Hear 2.0

What is "Accountability"?

From Radio One:

Radio One Houston...is pleased to announce ACCOUNTABILITY[ONE], our top of the line scheduling and ratings verification system. This cutting edge software will merge the most recent weekly PPM data with advertising schedules and provide ratings delivery based on the purchased schedule. Advertisers will be able to monitor their schedules on a weekly basis and compare the scheduled cost per point vs. the negotiated cost per point on a day part basis. Advertisers will receive a monthly accountability statement after each PPM ratings period. This will create necessary dialog between our clients and Radio One Houston to ensure our stations achieve the negotiated ratings delivery in a timely fashion.

This system, in other words, provides a match between the amount of air time the advertiser buys and what that advertiser pays for it. That's what the provider means here by "accountability."

But in my opinion it's a very narrow definition of the term.

I don't mean to take away anything from this initiative, which I think is great and a very positive step. My point is that if I'm an advertiser my true measure of accountability is not whether my advertising buy matches what I expect to pay for it at various rating levels. My measure is whether there is a traceable link between my expenditure and the results of that expenditure, whether those results are measured as feet in the door, goods and services out the door, product awareness, or whatever.

"Cost per thousand" is a number unconnected to the goals of the advertiser, unless that advertiser's goal is simply to send messages to thousands of people regardless of the outcome of that messaging.

"Cost per click" or "cost per action" or "cost per conversion" are, on the other hand, measures of accountability that say actions are what we're paying for, not merely exposure.

If your station can count how many feet your messaging sends through a client's door, that's a much better measure of "accountability" than anything PPM can give you.

This is where marketing and advertising is headed, folks, and this is where the term "accountability" is likewise headed.

While there will always be a market for broad messages sent blindly to broad audiences with no strings attached, increasingly our clients expect their mix to include a measurable return on their advertising and marketing investment.

Shouldn't that be our next initiative?

Doom and Gloom? Or Opportunity?

From Inside Radio:

Are radio’s leaders in denial? One analyst thinks so. CL King analyst Jim Boyle...projects radio revenues will likely be down 7% when the RAB releases July data, marking the 15th consecutive month of declines. Boyle blasts radio’s largest groups for not doing enough to make the “revolutionary changes” necessary to help radio recover. He says “There is a notable sense of denial of how harsh the prospects have been and continue to be for radio. The classic CEO reply is radio is not bleeding as badly as newspapers. We concede there is too little radio ad demand, but there is also too little rate card integrity and too little investment in radio’s product and people for the long-term.”

Now I usually steer clear of "doom and gloom" posts unless I can add something of a solution to the glum assessments of others.

In this case, those solutions are largely the point of this blog and virtually a daily theme. These solutions will also be the focus of the new book I'm preparing to publish this fall (more about that later).

For now, suffice it to say this: Mr. Boyle is correct.

Now is a time of tremendous opportunity for those groups interested in investing in those opportunities.

How to be a better Jock

Although this advice is aimed at presenters, it applies to any talent behind any mic on any radio station.

From the great blog Presentation Zen.

The "Death" of Podcasting?

Valuable piece from the influential blog Mashable about the decline of podcasting and the rise of videocasting...But it really makes the point that it's not really about things declining but rather about choice rising.

And there's a sharp point here relevant to the mother-of-all-podcast-sources, radio.

It’s an evolution towards choices. If you’re out to start a popular online show, you can’t just make an audio version - you’re going to fall by the wayside....Hell, nearly every podcaster told me that a successful podcast needs a successful and consistent blog.

Being able to offer your viewers, listeners, and readers multiple options to take in your work, your opinions, your interviews, and your personality is becoming more and more apparent. You need to complement your video show with not only podcasts and blog posts, but live streams, twitter conversations, and even mobile video. Think about how many sources you have for your news - TV, blogs, newspapers, magazines, RSS feeds, and email lists just to start.

So podcasting is far from obsolete - it’s just become an integral part of larger campaigns to reach current and new users. In the end, it’s about engaging your audience. But since users take in information from different sources and different mediums, the best podcasters and videocasters must do the same and spread their message across multiple platforms.

So the evolution of podcasting is towards engaging the audience via more media tentacles at the center of which lay the brand itself, not the channel of distribution.

Shouldn't this apply to radio as much as to podcasting?

"Radio," after all (in the current vernacular) is a distribution channel, but what you have on your radio is the brand (or at least should be).

So where's your brand's podcast? Your videocast? Your twitter feed, etc?

Stop analyzing. Just do something.

What are you doing to engage with your audience across all platforms?

Why your music matters

Too often it's easy for music-oriented radio stations to forget this twist on the old marketing maxim:

"You are not what you play, you're the benefit of what you play."

Even if the benefit is getting airline travelers into their seats faster, as it is for Delta, according to this article:

Though playing "elevator music" during boarding is nothing new, Delta is among the first to concoct a contemporary music mix specifically targeted toward getting customers to their seats faster and keeping them there.

"Obviously, today's travel experience is stressful," said Chris Babb, Delta's product manager of in-flight entertainment and media. "This is one way we try and reduce that stress."

Two years ago, Delta started playing contemporary music during passenger boarding. Soon, flight attendants noticed that playing upbeat music encouraged passengers to take their seats and get settled faster. "Once we started down that path, we put more research into it," Babb said. "It's made quite a difference for our passengers and flight attendants."

The song lineup changes each month, with a diverse mix represented, but the target for each playlist is the same: Welcome passengers on the plane with familiar-sounding tunes, get them to their seats quickly with upbeat tracks and help them settle in with more lulling melodies.

In my opinion, not enough stations appreciate the environmental benefits of their content based on how, when, and why listeners use (and I mean use, not simply hear) their stations.

This is particularly true in that most environmental or all workplace formats, Mainstream AC.

Try to answer this question:

"What problem is the audience hiring my station to solve?"

Who doesn't want "Balance," anyway?

From Radio Ink:

Poll: Nearly Half Favor Government-Mandated 'Balance' In Media

ASBURY PARK, NJ -- August 15, 2008: Forty-seven percent of Americans think the government should require radio and TV stations to offer equal amounts of conservative and liberal commentary, according to a new poll of 1,000 likely voters by Rasmussen Reports. Thirty-nine percent said they don't want the government mandating political "balance" on radio and TV.

Sigh....

When you're talking about abstract concepts and you ask people if they want things all one way, all another way, or equally balanced, they will invariably pick the option that hedges their bets and maximizes their flexibility.

That is, they will pick "balance."

This doesn't mean it's what they really want. Because obviously if I never listen to or watch political content, then I don't really want any of it, do I?

The ratings tell us that listeners vote with their behaviors in specific situations, not with their attitudes in broad, non-specific ones.

Research questions of this type, meanwhile, offer a menu of two extremes and one compromise. The obvious "right" answer is the compromise.

But being "right" doesn't make it "true."

I have yet to meet a radio station that chooses political inclination over ratings. And I have met a lot of radio stations. In fact, when it comes to broadcasting, ratings are their politics.

What listeners and viewers "want" from their political coverage is illustrated every time a Nielsen or Arbitron report is released.

Now this is apart from the other obvious point worth making: Namely that because "balance" is a nebulous concept, neither viewers nor listeners are good at recognizing it when they see it. This is why it's relatively easy to frame a particular presentation as "balanced."

So in the long run, should we legislate something the audience says they want, but doesn't really - something they couldn't even recognize if they got it?

I report, you decide.

What kind of radio are listeners searching for?

To the degree that folks search for what interests them, what are folks searching for in the world of radio nowadays?

A check of Google Trends reveals this picture for Internet radio (orange), satellite radio (red), and HD radio (blue):

And here's the picture just for HD radio:

Neither picture requires much comment.

And just to drive home at least one of the points these charts make, here's a comparison between the search traffic for Z100 (in blue) - one radio station - and "HD radio" (in red) - an entire technology, heavily promoted.

If you're concluding we should be in the big brand business and in the business of fulfilling the appetite for Internet content, then congratulations, you are reading these charts correctly.

iPod and HD Radio myths and realities

From Broadcast Newsroom:

iPods are seen as complementary to the radio experience, not competing. "Listening to your own collection versus listening to a programmed experience is still fundamentally different and (there's) still a need for both," [Jupiter analyst David] Card said.

This is wrong.

Anything that substitutes for radio listening is competing against radio listening and sapping precious hours of listening. The iPod experience is "different" but not "fundamentally" so, since most music radio listeners value an unbroken stream of songs in a random order, and that's precisely what an iPod provides. Saying "there's still a need for both" is correct, but it doesn't mean one fails to cannibalize the other. How else to explain the 20% drop in time spent listening in the past decade among persons 18-24, according to Arbitron's own numbers.

Does all iPod listening come at radio's expense? Of course not. But some of it does. You can bet your bottom dollar on that.

And this:

Breadth and depth of programming remain satellite's greatest strength and HD's biggest weakness. Edison Media Research vice president of music and programming Sean Ross said HD radio has not made enough significant programming breakthroughs to spike unit sales. "It's still stuck in the same loop of not yet having the volume of content that would spur a sale that would make HD content profitable that would allow broadcasters to create a greater volume of content."

Nope.

"Volume of content" is irrelevant. You guys need to understand this.

Premium content like pro sports and Howard Stern are satellite's greatest - and perhaps only - strengths (well, that and default installation on the majority of new car models).

It would be irrational, meanwhile, for HD radio to spend big bucks on this kind of content when there's zero distribution potential given the miniscule pace of HD radio adoption. If you can get Howard Stern, where are you going to place him? On the big signal with all the listeners and all the revenue or the little HD one with none?

I am also quoted in the article, but I'll save my critique of my own dumb comments for another post.

Why "Choice" can Kill

HD and Satellite radio offer more choice!

So say the folks who blindly read their consumer research and assume that "more" is always "better."

It's not, as I have long said.

In fact, most listeners don't want more choice. They don't want more variety.

Unless, of course, they can get that extra variety on one station. Even if it happens to be a station that plays a scant couple hundred songs but earns the "variety" vote regardless.

And if you don't believe me, take it from Al Ries, co-author of the seminal book Positioning.

Writes Al:

Consumers are getting confused. A number of research studies have shown that the more choices a consumer has, the more likely that consumer will be unhappy with the choice he or she does make.

Look at what Steve Jobs did when he took over Apple. At the time, Apple marketed some 40 different products, from inkjet printers to the Newton handheld.

On the computer side of Apple's business, there were four major lines (Quadras, Power Macs, Performas and PowerBooks) each with a dozen different models, a typical megabrand product lineup.

Jobs cut the product line down to four machines: two laptops and two desktops. Later he told BusinessWeek, "Everything just got simpler. That's been one of my mantras -- focus and simplicity."

Over the past few years, Apple has doubled its share of the computer market.

The lack of interest in choice is exactly why HD radios don't sell. It's precisely why the retail market for satellite radio has shrunk to just 12% of all new subscriptions. As I have long argued, radio does a really good job at pleasing most of the people most of the time with the number of options already available on the 800 million radios at home, and work, and in your car.

What radio really has to fear isn't "choice," it's "my choice." That is, the ability for me to get exactly the programming I want whenever I want it via my iPod or various customizable sources, many of which are or will soon be mobile.

The enemy of the broad is not the focused, but the personal.

The importance of Video...for Radio

Here's a good how-to article on how to generate dollars from video on your website.

As the article notes, IDC forecasts that the market will grow sevenfold by 2012, hitting $3.8 billion domestically.

Summarizing the points:

- Video helps produce lower bounce rates, higher levels of engagement, and more repeat traffic.
- Sponsorship: Offering sponsorships of the player, a series of videos, or perhaps even of the entire video experience can be a compelling option for a brand advertiser.
- Focus on the audiences your brand can pinpoint
- Balance your zeal for monetization with the quality of the user experience
- Create great content. The better your content and the more engaged your audience, the higher eCPMs will be for your videos.