Radio: The Grim Reaper is the new Santa Claus

I’ll tell it like it is. The Grim Reaper is the new Santa Claus.

It’s a bummed-out Christmas for our industry.

The bad news far outweighed the good.

A survivor of a recent massacre called to tell how surreal it was. One of their other stations had changed to its annual continuous Christmas format – and its music was being piped through the building as terminated employees were being escorted from the building.

There’s nothing like being ordered to leave the premises while Burl Ives sings “Have a holly jolly Christmas.”

Our industry used to be fun. On a good day it didn’t seem like work – and even the bad days were good.

This year’s Christmas bonus is knowing that you’ll still have a job come the first quarter of the new year. How long into the first quarter? We’ll deal with that by mid-January.

It’s been a rough year for all media – old and new.

It’s gut-wrenching for an industry we know, love, and rely on to endure this continuous cycle of downsizing.

Sure, the bad economy is a large part of it, which started while speculators believed Ayn Rand and Bernie Madoff could do no wrong - but the post-deregulated radio industry’s resistance to reality since 1997 played the largest role in its demise.

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We can either evolve or devolve. Lately, it’s been the latter. For 2009, we have to make it a conscious attempt to do the former.

How?

Stop attacking “new media” as the enemy. Learn how to work with it – not against it.

How did radio reinvent itself when television achieved traction in the fifties?

It became the “last great illusion.”

Like the written word, radio learned how to engage one’s imagination by creating audio masterpieces through creative production and proficient writing.

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I've mentioned this before.

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Fifty-one years ago, Stan Freberg successfully sold radio’s cinematics to the ad community with an effectual audio promo.

By utilizing ingenious writing and sound effects, he drained Lake Michigan’s water and replaced it with hot chocolate and a mountain of whipped cream. Then six helicopters in formation dropped a giant maraschino cherry on that summit of whipped cream.

The closing line? Let's see them do that on television!

That spot was produced with a reel-to-reel, tape, a razor blade, and round pots. No multi-track, no digital read-out, no Pro Tools.

Why doesn’t radio do that today? Could it be because there’s no “creative” line-item? Who has the time to measure creativity’s role in generating revenue?

And that’s why creativity – radio’s most essential component - has gone from an asset to a liability in just one decade.

The only way radio can be saved is to entertain its listeners and sell its clients’ products to them. To do that it must restore the art of playing to one’s imagination. and, dare I say it, throw in some localism.

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Let me ask the question because I really want to know the answer.

When was the last time John Hogan, Dan Mason, Farid Suleman, Peter Smyth, and Jeff Smulyan spent a day – without distraction - listening to their own radio stations?

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I rest my case.

Potential radio listeners don’t want or need more radio stations – they want better stations on the frequencies they can hear. And they definitely don’t want the HD Radio and its smorgasbord of insipid formats and auditory mediocrity.

Look, Sirius XM may be imploding in debt – but there’s rationale for the millions that chose to BUY what they listen on the radio over the choices they can receive free.

Engineers are s-p-r-e-a-d so thin they can’t focus on detail; in particular radio’s delivery mechanism. How many stations have you heard with pitiable audio processing and pitch escalation?

And don’t get me started on how radio has ignored the programming and sales potential of the Internet.

Potential listeners want quality music, not a quantity of variations of “classic hits” on stations that believe they can be on a first-name basis with its listeners.

The younger ones demand their own musical soundtrack – not one playing the outmoded crap the major labels persuade your present decision makers to play.

The iPod is today’s turntable. There was a time in the not to distant past that radio programmed music that people would buy and listen to on vinyl or cassette or CD. Today, it’s MP3. Tell me what’s changed other than radio no longer being influential in motivating music sales? Calling the iPod competition is a poor excuse.
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Listeners want quality news but get quantity news. Radio’s convinced it’s fulfilling those needs with truncated, facts-optional, newscasts with murder on the ones, weather on the twos, traffic on the threes, sports on the fours, and armed robberies on the fives.

How about talk shows that aren’t crammed with hate or stupidity or both?

Face facts. We’re in a hyper-competitive world.

Maybe deregulation softened-up radio. Is this medium so emaciated that it can no longer stand up to its competitors?

Radio has been living in a world where competence is expected and only flawless execution is acceptable – and it hasn’t been able to pull off either very well.

Most importantly, the ultimate competitive advantage is passion.

When passion is unbridled, it drives convergence, encourages mastery, leverages spontaneity, cultivates ingenuity, and enhances instinct. The pieces of the puzzle come together and intelligibility transpires.

The outcome is quickened and unmitigated product that otherwise would never have been possible.

Start by investing in yourself. It’s the most important thing you’ll do in the coming new year.

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Why personality radio works -

Buzzard Theater of the Air presents A Christmas Carol

and Murray Saul's Christmas Get Down - both from 1975