It’s Monday, and on Monday I teach at Fairleigh Dickinson. Tonight’s class will have two major sections. In the first, the homework was to tell me what you would do if you were the PD at WOR. John Gambling is gone, Elliott is gone, Scott Shannon isn’t available…so now what. I will reveal my answer to them tonight and I’m curious to see what they come up with. Last week’s initial discussions create some interesting names….Rudy Giuliani (but does he want to get up at 4am), or former Mets pitcher Al Leiter (we recalled him dabbling in politics. Would he be good? I decided worth a Friday try out with a traffic cop sitting next to him.) But neither is my choice. Call me and I will tell you.
The second part of the class will be The Infinite Dial study. A few eye popping slides…
36% listened to on-line radio last week! 94 million!
Slide 12: 75% are OK with commercials. I’m telling you these kids like free. And then I tell them people like me need to be paid. If they are OK with commercials, then maybe “free” will be the future not subscription. And see slide 14 about how folks react to those commercials.
Slide 13: online sounds better.
Slide 21: folks use iHeart to listen to the local stations. The ones they know.
I’m looking forward to hearing what the college kids say about this tonight. I will let you know.
I’ll leave you with this. Pay attention to those phones folks. An hour a day on apps. How is your station/company app? Are you on the big aggregators?
Interesting stuff about the thought process at HBO.
Plepler: There’s a fundamental question every time we assess programming cost, every time we assess programming decision. It’s pretty simple. Is it brand elevating?
Before we get to the Infinite Dial a few things about this blog.
During my time working with Comedy Central I got to know Rob O’Neill who is VP Programming and Promotion Strategy over there, a really great guy, smart, and has been inspirational.
We went to lunch and Rob suggested that I consider this blog. Maybe declare myself a “media strategist” or such given that I have 21 years in the field and am also teaching at Fairleigh Dickinson.
It stuck with me. The college classes “force” me to prep every week, so I stay more focused on actual studies and surveys than maybe some of us do because of our busy lives and our focus on the “now.” Toward the end of the week I will go through all the trades and see what’s up, and I usually teach the class off the top of my head using the weekly items as the template. So far it has worked.
So why not share this with the world? Well there’s that fear of not wanting to tick anyone off or be the know it all guy…but then Rob told me about this book…
Now I’m not saying this was a life changing thing or that I have become a disciple, but after the first few chapters and some staring at the ceiling at 3am I decided that Rob was right. Let’s start the blog.
I have been blogging for six years now over at Mets Police under my alter-ego. I started that site to keep my New Media skills sharp. I do not want to wind up a dinosaur in the 2020’s who knows how to do that thing we used to do back in 1992. So it keeps me sharp…I have a feel for what works on Facebook, twitter, getting site traffic…when and what to post….and how to present it. If you pop over there you’ll see it’s written in a snarkier style than you are going to find over here. Anyways, I have been blogging….
…which leads us to today.
I knocked out a few chapters of the book last night and two things really stuck with me.
1. Start now. I could think about someday starting this blog. Or I could start today. I started today. There was a time when I couldn’t run a mile…last November I completed the NYC Marathon.
2. I hate sucking. The book calls it “escape average” but the phrase I used to use with my SiriusXM staff was “I hate sucking.” I think when the Raw Dog channel was at its best was when we just did what we thought was cool not what everyone else would do.
I resisted for years doing anything Christmas themed? Why? Because every radio station in the world does Christmas on Christmas. I wanted my channel to be in “normal mode.” I would be confused when I would drive around on Christmas Day and pop on WABC and hear a Disney Special (ownership, clear the special in NYC, nobody listening anyway…yeah I get it.) If it were me I’d show up on January 3rd and tell my producers you have 11 months to pre-tape a show to run that day. (We’ll argue about if we should be live and the morale benefit vs. audience of that in some future post).
So Raw Dog traditionally did nothing. Regular format, no imaging. Cool. Were you really going to pick the uncensored comedy channel on the way to Grandmas because we had jingle bells bumpers? I’d rather be cool than have a Christmas special because you’re supposed to.
I still need to go through this one and really study it, but as an overview it screams at me that The Connected Car Is Coming.
I stand in front of 18-22 year olds every Monday. Listen to me…
THEY DO NOT CARE ABOUT YOUR RADIO STATION.
They like Pandora. They will check out iHeart/iTunes/Beats/Spotify/TuneIn etc but whether it makes us sad or not my focus group of twenty tells me they like Pandora. It just works and it is free.
They don’t care about the heritage DJ. They don’t care about call letters. They don’t want to give you $15.
Sure, these are 18-22 so they haven’t entered the workforce yet. Let’s check back in with them in seven years when they have a 45 minute commute and some disposable income.
Oh but wait…in seven years they might have this..
Those 12,000 songs they already have? Look at the nice red button.
Or imagine a similar button that says Pandora or whatever the hot service is in 2020.
2020 is coming. It is as far away as 2008 is.
So what will win out? Content. Have the best stuff coming out of those speakers. Their Lady Gaga record will be just as good as your Lady Gaga record.
These guys are smart. They will have buttons.
We’ll dive in on content in upcoming posts…and that’s how I make a living…did I mention I need a new gig?
