Defining the box.

So now we have the spectacle of a radio "innovator" turning his three Long Island stations (WBON, WLIR, WDRE) into format jukeboxes with virtually no commercials--he says he's not stunting--and announcing that it's the future of steel tower radio. This is classic radio station thinking. When you're petrified, imitate the competition.

I guess he thinks if he offers something for free that's like what listeners have to pay for, they won't leave him. Of course, this particular solution also cuts his costs and personnel headaches to zero, so he ought to pop into the black quickly, IF...If he can sell spots...sorry, sponsorships. And if he can convince enough listeners that this is just as good as XM or Sirius, which they seem perfectly willing to pay for--I'm assuming he's not trying to out-program Ipods.

Well, anybody could drive a fleet of Escalades through the holes in his thinking, but why waste your time and mine. Let me just say that in the newspaper story I read, this genius seemed to be hinting that he expects to make a bundle selling the idea to other radio station operators. (Please note: I don't call them "owners." They're not. Except for their piles of amortized metal and plastic. But I digress.)

But, wait. Think. It just dawned on me. This radio guy really is innovating. He's broken free of ARBITRON. Really. He's cut his commercial load to 80 seconds an hour, fercryinoutloud! How you gonna sell target points or frequency or CPM when every hour is a 58-minute sweep? This dude absolutely wins the first Dehype Out-of-the-Box Award. He's absolutely gone local, in every way except programming. Makes me wonder: were things already that bad for those three stations? That he'd take himself back to 1954? (Note; I just looked at the ratings: the answer is yes.)

I think this radio guy is doing one thing right. Because, make no mistake, radio guys: the Box you're sitting in is ARBITRON. As long as you're in the big numbers pool, only programming ideas that create effects that can be detected in a sample of a few hundred people willing to carry diaries (or meters; it doesn't matter which)...only ARBITRON-specs programming ideas will be attempted.

Infinity-CBS-Viacom--or whatever they're called this week--can presumably "afford" to do something sorta different. They're trying KYOURadio, the podcasting station in techie-heavy SF--they can afford to "waste" a bad-signal high-end-of-the-dial AM cripple (big risk, huh?) to try something weird by stick-radio standards. (Note: I just looked at the ratings. KYOU still doesn't show, of course.) So, how did Infinity innovate? Why, they're copying the Internet and rotating podcasts like tunes. They're still inside the box.

But the dude out on Long Island really wants out of the rat race. He throws up his hands, cuts it to the bone and sells hour sponsorships until he's sold out or makes his nut. I hope it works for him. Of course, only a radio guy would spin a shutdown as "innovation."

After all this, remember the take-away. The Box is ARBITRON. And the solution is right in your own back yard. But you're gonna have to grow some cojones.