Making Radio Stronger In A Disaster
Ron Robinson
Candor From Canada
Ronald T. Robinson has been involved in Canadian Radio since the '60s as a performer, writer and coach and has trained and certified as a personal counsellor. Ron makes the assertion that the most important communicative aspects of broadcasting, as they relate to Talent and Creative, have yet to be addressed. Check out his website www.voicetalentguy.com
Talent -- The Friend Beside Us
There has been an element in vocal deliveries in both radio and television that has been secure for at least the last 10 years. Today, as often as not, on-air and commercial content is being delivered by those in the talent corps who have much higher and lighter voices than has been traditionally heard. The decisions to use these voices have been made, however, only for compensatory reasons.
As The Clutter Sputters
The most important thing that radio, especially corporate radio, has not become over the last 20 years is: better. Were public safety and air travel services to be directed by corporate radio, few of us – particularly the knowing group of radio’s own ownership and management – would ever fly again!
Spots – Clutter On The Rubble
Pro sales guy, regular blogger, and good friend of Radio Ink, Sean Luce, recently made some compelling arguments for having radio generate superior creative. This would be a noble and worthwhile effort, he contends, to produce advertising with better recall for the ad and the advertiser. My dad had a line that covered this circumstance: “Nice dodge – if you can pull it off!”
Radio Budgies
I was mistaken. It may be worse than I thought. Over the last few weeks I have had discussions with a diverse group of individuals including radio sales managers, creative agency heads, talent representation, talent, and programmers. While I have long been aware of the positions on radio held by these folks in their respective specialties, I was still staggered. To a man – and a woman – they still have it dead wrong!
Making The Case
I ask my radio colleagues – even when they aren’t bothering anybody: What do the aerodynamic principles of sailing have in common with radio? After some consideration, the quizzed often request an easier category or a different show.
So It Is Written
A significant majority of radio commercials are as welcome as being interrupted by the mall cop who has found the upside of coming to work with a pint of gin. Both (spots and mall cops) are annoyances that can be quickly disregarded. But, we are still obliged to go through a process of deciding whether to tolerate them. People tend to resent that exercise, especially when they already know the outcome.
Radio’s Other Dirty Word
Unless one is willing to accept the tripe propagandized by radio’s elite, larger chargers, there have been few if any satisfactory or convincing arguments put forward for the continuing of the first of the dirty words -- that being “consolidation.” I accept the position that, as a result of consolidation, the following groups have suffered: audiences, advertisers, programmers, middle managers, on-air and creative staffs, along with office support people.
Spots – What A Load
Radio commercials are, practically, the only elements that allow for every station to have an income. That is why the creation of these ads gets a greater amount of energy, time, and budget than any other aspect of the business. (Pause.) I excuse myself here to go outside for a few minutes. Every year at this time, massive flocks of squealing piggies are overhead, winging their way to their Canadian summer nesting areas.
It’s The Law
Because everybody in music radio already knows how the Second Law of Thermodynamics can stand as a fairly decent metaphor for our current situation, we might consider some of the consequences. The more significant and applicable element of this law can be put in layman’s terms. This is a relief, since I am one.
Muuusic Power – Gone
During a recent drive to one of my out-of-town gigs, I had another opportunity to spin the dial and listen for what was going on in a number of small and medium markets outside Toronto. As, over time, I have learned to expect very little, I wasn’t terribly disappointed. Modern, music radio everywhere continues to be as contemporary as a cassette and as appealing as the no-name brand of “Cardboard-In-A-Can.”
The Next Necessary Step
Although not unique to radio, but pervasive anyway, many managers will read the following and declare it is arrogant. However, I also offer the following observation: If I were a master mechanic, a dentist, a carpenter, or maybe a plumber who declared I could fix their leaks, these same managers might respond with, “Okay. How much?”
Radio Changes
There are few things that offer as fair a warning that bull****-on-a-log is on its way down from upstream than a shambled, raggedy cliché.
The Blame Game (continued)
Radio Ink publisher, Eric Rhoads, recently suggested that it was time for radio to take responsibility for its own situation. I would state in stronger terms that radio sits on the cusp of demise. If that’s too harsh for tender eyes, then, most certainly, stagnation. None of this, I contend, is necessary or inevitable – for many reasons.
Creative Departments – Part XXVI
Much has been offered by so many expert sources on the creation, care, and feeding of radio commercials that anything I might add could easily be referred to as Part XXVI. But, since the Romans had such a strange way of writing numbers, I want to avoid having even astute readers go back to using fingers (and toes).
Radio Creative -- An Oxymoron
This is neither the time nor the environment for radio folk to be blowing smoke up each other’s anything. Locally-produced radio commercials have about a 90 percent chance of sucking.
Stuck In The Glue
In a response to my last blog post, “Bill” described the ongoing reality of a medium market station and used afternoon drive as the prime example. The station is pulling a 1-share and is selling at around 20 dollars-a-holler – based on market cpp pricing. Afternoon drive is V/T’d at a cost of a hundred bucks a week while the shift pulls in just under 300K a year.
Nothing Left To Learn
It’s an amazing thing to talk to radio executives and senior talent who profess to already know everything there is to know about radio. I feel this is the pervasive attitude, and part of my evidence is that radio has made no improvements that are not technologically based in the last 30 years.
The Radio Trance
Any time I make the case that radio is an indirect medium – that is, something other than a one-to-one communicative platform, I get notices that people are becoming thoroughly annoyed. I find this ironically spectacular, as there is no evidence whatsoever to support the one-to-one premise.
My Position: The Programming Priority?
In a recent Radio Ink audio-interview, Mike Sheehan, CEO of Hill Holiday, one of the top ad agencies in the country, offered up some advice on how radio can compete for more of his budget. He urged stations to be “fearless” and improve their content. Well damn! Maybe that’s the answer after all!
Programming And Other Four-Letter Words
When I was being trained to do HR-work and personal coaching, I was introduced to a premise that, upon consideration, held true in an alarming number of circumstances. And in no way have radio-folks been inoculated against this particular scourge. The premise was: "People, and the organizations they develop, have a tendency to find out what doesn’t work – and do it harder!"
Rustic Reflections On The Powerful People
Maybe it was the 10-day stretch up in northern Ontario in a spot that has no Internet, no cell service, no phones, no pools, and no pets. I made it a point, though, to carry my [I]hard copy[/I] edition of Radio Ink's Top 40 Most Powerful People. I read it – multiple times. My conclusion, although not a new one, is: This business has issues – big, hairy ones.
Radio's "One Thing"
I remember well when Jack Palance as Curly in the movie "City Slickers" admonished Billy Crystal's character about the Secret of Life – the critical importance of knowing "just one thing." When Mitch asked what that one thing is, Curly responded with, "That's what you got to figure out."
Re-Learning The Game
New Rule: Anybody who talks up "Theatre of the Mind" to a potential advertising client had better be able to provide locally produced examples of great commercials. Otherwise, better for all concerned if they breathe through their noses on this one and stick to the ol’ Reach and Frequency-dodge.
McRadio – Not Even
During all dayparts, corporate music radio has multiple opportunities to dish out the equivalent of a full and yummy smorgasbord. A tantalizing and stunningly attractive buffet. But, we won't do that. Instead, we are offering up the music radio equivalent of cracked bowls of dry cornflakes.
Talent – It Don't Come Easy
Only recently have I been sensing a quivering in the music radio zeitgeist. Sporadic considerations are emanating from a number of smart, senior executives that there might be something worthwhile to bringing talent back into the fold. The rationale suggests some positive impacts on ratings and revenues by dropping in more relevant "local" content by local "live" personalities – qualifying as more appealing broadcasting. They are dangerously mistaken.
Over The Cliff
There are some who respond to my comments on the potentials of what I believe are the necessary developments of Music Radio as if I didn’t have a grasp on reality. Those who know me can attest, while I may rant, I do not roar. Nor, as a hockey player, did I spear, slash, cross check or go into the corners with any guy named “Moose” or “Rabies”. In fact, my lifetime in radio has been more the blood-sport.
Road Rage
There’s nothing like a road trip to clear the mind, calm the senses, and allow for a period of uninterrupted time to muse on the possibilities. My most recent road trip, however, had none of those attractive qualities. If there is a Radio Hell prepared for guys like me, I believe I spent a few moments on the lip of just such a broiling, flaming pit.
Talent - The Only Option
That Music Radio remains solidly perched on the bottom rung of the professional media ladder is no secret. How we got here is no mystery, either. This was no accident. It came about as the result of ownership drastically diminishing their product - their services - to the point where most all of them became indistinguishable from each other and the product less effective and less desirable.
Radio Can’t Go Back
In another conversation, a number of former On Air-guys were revelling about being the Boss Jocks of their day and were trading war stories about hitting posts, kissing vocals, talkin’ dirty and, generally, Rammin’ the Hits. The chat got eerie, though, when many of them were not only pining for those experiences, but also insisting that if brought back – fortunes would be re-made again. That is: re-introducing the same approach to a 50-plus audience that was foisted on those tender ears when they were in their teens.
Research Is For Rubes
While acknowledging emailed charges to the contrary, I insist I am not writing Music Radio off entirely, as there are still some exceptions and examples of my own listening experiences that are, at least partially satisfying. Yes, I still get to listen to some great Talent out in the hinterlands and online!
Radio – The Prime Directive
It was a dark and stormy disposition – and I was sorely startled to realize: It was my own! As a defense, I plead it as a position to which I had come by honestly. Although I was able to avoid being captured by stations that held their Holy Formats in the highest of esteems and demonstrated as much by rotating the same 500 tunes, and by turning their Talent into mere, mechanical Robo-Jocks, I was still a witness to the lobotomization of Music Radio.
Radio Secrets
For many years – decades actually, there has been a widely held understanding that: “There are no secrets in Radio”. The standard explanation for the premise has been that since whatever it is that comes out of the (Radio) box is all so obvious, that is the full and complete representation of everything there is to know about any particular station.
Music Radio Has Become A Flock
This was a clear, quiet, warm and sunny day in November – a welcome and calm Toronto, Sunday morning to step out on the stoop for a smoke and a coffee while the rest of the family continued their zonk-fest. I had already turned on the radio to hear the locals doing their part in V/T’ing their audience into a drowsy, low-volume, background state of indifference.
A New Year’s “Definite, Maybe”
(by Ron Robinson) For the last 20 years or so, music radio owners and management, along with and thanks to dangerously toxic doses of “research” and equally unhealthy contributions from “Consultants” have rendered that portion of the medium’s programming choices – irrelevant.
Consult, Train or Neither
(by Ronald T. Robinson) Blistering criticisms that fall on deaf ears had better supply some benefits to the one offering the abuse. Otherwise, only when alternatives are being put forward is there any point at all to tabling the critiques. The wail of “Radio sucks and it’s because those guys have gutted it!” does little more than adjust the heart-rate and blood pressure gauges in an upward direction.
The Trap of The Client Survey
(by Ronald T. Robinson) In my most recent, I asserted that conscious recall was not necessary for a Radio-ad campaign to be effective. Lucky for us, too, as hardly anyone remembers anything about the content of those ads. Only if the ad is sensational does a listener remember anything about the spots – at all. Yet, Radio can work wonders. So, in my model-of-the-world – that’s just weird.
Radio: A Trance Medium
(by Ron Robinson) A neuroscientist and a hypnotist walked into a bar. Instead of a “live”, in-the-flesh bartender, there was a guy in a studio transmitting through a video screen taking orders and making conversation. He took the requests. A steady, robotic arm delivered the beverages. After a couple of rounds the video-barkeep asked, “Will there be anything else, gentlemen?” To which the neuroscientist replied, “Check, please.” The hypnotist looked at the bartender on the screen and said, “I, like you, am forgetting it.” Only the neuroscientist got a bill.
Can’t Do Radio – Let’s Go Online
(by Ronald T. Robinson) Although nasty and oh, so politically incorrect to say so, relative to other mass media, Radio has, nevertheless, been tagged by audiences and advertisers as the weak, stupid and ugly sister. While arguably unfair and even a little cruel, such a label has not been totally unearned.
The Codependent Listener
(by Ron Robinson) As a newly-minted Vice President In Charge of Everything, I require all hunkered-down on-air personality or flogged and scarred, hype-typist who insists on continuing to broadcast exclusively to this alleged “Uber One” to provide verifiable evidence of this Personal Listener’s existence.
If Only I Knew Who
(Ronald T. Robinson) The Arab Potentate, proud, confident and leaning comfortably on his sturdy, opulent and stylishly-decorated tent, was purveying an expanse of desert – his desert – that stretched beyond the cut and rolling dunes and on into interminable beyond-the-horizon, scorching stretches that allowed only the adventurous, well prepared and sometimes desperate to cross, turned to the squinting, sweating and exasperated salesman and said, “Right. What I really need is more sand.”
Are You Still Dropping The "Y" Bomb?
(Ronald T. Robinson) Over the years, I have found that my dropping of the “Y-Bomb” results in one of two, basic responses. Broadcasters either immediately panic and scurry away while covering their ears and muttering “Na-na-na-na-na.” Or, they panic; muster up some righteous indignation; pick up their torches and pitchforks and look around to make sure there are others willing to head up the mountain.
Who Are You Really Talking To Out There?
(by Ronald Robinson) First, a couple of (rhetorical) questions: 1.) When did Radio become a One-to-One medium? And, 2.) Why was I not informed? That the delivery of Radio has always been accepted as a One-to-One exercise has never, ever, never been challenged! This, because, like other areas of life, the premise was presented with the authority of, uhhh… Authority, and forthwith became: Dogma. As such, Dogma cannot be challenged. Heretics and infidels do pay dearly.
Are You Performing Every Day?
(by Ron Robinson) As “Dear John” letters go, perhaps my most recent was about as comforting and welcome as hearing a psyche-destroying, hard-time sentence being boomed from the Bench. “You’re goin’ away, Billy - and for a very long time. Doesn’t matter that the man needed killin’.” Nevertheless, it is that very letter that needs to be read to every Radio-person who cracks open a mic or who scribbles the drivel.
I Can't Listen To You Anymore!
(by Ron Robinson) Dear Talent: We have never met and I would appreciate your keeping that in mind as you consider this letter. Even though your first impulse on reading the following might be to take offense, it would be a mistake, as I don’t know you well enough for you to be offended or, for that matter, for you to care. There is still an opportunity to consider this as no more than "information". Nevertheless, I cannot listen to you anymore. And, I will list my reasons.
The Radio Refusal
A pack of incorrigible whiners – those radio station owners and management who are yelping like ferrets hung up in a bear-trap. “Revenues are down! Bodies must be sacrificed!” they bellow. Of course revenues aren’t skyrocketing. Other media are cleaning our clocks and eating our lunches. We can all cheer up, though, as there is a reason: We are categorically incompetent at so much of what we do.
Radio’s Beverage
“Recycling old ideas that don’t work might be an indication there are no new ideas.” While that doesn’t seem like an original quote, the point still holds up when radio’s punditry class are challenged to respond to the implications. That the consultants and other heavies have failed utterly in taking radio out of its five-percent-of-available-revenues doldrums is more than obvious. It speaks volumes. Yet, this grave situation gets a free pass.
