At What Point Will Radio Respond With Action?
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Words are wonderful. Get the combination of words correct and you console, motivate, enlighten, or reprimand. Use the wrong words and you may get slapped, scorned, or ignored. Or worse, words can create deceit. May I suggest that radio executives and radio trade publication publishers reconsider their use of words when talking to those who are in, or servicing, the radio industry. All too often words used by them are chosen more for covering the true extent of damages incurred over the last few years than for charting a new course.
I have nothing against "hope", a noun defined as "the feeling that what is wanted can be had or that events will turn out for the best." Nor is the verb "aspire" something I'll shy away from, "to long, aim, or seek ambitiously." But to watch a hopeful aspiration continually brought up in conversation by radio industry executives and to see articles in trade publications that lean towards this end with no basis in fact generates angst. When will words spoken match actions taken?
The people who make visions of grandeur appear within the radio industry - the ones promising more local content by increasing PSAs, who speak of expanded coverage by forcing FM/AM chips on cell phone manufactures, who report "Memorial Weekend to be Celebrated on Radio" with a list of tired attempts at programming, and those that predict light at the end of this latest revenue tunnel - are not in as much control of their destinies as their confidence portrays.
Words can't save the radio industry now. Only actions will result in crawling away from revenue drops like the latest Q1 2009 plunge of 24%. To do nothing means waiting until the revenue drop can't get lower, like when we see radio go down to a $10 billion industry again. Don't think that's possible? Then we are in disagreement over the current effectiveness of radio's response to trends.
Have you noticed the lack of mention regarding HD Radio lately? I'm not hearing any commercials for it on Cleveland stations. Though it's true some may be played while I'm engaged online, HD Radio has already become a past-tense issue in this town. (I recently asked a BMW service manager about the sale of HD Radios at his dealership. His exact words: "I've never had a request for one." (He also said that he cannot get chips for the combined Sirius-XM Radios until October.)
Radio leaders who think words about radio's involvement with new media will lift the veil of doubt are counting on people who intimately know new media to keep their mouths shut. They won't, and can't.
When we hear how PPM delivers accountability, how many in the radio industry equate this accounting to the same definitions used with local search ads? How many broadcasters in your town know the details about internet radio's ability to place geo-targeted audio ads? How many have opened a spreadsheet and placed numbers on it which reflect the current CPM being charged for running an online campaign, and have charged those numbers against what's being asked in the broadcast environment? Rates are still dropping. Don't expect this to change anytime soon.
We hear consultants who brag about creating iPhone apps for individual stations. But, is this action a solution or camouflage? Do we ever hear how battery life has a direct effect on one's desire to listen to radio through a cell phone, or how those who do listen with their cell phone plugged into a charger desire the wider range of content offered by 10,000 internet-only stations? These are words of discussion that I would like to see addressed, but I don't.
Over the next 18 months we'll witness the silencing of hundreds of radio stations due to the dilution of advertising availability and a more accoutable online ad market. Rather than discussion of how the radio industry is positioning itself to counter this offensive, we are given initiatives with snappy names like the "Radio Communicators Group," "Radio Heard Here," or Clear Channel's "Total Radius" and its most recent embarrassment, "Clear Channel Radio Kicks Off Initiative to Assist Unemployed Listeners" (more appropriately called "Let's Build a Data Base").
You might want to check this radio industry Year End Report for 2008. Its first page statement is: REigNiTiNgRADiO - In 2008 we unveiled an unprecedented, comprehensive initiative to reposition radio for a vibrant and successful future. I am pleased to report that we are off to an incredible start. Radio stations nationwide are enthusiastically embracing this campaign and in a short period of time the tide has already begun to turn. This report also contains an opening comment from former NAB President, David Rehr: "These difficult times have galvanized the industry, firming our resolve to bring innovation to every corner of the industry."
Words are wonderful, and I would love to see the radio industry begin turning them into actions that create a competitive environment again. But we have, for too long, heard words with no follow-up to cause forward movement. That must come to an end. Another 20%+ drop in next quarter's revenue will place the radio industry perilously close to an insurmountable position, where the only words that we'll be able to say are "call hospice."
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