John Gorman's Media Blog

Radio: What's changed?

2010-01-24T15:34:00.019-05:00

You wonder why so many look upon the radio industry as a collection of Tin Men these days?

I’m nearly certain that no maritime group or organization ever named “an excellence in shipmasting” award after the captain of the Titanic.

I don’t believe the airline industry will name an “excellence in piloting” award after the two Northwest Airlines pilots that dozed off and overshot their Minneapolis airport destination.

Even Wall Street - in its worst behavior - never named an administration award after Albert “Chainsaw” Dunlap.

But leave it to the National Association of Broadcasters to further humiliate the radio industry by naming an “excellence in broadcasting” award after Clear Channel co-founder and patriarch Lowry Mays.

The Clear Channel Foundation and one of its primary law firms, Wiley Rein, kicked in $125,000 to the dubious Broadcasters Foundation of America with that catch.

The ethically challenged Lowry Mays, in a prepared statement, said the foundation is about “helping others in the industry who have run upon difficult times.”

He could be speaking of the thousands of employees his company downsized over the past decade or he could even be referencing the ownership disaster his family conned private equity firms Bain Capital and Thomas H. Lee into.

One in his position with a cleaner conscience would’ve donated the $125,000 minus the “name the award after me” strings attached covenant.

It’s true there was a time when Lowry Mays’ Clear Channel was a radio industry leader. Whatever moves they made, others followed.

But you’re no longer a leader if no one is following you.

Was anyone stunned by the sudden Chapter 7 liquidation of liberal network Air America? I’m surprised that it lasted as long as it did. It was to a radio network what Terry Schiavo was to life support.

Air America had the wind sucked out of its sails when it chose to be a network instead of a syndicator of talk programming. It was undercapitalized, overstaffed, and mismanaged.

Whatever the case, I won the bet by predicting that of the two artificially-alive radio entities Air America would go belly-up before HD Radio. Speaking of….how many HD Radio units were sold during the Christmas shopping season? Yes, you can include Zune sales.

You have to give props to Rush Limbaugh. Ratings stunts are the oldest trick in radio’s playbook - and Limbaugh parlayed his phony attempted heart attack as a perfect roll-up to the winter Arbitron.

Rush also deserves recognition for hanging on to his showboat crown. Rival Glenn Beck pulls off an appendix scare, Rush tops him with his ticker fib. One can only imagine the medical ills these gasbags will conjure up with for the spring book.

Then there’s Howard Stern. Will he stay or go? Those that know aren’t talking - but the sure bet is that wherever Howard goes Mel Karmazin will follow - or vice versa. Their fortunes, including agent Don Buchwald’s, have been intertwined for twenty-four years and what makes anyone think that’s about to change?

Is it even worth speculating about the next half-dozen or so radio groups about to file for bankruptcy protection?

The Citadel bankruptcy is yesterday's news. Its CEO Farid Suleman is a kept man. Kept by the bankers who can’t figure out his bean counting schemes. How could anyone who made that much money for Mel fall so flatly on his face? Then again, did he actually do anything to make Mel money other than to provide an accurate bean count? When he was at CBS/Infinity was all the Farid hype just hype? ‘Fraid so.

Farid gave himself a nice Christmas present and stuck his investors with coal. He portrayed himself basking in the limelight as the radio industry’s new big time operator of the third largest broadcast chain.

Instead, he proved that he was pulling everyone else’s.

Rewarding failure stifles growth and innovation. It sends the message that wrong is the new right.

Until radio addresses that fact the bad news will continue to outweigh the good.

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Walls of the Buzzard

Radio: The song remains the same

2010-01-10T15:35:00.011-05:00

You haven’t heard from me because there’s been little to write about.

I know. There was Citadel and NextMedia. Those were inevitable.

Citadel. It’s the tale of the bean counter that couldn’t count his own beans. There are reasons why proficient number twos make terrible number ones. Number twos believe in cutting and firing their way to a victory they never achieve.

That’s why other radio chains utilizing the equivalent philosophies will be condemned to same fate.

Are they even worth writing about when we already know the end of the story?

Then there’s NextMedia.

Its business plan was to buy up smaller market stations and sell them to greater fools for more than they paid for them. One problem. They paid some hefty multiples to acquire these stations.

They initially benefited from a bounty of takers but the company didn’t heed Kenny Rogers: Know when to hold them, know when to fold them.

There was that moment in time when they should’ve sold while the greater fools were still buying- but exit strategy disagreements ensued - and Next Media ended up holding on to yesterday.

There’s more.

Lending institutions continue to hold on to their bad assets and allow those that got them into this jam to continue running their empty shell companies.

What was that quote from Citadel’s CEO and architect of doom Farid Suleman?

“Business will continue as usual.”

I keep saying it over and over. I couldn’t make this stuff up if I tried.

That means Citadel, and the other major radio chains, will continue to downsize and devalue their programming, promotion, and marketing. Instead of investing in content, they’ll pick up long-in-the-tooth Donnie Osmond or some other syndication off the bird. Live and local? Get real. The stink of human costs money. Promotion and marketing? That’s a needless and costly expense.

It wasn’t all that long ago, actually, that the only stations that carried nets and syndication in their most important dayparts were small market stations.

Maybe Farid was duped into believing that Donnie can host the 21st century version of Don McNeill's Breakfast Club.

I’ll bet Suleman truly believes that Citadel could survive as a content provider for news, sports, and programming.

It gets better. The other radio chains teetering on bankruptcy believe their eventual bankruptcies will be considered as a cost of doing business.

What about real broadcasters? They’re exercising great patience. Two words: Fire sale.

Radio: It's the same old song

2009-12-17T10:05:00.015-05:00

Please understand that it’s as monotonous for me as it is for you to keep harping on the same old subjects day after day, week after week. You want to read it as much as I want to write it. Yes, Dickey, Suleman, Hogan, et al continue to coast and boast while their empires crumble.

In today’s agitated cutthroat media market, competency is expected and faultless implementation is tolerable. If you believe that, you’re burnt-beyond-recognition toast. The decisive competitive advantage is passion and desire. Success is achieved by creativity and understanding the marriage of art and commerce.

The reports coming from the major radio chains whiff of extreme anxiety. They can’t afford any more distressing news. The chains are doing their best to block their dire news from hitting the trades.

Look, politicians do it. Other CEOs do it. Even Tiger Woods in his own way did it until he went from nailer to nailee.

Heading off bad news at the pass is standard operating procedure, but it risks dispersion of the real negative information to an even larger group, which in due course draws even more attention to crises old media is facing.

Down slightly is the new up. Failure is rewarded. That’s radio logic. It’s also radio nowhere.

I’ve been hearing per inquiry spots on the top-rated morning drive shows since the beginning of the month. Some stations are doing commercial-free (and billing them as such) workdays.

Year end or decade end - take it any which way. It has the same melancholic ending. Radio is in far worse shape today because of mediocre leadership, an inability to plan long term and identify new competition, and a refusal to replace the dated components of radio programming.

John Hogan was wrong. Less is less is the new less is more.

Remember, radio’s dormant, not dead. Once we get the spectators off the field, the pros can get back to the game at hand.

I’ll be back in a few days.

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The early days of TV simulcasts

Lie of the Tiger

2009-12-08T18:47:00.026-05:00

You can sum up damage control straightforwardly.

When you dig yourself in a hole - the first thing you do is stop digging.

Or if you’re Tiger Woods - know the difference between a sand trap and quicksand.

Tiger Woods is damage control gone wrong.

I have a friend who covers the PGA for news organizations.

A few years back, when everyone was talking up Tiger as the world’s greatest golfer - and a fine role model, he told me that if word got out on what he was really like - he’d be toast - and wouldn’t know how to handle it.

When Tiger turned 21, Charles Pierce did a piece on him in GQ that touched upon his penchant for hot babes and dirty jokes.

Following the GQ piece he refused to do informal interviews, claiming that he couldn’t understand “tabloid scrutiny.”

When your 21 and single and you can pick and choose from a bevy of golf groupie babes. You’re a kid. It’s expected.

You don’t know Jack if you think Arnold, Gary, Tom, Lee, Bobby, Ben, and Sam didn’t partake in the spoils of the links back in their early days, too.

Sports? Come on. That’s where the real toned and slim babes are. Even rock stars fantasize on sports sluts.

In the fifties, when it was an honor and privilege to cover national politics, Sen. John F. Kennedy had an understanding that reporters would refuse to even tell their closest friends outside the business about the bevy of beauties he was bedding.

For over a decade, Tiger knew that the PGA would permanently bounce and blacklist any reporter who’d dare tell Tiger tales.

But there comes a time.

Tiger, you’re 33. You’re married with two young children. For their sake, if not your own, you should know better than do flaunt your groupies, especially when they’re down a few notches or two from a decade ago.

Tiger, come on. You’re doing hostesses and waitresses from casinos, strip joints, pancake restaurants - and two porn stars? Tiger, you’re slumming in rock star regions! Maybe you prefer your groupies pierced?

You can’t blame Tiger for succumbing to the fantasy that he could get away with these trysts but, in the end, what happened in Vegas didn’t stay in Vegas. Or New York. Or Atlanta. Or Newport Beach. Or Bay Hill.

If I had an endorsement deal with Tiger I’d demand a refund. Here’s Tiger projected to surpass $12 billion in career earnings next year - 90 percent of that from endorsements - and he’s throwing Ambien - the prescription drug for insomnia - a freebie?

Number two of eleven - and counting - mistress Rachel Uchitel told the press that Tiger turned her on to sex on Ambien. “You know, you have crazier sex on Ambien,” she said. “You get into that Ambien haze.”

Want to bet against Tiger selling more Ambien than Nikes in the past twenty-four hours? Didn’t think so.

How many guys called their doctors this morning for an Ambien script?

Chances are calamity started with Tiger’s wife Elin sensing the scent of other women - and ended with a damage report covering everything from a fire hydrant to her marriage.

Tiger may be one of the greatest golfers in the history of the game but a member of the 32819 zip code chapter of Mensa he’s not. You don’t call one of your eleven back door honeys and leave a voice mail saying, "My wife went through my phone and may be calling you....."

Who’s responsible for this admission impossible? Whoever talked Tiger into that “transgressions” line should be off the payroll. You don’t admit to something ambiguously - then run and hide - and, worse, cancel an appearance at your own tournament!

Now, and for the foreseeable future Tiger will be smack dab center in our public consciousness. What his handlers have to worry about is that he doesn’t end up on a lower stem that feeds off Entertainment Tonight and E! where hyperbole is shoveled out by the ton.

How about Tiger Woods, Steven Tyler, David Letterman, and David Duchovny doing a togetherness PSA for sex addiction?

Nearly everyone in radio at one time or another will be faced with crisis management and damage control. It comes with the territory.

My advice? Come clean, tell the truth and be transparent. If you’re not you’ll be hunted like Tiger - and the incident will spin out of control.

Either that or blame it on the Prophet System.
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Fleetwood Mac Attack

Radio: Smart phones and dumb radios

2009-11-29T15:05:00.033-05:00

There are smart gifts and there are just plain dumb ones.

Let’s handicap the Christmas shopping season with two products that relate to radio.

Say you have a product that few know or care about, which features a medium in desperate need of reinvention and revitalization? Do you really believe that it’s on anyone’s Christmas wish list?

A recently released survey of 4,225 U.S. consumers by Changewave, a research network that spots budding trends and technologies, show that twelve percent plan to buy a smartphone in the next ninety days.

Last Christmas, iPhone owned the smartphone market. This year, iPhone’s 3G S is up against real competition from the Droid, the new Blackberry Storm2, a new Palm Pixi/Pre, Motorola’s CLIQ, and the HTC Hero.

I’m saying Steve Jobs has little to be concerned with on that front. His iPhone remains the superior product. It enjoys a two and a half year head start -and is numero uno in Brand Keys’ annual survey - with a 74 percent of satisfaction rating versus only 43 percent for Blackberry owners.

It’s true that most of the time the pioneers get the arrows. But Jobs has the unique ability of taking roads less traveled, which turn out to be the shortest distance between two points.

Sure, Google is great, Google is good. Let us thank them for our search - and our e-mail, maps, social networking, video sharing, and advertising - but can they make a go of it in the smartphone biz with the Droid?

The iPhone’s not invulnerable. It has its Achilles’ heel. AT&T.

Of all the iPhone users you know - is there one that has not complained about AT&T?

It remains to be seen what becomes of the iPhone-Droid rivalry. My guess is that Jobs will deal with iPhone’s AT&T exclusivity. He doesn’t really have much of a choice when his two chief rivals, Motorola’s Droid and Blackberry’s Storm2, are tied to Verizon.

Advantages? iPhone has over 100,000 apps - ten times the amount of Android, its nearest competitor. Then, again, what product apps will translate into dollars? For example, name one radio station app that will increase its listenership and sales.

This is strictly empirical. Roughly half the smartphone users I know connect to Internet radio - and none via an app. Of those that do, most listen to out-of-town terrestrial, NPR national, or Internet-only stations.

We’ll revisit this topic in next quarter.

Both Apple’s iPhone 3G S and Motorola’s Droid retail for $200 and offer an average $1,500/yr. plan.

Like Mac users, iPhone users are loyalists. If anything, I’d bet on the Droid cutting wide and deep into Blackberry’s Storm2 sales. It limped out of the box with a soft launch compared to Droid’s $100 million-plus campaign. Compared to both iPhone and Droid, Blackberry’s dated design negates any positives on the product’s attributes. Storm2 comes in $20 cheaper than the iPhone and Droid - and that sends a cheaper isn’t better message to consumers.

To some Sprint is a pariah best to be avoided. That translates to a limited market for Palm Pixi/Pre. It’s cheaper - $99 for the Pixi; $150 for the Pre - with an average $1,200/yr. plan. It’ll attract newbies and those in fear of being outsmarted by their phone. Beyond that? Not much.

The same holds true for the HTC Hero. Sprint is the carrier. Hero was the top-selling Sprint product prior to the Palm Pixi/Pre hitting retail. HTC claims it’ll have the heaviest promotional campaign of all smartphones, with its “You” campaign, pushing the Hero's personalization and customization abilities.

It’ll be a Christmas in the red for Motorola’s CLIQ. It’ll do well with the T-Mobile loyalists and young demos - don’t expect much beyond that. It has a boxed-in following, which will attract, at best, a few new consumers into their fold.

There’s also the Samsung Moment - but it’s hitting the market too late to make much of an impact during the Christmas season.

Now, we dumb down to a product that most in the radio industry have chosen to link with - HD Radio.

The only smartness connected with HD Radio comes from the crooked and crookeder Bob “Booble” Struble, whose iBiquity stuck radio with an investment they can’t get out of.

It’s a low-tech 21^st century version of Rebel Without A Cause. We have the major radio chains - and other investors - nervously eyeing one another, and continuing to play chicken with their properties while wondering whom their Buzz Gunderson will be.

By committing to HD Radio, the radio industry bought an apple for an orchard.

It’s perplexing. The economics of the radio industry are remorseless, but it’s still alarming to witness this continued cannibalism.

We don’t need more radio stations and formats - we need better radio stations and formats.

Ask anyone with Sirius XM or an Internet radio fan. They listen to the same two, three, four, five - and no more than six stations - that’s it. Most have a favorite and a second favorite. Offering more choice - especially when they're even worse than the conventional terrestrial fare - will not draw consumers to HD Radio.

Struble doesn’t always tell a Struble, which is synonym for not telling the truth. Sometimes he just talks out of both sides of his mouth.

Just a couple of weeks ago Struble released another torrent of press releases announcing new HD radio models, apps, and adapters and predictions on how well HD Radio will do at retail this Christmas. More lies - more Strubles.

The latest misadventure occurred when Struble tried to perfume his HD Radio hog with a new app and attachment.

We live in a compact, wireless world, Bob. Why would you sign off on an HD Radio iPhone app that requires one to go to a participating Radio Shack, and pay $79.95 plus tax for this bulky add-on HD Radio tuner, which you have to attach by wire to your iPhone? And, Bob, it can’t work with a car’s docking system because the iPhone’s 30-pint port connects to only one device at a time. Brilliant.

Please explain this to me. There isn’t a shred of evidence that this is HD Radio’s year at retail. If anything, you’ll sell fewer HD Radios this season than you did last - and that's even less than you did the year before and the year before that. Prove me wrong.

The time has come to recognize and own up to HD Radio as a major blunder. It’s not happening. It hasn’t in the past, it isn’t now, and it never will. DAB radio is a failure in Europe, too.

What’s taking place is simply not working.

I think you look at it a different way. Why work when you’ve forced radio to do all the heavy lifting for you?

After all, robbing isn’t the toughest part of heisting. The getaway is. That's what separates the pros from the cons.

Radio: Of golden turkeys and chucked ducks

2009-11-24T11:06:00.026-05:00

Choices, choices. Who's most worthy of radio's Golden Turkey award?

Let’s bring out the three finalists.

Lew Dickey, President and CEO of Cumulus.

Farid Suleman, President and CEO of Citadel.

John Hogan, CEO of Clear Channel Radio.

Come on down.

Lew, Farid, and John have contributed immeasurable improprieties to the decline and fall of the radio industry. They’re the top executives at radio groups where failure is continually rewarded.

Let’s begin with Lew.

You’re Lew Dickey. You and your brother John boast of being amongst the select few mere mortals to be born with “these extra-large hard drives” in your heads. Your words, not mine. Say you’re right. So what? It’s not the hard drive. It’s what’s on it. The palpable mismanagement you’ve given Cumulus only reinforces the maxim, “garbage in, garbage out.”

You’re Lew Dickey and we can’t fault you for being so vain. Maybe you and John are the smartest men in any room. Okay, Lew, you are the smartest; John is a little slower - but close.

You’re Lew Dickey and anyone with the unfortunate fate of being involved with you and your Brainiac brother finish up in a quick spin through the official Cumulus revolving door.

You’re Lew Dickey and you and John know how to clutch your piece of the action while the company dissipates around you. On the day when Cumulus finally fades into the fog, you and John will wink, smile, look you the rest of us in the eye and paraphrase that old Connie Francis song, “Who’s Smarter Now?” as you walk from your corrupt deal wheel-barrowing bushels of cash.

And how about that Farid Suleman? Talk about rewarding failure!

You’re Farid Suleman. It’s all about bankrupting your company so thoroughly that its lenders are forced to keep you on since you’re the only one who truly knows how badly you screwed up Citadel.

You’re Farid Suleman and you lusted for own kingdom and got it - but you were King Midas in reverse. Everything you touched turned to crap.

You’re Farid Suleman and, you couldn’t even afford to keep one of your Pennsylvania stations on the air - so you just turned it off and fortuitously forgot to report that incident to the FCC, which you are obligated to do as a license-holder.

You’re Farid Suleman and you always wanted to be a number one and now you’ll have the dubious distinction of being the first CEO of a major radio chain to drive it into Chapter 11.

John Hogan? Have you gotten used to the mechanism and strings Bain Capital and Thomas H. Lee attached to your body?

You are John Hogan. Clear Channel led the way in voice-tracking and now, here you are - voice-tracked by Bain and Lee.

You’re John Hogan. You believe that we must flout the fact that local sales have as much to do with building relationships as ratings. Don’t confuse Bain and Lee with those facts. They plan to nationalize radio sales.

It’s Das Klear Khannel all over again.

Their radio markets are mere Klear Khannel satellite republics. There’s New Yorkistan, Los Angelistan, Philadelhiastan, San Franciscoastan, and Bostonia, and others too numerous to manage, er, mention.

Like the Soviet Union, it may work on paper - but in practice it will be a dismal failure.

Remember a few years back when you signed off on Clear Channel banning some songs written by John Lennon from airplay? You should’ve banned Vladimir Lenin, whose playbook has too much in common with Clear Channel’s.

You’re John Hogan and if your programming isn’t done locally, why should sales be trusted with those who know the market best? So you hire Chris Soechtig, the former Tampa sales director for the new position of Senior VP of sales operations to oversee the thousand-plus properties.

You’re John Hogan. Your national programmers control what everyone hears on the air. Now, Soechtig will be the counterpart for sales. We can expect those “one day fire sale” e-mails a few markets promoted to become uniform.

If it worked in Philadelphia, it’ll work in Detroit. Same lunch bucket market, right? Sorry, John. Didn’t mean to quote Dan Mason.

You’re John Hogan and you remember the old term “black dollars,” the buys agencies would set aside for urban contemporary formats, some which were on minority-owned radio stations. Clever sales managers at these stations would make sure the buys were spread to all of their properties.

It worked - and it kept many urban stations afloat during lean times.

Now, Clear Channel plans to do this nationally by creating an urban network and putting all of its African-American targeted formats under one umbrella. Buy one? You gotta buy ‘em all.

Okay, turkey of the year? It’s up to you. Lew, Farid, and John. You pick. It’s too close to call.

One more thing.

You can mark this date on the calendar since I’m making a rare, positive statement about the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB).

Yes, you read that right.

I’m thankful that the NAB chucked the duck and David “Fumbles” Rehr along with it.

So far, I admire the approach its new CEO, Gordon Smith, is taking with the Record Industry Association of America (RIAA) robber barons.

He’s not sending Congress and the RIAA stuffed ducks. He’s not making veiled threats to labels and artists. He’s not writing long-winded letters to the President.

What Gordon Smith is doing is telling the truth.

Radio doesn’t have money. It cannot afford the ludicrous performance royalty tax the RIAA wants to levy on the industry.

Radio is not in the bail out business for the labels.

I’ve said it before. There are no good guys here. When the labels were healthy, radio took advantage of them.

It wasn’t entirely their fault. Whenever the labels offered payola and other incentives for airplay - radio took it.

Radio took it whether it was illegal, semi-legal, or legal. It doesn’t really matter.

In the end, it nearly killed both industries. Music radio ceased to provide the soundtrack to popular culture and the labels pushed only music by artists and managers willing to give up a percentage of their royalties to fund payola.

Radio lost its ability to sell music and the labels have no solid replacement.

Before there is even a discussion on why the RIAA wants to siphon off of radio what it can no longer get from the consumer its labels screwed - Smith is telling it like it is. There is no money to be had.

Mismanagement on radio’s behalf, though real, is not an issue since the record industry suffers from the same disease. Smith didn’t have to say if the music’s not free, we’ll be all sports and talk.

The NAB still faces a tough battle in Congress. David “Fumbles” Rehr did nearly irreparable damage to the radio industry’s image during his brief reign. His abrasive “ready, fire, aim” statements and threats can’t be erased that easily.

Let’s be thankful for two things. Fumbles is gone and we’re another day closer to effecting change in our industry. It will come.

Happy Thanksgiving.

Radio's Rubes

2009-11-16T09:51:00.023-05:00

Rube Goldberg is the patron saint of the old radio industry.

Don't know Rube? He was a popular early 20th century cartoonist who sketched comics depicting multifarious devices for performing simple tasks in unusual and often convoluted ways.

By the early thirties, the Merriam-Webster dictionary turned his name into an adjective, defining it as "accomplishing something simple through complex means."

The same definition could be applied to the old radio industry, accompanied by banking, insurance, and a select - but large - number of public companies that cloak their cooked booked financial statements in indecipherable jargon and figures.

But eventually even the most complex, convoluted financial schemes crash and burn.

Take the ethically dubious Farid Suleman, CEO of the crumbling Citadel radio group, which, at any moment, will file for Chapter 11 protection.

Poor Farid. Tired of toiling under Mel Karmazin as his official bean counter, he wanted to prove he could be a number one.

Instead, he proved to be a lifeguard who couldn’t swim. Mini-Mel he will never be.

But failure is rewarded in the radio industry many times over.

Despite his destruction of the third largest radio chain in America, one notion being bandied about would have him falling uphill by staying on as CEO of Citadel to help bring the chain out of bankruptcy.

When Suleman gobbled up the ABC Radio chain - he got the networks, too. Losing Sean Hannity to Clear Channel and Paul Harvey to his life cycle erased $8 million in revenue off the books compared to a year ago. Overall, network revenue was down 31.5 percent, which translates to a $13.5 million loss.

Let’s stop here for a moment. Paul Harvey was 92. How many more years and how many more breaths did Farid foresee squeezing out of him? Did he expect Harvey to give him five years advance notice before he passed away?

I’m stunned that Suleman didn’t come up with some Rube Goldberg apparatus that would record every word Harvey ever said so he could assign some poor minimum wage schlub to continue his broadcast by rearranging words from prior newscasts and commentary.

When Farid bought the nets, Hannity made it apparent that he had no intention of sticking around and cozying up to the draconian management of Citadel once his existing deal expired.

Granted, Citadel-ABC was the last bad big deal in radio broadcasting - but it’s painfully evident no lender bothered to skim through Farid’s faulty Rube Goldberg-style business plan. Was it assumed that being Mel’s beanyman was reason enough to fund his folly?

Disney wanted ABC Radio off their books. They were cutting a deal with Steve Jobs to acquire Pixar and weren’t interested in holding on to yesterday, especially when the radio division was likened to a country club.

Last Tuesday, just after Suleman signed off on still another massive staff bloodbath and the elimination of whatever localism remained on his distressed properties, he joined eight other radio group heads, to pitch the FCC on myths and legends. Specifically, they were asking the commission to make FM receivers mandatory in cell phones. That way, in case of an emergency - FM stations would be available to provide detailed information on where to go, what to do, and why.

Insert laugh track here.

Excluding public radio, give me twenty FM stations in this great country of ours you could listen to for immediate emergency information. Okay, I’ll settle for ten. No, final game scores on sports-talk FMs don’t count as emergencies.

Actually, I’ll tell you what FMs do provide that coverage. Small, independent market FMs. I’ll give you one - WATD in Boston’s South Shore, which on many occasions has provided my family and friends who live in its signal range with pertinent and vital information related to regional news, weather, and traffic.

Does the station make money? Yes.

Did these radio CEOs understand that the FCC has no jurisdiction to force manufacturers to add FM to cell phones?

Do these radio CEOs really believe the FCC is not aware of how these chains ruined the radio industry post-deregulation?

Then we have Lew Dickey, the CEO of the Cumulus chain who also made the trek to the FCC.

The smartest man in any room was shrewd enough to kick ahead its inevitable insolvency for one more year with his Rube Goldberg accounting so he could continue screw his shareholders, investors, vendors and anyone else who’s reluctantly hitched up to his wagon.

Lew doesn’t know how to make money but credit him for knowing how to filch it. He is challenging Clear Channel CEO John Hogan and the aforementioned Farid Suleman for the title of career derailment king.

Instead of stepping aside when his company spiraled downward in revenue and ratings under his direction, Dickey’s slanted family and friends’ board anointed him to save it.

Dickey’s in serious need of a spine transfusion before he even considers a financial one for his company.

You’ve probably heard the joke. How do you identify an old radio chain? Look for the makeshift morgue.

I define radio to those who ask as a business where luck is running out for those who are presently controlling it - but it’s like passengers in an airplane where the pilot dies and there’s no way to land the plane without crashing.

The only good news is that by keeping Suleman, Dickey and the other usual suspects in place will speed-up the impending fire sales.

I saved the best Rube Goldberg for last. By now, you’ve heard of iBiquity’s latest scheme to jumpstart their D.O.A. HD Radio.

Here’s a seriously flawed technology that has zero consumer interest despite millions of dollars of donated radio time to promote it.

At iBiquity, there’s nothing more rewarding than to spend other people’s money on preposterous promotion, marketing, and gadgetry.

So what do you make of the HD Radio iPhone app?

Yes, the app is free - but there’s a catch. It’s iBiquity. There’s always a catch!

To receive HD Radio on your iPhone, you must go to a participating Radio Shack, er, the Shack store and plunk down $79.95 plus tax for a bulky add-on HD Radio tuner, which you have to attach to your iPhone.

Yes, you are now carrying around two devices. One, which is sleek and stylish, the other - pure Rube Goldberg.

There’s another catch. You cannot use the device through your iPod-docking car stereo system because the 30-pint port of an iPhone connects to only one device at a time.

It is said that iBiquity CEO Bob “Booble” Struble hasn’t even uttered the word “Zune” since his iPod Rube, er, app, was released.

Wonder if Freddie sold him the app? Together we con!

Rube Goldberg and radio. Life imitates art.

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Carl Hirsch & Gil Rosenwald interviews from 1979

Radio: Drawn and Third Quartered

2009-11-08T08:26:00.030-05:00

All hail the genius that believes he’s the smartest man in any room, Cumulus CEO Lew Dickey.

He’s one of a few broadcast CEOs that were spinning their companies’ third quarter results this past week.

Yes, it’s time again for another swirl of misinformation and panic.

So many disasters, so little space. I’ll do my best.

Lew Dickey believes that every time he speaks, he learns something new.

The smartest man believes that every time he reads one of his quotes in a trade, he gains even more insight into his own mind, which he’ll let you know is such a fine mind.

He'll also remind you at least once during conversation that it’s also a Harvard University educated mind.

He has an insatiable obsession to brag of his intellect with the masses, and the smartest man in any room actually looks forward to delivering his spin to his quarterly conference call to analysts.

It gives him a break from seeding future fiascos.

So what is the eminent brainiac of broadcasting ready to impart to us mere mortals?

How about wrong is the new right and smoke and mirrors are the new transparency.

Let’s listen in on how Lew weasels his way in and out of Cumulus’ third quarter.

It’s almost apocryphal. And Lew doesn’t even have to look that word up.

“Larger markets appear to be gaining revenue traction,” sayeth the Lewdick. He reached that conclusion since revenue at the Cumulus Media Partner markets, which include Dallas, Houston, Atlanta and San Francisco, was down an average -15.9% for Q3. His small and medium markets, which Lew used to call the “bread-and-butter” cities of Cumulus Media took an -18.5 percent plunk.

“We have to do a better job of selling our industry, selling the true value of it.”

Here’s one problem with Lew. He assumes we’re almost as smart as he is so he never gets around to explaining exactly what that true value is.

Some of Dickey’s new-speak reads like it was lifted right out of a late nineties dot.com bomb business plan.

For example, he said Cumulus believes in “sustainable operations” in 2010 and beyond by “employing state-of-the-art technology to run the enterprise and drive productivity.”

Maybe Lew was talking up the spy videophones he had installed at most of his stations to keep an eye and ear on his salespeople?

At least that’s what I think he was pontificating about since he followed that line by a claim that Cumulus hired fifty - count ‘em - fifty new sales people in just the last six weeks alone.

He also plans to hire another fifty by the end of the year - though he neglected to mention that the next fifty will be replacing the fifty he just hired over the last six weeks when they don’t work out.

Okay, Lew. Let’s do the numbers. What say you?

“Our industry revenues peaked in 2006 at $21.5 billion. So, in 2006 radio was a $21.5 billion industry – and this year revenues are forecast to finish around $15.5 billion, a decline of $6 billion. We believe it could be – from peak to trough back to peak again – it could be 10 years, maybe 2016 before we reach $21.5 billion again.”

What’s it going to, Lew? 2016 or 2019? Or will 2012 be your apocalypse?

Back to Lew.

'We definitely believe the industry is going to come out of this cycle and continue to grow, but it’s going to be quite some time before we reach the 2006 level. So, more than ever before we believe efficiency is becoming the greatest source of competitive advantage in our business today.”

That all well and good, Lew. But what about all the people you’ve already fired? How do you run a business when you’ve lost or fired most of your best executives and you’re stuck inside a downtrend with a skeleton crew?

“It’s not about cutting bodies, but rather it’s about resource allocation, systems and customer-focused solutions.”

Okay, Lew, enough of the b.s. Let’s do your numbers now.

I’ll spare you his well-placed gobbledygook and get down to business.

Lew successfully sidestepped providing analysts and investors on the conference call with specific dollar figures for its fourth quarter guidance - but insisted that he was budgeting for positive revenue growth in 2010.

Let’s stop here for a moment.

Could you imagine what Lew would’ve done to any sales manager that failed to provide specific sales figures for the next quarter within a nano-second of being asked?

Here’s how Dickey did it. He “expected” to improve on both revenue and the EBITDA performance posted for third quarter, which he released a few hours before the call.

He called it “improvement.” The third quarter revenues were down from a year ago - but they weren’t as bad as the second quarter. Put another way. Q2 was -21.1 percent down. Q3 was only a “mere” -18.5 percent down. And that was directly due to his elimination of human stink at his facilities over the last few months. Need proof? Dickey’s operating expenses dropped 20.9 percent.

Cumulus Media also landed an income tax benefit of $27.2 million in the third quarter. A year ago, it had an income tax expense of $7.3 million.

He added that, “Further consolidation is going to be essential to improving the overall fundamentals of the industry."

Only the smartest man in any room would want to acquire even more radio stations when he can’t even preserve what he already has.

Excuses, excuses. When it comes to answering a question, Lew, despite his Harvard education, is a man of few words - repeated over and over and over again.

You’re Lew Dickey, you’ve been there, done that, and really, what will it all amount to in the end?

Now, let’s quickly move to CBS, where the news was not too bad being the new incredible. Revenue dropped a mere one percent.

Good news first. TV’s doing well - both network and syndication - to show a 9 percent increase. Radio? Well, would you believe a -19 percent drop? That translates to a fall from $392.5 million to $318.9 mil.

CBS Radio operating income was $41.1 million, which included an impairment charge of $31.7 million for station divestures; in particular, the Portland, Oregon stations sold to Larry Wilson.

Though CBS CEO Les Moonves alleged that he planned to keep radio as part of CBS’s portfolio, he was barely believable. Would you be if you had Dan Mason running your stations and running out of excuses?

They don’t make radio CEOs like Dan Mason anymore. Then again, the world he occupied simply doesn’t exist anymore.

Now, let’s touch upon the “not really a radio company” radio company, Sirius XM. Their revenue was up $630 million - a 3 percent increase over a year ago. Its subscriber base was down 2 percent from a year ago, but up by 102,295 subscribers. Mel Karmazin didn’t say why - but I will. Three words: Cash for clunkers.

Mel’s creative financing also made their “material” payments due disappear until 2011. How does Mel do it?

“We expect the company’s cash flow growth momentum to continue into 2010,” sayeth the King of Karma. “And we project full-year adjusted income from operations to increase approximately 20 percent next year.”

Mel also told the Street he expects revenue growth in the “mid to high single digits” and free cash flow growth.

And how about that? Mel’s the only radio guy being taken seriously by Wall Street.

In keeping with bad is the new good; Salem’s 11 percent tumble in Q3 was nothing short of a Godsend, so to speak.

True, it would've been a lot worse had the saints at Salem not bartered most of their stations up the tokus with religious programming.

Salem. I feel for you. Seems like only yesterday that you could conjure up even a C-list of right wing zealots for a talk show network and make it work. Alas, their audience is getting long in the tooth, and harder to sell; especially when so many of them have turned into survivalists. You know that survivalists don’t listen to the radio because they’re convinced they’re all implanted with microchips and they're listening to them.

Then you have Christian Hot AC. The Fish format programmers are just figuring out that when all of your music sounds the same, the entire format fries.

Their Fish and Foul talkers revenue fell from $47.4 million to $42 mil.

Sale hoped to find some divine revenue intervention with new media - like TownHall.org - but that site has been renamed Defendmyvote.com, an inactive site, which is being maintained in the interim by GoDaddy, where you can watch their host’s “Too Hot for TV” spots. OMG! Still, some of the other sites are still on-line but their revenue slipped from $7.1 million to $6.9 mil.

Salem also took a $14.1 impairment charge on the value of radio licenses in Dallas, Atlanta, Detroit, and Portland Oregon, and its still playing the waiting game on selling WRFD, a AM in Columbus, Ohio to another conservative group, Christian Voice of Central Ohio for a whopping $4 mil. Will it ever close? God only knows.

Come on, now. Admit it. If you’re in radio - either in sales or programming - do you really believe you could get away with offering the same lame excuses your CEOs offered to Wall Street last week?

I’m calling it radio noir. There are those unable to change with the times. So the changing times roll over them.

The past decade of unrestrained consolidation led to an arduous crusade of cost reductions, as well as departures of key long-time creative executives. Sure, Dickey, Mays, Mason, and the usual suspects can aver new hires - but it’s obvious that the loss of institutional knowledge has crippled the industry.

In the go-go buy-sell days of the late nineties, few mega-chains even considered a plan B. Now, it faces an uphill battle to define to both listeners and clients what radio is - and will be - in the 21^st century.

Instead of being mired in its own mediocrity, radio needs to concentrate its efforts on where it can win and contain its losses.

There are so many radio CEOs that are chasing something they couldn’t hold on to even if they caught it. Some part of them realizes the vainness of this chase even as another part clings to the need for it.

For the next quarterly report, I suggest that Lew Dickey allow other radio CEOs to share his videophone - and instead of another mumbo jumbo of words and figures, show a Road Runner cartoon. Fast forward to the end where Wile E. Coyote takes a flying leap of a cliff, followed by a rising cloud of dust.

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A 1981 investigative report into radio station exclusives

Radio's annual Halloween Party

2009-10-30T11:15:00.011-04:00

The annual radio industry haunted house party is being held at Clear Channel’s headquarters in San Antonio this year.

The joint actually feels haunted. For years, it was the center of the universe for all decisions made for its radio stations. Now it’s a disembodied mess and run by spirits from a distant city.

I’m sorry to report that Randall Mays, the soon-to-be-former CFO of Clear Channel, is boycotting this year’s party after being told by Bain Capital and Thomas H. Lee that he would have to get their approval before he could wear his Little Lord Fauntleroy costume.

Brother Mark will be coming as Pol Pot, the former Cambodian leader. Pol Pot eliminated hundreds villages in Cambodia and killed tens of thousands. Mark and his family eliminated hundreds of radio stations and altered the lives of tens of thousands.

The managing directors of Bain Capital and Thomas H. Lee need no costumes. Their very presence is scary enough. Just ask the banks that invested in the Clear Channel privatization debacle.

The unimaginative John Hogan wears the same costume year after year and this is no exception. He’ll be coming as the abandoned puppy dog, unsure of whom his next master will be.

Lew Dickey is bring two costumes. First, there's his customary Smartest Grim Reaper in the Room.

Unlike Clear Channel, Citadel, CBS Radio and other companies that set up their kills in a manner that you know that they’re coming but not quite sure who the victims will be, Lew just shows up unannounced and says, “Boo! You’re fired!”

His second costume is an Invasion of the Body Snatcher pod. After he fires you, he’ll take over your job and since he's always the Smartest Grim Reaper in the Room, he'll do it better than you.

Did you happen to read Lew Dickey’s interview in Portfolio? Click here if you missed it.

Here are a couple of highlights.

To cut health care costs at Cumulus, Dickey dumped Human Resources from the task and seized total control of the project.

“It’s handled at human resources. I think that’s a big mistake,” he said. “I could immerse myself in office supplies, and in 15 minutes I could have a knowledge about that.”

Frightening.

The unimaginative Peter Smyth is going to wear horse blinders and rose-tinted sunglasses. That way he won’t be spooked by the realities of increased unemployment, lack of consumer confidence, sucker rallies on Wall Street, and unsold inventory.

Farid Suleman is coming as Dracula. He bought ABC Radio, sucked the life out of it, and somehow, he’s still standing.

Dan Mason will arrive as Mandrake the Magician. With a wave of his magic wand, he’ll turn one of his stations into a contemporary hits format whether the market needs it or not.

Though he wasn’t invited and has no plans to show, Sirius XM CEO Mel Karmazin will be the most visible person in the room. Like it or not, Wall Street considers Sirius XM a “radio company” and of the top five, his is the only one showing a increase in revenue (+18.6 percent).

By comparison, number one chain, Clear Channel had a -7.4 percent loss; number three, CBS was down -12.2 percent; number four, Citadel was down -9.4 percent, and Cumulus, a -6.9 percent drop.

Now, that’s scary.

Almost forgot. At this party, "Trick or treat" has been replaced by "pay for play."

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The Dr. Destructo story

Forgotten anniversary

2009-10-26T18:36:00.009-04:00

Shame, shame, shame on me. One of the most important dates in recent history and I missed it.

I’m going to stop short of taking full blame here. There were no reminders. No hints. No nothing.

You’d think with Google and Wikipedia someone would’ve flagged this date.

I didn't even see a single Tweet about it.

Eight years ago last Friday, October 23, the iPod was introduced.

I was in my Apple store last week. I’ve gotten to know most of the people there.

You’d think someone would’ve invited me to stop by and have cake and ice cream last Friday.

But no. Not a word.

Do you remember the first iPod?

Radio ignored it.

The labels mumbled something about intellectual property and copyrights.

Though it was a significant technological advance over the Diamond RIO MP3 player, the iPod was compatible only with Macs, which excluded 90 percent of the computer market.

And only geeks and Goths and art students owned Macs.

It was weird looking and clunky; the size of a deck of cards. It didn’t look or operate like a radio or a Walkman.

Just a year earlier Diamond REO released its second and third MP3 players with 32 MB and 64 MB of internal memory respectably which were compatible with PCs.

They weighed roughly 2.5 ounces and ranged in price from $200 to $250.

The downside was their fragility. They were prone to cracks and breakage.

The iPod, by comparison, weighed 6.5 ounces and had a whopping maximum 5 GB of storage.

Initially, the only way you could add music to it was by ripping songs from CDs.

And it was pricey. $400.

2001 - the year that Apple introduced the iPod, it made $5.4 billion - nearly all of it from sales of Macs to geeks, Goths, and art students. It posted a loss of $25 million.

Let’s fast forward to last year’s figures. Apple made $36.5 billion - good for $6 billion in profits - from the sale of iPods, iPhones, Macs, and digital content.

220 million iPods users can’t be wrong.

While I’m thinking of it. We missed another important date earlier this year.

January 5.

The eighth anniversary of the sale of the first HD Radio.

That’s when Cedar Rapids, Iowa resident Nathan Franzen bought a Kenwood KTC-HR 100 HD Radio tuner to install in his 2001 Pontiac Gran Prix.

The less said about HD Radio the better.

220 HD Radio users can’t be right.

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Seger & Sweet in Cleveland

Radio: The Peter Principle

2009-10-20T17:31:00.031-04:00

Peter Smyth, it’s true that people are worried about the future of radio - or at least those of us who work for radio are.

I read your latest From the Corner Office last week and have to respond.

Peter, I’m not going to counter-point the half-truths and untruths in your latest letter.

Just a few points, please.

You say the Great Recession is over? Really.

How might I ask did you reach that conclusion? Unemployment continues to rise. Foreclosures are on the increase.

They’re related, you know.

If you don’t have a job, you can’t afford to pay the mortgage - and you lose the house.

And Peter, what does one do when they're foreclosed-upon. For one, they're less likely to spend whatever money they have left.

Our industry is based on consumer advertising. If they’re not buying, clients stop advertising. Some go out of business.

Here are all the stats you need.

The real world isn’t like radio, Peter. When Lew Dickey or Farid Suleman misses a payment, they have floatible options. They can give up more equity or try and pawn off debt.

Happy days are here again because the Dow cracked 10,000? Two words: Sucker’s rally.

Peter, you need to get out more. There’s little reality between Wall Street and Main Street. Or Dorchest er Street.

I can even show you a few empty storefronts Newbury Street? How about Copley Place? It has a few shaky tenants.

Remember that 10,000 hallmark was hit a decade ago - March 30, 1999 to be exact. So even by Wall Street terms, our economy is, at best, torpid.

Are we really better off today than we were a year ago? Yes and no. The stimulus programs - tax credits and “Cash for Clunkers” brought consumers out of hiding - but all of that money’s been absorbed.

How many publicly traded radio groups are about to go belly-up?

How about the radio industry? Are we better off today, post-pillage deregulation?

I’d prefer your optimism to remain cautious, Peter.

We now know that the country was thisclose to plummeting into another Great Depression. We also know that we’re not even close to lifting ourselves out of this current Great Recession.

Truth be told, Peter. We’ve managed some temporary form of stabilization in a still depressed market.

Did you read Northeastern University economic prof Alan Clayton-Matthews' take on the economy in yesterday's Boston Globe? "I had seemed we hit the bottom this summer, but I'm not so sure anymore."

Yes, I believe we will have a turnaround - but it will be slow and imbalanced. Not everyone will get out of here alive.

Could we agree that the Internet is to radio what the horse was to the car?

The first cars were manufactured in retooled horse carriage factories.

The engine replaced the part where the horse used to be.

The only surviving radio stations will be those with creative content and retooled and grafted to on line and mobile.

See, we don’t need more radio stations. We already have too many. We do need live and localized radio stations providing what our potential audience wants.

And I don’t care what your consultants say. Slapping one of your radio station apps on a smart phone isn’t social networking.

There’s only one alternative. It’s the obit you don’t want to read, Peter: After several attempts to shock the radio industry back to life with gimmicks like HD Radio failed, it was pronounced obsolete on - fill in the date.

Since deregulation, radio’s been in denial.

Don’t blame the casino for losing your money. Look in the mirror.

Don’t blame the audience for your loss of time spent listening. Just listen to your product.

Don’t say it can’t happen here. It already has.

Radio lives in an alternate reality where fish sing, birds swim, and humans get in the way of voice tracking and syndication.

There will be more rounds of economic disasters from time to time. It’s inevitable. But you are in control of your own destiny. The disasters will be measured by how much or how little you prepared for them.

Here are three more words: Commercial real estate. We haven’t felt the aftershocks - because the quake hasn’t happened yet. But it will. Those commercial deals were bundled up and sold along side the equally toxic subprime residential mortgages.

Remember the tech boom at the end of the last decade when VC’s were running out of ink signing off on anything that had the word Internet embodied in the first sentence of a business plan?

Remember it was assumed that housing prices would continue to rise forever, which led to banks giving away mortgages to anyone whether they wanted them or not? Supply and demand? Come on.

Normally, I try to let sleeping dogs lie. But this is one hound that keeps barking and won't shut up.

I’m talking about your bud Lew Dickey. He’s now whining to Inside Radio that he gave away the store just to fill inventory. He forgot to add that he and others kept adding more inventory, too, in an attempt to meet budget. Supply and demand? Come on.

How can you have demand when you have an endless supply?

I don't know how everyone missed this one. A couple of weeks back a Seattle paper got radio broker Gary Stevens on the phone to discuss classical music formatted KING-FM's financial problems.

You're familiar with classical music, Peter. You dumped the format in two markets, Detroit and Philadelphia. Too bad the formats you replaced them with stiffed, too.

Here's what Gary said about the radio market to Seattle Crosscut: "Two years ago, a Seattle FM would have been worth $50-70 million, even if it wasn't profitable. In the current meltdown, so few radio stations have been traded, there aren't comparable sales numbers, but if I had to guess, KING-FM might bring in $15-25 million, in today's market, assuming a buyer could find financing."

Times are tough when even a seasoned radio broker like Stevens is quoting rates out of Filene's Basement's automatic markdown - before the markdown.

Shall we join reality, already in progress, Peter?

Let’s start with this report from Veronis Suhler Stevenson (VSS).

Their 23rd annual U.S. Communications Industry Forecast report that the largest declines in 2009 ad revenues will be newspapers (-18.7 percent/$35.5 billion); consumer magazines (-14.8 /$11 billion); radio (-11.7 percent/$15.8 billion), and broadcast television (-10.1 percent/$43.0 billion).

Growth will come from digital media. VSS forecasts increases in mobile (+18.1 percent/$1.3 billion) and Internet (+9.2/$23.8 billion).

VSS also predicts 2010 will be the year marketers will move advanced and sophisticated social media into its mainstream - effecting nearly all marketing initiatives.

Sounds like radio has some work to do. Up for it?

Finally, Peter, are you aware of the TV sitcom Gary Unmarried. In a recent episode the lead character, played by Jay Mohr, is trying to land a gig as a L.A. radio sports talk show host. He sends the station a demo and….well, click here and hear it yourself.

Ouch!

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The song remains the same

Radio: How Rush Beck-oned the media

2009-10-15T14:20:00.015-04:00

What must it be like to be Rush Limbaugh’s babysitter?

When that Baby Huey kicks his high chair in Palm Beach, the aftershocks rock Clear Channel’s death star headquarters in San Antonio and their puppeteers Bain Capital and Thomas H. Lee in Boston.

The last few months have found Rush in the awkward position of playing second fiddle to rival conservative hatemonger Glenn Beck, who happens to be another high priced piece of Clear Channel property.

While Rush was basking his ego as being more popular than Michael Steele in the Republican party, Beck was perfecting the old crying evangelist trick - dabbing Vicks VapoRub just below his eyes, and bawling for America.

Beck, who also hosts a show on Fox News one-upped Rush on July 28 when he called President Barack Obama “racist” on the Fox and Friends show and accused him of having a "deep-seated hatred for white people or the white culture."

That led to a number of advertisers, including Proctor & Gamble, Progressive Insurance, and Lawyers.com, pulling their spots from Beck’s 5 PM show.

Some radio advertisers also pulled off Beck’s Clear Channel’s Premiere Network syndicated show.

So what if some sponsors temporarily exited Beck’s Fox and Clear Channel shows?

They’ll be back. Liberals will tire from the torture of monitoring his show.

But the real crisis for Rush was Beck’s newfound publicity. Every media outlet was hammering Beck while Rush was just being Rush.

See, Rush always viewed himself as the Beatles and Glenn Beck as the Dave Clark Five. Now he feared that Beck could pull off the staying power of the Rolling Stones.

And have you seen what all the Beck publicity has done to the poor portly Rush?

He got his oink back.

Some news just sucks all the air out of everything else in the media. This was one of those cases. It was all Beck all of the time. It was if the king of all mean-spirited, racist, nativist, xenophobic radio hosts had been robbed from Rush and fenced to Beck.

The stress of being yesterday’s news had that porker packing on the poundage.

Rush has his addictions. Among them is to always be lead dog. He didn’t take well to Beck’s hindquarters blocking his view.

It’s not just about the money. Clear Channel pays him enough to buy controlling interest in Purdue Pharma.

It’s Rush’s insatiable ego that joneses him to get more media mentions than any other conservative shock talker.

So, he “leaked” news that he had joined a group of investors who were already negotiating to buy the 0-5 St. Louis Rams.

The group is headed by SCP Worldwide Chairman Dave Checketts, who owns the 2-2 St. Louis Blues NHL team.

The deal came with a somewhat convincing hook. Rush was spawned and raised in Cape Girardeau, Missouri, which is roughly 100 miles and change from St. Louis.

Rush played Checketts, the NFL, and African-American NFL players and spokespeople like a Stradivarius.

Knowing he’d be a lightning rod for objections, owing to his past negative and racial comments on the NFL, he went for it.

Remember this charmer from a January 2007 broadcast?

"The NFL all too often looks like a game between the Bloods and the Crips without any weapons.”

In 2003, Limbaugh talked himself out of a Sunday commentator role on ESPN when he called Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Donovan McNabb "overrated,” adding “What we have here is a little social concern in the NFL. The media has been very desirous that a black quarterback can do well—black coaches and black quarterbacks doing well."

The Rams revelation permitted Rush to position his adversaries right where he wanted them.

NFL Commish Roger Goodell said, "I think divisive comments are not what the NFL is all about. I would not want to see those kind of comments from people who are in a responsible position within the NFL."

Indianapolis Colts owner Jim Irsay claimed he’d vote against Limbaugh as an owner because of comments that were "inappropriate, incendiary and insensitive."

Professional race card players Revs. Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson fed the media their predictable, recycled, blah, blah woof, woof, over-the-top protests.

Several African-American NFL players insisted they would not play for or against a team owned by Limbaugh.

Not wanting to be in the middle of a racial war of the words while trying to close the Rams deal, Checketts dumped Rush and e-mailed a statement that read, “It has become clear that his (Limbaugh’s) involvement in our group has become a complication and distraction to our intentions. We have decided to move forward without him and hope it will eventually lead us to a successful conclusion."

And now Rush is playing his own card - the conservative card.

Here’s his pontification from Wednesday: "This is not about the NFL, it's not about the St. Louis Rams, it's not about me. This is about the ongoing effort by the left in this country, wherever you find them, in the media, the Democrat Party, or wherever, to destroy conservatism, to prevent the mainstreaming of anyone who is prominent as a conservative.

"Therefore, this is about the future of the United States of America and what kind of country we're going to have."

If you’ve forgotten why Rush kicked off this grandstand play in the first place - here’s two words: Glenn - who?

Had Rush not made that McNabb comment he still wouldn’t have had a chance to own a piece of an NFL team. There’s that little problem he had a few years ago when he got caught buying OxyContin on the black market. The league has a no tolerance policy with ex-druggies.

And even though the golden age of radio is long gone, the golden age for rampant buffoonery on the radio shows no sign of decline.
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The Sensational Alex Harvey Band

Radio (No) One

2009-10-12T18:45:00.016-04:00

You’re Radio One. You’re trying to make ends meet with 53 radio stations in 16 markets - and it’s not going so well.

Ever since those no good, rotten bastards at Arbitron rolled out the Portable People Meter (PPM), your urban formatted stations have gone into a ratings free fall. Since your ad rates are based on Arbitron data, the lower your ratings are, the lower your ad rates will be. The lower your rate, the more challenging it is to service your massive debt.

You’re Radio One and you’ve called for Rep. Edolphus “Eddie” Towns (D-N.Y.) to take care of your business on the Hill.

See, Rep. Towns as head of the House Committee for Oversight and Government Reform subpoenaed the Media Ratings Council (MRC), an independent industry org that certifies media ratings, to turn over audits of Arbitron’s PPM system to his committee.

After reviewing their findings, he accused Arbitron of “persistent problems” with their minority sample.

Let’s take a peak at their study. Towns’ committee issued a statement saying the subpoenaed documents proved that Arbitron recruited a sample audience of 5,400 people in New York - but only 2,700 — half of the sample — provided actual data.

His report stated that “the radio listening habits of over four million ethnic minorities are represented by only 500 Arbitron recruits” - and that similar sample problems are occurring in Arbitron PPM rated markets nationwide.

No one will argue that Arbitron's PPM isn't flawed. It's a slight improvement over the diary, which has been in operation for how many decades? Still, it's a 20th century flop. Had it been introduced in the late eighties or early nineties, it would've had its decade of fame. But what might've worked a twenty years ago isn't going to measure up in 2010. Not when you're selling against on-line, which can provide up-to-the-minute detailed data.

In research and information, methodology is vital. The manner in which data is mined circumscribes the results. The PPM is already old and in the way.

Some media experts believe that urban radio listening is down for the same reason that rock, alternative, and Triple A formats are taking it on the chin. Who's going to carry around an object that makes them look like they're being monitored by their probie?

Then you could also argue that urban format listeners - like those rock, alternative, and Triple A formats suffered audience erosion because most aren’t programming what their potential audience want to hear - and they can get what they really want on-line, on satellite radio, or listen to their own music on an MP3 player. .

The way radio is formatted today, an active and seasoned listener is least likely to listen to terrestrial radio. There are better options than formats as dated as the PPM's technology.

The contemporary hit format is racking up numbers because its tween and very young teen audience, still in their musically instant gratification current music phase, which terrestrial radio satisfies with tight high-rotation playlists. There are exceptions, of course, though very few, and they tend to be the few stations independently programmed for the market they're in.

Classic Hits does well because it's the new old fashioned adult contemporary - music for passive people who don't care about music that much but want to hear something in the background at work - in settings where terrestrial radio is still present.

You’re Radio One and faced with declining numbers you must be certain that every penny of potential revenue gets on the books.

Or do you?

The competition is always intense, but today, we have a new Dumbest Radio Rule to add to the never-increasing list of terrestrial follies.

Let’s visit this Radio One market’s policy. I don’t want to give away the market since I don’t know if the decision originated there or from the corporate office.

Here’s part one. If you don’t get your weekend and first-of-the-week spots in by Wednesday, they won’t run. No exceptions.

When spots don’t run, Radio One loses money.

Part two, should your Radio One account exec be on a forced, unpaid “furlough day,” on a day you want to buy time - forget it. You can’t. Add this. Just like those restaurants you never go back to - there aren’t any substitutions allowed. You can’t ask for another AE to write up the order.

I’ll say it again. When spots don’t run, Radio One loses money.

It’s another dollar chasing a dime. Maybe you’re saving some production o.t. and a few bucks with your unpaid furloughs. - but it’s not worth the business you’re not writing.

But wait. Let’s go back to Rep. Eddie Towns. Was he not part of a group that also included House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn (D-S.C.) and Charles Rangel (D-Manhattan) and that met with senior Obama administration officials this past August, demanding that minority broadcasters - including Radio One - be on the receiving end of a government bail out? Did Towns claim the station owners had a right to tap into the Troubled Asset Relief Program?

(There was a mayoral candidate in Cleveland named Bill Patmon who said on a Sunday morning TV political show that the government should bail out Clear Channel. Maybe he was gunning for an endorsement.)

Do you think Radio One should start saving their properties by having systems in place that insure that clients who want to advertise on their stations can advertise on their stations?

Just asking.

Last time I checked, that's the way commercial radio still made its money. Selling time.

Radio & TV: WTF?

2009-10-08T11:19:00.021-04:00

F-bombs, wardrobe malfunctions, nipple slips. BFD.

Communications lawyers have made millions from it.

It’s allowed a whole lot of bureaucrats at the FCC with too much time on their hands and who knows what on their minds to pretend to look busy.

But can anyone answer the question – What is the FCC supposed to be protecting us from? Words? Nipples?

On February 1, 2010 we will be celebrating the sixth anniversary – yes, you read that right – of the Super Bowl XXXVIII Janet Jackson nipple-slip wardrobe malfunction.

I’ll bet the broadcast barristers will still be racking up billable hours from it on that date and beyond.

On any given Sunday you’ll see more breasts flashed at a NFL game than all 44 Super Bowl broadcasts combined. And that’s still only half as many as you’ll see at a KISS concert or a foam party.

You’ll hear at least a dozen f-bombs drop at any NFL, MLB, NBA, or NHL game. If you’d prefer to limit your load to, let’s say, a half-dozen, try sitting in the bleachers at a Little League or kid’s soccer game.

That’s life. That’s how all the people swear.

The latest media-generated F-bomb of note occurred a couple of weeks back on a Saturday Night Live skit, “Biker Chit Chat.” The script had SNL newcomer Jenny Slate using the word “frickin,” – a good dozen times before her brain short-circuited causing her to accidentally blurt out the f-bomb instead.

“You frickin; just threw an ashtray of butts at my head. You know what, you stood up for yourself and I fuckin’ love you for that,” she said.

Just a few days before the SNL gaffe, WNYW-FOX 5/New York news anchor Ernie Anastos, did his own pardon-my-Greek gaffe.

It started with some innocent, playful banter with meteorologist Nick Gregory.

Anastos: “It takes a tough man to make a tender forecast, Nick."

Gregory, looking confused, replies: “I guess that's me."

Anastos: “Keep fucking that chicken.”

It’s the second most overused current catch phrase (the first being “inside baseball”). Loosely translated it means, “keep up the good work.”

The video is here. The best part isn’t Anastos’ use of the word. It’s the facial expression on co-anchor Dari Alexander.

Pardon my s-bomb but shit happens.

We’re nearly a decade into the 21st century. Don’t you think it’s time to legalize nipples and decriminalize f-bombs? WTF!

In 1950’s TV sitcoms married couples slept in separate beds.

In early 1962, after taking a continual beating from NBC ratings leader Bonanza, the ABC-TV series, Bus Stop, toughened up its dialog, taking liberal libertirs with the words “hell” and “damn.” It marked the first time on TV that someone other than a priest or evangelist used those words. An intolerant FCC ordered ABC to cut the cursing and the show was cancelled.

In April 1963, the Ki ngsmen, released “Louie Louie,” a poorly recorded cover of a Jamaican folk song. Within weeks, rumors that the unintelligible lyrics were sexually explicit – including liberal use of the f-word - spread across the U.S. and the FBI also embarked on a futile 31-month investigation into the alleged lascivious lyrics.

In September, 1964 when ABC-TV premiered the then-controversial Peyton Place series, based on Grace Metalious’ scandalous 1956 novel. Though the TV show could’ve been subtitled Who’s Pregnant and Who’s to Blame, the network censored the word “pregnant” for the first few episodes.

By the late sixties, previously profane on-the-radio words like “bitch” and “ass” were desensitized and worked into the mainstream lexis.

Even the f-bomb managed to escape non-trained ears on album rock radio in 1978 with the Who’s “Who Are You.” In 1991, Van Halen released their For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge titled album. Some historians claim the f-word is actually an acronym for those words.

Last year, Tori Amos had a Triple A radio format hit with “Big Wheel,” where two minutes and twenty seconds into the song she described herself as a MILF – repeatedly.

The first time I recall hearing the f-bomb in a song was in 1965 on the Fugs’ “Supergirl” from their first album, The Village Fugs.

My parents rarely cursed. I never heard my mother swear and my father’s were limited to the garden variety of “Lord’s name in vain” words. Knowing the neighborhood and the words I was bound to hear, I was taught at a young age that swearing exposed a limited vocabulary.

The first time I heard the f- word was in the first grade from Frannie Hart. His father was a hard-drinking longshoreman, who could easily drop three f-bombs per sentence.

Fast forward to today. It’s a profane insane world. Tweens and teens regularly text the f-word through Internet-driven acronyms.

The CW netwo rk, an equal partnership between CBS and Warner Bros., marketed last season’s Gossip Girl with the acronym OMFG, which is OMG with the f-bomb included. Rick Haskin, the chief marketing officer at the CW, told Advertising Age that he used the F-word reference because its tween-to early 20’s viewers used the same phrase in their own personal conversations.

Former Vice President Dick Cheney dropped an f-bomb on Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT) on the Senate floor when he asked him to perform an anatomical sexual impossibility.

Not long after that confrontation, Cheney, while being interviewed live on CNN and MSNBC, was asked to do the same from an off-camera protester. The reporter, realizing the request was audible, asked Cheney, “Are you getting a lot of that, Mr. Cheney?”

Most linguists believe its origin is from the Middle English word fucken, which means to strike, move quickly or penetrate. The origin of that word comes from the German word, ficken, which has the same definition.

In 2005, director Steve Anderson released his documentary, Fuck, which examined the history and impact of the word.

Fuck, as a word, is infused in every aspect of our culture. It’s a noun, verb, adverb, adjective, pronoun, and interjection. IMFAO, it’s time we desensitize, decriminalize, and once and for all disarm the f-bomb. If radio and TV can get away with freakin’ and frickin’, what’s fuckin’ going to do? Communize us? Enslave us?

Like I said. BFD.

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More blasts from the past

Radio: The NAB Radio No Shows

2009-10-05T15:58:00.016-04:00

Do I have to come right out and say it?

When something doesn’t sell, you stop manufacturing it. When something doesn’t draw, you cancel it.

By now you’ve heard the attendance figures for the NAB Radio Show in Philadelphia a couple of weeks back.

2,507 showed. Give or take, plus or minus 700 paid the full registration fee. That means an estimated 1,807 attendees were provided either a discounted rate or were comp’d.

The final tally was written in red ink. The slogan for the convention should’ve been: “We feel your pain.”

Question 1 - If the NAB is imprudent enough to risk another NAB Radio Show next year?

No answer.

Question 2 - Has anyone bothered to speculate on how many radio chains will be in receivership by this time a year from now?

No answer.

Question 3 – Okay, let’s ask an easy one. So what was learned at this year’s NAB Radio Show?

Answer - Denial remains the single most common cause of the radio industry’s demise.

Hey, that answers the first two questions, too!

The NAB Radio Show 2009 was a top tier affair. By day one, everyone knew that if you weren’t a designer brand radio CEO, you were a caste away.

You rarely spotted Mark Mays or Lew Dickey walking amongst the common folk.

No, they were perfectly content to remain isolated in the safe harbor of their luxury mink prison suites.

Most attending the NAB Radio Show never even saw them.

Except for a rare appearance at the Dickstein Shap iro wingding, they were invisible.

What they don’t realize is that being invisible is not the same as being invincible, which they are not.

Did anyone not notice that the only time the Radio Show felt claustrophobic was when their egos inflated that room well beyond capacity?

And how about their communal deafness affliction? They could only hear themselves speak.

Their blinding intellect lit up the room like a ten-watt bulb.

Most attending the Dickstein Shapiro raced to the showers afterward to wash off the conceit, contemptuousness, and hubris they were sprayed with from this group.

My favorite story was about a certain radio CEO who pulled a “Do you know who I am?” routine to a trade paper editor who’d asked him a point-blank question in Four Seasons lobby. The editor’s replied, “Yes, but what’s your problem? Alzheimer’s?”

How about the radio industry realizing that the majority of those in it are the prime demo for A Touch of Gray?

Just think it only took the industry thirteen short years to figure out that it’s alienated generations from the medium.

Thirteen years of no mentoring. Thirteen years of not giving young people the opportunity to be creative and innovative.

You don’t buy a dog and bark for it.

Friends, like new media, became enemies and enemies, like the old guard that dragged you into this mess – namely those who have dominated the trades for the past decade, became your closest friends and advisors.

Smug is not a workable business plan. Neither is buy ‘em now and figure out what to do with them later.

Here’s an industry that, for the most part, employed a top-down management where national programmers delivered hard drives to market managers saying, “This is your format, these are your call letters, and cut budgets by 50 percent."

Now they’re doing a 180. They funneled profits from the communities they were supposed to serve and used the locals only as slave wage board ops. Now, they’ve lost time spent listening, younger demos, and have been forced to lower revenue, lower payroll, have fewer do more for less, and are now stuck in a downward spiral they can’t get out of.

They got what they preyed for.

No, they’re not admitting to their reckless and ruinous mistakes. They’re doing a 180 only because nothing else has worked. Believe me, they don’t know where they’ve been or where they’re going.

It can be turned around – but don’t expect to see those hogging the spotlight this year to be among them.

The only successful people in the radio business are those that know that the definitive competitive advantage is passion.

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The Agora, April 1980

Radio: The flap on apps and Spotify spice

2009-10-01T10:13:00.010-04:00

The buzz at both the NAB Radio Show and Public Radio programmers convention was the need for stations to have smartphone apps.

Creationists and evolutionists can debate the chicken or the egg but you can’t argue app before content.

So what, besides Fred Jacobs and other brilliant salespeople whispering in your ear to buy, does an app do for a radio station’s listenership if its programming content just plain sucks out loud?

Too many stations are rushing their apps without having the content to back it.

There’s a huge difference between public and commercial radio. Public radio has content people want and can’t get anywhere else.

Let’s do the math. At this moment we have 85,000 apps in 20 different categories. The iPhone’s limit for apps is 148 – spread over 9 pages. What page do you think your radio station will be on?

There’s more. This week iPhone app downloads hit 2 billion. Do competing new app storefronts even have a chance? Android and BlackBerry’s apps aren’t even close to Apple’s tonnage.

Now, ponder this. The money this industry tossed on HD Radio could’ve gone to fighting the RIAA to be on line and able to play music on main and multiple support channels on the Internet and mobile – where everyone lives.

Instead, that money was thrown away on expensive licensing fees, transmitters that overheat and cost a ransom to run, and other miscellaneous costs that will never be recovered.

HD Radio isn’t showing growth. It’s a tumor eating away your revenue.

Here’s iBiquity’s Bob “Booble” Struble trying to snake-oil sell digital delivery by claiming your AM will sound like FM. You can accomplish the same – and reach a real mass audience – with your stream.

You want to get real creative? Put surround-sound on your stream. HD’s never going do that.

The smartest stations are those that didn’t fall for the hype. If you’re counting on that iBiquity IPO, keep counting and counting and counting….

HD Radio, otherwise known as the political machine grafted onto to the radio industry, is AM stereo in drag.

While those in radio best defined as clueless cheered for Apple’s new fifth gen iPod nano – FM radio included – none were aware that Apple also approved apps for RealNetwork’s Rhapsody and the Swedish-based Spotify.

Both operate free, on-demand music-streaming services. Those I polled in radio know of Pandora. Those I talked to who work for CBS Radio have working knowledge of Last.fm. A few knew Rhapsody – but fewer knew what it was – and absolutely no one had a clue about Spotify.

To the radio-radio people; those drinking the Kool Aid and believing everything they read from the NAB and RAB on the "success' of the “Radio Heard Here” campaign, let me explain.

Both Rhapsody and Spotify are fee on-demand music streaming sites. You can hear almost any song you request any time you want to.

Those I know who are not in radio – but know the net were surprised – no, shocked - that Steve Jobs and Apple would allow apps for both services – especially Spotify – even though it hasn’t launched in America yet.

See, 70 percent of all digital music sales come from iTunes. That adds up to around $958 million and change in Q3 alone. 74 percent of all digital music players are manufactured by Apple. And that’s not counting the iPhone. You want figures? The iPhone accounts half as many sales as all iPods combined – but its sales are growing in triple-digit percentages.

So ask yourself the question. Why would Steve Jobs cannibalize his own iTunes store? For the same reason a dog…never mind. Because he can. And because it makes sense.

Yes, initially it may cut into iTunes’ sales – but not really. Users of these on-demand services, which also include Ineem and CBS’s own $280 million acquisition Last.fm, also buy more paid digital downloads than non-users. Some of those instant requests translate to songs consumers buy from iTunes.

Remember, back in the old media days when terrestrial radio could break and sell music? Same thing. Well, not exactly. The one difference is that requests are usually songs you already know and want to hear.

Radio’s added value now and in the future will be to – paraphrase Tom Waits – give ‘em a little somethin’ they can’t get at home. If I have to explain it, you don’t belong in the radio business – or the entertainment business.

Back to Spotify. This is the one to watch for. It’s a next generation music streaming site. It’s more reliable (it’s less likely to deliver a re-record or different version of an original hit) and can deliver music as fast as most digital music players. It’s already the rage in Europe with 5 million users and scheduled to hit our shores by year’s end. Spotify already collected over 100,000 e-mail requests from potential U.S. users. It’ll come in two versions – free, with advertising and a commercial-free $16/month Premium.

Yes, media are changing rapidly. There is more to learn than any one person can assimilate. Attempts to control this new leviathan are beyond any one person’s capability.

Earlier generations had to master the evolution of old media. Today’s generation will master new media. They’ll need mentoring and guidance.

Therein lies a dilemma in attracting young people to the radio industry. Can we trust the mentoring of the next generation by those running radio today?

If you have to ask….

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The Buzzard Movin' on up

Radio: Triton the titan

2009-09-28T18:48:00.032-04:00

I’m a firm believer that radio’s future lies with streaming and mobile – not HD Radio.

But I must preface that by voicing concern with Triton Media Group’s recent acquisition of Ando and Spacial, which were announced in a one-two punch just prior to the NAB Radio show convo and the RAIN Summit in Philadelphia last week.

These mergers provide Triton a vested interest in companies that control all aspects of producing revenue to on-line radio.

Triton’s backed by Oaktree Capital Management.

I’m curious how one company can legitimately provide streaming radio (either through hosting or software), sell advertising and also be an on-line ratings service.

The way I read it, these mergers provide Triton a vested interest in companies that control all factors of producing revenue to on-line radio.

That’s a lot of power and control for Mike Agovino, the CEO of Triton and following these mergers, the Capo di tutti capi of on-line radio.

Agovino’s been in the radio biz for 25 years and is a former resident of the Clear Channel-owned Katz Radio and Katz Interactive, COO of Clear Channel Radio Sales, and co-COO of Interep National Radio. Small world.

Keep in mind that those under the Triton umbrella worked out a collective deal with the Record Industry

Association of America’s SoundExchange with rates they can afford.

And this is strictly the Triton cartel we’re dealing with here. I said it in July and I’ll say it again.

Only the largest independent webcasters will survive: Accu-Radio, Radioio, Pandora, and Digital Imported/Sky FM.

SoundExchange, which is the collection arm of the RIAA takes 25 percent of webcasters’ gross revenues – not net - and their take is not limited to just what is earned on-air. If a webcaster sells merchandise, whether it’s T-shirts, coffee

cups, or hats –25 percent gross – right off the top – will go to SoundExchange/RIAA.

The big four label groups – Sony/BMG, Warner Music Group, EMI, and Universal Music Group, through the RIAA will own a 25 percent equity with independent Internet radio stations that play music controlled by the RIAA.

Pay-for-play, payola and other shady deals to manipulate airplay are not illegal for Internet radio. The Big Four will be free to cut side deals – like buying blocks of time for airplay.

It’ll be the RIAA’s version of green - recycling dead presidents.

Follow the money. It always leads to more money.

Now, I’m not saying that Triton would put the lean on the right people to insure that its competitors stay – or become – obscure, so as not to be a hindrance.

But it could easily do so if it wanted to.

If that’s the ticket, the future of Internet radio in the U.S. – particularly independent stations – and start-ups yet to come could be slim to none.

Like Michael Corleone said to his brother Sonny in The Godfather, “It's not personal, Sonny. It's strictly business."

If you have an edge in business, you take it. I would. You would.

I’m not sure if this falls in the category of smooth operator or shrewd operator or both. Agovino saw the opening and went for it.

I know, I know. You could say Triton’s not a monopoly. There’s TargetSpot. Okay, I said it. Let’s

move on.

While terrestrial radio wallowed in its self-inflicted misery at the NAB Radio Show in Philadelphia last week, Agovino’s Triton and the new Internet radio cartel were plotting the future.

Terrestrial radio’s streaming audio has already been screwed, blewed, and tattooed beyond recognition by the damaging deal done by David

“Fumbles” Rehr on behalf of the NAB with the RIAA. They ate Fumbles for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. And they handed terrestrial radio the tab.

But let's not worry.

Now we have Gordon Smith.

If the taxaholics at the RIAA get their way, they’ll tack on a performance fee for music broadcast on traditional AM and FM, too, which will lead to a whole lot of new news and talk formats.

Back to Triton. If I’m reading this deal the wrong way, I’d like to know – but I don’t think I am.

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More 1979 interviews from Radio Music Report