Lowry Mays Discussion Needs Refocus
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The developing discussion on Lowry Mays' name being used for an "Excellence in Broadcasting" award demonstrates a classic reason why the radio industry lags in revenue and innovation - it focuses on the wrong items. People are being drawn to this difference of opinion, most-vocalized by Jerry Del Colliano at InsideMusicMedia.com and Radio Ink publisher, Eric Rhoads.
While Jerry shows contempt for - and clearly lays out fundamental problems with the fiscal management of funds at Broadcasters Foundation of America - Eric comes to the defense of BFA, writing about keeping an organization afloat that helps down-and-out broadcasters. The general radio crowd shows its reaction in a poll at Radio Business Report.
My own perspective is this: After the devastation Lowry Mays brought upon the radio industry, how is it plausible that the Broadcasters Foundation of America created the Lowry Mays Excellence in Broadcasting Award?
My take is slightly outside both Del Colliano's and Rhoads' arguments. There hasn't been one item introduced by Lowry that I can put a finger on which would be considered "excellent." My dissaproval comes in the hypocrisy of recognition being given where none has been earned. That money may be the impetus of the creation of this award is a moot point.
That being said, let's talk about how this normal practice of radio industry infighting is a major problem in preventing radio from moving ahead. The mere act of dwelling on the past (i.e., what Mays may or may not have done) prevents anyone in radio from focusing on what needs to to accomplished.
On Audio Graphics' home page are three stories listed under "News From Elsewhere." During times of heated discussions about who or why the radio industry has faltered, perhaps you need to look at these articles and refocus energy.
The essence of each article discusses how multiple competitive positions are set to further diminish radio's effectiveness in 2010. It is on points like these that attention should be given. The topic of Lowry Mays being a shaker in this industry is yesterday's news. He shook radio like a machine shakes the apples off a tree for harvesting, depleting the industry of the fruits of talent and responsibility it held to a community. End of story. It's time to move on.
Local search is gaining momentum, and the local business that creates 70% of radio's revenue is considering internet advertising more than ever. If your job revolves around selling radio programming, you had better become familiar with what local search, local placement, and local news aggregation offers. (Note this headline at LocalOnliner.com: "eBay Founder Planning Local News Service in Hawaii.") The next few years will be spent localizing online media to replace/offset the impact of traditional media in a geographically defined area.
The YouTube "Music Discovery Project" holds the most potential for peeling away what radio considers its strong suit, introducing new music. Not too long ago some unmemorable, radio industry-backed report boasted that broadcast radio still leads the masses to the most new music. Sheer numbers guarantee that is true today. Tomorrow the numbers will be drastically different, due to sites like YouTube, GarageBand, Pandora, LastFM, etc.
As for analytics being a growing field that draws little attention from the radio industry? This is truly a case of "lead, follow, or get out of the way." The analytic skills required for getting an ad buyer's attention in 2010 and beyond will be proportional to the ad buyer's knowledge in analytics. The kicker to this statement is that analytics & metric experts are one hot commodity now, and there's no sign that demand in this area will slow.
So let's stop the discussion of Lowry Mays and his worthiness for any "excellence" award related to the radio industry. We each have an opinion.
Instead, may I suggest that anyone involved in the marketing, selling, or programming of radio needs to be deeply aware of what the competition has become. Attention needs to focus on how drastically this internet-related competition differs from radio's offerings to advertisers.
Local advertising is not the sole domain of local media anymore. When it comes at a lower CPM with instant access to response data and an on-going evaluation of return on investment, internet ad buys just make more sense. And internet radio ad buys will soon be just as geo-targetable as terrestrial.
The radio industry needs to address the following items to keep itself worthy: 1) local internet initiatives that radio can implement, 2) the demand for hearing new artists, which can be addressed through any radio station's stream, and 3) that ad buyers are - more and more - looking at data to validate an advertising campaign's cost.
It's not "if" Lowry Mays did anything of excellence. It's that by what he did do, he created a need for radio to excel like never before. Lowry may be a rich has-been, but he is nothing more than that. It's Clear Channel investors who pull the strings now.
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