Voiceover Blog

More signs of radio consolidation reaching critical mass:

FCC Chairman Kevin Martin basically gives Congress the middle digit in his attitude of  ’I don’t care what is good for the public interest, ‘coz I have friends in high places’ and vows to press on with a vote on media cross-ownership.

The National Association (yeah, right!) of Broadcasters agrees with Chairman Martin, citing the FCC’s research that “consolidation has no statistical effect on advertising rates” Which is kind of like asking a barber if you need a haircut.

Many large radio groups, seeing dwindling sales and dwindling stock prices reward more employees with pink slips in the days before Christmas.

Citadel starts sorting thru it’s stations to see which ones are ripe for a sell-off. And the Clear Channel go-private venture looks like it’s in trouble again.

Consolidation has clearly failed, yet the FCC and the NAB continue to kowtow to a handful of idiots bent on trying to improve their fortunes while the public trust evaporates around them.

–Thanks for reading.

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Elsewhere in this blog I made reference to the private equity firms and their wholesale destruction of the radio industry.  Today I was pointed to this excerpt from Presidential candidate Mitt Romney’s online bio.

From 1978 to 1984, Mr. Romney was a Vice President at Bain & Company, Inc., a leading management consulting firm. In 1984, Romney founded Bain Capital, one of the nation’s most successful venture capital and investment companies. Bain Capital helped guide hundreds of companies on a successful course.

Bain is the money behind both the Clear Channel sale and Cumulus Media, not to mention anything else thay can get their hands on.  Their “successful course” has included mass firings, little local control, and a general dumbing down of key facets of what made radio a successful mass medium.

Guess what?  It’s not that successful anymore.  As a matter of fact, online ad spending has surpassed radio for the first time ever. And we’ve reached a point where radio is not worth a  (insert word that rhymes with Mitt)

–Thanks for reading

Someone had the foresight not to let a talent like Don Imus go to waste.  WABC out him back on the air in New York where he belongs. And in the resulting media coverage of his return, more people heard and read the words he said at WNBC that had heard them when he actually SAID them.

I’ve been a Don Imus fan since 1970.  I got to meet him at a rare radio convention appearance, where he packed the ballroom just because he was there. I have his two novels, which are an absolute scream.

I hope his run at WABC lasts as long as his previous gig.

But Imus is under the microscope now.  I think everything he does or says will be looked at twice. Whether he thinks so or not, he is now stealthily saddled with constraints. No matter what the media reports, it won’t be the same.  And that’s too bad.

–Thanks for reading

Everytime you see a report of another media sale, it’s always followed by a list of layoffs. Following a recent transfer in an already economically depressed area, I read that one of those let go was afraid to tell his wife.  That probably holds true for quite a few folks who have done one thing for 20 years or more, and now are left with no prospects and nowhere to go.
In the breakup of publically-help Clear Channel, which takes an FCC vote to approve, one commissioner has started to thing twice about the role of private equity groups.  There are still some kind of controls, however lax, that prevent a single “owner” from controlling too many media outlets.  But the same private equity firms have their hand in many,many deals.  Perhaps too many.

The average user of radio or television has no idea what’s going on, except that their favorite stations aren’t as exciting as they once were.  But just as two years ago when the FCC tried to sneak past a rules change on ownership, the media is not covering itself. Last time, it took a PBS story on the cusp of the vote to wake folks up. But the story of the private equity firms has yet to see the light of day.

Thank you, Michael Copps, for having a brain. I’m not convinced that your cohorts on the FCC will be listening to you, but it’s good to know that you’re not going to be driving the steamroller that forces more bland, inane crap down the throats of the American public.

–Thanks for reading.

This isn’t the first time it’s happened.  There are many clients like this, unfortunately.  However this particular client is in the advertising business; he should know better.

I was retained to write a maketing plan.

The product was right on target, the pricing was where it should have been, but no one knew of it’s existence.

“The first thing you need to do is advertise!”, I said.

“Advertising never works for us,” they replied.

“But that’s what you sell!”

“Yes, and we need to sell more of it. How can we do that?”

“Advertise!!”

“Maybe we’ll put it in the budget for next year.”

“At this rate, you won’t be here next year.”

– Thanks for reading.

Recruiter to applicant dressed in jeans: “Come and see us anytime.  Just make sure you dress properly.”

Recruiter #2: “Hi. What are you looking for?”
Applicant (handing her his resume) ” You tell ME.”

Good Luck.

-Thanks for reading.

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The scene is 1997. The FCC approves the creation of two national satellite radio services.  In their approval, the FCC specifically prohibits the two systems from ever merging. Nothing has changed in the past ten years: there is no competitor in the satellite radio market, and local radio stations do not have a nationwide reach. Moreover, the FCC also made a condition of the original approval that XM and Sirius were required to deliver designs for radios which would pick up both services.  Nothing like that has ever been made commercially available.

There are two different technologies, two different company philosophies. A merger would not allow the consumer to have access to more channels of programming without buying another radio.  The channel frequencies cannot be expanded without losing audio quality. So there is absolutely no benefit to the consumer for a merger between XM and Sirius.

Both companies went into debt to launch their satellites. They’ve paid talent up to $100 million per year.  So who is left holding the bag if XM and Sirius merge, and there is no
competition? All you have to do is look in the mirror.

–Thanks for reading

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eBAY is partnering with BID4SPOTS to launch a radio advertising auction service, the eBAY MEDIA MARKETPLACE FOR RADIO. The plan, similar to eBAY’s existing cable TV ad auction service includes ad time on 2,300 stations, including stations from all major radio station groups. The move puts eBAY in competition with GOOGLE’s radio ad sales efforts.

I don’t know if I like this or not.  Is there any content restriction? Will there be a dearth of work from home or male enhancement ads? Which dayparts are being sold?

I guess it’s just another way that the media landscape is changing.  Broadcast account executives have always felt they were immune to “automation”  Is this their version of “voicetracking”?  Are they going to take PayPal??

Let me know when they find a way to eliminate the equity group ownerships.  THAT will be news!

–Thanks for reading.

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I regularly get a list of the top ten national radio spots.  This week, I was surprised to see the HD Radio Alliance right there at the top.  That means that HD Radio spots and promos ran with more frequency than the golden arches, or even that gecko with the British accent. It’s a step in the right direction, but as Ricky Ricardo once said, “You have some ’splainin to do.”

Eighty percent of the population still does not know what HD radio IS, let alone its advantages. The industry is stuck in a chicken and egg syndrome: they want to sell new HD radios, but they have not yet come up with any compelling content to program.  I’ll give Clear Channel an A for effort, as they are developing some niche formats, but it has yet to drive sales.

The HD Radio spots usually use “new stations between the stations” as a selling point.  However the variety has yet to emerge. As has any local-oriented programming.  Radio execs, stuck in a too familiar business model, have not embraced any innovation with regards to new content.  Only then will those new HD Radios fly off the shelves.  The HD channels that are on the air are treated like stepchildren - with little quality control.

It is going to take a concerted effort to put those new receivers in the hands of a passionate audience.  It is going to take targeted promotion to physically place someone within listening distance of an HD radio, and say, “See what you’ve been missing?” But there also has to be something there first to listen to.

–Thanks for reading

Almost anything you read about marketing to the 18-29 year old crowd will tell you that one thing is for sure: they detest hype. Now, it causes me to wonder - Is hype in the eye of the beholder?

One of the advertising buzzwords right now is viral marketing. Viral marketing is like starting a rumor. You judge your success by how much it spreads and how much excitement it causes. Viral marketing does not have a direct call to action. Several years ago, a group of independent film makers caused a stir with a website that purported to show a group of teens being chased and killed by an unknown entity. Turns out, it was pretty much the first viral marketing project, and it made The Blair Witch Project a lot of money.

Lately, with the increased interest in the MySpace and YouTube websites, a certain video journal has developed a following with folks now wondering - Is It Real? or Is It An Act? Could it be another viral marketing scheme, or a bright, creative someone who has discovered an attention-getting device beyond their wildest dreams? After all, there have already been a couple of YouTube videographers who have landed development deals with the networks.

Whichever way the internet cookie crumbles, I have to wonder if that age group feels disillusioned when these online discoveries turn out to be hype for a movie, website, product or whatever. Is all hype still hype? Or are we as marketers and advertisers crying wolf ?

–Thanks for reading