Can't Find Nothin' on the Radio

Recent comments from this 15-year old Morgan Stanley intern in the UK have scared the crap out of media kingpins everywhere. He said that teenagers don't read newspapers, don't use Twitter (adding fuel to the argument that tweeting is a fad), get most of their music illegally, and most notably for my line of work, don't listen to terrestrial radio. The warning bells have been going off for a while that young people are eschewing traditional "old media", but somehow this kid has finally gotten the message through to people. The message is: it's not just the economy that is driving old media into bankruptcy... people aren't using it anymore.

Now we see this in the newspaper business on an everyday basis lately: papers ceasing publication, massive layoffs, uncertainty about the future of journalism in this country. It's just as bad if not worse in radio, as overleveraged corporate giants drown in debt and make programming decisions based on what they can afford (which is not much) instead of what will get them listeners. The model has been turned on its head. And based on the rumors of looming bankrputcy at Clear Channel, it's clearly not working.

The idea has always been that you put compelling content on the air, more people listen, ratings increase, station makes more money by being able to sell higher ratings. That mentality left the business in the last couple decades, replaced by the business school model that claims that a station only exists to make money, and content is secondary to having a good sales staff. That's why the only openings you ever see or hear about in the radio industry are for sales people. They'll hire more sales people in a heartbeat if they think it will make them more money, but if it doesn't work, it's the talent that gets the heave-ho.

So you have stations that are all or mostly automated, voice-tracked from out of town, your friendly local DJs replaced by the likes of Ryan Seacrest, John Tesh, Alice Cooper, and Keith Sweat. Personality radio, the very thing that made people tune in to their favorite stations for years, is deader than a doornail. Anyone who can actually do more than read liner cards and still has a job now does mornings. Those who thought that becoming "shock jocks" and working for FM talk stations would be a safe refuge have found that even that format is now unjustifiable on a corporate balance sheet. One of the latest casualties is Mike O'Meara. I previously wrote here about the large influence that "The Don & Mike Show" played on my radio career, and I'm happy to say that Don is back on the air in Delaware at a talk station that still believes in having local talent on the air, a rare thing indeed. Mike's solo show is getting the ax from syndicator Westwood One and flagship WJFK in Washington, just as ratings were looking up. But ratings be damned, right? So WJFK is ditching its personality talk format of 18 years for all-sports. Great. 6 months and it will be all-satellite, except maybe for AM drive. The same is happening at WBCN in Boston, once a heritage rock station, later the home of Opie & Anthony, two more victims of the purge on personality.

The other problem that comes from valuing the bottom line over content? The presence of WAY TOO MANY COMMERCIALS. I try listening to local radio here, but I cannot stand how every station inevitably goes to a commercial break at :20, :35m and :50 after the hour. And the breaks are getting longer, and commercials are playing where commercials should not be playing. I'll give you an example... I was out and about last night, flipping around the dial but focusing mostly on TK99, the local classic rock station. From approximately 7:20-7:52 last night, TK99 played a total of FOUR songs. 32 minutes, 4 songs. It went long commercial break, two songs, long commercial break, two songs, long commercial break. An average song being 4 minutes long, that meant there was roughly 16 minutes of music... and 16 minutes of commercials. During the NIGHT SHIFT. Every music station I've ever worked for had a pretty clear and sensible policy as far as commercials during the night shift: you play FAR FEWER commercials than during drive time and FAR MORE music. Two breaks an hour at night, not three. And no music station should EVER play fewer than three songs between stopsets. And we wonder why people are switching off terrestrial radio for satellite and Internet. Night time is when younger listeners, the people you are losing, are most likely to listen, so why on earth would you choose then to seemingly play MORE commercials?!?

So we hear about people switching to satellite radio and how that is supposedly the main competition for terrestrial radio. Radio has tried to counter that with ad campaign after ad campaign reminding you that you don't have to pay for terrestrial radio... unless you want to shell out $300 for a HD radio receiver but I won't go there. It's debatable whether or not this approach has worked; I would say that the financial problems at Sirius/XM mirror that of terrestrial radio: too much debt, victim of the bad economy. They certainly haven't lost subscribers. Truly, I don't fear Sirius/XM as much as I fear Pandora. Since most radio listeners still listen for music, this is where the most damage is still yet to be done to the radio industry. In case you're not familiar with Pandora, it's an online streaming music service that allows you to put in your favorite artists, and Pandora will then play those artists AND similar artists that the listener might like. Thus, Pandora is doing the job that is terrestrial music radio stations' raison d'etre: play the music you like and sell you on new or unfamiliar music. And without commercials. And it's FREE. There's your main competition. That is what radio needs to counter.

Two pieces of legislation also have a lot to do with the future of radio. Recording artists are pushing for extra royalties from radio stations for playing their songs, which I think is just absurd. They don't make much money as it is from radio airplay or record sales, their money comes from songwriting (which stations already pay royalties for) and touring. Thankfully, a countermeasure in the House of Representatives has enough co-sponsors to defeat any attempt to slap a so-called "performance tax" on stations. Another countermeasure in Congress has the support of all Republicans but no Democrats, and that one is calling for a permanent ban on reinstating the Fairness Doctrine. I'm all for being against a new Fairness Doctrine, but there's another rallying cry coming up from right-wing talk show hosts that I cannot agree with, and that is the argument that a FCC push for more localism on radio would have the same effect as a Fairness Doctrine.

Localism is NOT a "stealth Fairness Doctrine" and I am for localism, especially if it means we have actual local human beings staffing radio stations 24-7. I have yet to hear an automation system that sounds better than a human being who runs a tight control board. And if localism means Sean Hannity loses an affiliate in favor of a local talk show host, I don't think he need worry because the station, knowing what will make it money, will just put a local right-winger in his place. What we need in radio is better content. Unfortunately, as long as radio has a business model that clearly doesn't care about quality of content, it will continue to decline.