MORE RADIO R&D.

Radio PDs blow off MySpace. (Reuters via News.com)

R&D, RADIO STYLE.

The US commercial radio industry and its dominatrix, Arbitron--plus a couple of unknowns--struggle on, trying to invent the belt-mounted radio-sensitive spy-pod, hoping to revolutionize the way agencies decide to spend billions of dollars of advertisers' profits on stations that run eight radio commercials in a row. Meanwhile, a few ad buyers are scheming with ebay on a TV ad auction. And, of course, you've heard of Google's dmarc. And others. By the time radio decides which belt-spy to use, will it matter?

QUOTE OF THE DAY:

"The device is an extension of the subscriber's personality, a 21st-century Swiss Army knife, if you will," Farren said. "Wireless is the only medium that goes where you go."

-- A cell-phone industry spokesman, quoted
in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer

WHAT WORLD DO YOU LIVE IN?

If you think your radio station's on the cutting edge, check this out. BBC Radio One lives in the virtual world.

RADIO NEWS.

New York disc jockey fired for threatening bodily harm to rival deejay's family on the air. . . . Radio station free gas promotions snarl traffic (Video at eleven!). . . . Senate mulls higher indecency fines for broadcasters. . . . Clear Channel President expects $99 HD radio "in 12 to 18 months. . . . "

But hey...new research says people are perfectly happy with steel-tower radio....

RESEARCH.

Ran into a guy on the bus yesterday; second time we've met. Windbreaker, Nikes, big glasses, shoulder bag, unhip baseball cap, single earphone in right ear. "This is the first time I've allowed myself to appear in public with an earphone in my ear," he said, right at the top of the conversation. "But I wanted to listen to National Public Radio." He reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a little silver box that looked for all the world like, well, like an Ipod Nano.

Except it was a radio-only radio. Sony. Very cool. The earbud reeled into the case and snuggled into its own niche at the top of the set. A digital clock readout blinked "12:00," though it was 11:20 AM.

He went on, during our twenty-minute Metro ride into downtown Seattle, to sketch out his life story, and quite a life it is--raised in Japan, traveled to Silicon Valley last week, photojournalist, actor--dubbed English in dozens of movies, etc., etc. Fascinating guy; we traded email addresses. I hope he sees this.

Not in the demos, of course, and neither am I. Just two guys with disposable income, time on our hands, all our faculties and then some--totally out of touch with Adam Carolla, Newsradio 710, KOMO1000News, The Wolf, T-Man, FunkyMonkey, Tom Leykis, Rush and the rest of the red faces on HotTalk 570, The New Movin92.5, whatever.

But hey, you got your 3.0 share of women 25-49, your fifty-minute no-commercials music sweeps humming away in their cubicles, so you're in good shape, right?

This may shock you, radio guys, but it's a big world.

Who'll decide what you can see on the Net?

If the US Congress passes legislation, up for a vote next Tuesday (05/09/06), ATT, Comcast, or other major telephone carriers could decide which Web sites you can see fastest, or at all, based on how much the Web publisher pays them. The issue is called "net neutrality," meaning nobody can make anybody "more equal" than anybody else on the Internet. Please read up on the issue, then get to your Representative or Senator now.

BIG RADIO FACES THE FUTURE.

Three news items involving CBS Radio this week, two of them breaking today, dramatize the Big Radio Guys' approach to the new media revolution.

1) CBS announced that the programming of its "Modern Rock" KROQ, Los Angeles, will now be heard on two of its "FreeFM" talk stations' HD subchannels, San Diego and Phoenix. Another of those intensely local programming moves that characterize the HD radio rollout. Reminds me of the early days of FM, when most of them simulcast their co-owned AMs. Now, there's satellite and ISDN lines, so simulcasting goes city-to-city. Yawn.

2) Three of CBS's all-sports stations, WFAN (NYC), WSCR (Chi), and WIP (Philly), will be available on Sprint's "mspot" radio-on-your-cellphone service. You gotta pay for it. Uh-huh, another BRG (Big Radio Guy) company gets on the cell system (FMQB). I give 'em B-minus.

3) Les Moonves, the BK (Big Kahuna) of CBS TV and Radio, is telling the stock jocks he's open to sell some radio stations to improve the "underperforming" division's numbers (Marketwatch).

The first two DC (Deck Chair) moves come from the operating guys, #3 from headquarters, where they don't have to worry about staff morale.

NAB WRAP, AND OTHER FANTASIES.

No news made in Vegas this year. Oh, new NAB president, who tested the waters, suggesting broadcasters get off their asses. At least they laughed on cue. . . . Assorted grousing among TV types on high cost of high-def equipment--how long can we put off buying it (Huh?!)?. . . FCC commissioners making semi-nice. . . good attendance at the "What is the Internet?" panels (I made that up-- disclosure: I wasn't there). . . HD Radio guys rolled out their laugher formats in 22 more markets. Actually, one of them is All Comedy Radio, and I hear it's good (Disclaimer: not an endorsement). . . 105,000 attendance--that's including execs from Antarctica TV and other internationals (made that name up, too). . . . In other news, the Deckchair Rearrangement Project continues apace. CBS is still trying to figure cable out. Also, the Web--imagine, listening to your favorite CBS-TV shows via MP-3 files!

AN ACTUAL RADIO, REVIEWED BY ENGADGET.

Haven't seen one of these outside the HD Radio Alliance site. I'm trying to be positive, here. The link: Engadget.

RADIO ISN'T DEAD.

There is hope. The audience isn't pouring over to Web radio or satellite. It's a slow leak. You've still got a chance to recapture them. But, if you're counting on HD, and willing to wait for the dynamite HD radio everybody'll want, the leak will dissolve the dike.

My three tips:
1. Do something local and earthshaking on your signal.
2. Get on the cell Smartphone networks.
3. Stream everything you produce on the Web.

Make that four tips:
4. Take a close look at what Bonneville's doing. I'll have more to say about this later.

NAB opening; Rehr roars, kinda.

David Rehr is the new president of NAB. In Vegas yesterday, he delivered a true departure speech--instead of the usual industry self-congratulation keynote, Rehr challenged broadcasting to get with the present, in what Inside Radio called a "kick in the pants" for convention attendees. He succeeded in remaining positive, too. Good trick in today's crumbling electronic environment.

"For radio, let’s face it. Local radio is a basic necessity. New media distribution technologies – and new devices used for communication or entertainment – will need radio. Every electronic device you carry, or are in near proximity to, should have the ability to pick up local radio signals. It's a lifeline … it's a friend …. it's the primary media choice of consumers in the present and for the future."

He also said radio has "failed" to sell its benefits. And he could have reminded the radio guys in the crowd that they've also failed to be actually local for decades. Somebody important needs to say this, somebody they'll listen to. While they're busy creating thinner slices of their baloney formats. The weather and traffic aren't enough local content, guys.

Breaking News! Stereo on AM!

Read this. From RadioWorld. Written by a station owner who's discovered that stereo can save AM. Will wonders never cease?

The big lounge show.

Ah, spring in Vegas. NAB: A hundred thousand TV and radio guys checking their hair in Hilton lobby-casino mirrors as they trudge through the air-conditioned tunnel to the convention center next door. I'm not there, thank God.

What's the buzz on pre-opening Monday? Let's surf the trades:

HD Radio angst. Good roundup here from RadioWorld's Paul McLane....Bunch of new markets roll out HD formats (Breaking news!)--groundbreaking stuff like "Future Country,"Deep Cuts Classic Rock,"Older, Softer AC." Truly "local" formats. Futz around all you like with IBOC HD Radio, steel-tower radio guys. Read my blog--it's too late. There's already a new dynamite-app radio--it's called the Smartphone.

Payola angst. Satisfactory roundup by FMQB. Also too late. Why would anybody pay radio guys to play songs now?

Opie and Anthony angst. Too late. You're just shuffling pottymouth swabs about the Titanic deck, mates. Who cares who replaces what's-his-name along the eastern seaboard?

Enjoy the convention, guys. Relax. Collect tchotchkes from booths. Surf the slots. Go see Cirque de Soleil or Celine. Or even Wayne. Just remember to wear your life preserver.

Read this and get a clue.

I know how much radio guys hate to read anything that doesn't fit on a three-by-five card, and I know how hard you work to remain clueless on new media, not to mention the world, but you gotta read this fascinating article from the NY Times Magazine about Google and China. You'll know all the words, I promise.

Business as usual, if it kills me.

It's gotta be difficult to come up with topics for radio research company Web sites these days, when nothing particularly earthshaking is happening in the industry. If you've got nothing important to do, or just need a laugh, read Sean Ross's dead serious "When Contest Winners Will Not Scream," over on edisonresearch.com.

The joys of the radio CEO.

InsideRadio.com's all about Jeff Smulyan's Wall Street conference call today. Just in case you think it's easy projecting optimism in a creaking, yet moneymaking, industry. But, then, if you work in US radio, or got dumped by it recently, you know.

Think-through 4; What it is, is a local news station.

Don't tell me you're already doing it. See my last post. This is Number 4 in the Think-through, because I've been tinkering with how to re-juice steel-tower radio in the personal-digital media era. There's always been a considerable percentage of the population who could do better radio than radio guys.

Now anybody can produce "broadcast quality" audio and programming content and distribute it for almost nothing, with no FCC licensing hassles. A cheap mike, a broadband connection and a laptop will do it. You can be a hobbyist or sell time, or open an online store, whatever. This is no time to be rigid, as the pro radio people have become over the past thirty-five years--actually their grey matter had become rigor mortis-ized by 1975.

Don't misunderstand me. Radio's making lots of money--fewer are making more, and Wall Street's taking a bigger share. Many more shareholders, too. "Terrestrial Radio" won't sink into the turf this year. Still, we don't know how fast things are changing. Look how quickly the Internet upended the music business. And everything else. Tower radio won't be the exception. But it still has mass, and the opportunity to fill the giant sinkhole it has allowed to open in virtually every U.S. radio market. Ironically, the format hole is called by radio's two most meaningless words: local news.

Not all radio companies are catatonic. I keep coming back to Bonneville, a venerable, rich, stable company, not a very exciting company to radio people. But Bonneville just made a set of moves in Washington DC that places them, in my opinion, on the razor-sharp leading edge of tower radio's future, which is not five years away, but now.

Bonneville shuffled their DC stations among transmitters and dial positions they hold there. Especially jarring to radio people was their move of WTOP, historic, dominant AM, to a stronger FM signal, while deleting a vanilla AC. 'TOP, the leading AM "newsradio" station in the nation's capital, is promoted now as an FM, though it's still available via one of their weaker AM sticks.



Simultaneously, Bonneville launched "Washington Post Radio" on 'TOP's well-known AM frequency, 1500 kHz, which the rigor-morts have called ris-KEE. This new partnership is spectacularly smart for Bonneville and the Post. From minute one it had smart, DC-savvy Post people chatting away off-script with familiar hosts, some moved over from WTOP, on the stories they cover so well in print. No mispronounced street names. I've listened some, and the newspaper people can talk just fine, thanks, and nobody I've heard sounds like a deejay or bloviating talk host. They sound like they know what they're talking about. WTWP's also refreshingly free of the shrill, compressed, reverbed, sentence-edited, Top-40 "production" you now hear on all commercial stations, whatever their formats.

Somebody was saying, before launch, that WTWP would be NPR on steroids. Thank God, it isn't--especially no academe-lite voices. I heard Bob Kur, former NBC correspondent, facilitating afternoon drive reports and analysis with Post staffers, informally, amiably, cordially. Apparently, no ADD-afflicted, ex-CHR PD paces outside the window, waving an ARBITRON, arm-pumping and mouthing "more energy!" Ergo, there's plenty of natural energy, authentic enthusiasm, real content. Genuinely happy voices, doing what they love.

In Washington DC, the nation's business is the local news. WTWP, Washington Post Radio, is a local news station. It has plenty to talk about, without a helicopter. Your city should have such a station. Getting into collaboration with your local newspaper would be a great way to start one. The paper needs a new outlet as much as you need the content.

Your station will sound--will be--different from WTWP. Your town's not DC, and your newspaper isn't The Washington Post. But I bet your local publisher's got a better fix on what makes the smartest, most involved, most affluent citizen-reader-listeners of your market tick than you do. And I'll bet you can find some interesting new ways to sell, too.

Alas, there's a 90 percent chance you're no Bonneville, either, and you therefore aren't getting this. Some radio guy eventually will, maybe. It ought to be you, there, with your legacy Number Two full-service news-talk AM and mediocre 3.0-share soft AC FM.

While most companies' cerebella atrophied, Bonneville kept its eye on the core business--programming radio for the city of license. Who'd have known, as the ship started to list, Bonneville would be prime candidate for smartest company in steel-tower radio? I say until another company demonstrates local thinking, the guys in the white shirts from Salt Lake are your role models.

[This post has no links. Go Google.]

Meaningless Radio Words; #2. "News"

While I'm at it: Since the days of the legendary radio news guy Rip Reed, radio stations have mouthed what wire services printed out on that endless paper or monitor screens. More-serious radio news departments relied on police-fire scanners and phone "beat checks" to police departments. They actually wrote things on typewriters before running to the studios carrying paper and carts containing phone recordings they straightfacedly called "actualities." The truth is, like "local," "news" in radio never meant anything like what it still means at NEWSpapers. I'm suggesting that U.S steel-tower radio stations hire people for their local journalism chops, as opposed to only their voices, "talent," and "believeability" (another great radio word, which does not mean "real"). Local News. Now, there's a concept. We don't have a single radio station in the U.S.A. on this format.

Meaningless Radio Words; #1. "Local"

Run on over to InsideRadio.com and read blogger Brian Maloney's first column for the trade, headlined, "If local is so important, why are radio companies going with syndication?" IR calls it a "special report," but it's a commentary (Come on, Tom, call it what it is).

"Could more local programming quickly contain increasing threats to traditional, land-based radio from satellite radio, podcasting and the Internet? If so, why is this relentlessly cost-cutting industry still dumping in-house air talent for little-known syndicated shows?"

I'll tell you why, Brian. For decades, even before the consolidation stock-play and heavy leverage of the 90s, even on stations that didn't contain a single syndicated program, "local" has meant time-and-temp. Well, maybe the new Research Brian's writing about will give the radio blockheads a reason to redefine the word.

Is radio ready to hear (shudder!) criticism somewhere besides AllAccess.com's** Net Talk message boards? God, I hope so.

By the way--you didn't hear it here, but I believe Inside Radio is still owned by Clear Channel. Yet, Tom Taylor still turns out the best radio reportage. Go figure.

** Warning! Slow, ad-heavy, site. Lots of animated GIFs and Flash.