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Get Off The Pot

Recently, we saw more negative data about HD Radio from various surveys that have been conducted in '08.  In pretty much every study, awareness is flat, sales aren't great, and overall consumer interest is limp.

Our Tech Poll IV data is no different.  We see year-to-year awareness and sales are up just a tick.  And that's after all those ads that ran on hundreds of radio stations, and continue to this day.  Up against iPods, cool cell phones, and other hot gadgetry, HD Radio isn't even an afterthought.  It's just not on radar screens.

The difference is that our survey actually asked about the barriers to purchasing HD Radio.  The good news is that they are clear.  The bad news is that they look a lot like last year's data.  There is still a lack of clarity about HD Radio, and what it's all about.  Then there's the issue of price.  But the roadblocks that worry me the most are that most consumers haven't even heard HD Radio and/or they don't know anyone who owns one.

Clearly, this lack of buzz about the product has stopped HD Radio from making serious inroads.  You didn't buy that TiVo until you heard your friends telling you about how the box changed the way they watched TV.  You didn't make the plunge into the iPod world until you saw that guy on the plane with thousands of songs in a little device the size of a pack of cigarettes.  And you didn't throw down a couple thousand bucks for an HDTV until you walked into Best Buy that day and saw the Green Bay Packers like you've never seen them before. 

It will take consumer buzz about HD Radio content to start motivating radio listeners to run to Circuit City or anywhere else to check out and price these radios.  This is why the recent announcement that WNEW-FM is back - on HD2 in New York City - is heartening.  This is the type of programming that just might generate some word-of-mouth among New Yorkers, anxious to go back and revisit that legendary station's archives and history.  Below are a couple of promos for the new WNEW-FM HD2 channel that are truly inspirational.  In New York, this is the type of programming that might actually move some radios off the shelves.

Download WNEW HD Radio Spot #1

Download WNEW HD Radio Spot #2

We need to give these radios away, set up kiosks in high-profile retail centers (called malls), and let people experience HD Radio in markets where there's actually something worth listening to on HD2 channels.  But sampling aside, consumers aren't going to get revved about HD Radio until there's unique, buzzworthy programming worth getting excited about.  If HD Radio is going to be part of the future of our business, it needs to become a bigger priority in the present. 

A Good Idea

Every time I post a blog about HD Radio, I just sit back and wait for the predictable deluge of negative comments - typically from the same people.  There's no doubt that many in our industry have become understandably disenchanted with HD Radio, seeing whatever potential and promise it once had now being jettisoned to the industry's backburner.

And many have legitimate gripes and concerns.  After the HD Radio ad campaign controversy from late last year, Peter Ferrara wisely put together the "HD Radio Idea Summit." I was invited, I attended, and I participated.  It was a healthy vent session, followed up by a constructive brainstorm that may have yielded several solid ideas.  If nothing else, many Alliance members went back home to their respective companies, and hopefully started pushing for some change, some investment, and some attention for HD Radio.

In these sessions, some of the creative folks from the Alliance's ad agency, GSD&M, were on hand to discuss the controversial "It's Your Radio" campaign, and to look for input for the next flight of spots.  This is where the "Upgrade" concept was conceptualized, and most participants concurred that it's an improvement over "Discover It."

My sense of this session - which I suggested in a blog last December - was that it was a start, but something that should have occurred a year or more ago.  There are great minds in this business, and if the HD Alliance is to successfully manage this difficult project, it's going to need creativity, input, and help from more than just the usual suspects.

That's why I got excited when I received a new HD Radio commercial campaign in my email last week.  It didn't come from the Alliance nor was it dreamed up by a big agency or even by a committee of esteemed radio broadcasters.  Instead, it came out of the production studio of Bonneville/St. Louis.  Cooked up by commercial production director, Brian Hartmann, it's clearly an improvement over the original campaign because it positions HD Radio as a positive upgrade.  Instead of a replacement for your old tired radio, HD Radio is presented as a complement to AM/FM.  You can check out one of Brian's spots here:

Click Here To Dowload The MP3 File

How many other Brian Hartmanns are out there, eager, ready and willing to make HD Radio work?  How many programmers at the local level have exciting ideas about how to program HD2 channels that might just sell some radios?  At the "Idea Summit," we heard from CBS' Dave Robbins talking about his company's HD2 plans.  Energized by Dan Mason's initiative to do something breakthrough with HD2 channels, the company is embarking on several new concepts - including Amp (a channel for pre-teen girls).

The "Idea Summit" was a start, but if HD Radio is to become viable, the Alliance and its members need to look no further than some of the talented people inside AM and FM stations who are teeming with ideas, innovations, and content that could lead to success.  There needs to be an atmosphere of innovation, experimentation, and entrepreneurship that is so often missing from broadcast radio today.

Thanks to Brian Hartmann, who took the initiative by sending his idea to iBiquity, and getting the ball rolling.  It's a start.

"It Ain't The Meat...

...It's The Motion."  OK, maybe I'm one of the few who remembers that song from Maria Maldaur from the early '70s.  But as the CES is the big story of the week, those lyrics ring true.  Of course, the CES is all about the newest gadgets...or is it?

The more you talk to key players in the media/technology field, the more it continues to come back to software...content...programming...yes, the motion.  It's not just about the toys - it's about what you do with them.

And that's the theme we're hearing again and again out of CES.  In a recent LA Times piece, Beth Comstock, NBC Universal's president of integrated media, notes: "You can't talk about great tech without great content.  That's what led us to this year saying we need to have a presence.  We want to be in the middle of all these conversations."

Jonathan Shambroom, a senior vice president at Crackle, Inc. (an online video site acquired by Sony in '06) underscores that point:  "For a long time, the line between content and hardware has been blurring.  Traditionally, CES has been about hardware.  Now content is really driving a lot of the technology."

And it dovetails into the HD Radio challenge.  Yes, the hardware offerings are clearly proliferating and becoming more compelling.  But is broadcast radio stepping up with the content that will truly drive equipment sales?

Check out the latest happenings from the CES with Engadget & CNET.

Lessons From The HD2 Highway

Note from Fred: Today's posting is a guest entry from RIFF2 Program Director Mark Pennington.  It's a veritable "6-pack" (Hey, we're in Detroit) of ideas about how radio can better approach the programming and strategic planning that ought to be a part of HD Radio.  We have been critical of the lack of content and imagination on the vast majority of HD2 stations in this blog.  Our belief is that few HD Radios will be sold until great content drives interest which will, in turn, drive sales.  Clever ad campaigns, better store placement, deals with automakers, and improved hardware are all well and good, but without great content, HD Radio won't work.  To date, the results speak for themselves.  With that in mind, think about Mark's great advice about how to do HD2 right, from the HD2 station recently honored by the NAB.

1. Pick your format wisely.  Make sure you have the right people to accomplish your objective.  If you work for an Oldies station, for example, you might not have the people or talent in the building to pull off an alternative station.

2. Experiment, experiment, experiment.  It’s a radio programmer’s dream - a station without format restrictions, ratings or revenue to worry about.  Take advantage while you can.  Try something new, if it doesn’t work, tweak it.  For example, we originally included Hip-Hop in the RIFF2 mix.  After listening and getting audience feedback, it didn't work, so we scaled it back.

3. Turn over some rocks when trying to find talent.  Just because that intern in the hall doesn’t have a deep broadcasting voice, doesn’t mean he can’t be good on the air.  People are becoming accustomed to hearing content created by non-broadcasters... podcasts, video blogs, etc.  It’s become more about the content then ever.  On our staff, we have Justin and Jeremy, two guys from the promotion department who love video games.  So we created a 2-hour video game around them, part of what makes RIFF2 special.

4. Tap into an internship program or local broadcasting school.  Find people who are hungry and passionate.  You will be pleasantly surprised if you take the time to work with them.  HD Radio has a chance to become the new “Farm System,” which is vital for the overall health of our industry…

5. Listen to your people.  Just because you have been doing this for a while, doesn’t mean you know everything.  Many of our ideas have come from the staff.  We get together and talk about promotional stuff, music, etc.  A prime example is the RIFF Music Awards campaign we are doing right now.  The idea grew from a discussion about how corporate and un-cool the other music awards have become around town.  Thousands of people have cast their votes for our awards on an HD2 station!

6. Have Fun! You have to have the right attitude and passion to make this work.  If you treat this like a burden or one more thing that you have to do without getting paid more, the results are predictable.  Have fun, be creative, enjoy the freedom, be a music fan again.  In that spirit, I have done a holiday dinner with just the RIFF2 staff every year.  We tend to forget how far a nice meal goes when you are a broke, starving broadcaster.  I did the same thing when we won the NAB award.  We made up plaques for everyone (costing us next to nothing), but you would think that we just gave them a Grammy Award.

Fred postscript:  When you read over Mark's ideas for building a great HD2 station, perhaps you thought this was pretty good advice for creating a successful HD1 station.  Indeed, it is.

The Nerve

We certainly touched a nerve with our blog entry on 12/20 about the new HD Radio campaign.  Along with Dave Martin, we expressed the opinion that the new agency spots may not be congruent with what broadcasters expect from the Alliance.  In our view, the campaign throws AM/FM Radio under the bus in order to promote HD, in much the same way that the Mac guy makes fun of the PC guy.  In the case of the HD Radio campaign, however, these commercials strike us as much less effective, and needlessly parody AM/FM Radio.

Well, during a traditionally slow week, we set a record for blog traffic - not just on the day in question, but for the entire week.  And the blog generated 28 comments - more posts than we get in a typical month. (OK, two of them were mine.)

So, what does this tell us about the campaign specifically, and HD Radio in general?  If you read through the comments, there is a lot of emotion about HD Radio and the way it has rolled out - most of it negative.  And also, from sifting through the many emails I received that were not for publication, I get the sense there's a growing schism between many CEOs and rank-and-file broadcasters about how HD Radio is being promoted, marketed, and even approached.

My takeaway on this situation is that it's time for a larger industry dialogue about HD Radio.  An assessment needs to be done to honestly determine what's working, what's failing, and where to go from here.  There are too many passionate broadcasters who are upset, frustrated, and disillusioned by what has transpired.  On the other hand, I get the feeling that Peter Ferrara of the Alliance also cares very much about this initiative and making it work.

Perhaps it's time for the Alliance to open its doors and its mind to some of the creative, intelligent, and knowledgeable radio workforce.  Let's be honest about HD Radio's progress report, and make a resolution for 2008 that real progress needs to be made.

HD Radio's New Campaign

I would love to see HD Radio work.  I really would.

But in order to "break" a new medium/gadget in this new millennium, it's going to take clever tactics, brilliant strategy, and on-target execution.  These are qualities that have been in short supply since the Alliance was formed.  Another Christmas comes and goes, and the celebration over a half million radios sold is about as meaningless as a big defensive lineman celebrating after a sack in a game his team is losing by five touchdowns. 

And the newest campaign that evidently launches on Alliance stations on New Year's Eve - and set to run for all of first quarter - stunned me.  You can go to the HD Radio Alliance web page, and check it out for yourself.   Just click "Commercials" from the home page, scroll down to "Click On Your Contract Name" and sample the 10 different spots they have posted.  Or, if you're an Alliance station, walk down to your Traffic department and take a listen.

In a sort of snarky approach, the campaign features a humanized radio talking to his owner about why HD Radio product is so attractive and not worth the bother.  But in the process, traditional radio is repositioned as old-fashioned, repetitive, and lame. 

Why does the Alliance feel they have to market HD Radio by selling against AM/FM Radio?  (Of course, those are the same stations that are expected to invest millions of dollars of their precious air time running these commercials.)  On top of that, it's questionable whether this campaign clearly extols the benefits of HD Radio, especially to those who are already confused.  You have to hear these commercials a few times before you really get a basic understanding of what they're trying to accomplish, while they throw AM/FM Radio under the bus.

Why isn't HD Radio positioning against the subscription model of satellite radio or the 99 cents a song iPod?  That would make sense because HD Radio could potentially be postioning its variety and free attributes.  Instead, like everyone else these days, these ads take shots at traditional AM/FM broadcast radio.  If I heard David Rehr's "2020" initiative correctly, I thought it was all about combatting trash talking radio, and being proud of what the medium has to offer.

Hopefully, Alliance stations will hear these commercials, just say "no," and go with last year's campaign.  Or perhaps they can do better on their own. 

Listen to them yourself and tell me I'm wrong. 

Why Didn't The HD Alliance Think Of That?

We saw it loud and clear in this year's Jacobs Media Tech Poll III.  Most listeners simply haven't actually heard HD Radio and/or don't know anyone who owns one.  Unlike XM and Sirius, available through car rental companies, it is actually difficult to sample HD Radio without going into an electronics store.  And consumers don't typically buy something unless they know someone who owns one and/or they've experienced it themselves.

So let's suspend the idea of whether HD2 content is compelling enough to sell radios, and just focus for a moment on exposing the product to consumers.

You hit 'em where they live.  And these days, it's shopping malls.  XM Canada has the right idea, working with a company called the Pop Up Retail Group.  The latter is a Toronto-based company that sets up kiosks in shopping centers so that consumers can sample XM while they're out shopping.

At this juncture for HD Radio (content aside, of course), it's about sampling.  And a billboard isn't going to make you run out and buy a product.  Checking it out for yourself at a mall?  Priceless.

Get The Led Out

Another day, and another "big" satellite radio announcement.  This time, it's XM Led, a channel devoted to Zeppelin that will be on the air through the beginning of May.  The press release sounds tasty, as the channel will contain many cool Led Zeppelin features.

So why does broadcast radio simply stand by and allow satellite radio to once again one-up everyone else by setting up these dedicated channels?

Why wouldn't the HD Alliance or even broadcast companies devote HD2 channels to various artists and groups (like XM and Sirius do) depending on concert tours and other events?  In the past year on the Rock side, it would have made all the sense in the world to devote channels to the Police, Springsteen, and now Zeppelin.  Or maybe even a "Summer of Love" channel, dedicated to celebrating all things psychedelic from 40 years ago.

These are the types of basic, simple, timely, and topical programming ventures that could generate some much-needed buzz for HD Radio.  No one is going to devote media coverage for an HD2 "80s Channel," but one that is all things Zeppelin could have resonated in a big way.

If HD Radio has a prayer of working, it won't be about selling radios - it will be about creating and producing content that consumers want or that can stir their imaginations, and get them to wonder what it would be like to have all those extra channels.

If we're serious about making HD Radio a success, it is truly time to "Get The Led Out."

Calling All Satellites

Much has already been written about these new satellite radio ratings numbers released by Arbitron from the Spring '07 survey.  Some are questioning the accuracy of the data, suggesting that listening levels are understated, given the challenging task of recording channel numbers from XM and/or Sirius stations, and other methodological aspects.  I will leave this discussion to the ratings research mavens to haggle over, but the thrust of these numbers and their implications are obvious.

As we have been pointing out over the past couple of years, satellite radio is an issue for commercial radio operators, but there are other more encompassing threats that challenge traditional listening habits.  Mobile phones, iPods, and the notion of CVC - control, variety, choice - are issues that broadcasters will grapple with moving forward.

In fact, our most recent Tech Poll, conducted earlier this year, suggested that satellite radio's growth is stalling out, and this may be accentuated by this long waiting period that XM and Sirius are enduring as the merger question is being decided.  Clearly, the union of the two services, and subsequent pricing adjustments and packaging could make satellite radio a larger factor in 2008 and beyond.  But for now, XM and Sirius emerge as niche players, and satellite radio is rapidly becoming a medium that had potential but is not having the promised impact.

Consider that Howard Stern's reported cume audience is in the 1.2 million range.  In a good book at WXRK, WYSP, and WBCN, he easily topped those numbers.  Clearly, he is now broadcasting on a much smaller stage, which is one of the reasons why you just don't hear people say "Did you hear what Howard said this morning?"

It is also of note that many of the big names that XM and Sirius threw millions of dollars at are delivering at the levels of Des Moines FM stations - or lower.  Again, even if these ratings are 25% lower than "reality," satellite radio's chieftains have to be calculating the ROI on stars like Martha Stewart, Oprah, and other big name celebrities.  While terrestrial broadcasters may not be spending enough to attract and nurture household names, satellite radio's "drunken sailor" spending has to be questioned at some point. In XM's recent release of its third quarter financials, losses have widened from nearly $84 million to more than $145 million.  Can you imagine a commercial broadcaster having to continue to explain this level of failure to company shareholders?

As I suggested in an Inside Radio piece, the ratings results of the hundreds of satellite radio channels could serve as a template or primer for traditional broadcasters, seeking compelling programming for HD2 channels.  While it's true that the "Long Tail" effect of listeners seeking cool, niche programming is more definitely in play in these ratings, it's also a fact that the more mass appeal channels attract the most listeners.  Maybe Paul Drew and Bill Drake are somewhere laughing at this "revelation," because playing the hits has always attracted the most listeners - in whatever medium you choose.  Perhaps satellite radio's niche channels bring in a wide diverse audience of interested subscribers, but how can executives rationalize these incredible expenses in order to grow new signups?

Radio Schmadio

Many of you probably saw the story recently about how a new MediaVest report no longer groups "radio" as a discrete medium.  Instead, it's now a part of a larger category known as "audio."  Included under this new umbrella label are satellite radio, online radio, mobile content, iPods, mp3 players, and even television.

The good news for radio, according to the report, is that AM/FM radio still is a favorite audio-based medium for four in ten consumers, and that there continues to be wide gender appeal.  As TNS Media Intelligence President-CEO Steven Fredericks notes, traditional radio "remains one of the most used and highly valued media in the country."

But the new reality is their finding that "content is defined not by its old media name, but by its core property:  text, video, and audio.  All content, clarified and freed, can be distributed via any converged technology."

As a result, MediaVest's approach to audio planning is described as an industry movement that considers content over distribution outlet.  And that's something that is a tough pill for many radio veterans to get their heads around.  The fact that terrestrial radio is free, wireless, and everywhere is all well and good.  But if the content's not there, it just doesn't matter.

Isn't that a big part of the HD Radio story?  Its success won't depend on whether Radio Shack carries the radio, but whether its "stations between the stations" are compelling enough to drive interest and sales.

A couple of years back, Jon Stewart was asked about how consumers would access his show in the future.  His response:  "We make the doughnuts; we don't drive the truck."

Precisely.  All the more reason why terrestrial radio needs to start cranking out better donuts.