Jerry Del Colliano | Hip-Hop and Politics

4 Bold Media Prediction by Inside Music Media

September 17, 2010 By mrDaveyd

Jerry Del Colliano of Inside Music Media

Predictions are just teasing unless they turn out to come true.

The Clear Channel demise – predicted.

Consolidation destroying radio – predicted (during their glory days yet).

The rise of digital media and a new generation – yes, that’s one of the reasons you read me.

So, I’ve got four new ones that I’d like you to tuck away in the back of your mind. You may agree or disagree or be startled, but you’ll see why they will have such a great impact on the music and broadcasting industries.

1. ABC Television will be sold

News chief David Westin resigned recently. Some say he was tired of firing people. Others say he is leaving because new owners are coming.

I say, that, too!

Here’s some inside info:

Westin is suspected of leaking the news of his departure to The Washington Post. Then ABC rushes out the PR that says Westin was expected to leave all along. My sources say b.s. to that.

No replacement is waiting – unusual if ABC knew in advance. Westin is staying on to the end of the year, that long goodbye not necessary if ABC knew of Westin’s plans in advance. Disney owns ABC and doesn’t customarily handle things like this.

Disney is cutting the life out of ABC News. Huge newsroom reductions, searching for ways to make news gathering cheaper through cutbacks or alliances with others. ABC News is – to put it frankly – decimated. Bureaus here and abroad – none. No investigative of documentary units – too costly, not necessary in their view.

As an industry insider poignantly put it like this:

“Reality is that Disney has decided to invest in the Marvel comics characters instead of news. At least they skipped the part about anointing Spiderman as World News Tonight anchor.”

Who would want to be president of ABC News now as they are depleting their assets?

Prediction: ABC Television Network gets sold. Disney’s chief shareholder is Steve Jobs.

2. The New York Times will stop printing

Okay, I’m cheating.

Times Publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr. told a London audience last week that “We will stop printing the New York Times sometime in the future, date TBD.” He was answering someone else’s prediction that the Times will go out of business by 2015.

When The Times publisher comes right out with it, why contradict him?

In fact I believe Sulzberger will be wishing he wasn’t printing the New York Times before then. It’s expensive. Costly unions. Gathering news isn’t cheap.

The best reason is that fewer people read newspapers every day.

I picked mine up off the front step at 2pm yesterday – having read it all before I went to bed the previous night. (Why am I still getting it? There’s a good question. I don’t have a dog).

The Times will introduce a pay model next year that will fail – metering readers use of content and charging for it when they read too much. To put that another way, making your greatest fans pay the most.

Prediction: The New York Times will stop printing and I’ll raise you – they will stop metering readers. This critical misread could cost them the franchise.

3. Advertisers will spend more in new media than traditional when the recession ends.

Is that going to surprise radio, television and print. Traditional media is expecting a big gain when the economy comes back.

Let’s go to the tape – even in this prolonged recession, digital media spending has increased.

Last week Pepsi announced its experimental online campaign that replaced Super Bowl sponsorships last January is back. The Pepsi Fresh Project was considered a social media experiment. Local community causes went to Pepsi online to seek money for their projects and the public voted who should get it.

Pepsi announced it will expand the project to Europe, Latin America and Asia as well as continue in the U.S. and Canada.

What recession?

Media buyers will weep when they see that Pepsi will spend $1.3 million a month for this year’s Refresh project. They have the money to also buy Super Bowl spots but this money is being taken away from traditional media nonetheless.

Pepsi certainly isn’t alone in beefing up its new and social media budgets even in advance of an economic recovery.

Prediction: Traditional media will languish until and unless they get back in the idea business instead of selling spots.

4. Twitter will replace radio and TV for Breaking News

During the Discovery Channel hostage situation, Twitter broke the story beating all traditional news platforms. Social media is a way to get the word out fast.

When USC has a campus emergency, students and faculty receive instant text message updates. Since everyone has a cell phone, there is no need to hope that radio or television will spread the word.

During the San Bruno fires in San Francisco last week, news stations like KGO and KCBS rose to the occasion – after all, free media such as radio can be very beneficial in public emergencies. But all stations should have been responding to this local community disaster.

Here’s what a radio insider from San Francisco wrote:

“I have been part of stations who fielded calls, gave information, suspended music and aired callers and got in our Vans and went to where we could help.

“What I heard, in summation, the 2 top news stations (KGO, KCBS) did a great job even with a smaller staff than they used to have.

“All the FM stations ran tracking as usual or if they had someone live they broke in with ‘Call the Red Cross to help donate money or blood and get the info from our website now here’s Rihanna’.

“I’m frustrated because I know what it could be and should be. There was more on Facebook last night. That has become the new “Town Hall” (CNN does a great job of using FB and connecting it with their site. We need to be all over that kind of outlet).

“Think of when there is an earthquake, where is the first place people used to go? radio ;I felt a rumble’, ‘I felt a roll’ now we are on Facebook in 2 seconds. BUT people still want to hear a human voice. If we link those things people will feel intimately connected”.

Prediction: A human voice can be on mobile Internet devices and that’s the new breaking news.

wriiten by By Jerry Del Colliano of Inside Music Media

Filed Under: 2010 Daily News, Industry news & Views Tagged With: 4 Bold Media Prediction by Inside Music Media, Jerry Del Colliano, Media, new media, NY Times stop printing, Twiiter, Twitter will replace TV for breaking news

Limewire Loses Major Case to the RIAA-But Will that make a Difference in Record Sales?

May 13, 2010 By mrDaveyd

A couple of articles to peep around the issue of file sharing…The first talks about the recent court ruling against Limewire where the RIAA is happy as heck as it validates their long held complaints about how file sharing is ruinning the music biz..

The second story is the exact opposite. It talks about how yet another study been published that shows there is no correlation between illegal downloading and record sales.. This is a hard pill to swallow for many in the industry. The thought of having to find another cause to explain low album sales is daunting for those who are still yearning for the old glory days of the industry where money and album sales was plentiful. Them days will not be returning anytime soon..

There are far too many cats in this biz who have totally forgotten about handling the basics which centers around relationships. They refuse to go out and create a solid community. Instead of seeing fans as friends and allies, they see them as mindless consumers who they accuse of morphing into despical theives when they don’t sucumb to the charms of a cheesy marketing plan. Too many executives and artists forget that a good relationship will be rewarding, not punitive.

There’s a very vocal segment of the music industry that reminds me of the proverbial loud mouth artist who is barely known on his block but will be the first to complain that his lack of success is due to downloading… He’s the first to show up and say “no’ to technology, but the last to show up and put in the hard work of shaking hands, kissing babies and leaving a lasting impression.

Everytime I hear this type of charcter whine, I feel like holding up a sign that says;

‘Son fallback..Nobody knows or cares who you are..Ain’t nobody on Limewire looking for your joints..’

Sadly in an industry full of insecurities and egos, my line of thinking will rub some the wrong way.. no matter how true the assessment.

The reality is far too many artist refuse to really put in work and sincerely reflect the realities of the people they want to purchase their music. They wanna stand around and talk big like they’re entitled to the next fat check when they never really put in work. These types of folks need to go the way of the dinosaur.

Fortunately there’s a growing segement that has learned to embrace change. These are the types that consistently take every challenging situation and turn them into a fertile opportunity.

For example, I recall LA Hip Hop pioneer Egyptian Lover talking how his peers were moaning about getting bootlegged. He said he understood early on the bootleggers were there to stay and the best thing he could do was create a situation where it could work to his advantage. Instead of woofing he said basically saw the bootleggers as a street team. They become promoters. He figured he was gonna need one earlier, might as well let the bootlegger do the work.. Egypt put on his creative thinking cap and did what so many The record labels execs and artists have forgotten to do because they’ve become too comfortable. He figure out how to ‘flip the script’.

Something to ponder

-Davey D-

LOS ANGELES — File-sharing software company LimeWire has lost a long-running court battle to the major recording companies.

A judge with the U.S. District Court in New York ruled this week that the company and its chairman, Mark Gorton, were liable for inducing copyright infringement.

The decision in the case, which began in 2006, doesn’t mean the site will shut down right away. The record labels and LimeWire are to meet with Judge Kimba Wood on June 1 to determine the next steps, such as a possible deal to work together going forward and a potential award for damages.

Recording Industry Association of America Chairman Mitch Bainwol said in a statement Wednesday that the ruling was “an extraordinary victory” against one of the largest remaining file-sharing services in the United States.

The RIAA said more than 200 million copies of LimeWire’s file-sharing software have been downloaded so far, including 340,000 in the last week alone.

The ruling could pave the way for a deal, similar to the way Napster was sued out of existence in 2000 but was reborn and is now under the ownership of Best Buy Inc. with licensing deals with all the major recording companies.

“This isn’t about getting something shut down, it’s about getting something licensed and legal,” said Steve Marks, general counsel for the RIAA.

LimeWire CEO George Searle said in a statement that while it “strongly opposes” the court’s decision, the company held out hope for a deal. The company sells an “Extended Pro” version of its free software for $34.95 a year, leaving open the possibility that a new business model could emerge in cooperation with the music industry.

“LimeWire remains committed to developing innovative products and services for the end-user and to working with the entire music industry, including the major labels, to achieve this mission,” Searle said.

original source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/05/12/limewire-loses-riaa-case-_n_574338.html

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Another Study Vindicates Filesharing

By Jerry Del Colliano

http://insidemusicmedia.blogspot.com/2010/05/another-study-vindicates-filesharing.html

Steve Meyer, who as I have often said is the smartest observer of the record industry, knocked my eyes out in a recent issue of his publication Disc & DAT (Digital Audio Technology).

Yet another study that exonerates filesharing as the culprit in today’s music industry.

It’s a lack of innovation — not filesharing – that’s the conclusion.

I’m sure that doesn’t come as a surprise to you, but it may be to the record labels who are acting like it is 1999.

Professor Nico van Eijk of the University of Amsterdam conducted the latest study and his conclusion speaks volumes:

“The entertainment industry will have to work actively towards innovation on all fronts. New models worth developing, for example, are those that seek to achieve commercial diversification or that match supply and end-user needs more closely. In such a context, criminalizing large parts of the population makes no sense. Enforcement should focus on large scale and/or commercial upload activities. . . Introducing new protective measures does not seem the right way to go…”

In other words, filesharers are consuming all media especially concerts, films and games – not just copyrighted music.

I’ve linked to the 55-page report here.

Let me comment on a few of the findings my friend Steve Meyer highlighted:

“The study concludes (among other things) there “isn’t a clear relationship” between the decline in sales and file sharing, while also finding that fear of evolution prevented the recording industry from adequately adapting their business models to the broadband age. While the recording industry is having problems, argues van Eijk, it has less to do with file sharing, and more to do with the fact they’ve been “abstaining from innovation” — as the study phrases it”.

Think about it.

The labels could have bought Napster, not annihilated it, thus avoiding creation of the Napster vacuum that was promptly filled by bit torrent sites, etc.

The labels could have innovated along with Steve Jobs when the Apple CEO caught them off guard with his offer to help stop piracy. That offer was the iPod and iTunes store. He played to their fears. They allowed him to become the de facto Big Kahuna of the Record Industry.

They could have laid off streamers and come up with an easy to swallow royalty payment schedule that would have grown music consumption instead of dampened it.

Could have launched its own cloud.

Could have done Pandora itself as an industry consortium – that is, if they could have gotten along together for a minute. Bet Steve Jobs would have loved to own Pandora. Bet he still does.

An Important Article About the Problem of Radio Consolidation

April 27, 2010 By mrDaveyd

The Four Seasons of Media Consolidation

By Jerry Del Colliano

http://insidemusicmedia.blogspot.com/2010/04/dead-nationticketmaster-merger.html

Some of my readers have suggested workarounds to the Ticketmaster/Live Nation monopoly that I wrote about yesterday.

You know, the one that promises higher prices for concert ticket buyers.

The Grateful Dead concept of selling directly to fans.

The growth of entrepreneurial businesses that barter tickets in a fair marketplace like Brown Paper Tickets.

Others suggested Amazon or even iTunes as alternatives to Ticketmaster someday.

There is no shortage of good ideas when those ideas come from people who actually know what they are talking about, but the way our entertainment business model works right now — the CEOs and their bankers get to play with the monopoly money.

Take what happened yesterday when Emmis CEO Jeff Smulyan put together a $90 million buyout to take the company private. Alden Global Capital will buy all the outstanding Emmis shares for what amounts to $2.40 a share and Smulyan gets his company back.

You may remember that Jeff Smulyan was among the first to read the winds of change when he tried unsuccessfully several times to take Emmis private. The shareholders were always the problem. Emmis just never worked as a public venture.

But then again Emmis went public to get in on the Wall Street lending giveaway that enabled the other big consolidators to acquire stations once consolidation was approved. Unfortunately, Emmis never got big enough nor was it willing to be acquired and you saw how that turned out.

Radio is becoming a two-model business.

Consolidator vs. operator.

On one side the Clear Channels, Citadels and Cumulus-type consolidators who run on pure loan money and that must either grow or sell to have a reason for being. They are not interested in being broadcasters. By now everyone knows that what goes on-the-air is the least important component for these types of operators.

We know consolidators fire local personalities no matter how successful or profitable and keep only the “brands” that they can pipe to other stations in different cities to allow for more firings and lower costs.

They reward success by giving surviving managers even more responsibility guaranteeing that they cannot continue to produce excellence. Apple’s Steve Jobs would not take the executive in charge of his computer division and say, here take my iPod and iTunes initiatives, too. And then if somehow that person succeeded, could you imagine Jobs giving that same person a third responsibility — say, to oversee their retail stores.

Radio does this all the time.

Piling on work because the end result doesn’t matter.

Program directors are a thing of the past with consolidators. Content manager is the new name that at least admits to the change in job description — to channel national programs to various local destinations.

Bain Capital, one of the major investors (along with Thomas H. Lee Partners) that overpaid $20 billion for Clear Channel shows us how they are hell bent to operate as recently as this past weekend.

News Blues, a paid subscriber site, reports:

“The Weather Channel was in full balls-to-the-wall storm coverage mode Saturday as the nation’s Southeast lit up with severe weather. But Friday night, when nearly a half-dozen tornado watches were in effect, and parts of Mississippi were being ravaged by storms, TWC aired a movie: “The Avengers.”

Sound a bit like consolidated radio? You know, the kind owned by Lee and Bain and other “vulture” capitalists.

As was pointed out in News Blues, “The Weather Channel partners Bain Capital and Blackstone Group will never justify the enormous $3.5 billion price tag they paid for TWC in July 2008 at the height of acquisition market”.

They are all about profits.

Mobile apps, inter-connectivity and Internet distribution models.

Profit first.

Forget the tornadoes.

The model is right there — Clear Channel’s co-owner is doing the same thing at The Weather Channel.

Fresh off of $1.3 billion in refinanced debt.

This is getting too easy for us to understand, isn’t it?

The only climate The Weather Channel cares about is the business climate.

I mention all of this because the radio and music businesses have always operated in their own worlds. If you’ve worked in either (or both), you know that reality never meant anything in these businesses.

Radio set its own rules.

Always dictated what the audience would hear, how advertisers would support them. They don’t like being shoved around by the Internet, Apple, Facebook or a bunch of kids right out of Pirates of the Caribbean.

And, the music industry still doesn’t acknowledge the real world.

Napster was an asterisk in their history.

They can sue fans for stealing.

Lose money.

Watch consumers prefer digital downloads to plastic CDs.

And it remains business as usual.

They, too, are doomed.

That’s right — the CEOs who take their orders from equity owners — are doomed because they are operating in the make believe financial world that they live in and are not capable of acknowledging the real world where it takes innovation to grow revenue.

So, if you’re an innovator or have just a little innovation in you, fired from a media job you did well — the real financial turnaround is going to happen for your career.

Legal monopolies are not a business model in a world that has changed.

Financing and refinancing while content excellence suffers is a short-term and foolish strategic move — not an adequate five-year plan.

There are no viable five-year plans in the entertainment business because these industries are already ten to 15 years behind the consumer and their preferred technologies.

So here’s my take on the economic recovery that is coming.

Keep in mind Citadel, a company in bankruptcy, is bragging about a 4% increase in revenue over the first quarter of 2009. Also keep in mind — that is a pretty low standard to meet. Q1 of 2009 was the absolute bottom of the media economy and these geniuses think a 4% hike a year later is a recovery. Hey, it’s better than losing money, I grant you.

A growth business — never.

So here we go:

1. Equity holders must continue to consolidate or liquidate — collecting fees all along the way — to remain viable.

2. The longer they hold their assets, the more they run into their loan covenants that will require the purchase of more expensive debt. So watch things shake out in the year ahead.

3. For those of you who want to buy radio properties when the prices come down, remember that even Larry Wilson isn’t buying now. And that the properties may still be sound but consolidators kind of ran down the neighborhood if you know what I mean. In other words, they’ve devalued the very radio stations they overpaid for making it hard on competent owners who want to try their hand at good terrestrial radio.

4. Good operators like Bonneville, Cox, Lincoln Financial and others (usually smaller groups) will turn in excellent results because they have not devalued their properties even though they sell in a climate that has. However, these companies are like building Beverly Hills in downtown DC — location, location, location.

5. There can be no growth business for the entertainment industry without an interactive digital strategy separate and apart from traditional broadcasting content. And it must be fully funded. No digital. No growth. No kidding.

6. The brain drain will start showing its effect on media companies that have neglected great over-the-air content and have failed to innovate new media platforms. Sorry, but they just can’t keep firing assets and then declare they are hiring again for new needed media initiatives. The best people are going to stay away from operators like that.

So the reality is that media is just another microcosm of the new American business model.

Buy big.

Overpay.

Over-commit to debt.

Cut assets and costs.

Refinance again and again and hope the economy makes this model look good enough to — resell.

At a profit.

Or at least for more fees.

I’m going to put it in writing — years ahead of general knowledge — that once everything has been bought, sold, and resold, there will be a need for new ventures.

That’s why they call these vultures — venture capitalists.

Sadly, they need more businesses to buy and ruin for fun and profit.

The necessary growth businesses will never rise up from the companies they bought or funded because that’s not what equity owners are about.

For the growth businesses of the future, they will have to turn to the talent that has been shown the door or to the young people who cannot even get in the door.

The four seasons of consolidation are:

Spring — rebirth and growth by entrepreneurs.

Summer — the cornucopia of innovation with its abundant supply of revenues and rewards.

Fall — The final harvest of new business growth.

Winter — The coldest season of all — not friendly to the seeds of new ideas and an atmosphere not conducive to growth.

In radio, television, print and music, we’ve just suffered through the worst media winter ever.

Spring has sprung.

Get planting seeds of innovation. Equity speculators have to eat.

original article: http://insidemusicmedia.blogspot.com/2010/04/four-seasons-of-media-consolidation.html

Return to Davey D’s Hip Hop Corner

Filed Under: 2009-Daily Hip Hop News, Industry news & Views Tagged With: An Important Article About the Problem of Radio Consolidation, Emmis, Jeff Smulyan, Jerry Del Colliano, Media Consolidation, Ticketmaster/Live Nation

Inside Music Media: Conan on TBS — Smart?

April 13, 2010 By mrDaveyd

As you read this story about Conan O’Brien for those who are in the music biz, keep a couple of things in mind 1-) Jerry Del Colliano the author of this piece’s expertise is the music industry. He’s a ‘G’ in that world and has been dead on with his assessments and analysis.. He’s been preaching to folks in this crumbling industry to make some moves and think outside the box. What Conan is doing is something many of us need to be looking at in terms of identifying audience, owning them versus renting them and then being shrewd enough to set up shop and go in deep where they are at… It’s still baffling to me that in 2010 I still run into cats who are gung-ho trying to get signed or get their songs on commercial radio. Its 1996 game that has come in gone.. In the next few days we’re gonna be posting a series of interviews that focus on this aspect more. In the meantime, wet your palettes with this article and we’ll build later

-Davey D-

Inside Music Media: Conan on TBS — Smart?

By Jerry Del Colliano

http://insidemusicmedia.blogspot.com/2010/04/conan-on-tbs-smart.html

For Conan O’Brien, getting pushed out of his Tonight Show digs at NBC has turned into quite a profitable business.

NBC paid him off — $45 million to O’Brien and staffers — when the network decided to reinstate Jay Leno to Conan’s spot after Leno’s ill-fated months in the 10 pm weeknight slot.

Everyone thought Conan was headed to Fox — including Fox — according to Deadline Hollywood’s reporting. More talks were said to be scheduled between Conan and Fox after the NAB Convention now underway in Las Vegas.

Then the shocker.

In about less than two weeks, according to news accounts, Conan O’Brien’s people decided to take an offer from TBS to bring his offbeat, youth-oriented comedy to cable.

Smart?

Obviously for O’Brien, it was.

He’s getting a reported $10-12 million a year in a five-year deal that also gives Conan’s production company ownership of his show with TBS taking a smaller stake in it. Not to mention the four-day workweek.

This is more than a story about a spurned TV comic who was pushed out of his Tonight Show chair and rose to get revenge.

It’s about the changing audience, the unusual appeal of paid cable in a free world and, well — the growth of the Internet.

How so?

Since leaving NBC with all that money, Conan has miraculously discovered the Internet.

He’s been attracting over a million people to his online antics and has embraced Twitter like never before. See, his youthful fans are watching more cable and obviously, they are also the Internet generation.

So far so good.

Conan pulled a friendlier coup when George Lopez’ current 11 pm TBS show was designated for midnight. Lopez, being the good solider (perhaps better than Conan when NBC decided to restore Leno to The Tonight Show) said he’d love to have Conan as a lead-in come this Fall.

O’Brien cannot be on live television until September under his NBC exit agreement, but he can tour and he’s using the Internet to drive his “Legally Prohibited from Being Funny on Television Tour.”

As shocking as the Conan announcement was to the traditional television community, you had to see it coming.

Conan’s audience grew up on cable — niche programs more so than the homogenized fare the major TV networks have been used to offering.

They reside on the Internet and as soon as O’Brien figured it out, they flocked to him.

Now it’s a win-win-win.

Conan gets rich again with approximately the same salary NBC would have paid him that they already had to pay him to leave.

One win.

The audience gets a cult-figure, quirky, cable-ready O’Brien.

Two wins.

TBS gets to sell advertising and stands to make a profit from the get-go with a former big network talent who is not aging. In fact, he was too old for NBC’s audience.

Three wins.

The Wall Street Journal reports:

“The defection of a big-name broadcast TV talent to cable TV comes amid a creep of programming and advertising dollars to pay TV. Cable networks have invested billions of dollars in original scripted shows, high-profile sports events, kids’ programming and late-night shows”.

O’Brien is quoted as saying, “In three months I’ve gone from network television to Twitter to performing live in theaters, and now I’m headed to basic cable,” Mr. O’Brien said in a TBS statement announcing the late-night show. “My plan is working perfectly.'”

Tongue planted firmly in his cheek but absolutely true.

Here’s the future:

1. Cable is a great interim step, but soon an Internet-only video shows like the kind Conan (and other genres) can do will reside only online and on mobile entertainment devices. But they can’t be like traditional television. Read on.

2. The content will resemble an assembly of YouTube clips that can be viewed in one session, or individually at the whim of fans exercising their right to get content on demand.

3. Social networking will be included and I’m not just talking Twitter and Facebook. More like a separate “nation” for, in this case, Conan fans to communicate with each other.

4. New forms of ad revenue such as performing in public venues with sponsorship tours. By going to cable, Conan gets to enter the new space while being funded by the traditional advertising model of spot TV. Believe me, advertisers are more than interested in finding their way to new media.

5. Mass communication over traditional media is waning. The future is programming delivered where people now live and will soon reside — online, on phones and iPads.

Conan saw the future and you see it, too.

Return to Davey D’s Hip Hop Corner

Filed Under: 2009-Daily Hip Hop News, Political articles Tagged With: Conan Obrien, Inside Music Media: Conan on TBS -- Smart?, Jerry Del Colliano, late Night TV, TBS TV

7 Ways to Save Radio Now

September 22, 2009 By mrDaveyd

7 Ways to Save Radio Now

By Jerry Del Colliano

Jerry_Colliano-225 (Rested and ready for this week’s NAB Radio Show in Philly)

The new National Association of Broadcasters CEO is going to be introduced to his constituents this week at the NAB’s annual Radio Show in Philadelphia.

There is little time to waste righting the ship from the ravages of radio consolidation.

I know what you know about Gordon Smith, a former Republican senator from Oregon but if Bonneville’s Bruce Reese had an influence in this choice — after all, Reese headed the search committee — then I am willing to cut Smith some slack and wish him the best of luck.

At the same time, I’ve got some suggestions for Smith — a man whose roots are in radio — that his new agenda at the NAB should embrace.

There is no time for business as usual.

I know. I know.

Associations are all about maintaining the status quo and protecting the shortsighted members for whom the CEO works.

But if Gordon Smith chooses that road, there will be no NAB in the next ten years and if one remains, it will be one that has been rendered powerless.

So here are seven suggestions as to how the new NAB CEO can save the radio industry and with the NAB’s Radio Show this week, now couldn’t be a better time to have a public discussion on priorities.

1. Negotiate with the record labels to gain advantageous rates for any terrestrial radio station doing new media projects

My friends in the music industry are having radio for lunch. They are just better at lobbying, better than radio at rallying the cause for more royalties. The RIAA and MusicFirst Coalition have already offered to work on a compromise with the new NAB head.

Look, I will always believe that radio deserves a free pass when it comes to the performance tax exemption because it has given the labels a free ride in publicity from which to sell its products.

But … that is increasingly looking like a lost cause.

A growing segment of the public doesn’t back radio’s position. Even though the NAB has been able to hold a slim lead in arm twisting among Congressional representatives, it’s about even with members of Congress backing the performers demand for repeal of radio’s exemption.

If Gordon Smith decides to fight until the last person is standing on this issue, it will be like Custer’s Last Stand. Radio is going to lose the battle over more royalties, sad to say, so it’s time to negotiate for a sweet deal before the industry only gets to pay more tax. That is, if you agree with me that royalties are coming to a radio station near you, then get something back in return.

What?

Low, long-term and very favorable rates for terrestrial broadcasters who want to start new content streams on the Internet — rates separate and apart from other interests. This is one of the places radio operators will have to go for their future and now is a good time to nail down low rates and favorable conditions that will give broadcasters an edge over other competitors in that space.

2. Build strength through small operators

Past NAB CEOs have kissed the butts of the “big boys” for too long.

Look around, the “big boy”s are going down. Radio may very well be redistributed to smaller operators who want to make a last ditch try at terrestrial radio and new media together as a business brand. What a great time for the NAB to embrace the needs and concerns of these small or medium operators who are going to have to mop up the mess Clear Channel, Citadel, Cumulus and some predecessors have left for them.

3. Encourage small ownership

The future of radio — if there is to be one — is in smaller companies doing local radio well — and whether they know it or not — also doing original content as webcasters, mobile content providers and social network engineers.

Gordon Smith should lobby his former associates in Congress in whatever way would be helpful to give a break to small and medium operators stepping in to save radio. This means tax breaks (I’m sounding like a Republican) and government oversight but not heavy regulation (I’m sounding like a Democrat).

Loans for locals looking to preserve local broadcasting in smaller markets.

4. Do not oppose some deregulation

I can just see this scenario coming — the first Smith press release from the NAB trying to fight deregulation.

Consolidation as it was implemented was wrong and didn’t work.

But if the NAB comes out in favor of the status quo (which is likely), it will not be cooperating with the inevitable which is that either radio stations wind up in the hands of smaller local groups with some responsible oversight or it won’t last the way it is configured now.

What we have now is unacceptable and if the NAB espouses that, the NAB will be unacceptable.

5. Fight against the so-called Fairness Doctrine

No Fairness Doctrine — not now, not ever.

It won’t be needed if the NAB fights for local operators because these stations will guarantee that enough local voices will he heard on every issue.

This is non-negotiable as as tenet of our industry’s valued and hard fought freedom of speech.

I expect Gordon Smith to lead this fight for as long as it takes and keep in mind that freedom of speech is always under attack — unfortunately.

6. Get podcasting royalties that are favorable as podcasting is the next radio

Look around, no boom boxes — just iPods and mobile devices. The next radio will be podcasting and right now podcasters can’t even play music without going broke in a confusing set of rules pertaining to music on podcasts.

If podcasting is to be a key element of radio’s future, now is the time to lead the fight for fair, low and long-term rates to kick start the industry.

7. Pitch a big tent to become the National Association of Broadcasters and Content Providers

There are 80 million new listeners coming of age in the next generation. It’s fair to say they are not big radio listeners — they are mobile phone users, iPod owners and social networking devotees. Radio is morphing into other things and this is as good a time as any to welcome in new media to create one strong association for like-minded media interests.

If you feel as I do that the appointment of Gordon Smith is a good time to reset the agenda for the interests of the real radio industry and not just more of the same for consolidators, then feel free to forward this piece to your friends and associates.

And make these and other priorities known to the new NAB — after all, it’s your trade group. Why not show them who the boss is?

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Filed Under: 2009-Daily Hip Hop News, Industry news & Views Tagged With: 7 Ways to Save Radio Now, Bruce Reese, Gordon Smith, Jerry Del Colliano, MusicFirst Coalition, NAB, national Association of Broadcasters, The RIAA

The Media Crisis of 2009-Radio Needs to Embrace the Future

August 25, 2009 By mrDaveyd

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The Media Crisis of 2009

By Jerry Del Colliano
http://insidemusicmedia.blogspot.com/2009/08/media-crisis-of-2009.html

Jerry_Colliano-225 Terry Teachout wrote an excellent article recently in The Wall Street Journal about lessons the media industry can learn from the last big technological and sociological revolution when television replaced radio.

In The New-Media Crisis of 1949 the author accurately framed the debate over what to do with the Internet, mobile space and social networking. Just as important, by inference he was giving us a view of what not to do.

My purpose in bringing this up is to add some additional content to the issue specifically targeting radio, music and new media.

Ironically, networks played a role in the previous technological revolution.

The early, popular radio shows were networked across the country and by 1949 — at the advent of commercial television — there were 85 million radios tuned in to hear these national programs.

By contrast, today, Repeater Radio and voice tracking exist not to offer one-of-a-kind talent to a nation but to offer one-of-a-kind cost savings to consolidators.

There were only 1.3 million TV sets in use — mostly on the East Coast — by 1949.

Unlike today — when the Internet, cell phone, social networking and file sharing became available for exactly the opposite reason — it was free and more readily available.

Some of my USC students felt that even though the Internet is everywhere, the devices upon which to access it were not available to all socioeconomic groups. So there was a parallel — televisions cost about half of what a new car would run you 60 years ago — and a laptop isn’t cheap today.

It was, as Teachout points out, that the rise of network TV due to the laying of coaxial cable between a number of major cities made the new medium available if not affordable.

Radio stars were big back in the day — so big that many didn’t want to cross over to television. Some did — successfully. Some did not. Careers, thus, were prolonged or eliminated by a radio star’s ability to make the transition to radio’s new competitor.

Today, we see radio groups embracing the Internet only in a cursory way — repurposing radio shows, streaming terrestrial formats online and inserting different and less expensive commercials.

That’s not much of a business plan for the future when there is no future in it.

Talent is mired in terrestrial radio unable or unwilling to see podcasting as the new radio, the Internet as simply a delivery system and not a format category and social networking the “coaxial cable” of the future — is not the product, not the content — only a component.

Fred Allen, one of the biggest radio stars that never made it in TV insisted that radio was still better because the listener “had to use his imagination” (quoting WSJ).

Oops.

Doesn’t this kind of remind you of what is happening in the radio business right now in 2009?

The “for us or against us” attitude that permeates radio (i.e., you’re either a radio person or not). By radio person that would be someone who works in a terrestrial station and takes a lot of crap from management that doesn’t see the future. Dare to say that radio is over — and you’ll be lynched (figuratively speaking).

In the Journal article, three “lessons” were offered that I would like to comment on:

Lesson #1

“Network TV lost vast amounts of money in its early years. It was only because the existing radio networks were willing to subsidize TV that it survived—leaving CBS and NBC at the top of the heap in the ’50s and ’60s, just as they had been in the ’30s and ’40s. The old media of today have a similar chance to prosper tomorrow if they can survive the heavy financial losses that they’re incurring while they develop workable new-media business models”.

Aah!

Can you see the difference already?

Radio groups today are not willing to subsidize their future competitor that is the Internet/mobile space. In fact, radio groups stubbornly refuse to invest anything in the burgeoning new technology.

Most large and small radio groups have no Internet strategy, limited understanding, no funds budgeted to the media that will likely surpass radio for good this time.

Unlike the early days of television where radio interests were developing radio with pictures, radio now is a minor player at best in the future of webcasting, mobile content and social networking.

Lesson # 2

“Established radio performers such as Benny and Hope, who embraced TV on its own visually oriented terms, flourished well into the ’60s. Everyone else—including Fred Allen—vanished into the dumpster of entertainment history. The same fate awaits contemporary old-media figures unwilling to grapple with the challenge of the new media, no matter how popular they may be today”.

That’s right — radio’s biggest names today will vanish like the dinosaurs into ancient history.

As I like to point out, the ones who will invest and innovate in new media — particularly podcasting — may go on and count themselves as the few and the fortunate to transcend a dying medium into a growing industry.

History repeats itself.

There is a reason why the old saw still rings true.

And why does history repeat itself?

Because we never seem to be willing to learn our lessons from it — so, any radio talent looking to end his or her career need simply to stay where they are in a medium that is about to be replaced by a new one in which radio has little interest.

Lesson #3

“Americans of all ages embraced TV unhesitatingly. They felt no loyalty to network radio, the medium that had entertained and informed them for a quarter-century. When something came along that they deemed superior, they switched off their radios without a second thought. That’s the biggest lesson taught by the new-media crisis of 1949. Nostalgia, like guilt, is a rope that wears thin”.

Radio people need to read and reread that last paragraph.

An entire new generation of 80 million are in the process of departing for new media leaving terrestrial radio with no growth potential and no real way to survive ten years from today. That is a fact.

Even older available listeners have taken to Facebook, downloading songs to iPods, embracing Twitter, watching YouTube — to mention a few — all at the expense of their radio listening time.

The monopoly radio had in cars for years has come to an end — the car radio is now called the entertainment center.

Satellite radio was to become the next radio and all it managed to do was be a costly part of this entertainment center not a stark contrast to its competitor — terrestrial radio.

Radio listeners have embraced new media and continue to gobble it up at a record pace. Still, radio groups exist as though they have no competition and everything is still beautiful.

The lessons are many but they are happening in real time and cannot be ignored.

There is a reason why radio operators in the 1940’s supported and subsidized its eventual replacement — television.

It’s because these leaders then saw a vision of the future and wanted to be part of it.

By contrast, today’s radio consolidators refuse to acknowledge let alone subsidize what may very well be their technological and sociological replacement — the Internet and mobile space for exactly the opposite reason.

They can’t see the vision and don’t want to be part of what it considers the enemy — not the future.

This Wall Street Journal piece is excellent if you have the time to read it — click here.

I hope this discussion has resonated with you as it has with me and I encourage you to share it with your media friends.

The richness of radio is its talented managers, salespeople and on-air performers. They are being forced to take their futures to new media without any industry leadership.

That did not happen in 1949.

But it must happen in 2009 if they are to find a place in the digital future.

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Filed Under: 2009-Daily Hip Hop News, Political articles, Southern Shift Tagged With: Davey D Hip Hop news-Media Crises of 2009, Jerry Del Colliano, Terry Teachout, The Media Crisis of 2009, The Media Crisis of 2009-Radio Needs to Embrace the Future, The New-Media Crisis of 1949, The Wall Street Journal

Radio’s Stupid Consolidation Tricks

July 17, 2009 By mrDaveyd

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Radio’s Stupid Consolidation Tricks
By Jerry Del Colliano

Jerry_Colliano-225 What do you get when you fire most of your local employees, revert to using voice tracking or cheap outside programming, manage from corporate headquarters, spy on stations and treat engineers like they are not necessary?

No local radio — or as I like to call it — Nocal radio.

You could call it Knuckleradio because you’d have to be a knucklehead to do what radio CEOs are doing in the name of economies of scale.

Or Lowcal Radio — because the costs for running consolidated stations are increasingly low.

Whatever you decide to call it, consolidators are busy at work carrying out their plans to reduce expenses even if it hurts their product and industry.

The three largest groups — Clear Channel, Cumulus and Citadel — are leading the way (if you could actually use the term “leading” to describe this self-immolation). Believe me, the other small groups are falling all over themselves to adopt the same destructive and shortsighted policies as you will see.

Here are a few self-destructive examples:

1. Playing offensive videos at “sales meetings”.
Turns out one of my Repeater Reporters got wind of an Atlanta GM’s attempt at motivating his sales department. The GM reportedly played Alec Baldwin’s rant from Glengarry Glen Ross, the 1992 movie about the behind the scenes operation of a real estate office. The clip, as submitted by my reader, is full of insults and obscene language — some directed at the alternative life style of other employees with children. Give a listen, but you’ve been warned. Some motivation, eh?

2. Raising ad rates by 20% to cover losses.
Recession? What recession? One consolidator ordered a 20% rate increase effective immediately ostensibly to cover his company’s losses. Salespeople on the street are cringing as their prospects are hurting so much many are already skipping radio advertising at existing rates. Talk about being disconnected from your advertisers. Now is the time to cut rates — not during economic booms. Radio, which had decades to raise its rates, stuck to low ball pricing and now you dance with the one that brought you (low ad rates) — to quote Shania Twain.

3. Clear Channel’s goal: no one in the building on weekends.
I know what you’re going to say, there’s already no one in their buildings during the week. One CC reader tells me this has been the company’s apparent goal for years now and he can prove it. This Repeater Reporter attended a Prophet System training session in Denver a few years back. Here’s how he quoted the trainer: “…yes, that’s our goal; no one in the building on the weekends.” When this concerned radio exec asked what would happen if the station went off the air, he recalls the trainer as saying, “He replied that Prophet had the capability to page the engineer or PD in that situation. He also said that hopefully station personnel would monitor local newscasts for news events that took place and send someone in if any unforeseen events occurred”. There’s more listeners, TSL and audience interaction on the weekends — guess Clear Channel doesn’t want it.

4. Father’s Day Weather — one day late.
Another disgusted radio exec says that on Father’s Day — well, let’s let him tell it, “Clear Channel’s high-rated WSRZ-FM, Sarasota, FL, 60s-70s hits, was plugging along, no back announcing, no local content, totally on automatic, when every hour, the recorded weather talked about the expected high tomorrow- FATHER’S DAY !! Seems someone forgot to update the weather. Another fine example of serving the community’s needs”. No harm done. No one got killed by a tornado this time — just voice tracking egg on your face.

5. Michael Jackson coverage — with no overtime.
This has probably happened at a lot of stations in the aftermath of the death of Michael Jackson. As one radio exec put it, “No one else was in the building when the MJ story broke. I put it on all stations (in the cluster) and then pieced together some tribute sets. Got a call reminding me…”No Overtime.” (Did get a thanks from the PD who was on the way to the station.). This is not the way to do it.

6. Some Mom and Pop stations want to be Cumulus.
Another eyewitness account from a longtime radio vet who was fired from his consolidated radio job and wound up at a mom and pop operation. His comments remind us why once the genie is out of the bottle, you can’t stuff it back in again: “…your article on tracking hit home…even with this local owner…we have a bare bones staff, everything is voicetrax even the morning shows!!…I took (a few) days off last week and had to track my shows while was gone… plus I put in all spots, write, produce etc”.

7. “We’re live today and you’re lucky” on-air attitude.
One veteran broadcaster said, “I heard a personality on the air at a Radio One station on Friday last week who is usually voice tracked. She was on the air playing Michael Jackson songs back-to-back, and said during one of her breaks, ‘Call me in the studio today, I’m actually here taking your phone calls and playing DJ today!’ Nice sentiment, but she said it as though it was supposed to be a bonus for the audience… Almost as if to say, ‘Don’t call me any other day, because I have much more important things to do’.”

8. Less station identification even in non-PPM markets.
An insider from Vegas said, “…in recent weeks, I’ve noticed a disturbing trend. The voice-tracks are totally generic. There’s no mention of the station by the announcers, just a lot of ‘that was… this is ‘ and ‘hey, did you know Lonestar was coming out with a new CD?’ One can only assume that they’re now having jocks do generic voice-tracks that run on multiple stations, eliminating the need to cut custom tracks for each station. Other than the occasional imaging stuff, the station itself is never mentioned. Plus, there’s no weather, no local happenings, no local comments about artists appearing locally… nothing. That’s you’re new local radio for you.

Seth Godin, the marketing guru, recently did a blog post on the demise of the sewing machine business and the once mighty Singer Corporation.

I got the feeling Godin was also talking about the radio industry in a way.

But I was convinced he was when he added, “The best marketing strategy is to destroy your industry before your competition does”.

I guess radio CEOs are taking him literally.

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Here’s link to original article: http://insidemusicmedia.blogspot.com/2009/07/radios-stupid-consolidation-tricks.html

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Filed Under: 2009-Daily Hip Hop News, Industry news & Views, Political articles, Southern Shift Tagged With: Clear Channel, Davey D's Hip Hop news-Radio consolidation, Jerry Del Colliano, Knuckleradio, Radio's Stupid Consolidation Tricks

RIAA Loses Minneapolis File Sharing Case

June 19, 2009 By mrDaveyd

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RIAA Loses Minneapolis File Sharing Case

Friday, June 19, 2009

By Jerry Del Colliano

The Recording Industry Association of America lost its $2 million lawsuit in a retrial against Jammie Thomas-Rasset even though a jury handed them the verdict they wanted.

Guilty.

The RIAA originally won a $222,000 verdict several years ago but the judge in the first case called a mistrial. Rather than settle as over 30,000 others have done, the defendant then known as Jammie Thomas went back to court.

This jury didn’t believe her when she argued that maybe her children used her computer to share files on Kazaa. In the first trial she testified that a file sharing hacker stole her WiFi connection – and, well, you know the rest.

Despite suing 30,000 people over the past five years, the RIAA has not stopped illegal file sharing.

In fact, file sharing has increased and continues to proliferate at a rapid pace.

That’s why the record labels and their legal arm, the RIAA, by and large lost in court yesterday.

The labels are certainly not going to collect on Thomas-Rasset’s judgment.

File sharing continues to elude the labels’ ability to control it.

And all those poor artists are still going to get screwed by a record label near them someday.

What the big national headlines shout out is that the label’s can win in court but that file sharing is unstoppable. Even if you factor in the recession and all those poor lawyers who are unemployed and underemployed, the RIAA can’t argue that this scorched earth strategy was worth it.

I may have mentioned this before, but I once had a student when I was teaching at USC who had been sued by the RIAA. I know that because one day I invited an RIAA rep to speak to the class.

The snagged student was nervous. His classmates openly spoke about stealing music. They certainly were not afraid of the big bad wolf. No matter how the RIAA rep spun it, most of the young folks admitted the next day (when the RIAA was not present) that they were going to continue pirating music.

That was major because this one young man who was still shaking in his boots was very apologetic. Turns out his parents got hammered with the $3,500 settlement and he was not about to steal another tune. I believed him.

So what I observed is that if the labels want to stop file sharing dead in its tracks, they need to sue everybody under the age of 30.

Everybody.

Once you touch the fire, you know how hot it is. But I am convinced that unless everyone is sued and obediently settles, all the court victories in the world aren’t going to get the labels to stop music piracy.

The reason?

The record industry cannot control the front of the store, so to speak.

You know, when you go to a brick and mortar record store you can’t just walk out with whatever you want. You’ll wind up getting arrested.

But there is no way for the labels to stop people from walking out of the virtual record store with whatever they want.

Oh, there is one way, but the labels reject it. We’ll get to that in a moment.

Label execs have their heads so far up the legal system that they just can’t see the end game. I’m sorry they lost control of their music but unless you sue everyone, the RIAA just isn’t going to scare the next generation.

Business execs may cheat on their taxes, steal from the company or otherwise be a greedy executive, but consumers cannot steal music.

I often engage young people in discussions about ethics and file sharing and it may or may not surprise you to know that many do not steal music for ethical reasons. Most, however, admit to it. Some even use the Robin Hood defense – stealing from the rich (the labels) to help the poor (the students).

Ethical considerations are worth an open and honest discussion, but speaking solely in the realm of business – it seems odd that the labels, which are dying each day, fail to realize that the one thing that has made them famous – suing customers – doesn’t work.

What does work is a bitter pill for them to swallow.

You probably wouldn’t want to give up $8 billion in annual CD sales despite the fact that record sales have been dropping almost without exception since 2000.

But the reality is that the labels cannot stop stealing.

They can’t slow it down.

They really can’t even make a future file sharer think twice before they click.

What’s amazing is that the labels, like their brethren in the radio industry, are going down the toilet without a plan B.

No alternative to what happens if they can’t scare their potential customers into paying for music.

Aah, and why?

Because the price of music is the problem.

Not its easy availability on the Internet.

Not a generation of bad dudes.

The labels refuse to enter the digital 21st Century where music is worth nothing when it is stolen in large numbers and somewhere between five and ten cents when you factor in 99 cent legal downloads.

If the labels make music not worth stealing – by offering it in both a convenient and intuitive way on the net at five to ten cents – they can become bulk resellers.

$9.99 is not the going rate for an album even if iTunes charges that price.

Zero is the price.

99 cents is not the prevailing price for a single tune in spite of the fact that Apple has established that price.

Zero is the price.

Label execs don’t want to give away music for next to nothing, I get it.

They apparently would rather give away music for — nothing – as they are doing now when more music is stolen than purchased.

So Jammie Thomas-Rasset may have to clean Clive Davis’ executive bathroom for the rest of her life (or his) to help repay her debt to society.

Proving once again that the labels got out of the record business nine years ago.

Would you buy music from a label that can’t tell a hit from a flop?

Suing customers — a flop.

http://insidemusicmedia.blogspot.com/2009/06/riaa-loses-minneapolis-file-sharing.html

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Filed Under: 2009-Daily Hip Hop News, Industry news & Views Tagged With: Jammie Thomas-Rasset, Jerry Del Colliano, RIAA Loses Minneapolis File Sharing Case, RIAA sues everyone

iScrewedUp — Radio’s New App-How Bigtime Radio Executives Messed up Again

June 18, 2009 By mrDaveyd

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iScrewedUp — Radio’s New App

Thursday, June 18, 2009

By Jerry Del Colliano

I don’t know how radio CEOs can be so wrong so often.

It is about to happen again as Sirius XM is set to launch an Apple app that they hope will revolutionize satellite radio.

Oh really?

Here’s the latest misread of the media consumer.

You’ll be able to get Sirius XM on your iPhone for free.

That is, of course, if you subscribed to the webcast feature.

It’s $3 a month for everyone else.

Look, did anyone tell Mel that he’s not the only one having a recession? Can’t he see that people are not lined up to pay for satellite radio that is arguably not much better than what they can hear for free on terrestrial radio?

In fact, as consumers feel the pinch, what would make these SiriusXM execs think that charging more monthly fees for the same old “not exactly free radio” is a good business strategy.

You can expect this new SiriusXM app to be a flop just like the free version of Clear Channel’s iheart Radio which received a few million downloads and a great number fewer fans once they listened.

Nothing personal, but consumers don’t think like media executives and you can be damn sure media CEOs don’t think like consumers.

A few years ago, one of my USC Solutions Labs did a project for XM Satellite before it merged with Sirius. These young folks came up with lots of ideas for satellite radio — none of which they were doing and few of which they adopted. The ability to listen to streaming satellite radio on a cell phone was not one of their recommendations.

I understand SiriusXM’s enthusiasm to get into new media because in today’s media world satellite radio technology is as ancient as a wagon train.

But they are getting it wrong — so wrong.

Satellite isn’t the only radio organization to do their version of iScrewedUp.

Terrestrial radio wasted broadcasters money and got a false sense of security in pushing HD which in effect was an excuse to create more channels on a radio. This would be great if the radio were a hot consumer device.

It isn’t.

Even in a car, radio is a mere part of the automobile’s entertainment system with growing competition from new media. No young person these days (or many older for that matter) buys a car without an iPhone jack.

The HD concept of adding more channels than the federal government would let consolidators have was fatally flawed when it turned out radio groups couldn’t operate all the stations they bought. And now we’ve seen that they can’t pay the debt on these acquisitions, either.

It would have been so much better to check with the consumer first — not iBiquity, the NAB, auto manufacturers (oops) or radio makers.

Lesson: Consumers want variety where they live — on mobile devices not radios.

Radio screwed up when it tried to bilk the record industry into paying legal payola to get airplay. They deny it but before then New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer started his holy war, big radio groups and record labels were settling for seven figure penalties.

This was a screw up because radio is nothing without the music industry and the record business is proving that it is nothing without a vibrant radio industry. Maybe the heyday of consolidation factored into it but it is no accident that radio has declined in direct proportion to the music industry.

You know things are bad when the labels still — in 2009 — sue their customers and then turn on their radio partners in trying to win repeal of the performance tax exemption.

Lesson: Radio and records should have joined forces to create new delivery systems and content and launched the iTunes store before a computer company kicked their butts.

Radio is screwing up in the sacred area of news, information, talk and localism.

Repeater Radio to save money on personnel lives up to the term I use to describe it — a no-brainer.

But before radio groups decided to sell out programming to save money, they misread the marketplace again.

Take Iran.

Please.

Have you witnessed how news from the disputed Iranian elections and the riots that followed is driven by Twitter, Facebook and the Internet?

Not TV.

Not radio.

Not newspapers.

In fact CNN here in the U.S. has been busy defending its initial non-coverage of this world news event while their worldwide audience was taking matters into their own hands — literally.The many pictures are shot from eyewitnesses via their cellphone cameras and uploaded to YouTube.

When Westinghouse/CBS used to say “you give us 22 minutes and we’ll give you the world”, the consumer now says, “give us 20 seconds and we’ll give you thousands of photos, reports and commentaries”.

Events like 9/11 and Katrina may be the last traditional media coverage we’ll see.

Certainly, you can’t rely on a radio to cover a tornado down south or a crisis in markets where Repeater Radio is babbling on.

The marketplace is telling media execs that they are no longer the gatekeepers of news and entertainment.

They think finding the next Rush or Hannity is going to save talk radio — especially when you can mindlessly syndicate it across the nation. But today’s audience doesn’t need a lecture, they already have a town meeting with unbridled access to people and places that radio cannot duplicate.

To survive, it would take a sharp radio executive (an oxymoron) to start delivering content with new means and in new ways.

Lesson: Your new boss is the listener. They have taken control of your radio station and redefined how news is distributed. And before you start with, “but they are not trained journalists”, I ask “how many radio stations employ trained journalists”?

One more example of iScrewedUp.

Terrestrial radio streaming.

Media execs love duplicating the same content that they air for free on the Internet. Why? Because they think they can make a fortune selling different cheap commercials on the stream.

But there has been precious little evidence that streaming is even wanted by their audiences.

Yes, if you’re in a building and want to listen to a terrestrial format, of course, it comes in clearer online. But even with all that factored in, terrestrial radio listening delivers not quite 3% more listeners to the station’s format. By any standards that is a screw up.

Because a smart radio exec would listen to their audience and find 1,000 ways to program niche content that listeners absolutely could not easily get anywhere else and find a new model for Internet radio. They could also build Internet radio stations for local businesses and rent the stations to their sponsors. No biggy. No great expense. The music rights issues will eventually be resolved and they’ll be sitting there owning many franchises.

But no.

Radio execs missed the point.

Lesson: You can’t cram analog mentality into the digital space. If you do, you’ll get just 3% of the available audience.

Okay, I lied — one final point.

The People Meter.

You know, the one Cox CEO Bob Neil railed against publicly for years and spineless consolidators put down while they were secretly signing PPM contracts.

Turns out iScrewedUp applies to this as well.

I can’t tell you the number of apologists who gleefully remind me that radio’s total listening is up one million people.

Wow. Imagine that.

And how do you think tired old radio, with thousands of talented programmers and air personalities fired, is accomplishing this feat?

Can you say People Meter?

Finally, the diary system that broadcasters love because they can easily manipulate it is now reporting the real audience.

But radio CEOs and association execs drunk with spin are using this as proof that radio is alive and well.

What they don’t get is that the People Meter means a major redesign of radio programming.

I don’t know about you but even after all their meetings, conferences, research and consultants — radio still sounds to me like it’s built for the diary.

Lesson: The People Meter allows radio stations to know what listeners want every moment of the day and enables them to deliver it. But they are listening to each other again and not the audience.

So, there appears to be an endless stream of major screw ups that radio and record industry CEOs have made — enough to inspire a developer to design their own Apple iPhone app.

iScrewedUp.

Unfortunately, just like other radio apps, it would be downloaded by millions but I am afraid few people would listen.

http://insidemusicmedia.blogspot.com/2009/06/iscrewedup-radios-new-app.html

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Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: Inside Music Media, iScrewedUp -- Radio's New App-How Bigtime Radio Executives Messed up Again, Jerry Del Colliano, Sirius XM

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Another Study Vindicates Filesharing

The Media Crisis of 2009