron.  He makes a great point about radio ratings: that they are far more based on the image and association that listeners have with the stations than actual execution of programming.  He argues that 75% of share points come from "the strength of the station’s position" and the other 25% from execution of programming.  So while good programming will definitely bring listeners to stay on the station, it also affects their likelihood to go back to the station when they first turn on a radio again.  Programming begets reputation, but Marince also argues that the "off" game is important; how the station is branded outside of the airwaves is also very important.  It's much less about creating a station that draws in listeners cruising around the dial, and more being consistent to create a niche, and making listeners identify your niche with your station.

Contemporary programming on commercial stations definitely seems to grasp this concept; they try to create an image as THE station for whatever genre/audience their aiming at.  The promos they play constantly definitely help to make their image concrete, and they always seem to imply that their station is the only station to go to for their area of expertise.  And the more you tell people that, the more they believe it really.  It's not hard to convince people of this fact, but when they go to your station for what they expect, you better give it to them.  With Marince's model, it still seems that it's possible to overtake big stations by providing great programming that people want to hear, but you better have some outside marketing as well.  This makes perfect sense, if only because that's how everything else is sold too.  You don't buy cereal because you see an advertisement in the grocery store, but one in a magazine or on television.  Similarly, you don't go into a pharmacy or a doctor's office without an idea of what medicine you will be getting.  There is advertising for these products in these areas, but far more in places outside of the actual market.  It may be a sad truth that programming itself matters so little in this modern radio market, but it is a truth nonetheless.  Once we can get people back into the market who are truly passionate about both, another golden age of radio could emerge again.  Integration is what this time period is about, and radio doesn't need to get left behind.