JacoBlog - Jacobs Media's Blog

Shuffling The Deck

As we become more attuned to analyzing PPM numbers, it's looking more and more that well-branded and well-positioned Classic Rock stations should do very well in a metered world.  Of course, many operators of Classic Rock stations have experienced two decades of pretty consistent success, playing the best rock from the '60s, '70s, and '80s.

But there are some stations that do an especially good job of repackaging the music to create memorable special programming.  I call this "shuffling the deck" because it involves playing many of the same songs but in a different format.  The now-famous "Classic Rock A-to-Z" is a good example, as is the ubiquitous "Top 500 Countdown," typically scheduled over Memorial Day Weekends.

One station that always seems to come up with clever specials is Entercom's Eagle in Sacramento.  Curtiss Johnson, Brian Lopez, and their veteran staff have become experts at melding Classic Rock with a little old school theater of the mind.  This week, they're taking another "Classic Rock Road Trip," cruising across the country (forget those high gas prices) to feature music from many different cities and towns.

Maybe this all sounds simple, but the reality of putting together something like this (and doing it well) is that it takes several staff meetings and brainstorms, storyboards, show/prep scripts for each state and city on the tour, and a great bit of writing and production that makes "Classic Rock Road Trip" come alive.  The feature generates a huge audience reaction, fueled by the fact that many Eagle listeners moved to Sacramento from somewhere else.

My favorite Eagle stunt, however, is "Woodsquawk," a virtual/fantasy music festival that is always entertaining, colorful, and enhanced by great personalities like Bob Keller, Tom Nakashima, Charlie Thomas, Kat Maudru, and even syndicated hosts, Mark & Brian.

Download an Mp3 Of The "Woodsquawk" Aircheck

If you ever wonder about the value of having knowledgeable, respected local jocks, look no further than Entercom Sacramento.

"Online Is The New Primetime"

Today's posting title is a quote from Gian Fulgoni, chairman of comScore, and it cleverly sums up how the Internet now exceeds television during the daytime hours.  In fact, a recent New York Times article actually asked the question, "What is primetime?"  That's because 6,000,000 May sweeps viewers have disappeared since last year.

The culprit?  The Control-Variety-Choice architecture of TiVos/DVRs and the Internet, especially due to the growth of network television sites that offer shows like The Office and Lost whenever you want to see it.

We saw this in our Tech Poll IV in a new question that revealed that four of every ten Rockers now have a TiVo or DVR.  The implications of this are obvious if you're in the TV business.  But what if you're in radio?

At what point will "morning drive" not hold its traditional lead over all other dayparts (aside from PPM)?  When will radio have a podcasting model that makes it convenient for fans of morning shows to be able to easily time-shift their listening?  (And keep in mind that if a PPM respondent listens to a podcast within 7 days of its original airdate, it "counts" in the ratings.)

Last week, we blogged about Hulu, and how radio has some of the same time-shifting potential.  As we noted, NPR understands the model only too well.  They average 12 million downloads a month and that's more than 200 million total downloads since they started their podcast program in August 2005.  And of course, that doesn't cover other public broadcasting networks and producers, or the many local public stations that provide podcasts of their content.  The graphic below shows the most downloaded podcasts on iTunes.  Look how public radio dominates:

And the sponsorship dollars keep rolling in.  Another finding from the Tech Poll is that two-thirds of those who have downloaded a podcast are very or somewhat willing to sit through a commercial as the price of admission.

Maybe instead of calling it time-shifting, we ought to start thinking of it as "dollar-shifting."

The Meters Are Coming! The Meters Are Coming!

Today's Arbitron PPM webinar produced another helpful update about how the new service is tracking, along with a strong contribution from CBS Radio CEO Dan Mason, talking about PPM, accreditation, and posting.

The slide that jumped out at me covers new markets coming online - and soon.  If you're programming, managing, or jocking in one of the towns on this slide, PPM will be here before you know it.  As I am fond of saying in presentations, "PPM changes everything, and PPM changes nothing."  While our entire system of measurement will change in a big, unprecedented way, the elements that make great stations, outstanding brands, and compelling content are still fundamentally the same.

Are you ready for PPM?  Jacobs Media clients should check in with us, as we have a great presentation that functions like a Lamaze class for "expectant PPM markets."  You have to get your head around the changes, and then begin to start preparing for the adjustment.  For those of you who aren't clients, there are great resources on Arbitron's website, including a strong FAQ piece that is worth the read.

Oprah "Gets" PPM

Thanks to our Eric Holmes for bringing this to our attention.  It's all about Oprah and her keen understanding of how to keep moving her audience from show to show.  A visit to her website on April 30th showed the following:

Oprah and her team understand the importance of thinking big, drawing attention to what she has on today, but also keeping a focus on what's coming up on the show tomorrow, and later in the week. 

And of course, she doesn't just give you any tease for David Blaine's appearance ("Special guest, stuntman extraordinaire David Blaine on the next Oprah").  No, Oprah is about show biz.  That's why she provides a powerful tease (and a video to support it).

How many stations don't include information about what they're airing TODAY (tomorrow, or later in the week) on their websites?  Driving listeners to the station today, and giving them an attractive look at what's coming up is all part of the strategy of using websites as a tactical device to optimize PPM results.  (It would be pretty effective with diaries, too.)

As PPM causes stations to rethink the way they promote themselves, website content is just as important as what's on the air.  Where's the "forwarding" component on your website?  What web content stimulates site visitors to listen to your station?

Eliot Spitzer Gives Back to Radio

Many have complained about Eliot Spitzer's vendetta against radio.  Today on the Arbitron PPM webinar, it was revealed that the Spitzer news translated into considerably higher ratings for both New York City all-news stations.  The Karma Train does it again.

Follow the Money

Today we have a guest post from Paul Jacobs who offers his insight on how radio needs to invest in solutions to reach younger consumers:

A recent article in The Detroit News about how the automotive industry is rapidly moving away from traditional media toward digital solutions to reach younger consumers, who they place a high value on, generated the following quotes:

"We are always looking for digital extension or a live event to complement our advertising." - General Motors spokesperson

"Buzz is created when people are talking about an event, or a message gets spread all over YouTube." - Michigan State University advertising professor

"Digital marketing opens up new possibilities for building ongoing customer relationships." - Chrysler's marketing chief

If that wasn't enough, they showed this chart:

It's time to stop all of the hand-wringing about PPM, declining revenue, satellite radio, and all of the other excuses.  Sure, these are problems, but the solutions are right in front of our faces.  Who does event marketing better than radio?  And what medium lends itself best to digital solutions?

It's time to invest in solutions.  Follow the money.  It hasn't disappeared, it's just moved.  And radio needs to move along with it.  Quickly.

You Can Take It With You

Kudos to RAB CEO Jeff Haley for underscoring the crying need for broadcast radio to once again become the "anywhere" medium.  As Haley notes, "The goal is to have an FM radio in every PDA and cellphone."  This picks up where David Rehr's "2020" speech at last year's NAB left off.

The focus groups we did for Arbitron back in '05 among 18-34s produced that "Oh wow" moment when respondents after respondent told us that radio is tethered to cars and nightstands, while you can take iPods anywhere.  We saw even more evidence of this in last year's Arbitron "Bedroom Project," which emphasized radio's growing portability problem.  And of course, last year's Jacobs Tech Poll provided us with the evidence that the one feature that Apple iPod owners would love in their next mp3 player is an FM radio.  Tech Poll IV goes into the field later this month, and we're expecting to see more of the same.

Our industry may be turning an important corner, as radio's leadership is now lining up goals that must be achieved moving forward in order to ensure the medium's survival and growth.  While radio has a myriad of problems to combat, this issue of "location, location, location" is paramount in its place on the media landscape.

Rock Story

Today, it's a guest blog from our client, Virgil Thompson, VP/GM of the legendary KISS in San Antonio.  It's a memo that Virgil wrote to his sales staff last week, and we thought you'd find it interesting.  We couldn't have said it better.

Last Week Emmis flipped their jazz station to “WRXP The New York Rock Experience.”  It is a very broad mix and features a variety of genres.  Some of these styles have been a part of KISS since we returned to Rock 16 years ago — listen to the audio of the flip and you’ll hear what I mean.  Although much of the music is not part of KISS — that’s not the purpose for this note.

One reason I’m sending you this information is because it is another market (the biggest by population — LA leads in revenue) to have a major station switch TO rock.  This further validates what we’ve experienced for years in San Antonio — the rock audience, while being the most fragmented, is much larger than first thought.  The PPM indicates the CUME of rock stations (as well as AC and Country) is much, much larger when compared to the diary methodology.

Of course the diary has been pretty good to KISS over the years.  The PPM will be as well.  The second reason I’m sending you this info is that it validates, in yet another high profile market, how desirable the rock audience is — we’ve fought for this for decades and I hope the bias never completely goes away (it won’t), but it is important for us to know how “undeniable” this issue has become in our industry.

As markets get closer and closer to PPM rollouts, we will see more stations changing to various forms of rock.  This is good news for “terrestrial” radio and may even bring back some folks to radio who may have become disenfranchised with the limited rock choices in some markets.

PPM's Been Berry Berry Good To Me

You may remember Garrett Morris' "Chico Escuela" character on the original Saturday Night Live shows, exhorting the benefits of baseball.  Well, now that the Philadelphia Phillies have signed up for custom PPM reports, they will be pretty happy, too.

As we've already seen in various presentations, PPM rewards standout programming.  Of course, this includes sporting events, especially individual baseball or football games - which rarely show up in the diary.  And that's probably a big reason why the Phillies are so interested in seeing how their games score in PPM.  How much higher will the numbers be when they play the Mets, a game goes into extra innings, day games versus night games, etc.?  Based on last season's PPM numbers, they are confident that if they field a reasonably good team, the ratings will be very solid.

I'm including a couple of Arbitron slides here that illustrate the "sports effect" in PPM, for both the Phillies and Eagles.

The one thing we do know is that PPM is a quantum leap over the diary in measuring all these things, and sports ratings will most definitely be more robust with electronic measurement.  And so knowing what we know, it would sure make sense for Radio to start signing more long-term deals with their local sports franchises before PPM comes to town.

Crossroads

In early '08, you can clearly see the profound conflicts that are facing our business.  To a great degree, we're at a crossroads, as cost cutting and garnering ratings clash with brand building and investment.

Consider this: PPM will grow and expand in more markets this year, and programmers will be faced with the task of harnessing talk and other non-music content that leads to tune-out.  There's no question that Arbitron's meters are far less forgiving than a listener's memory in the diary system.  Mark Ramsey spoke about this phenomenon - "Mic Flight" - last year at the NAB.  You can graphically see what happens when jocks run off at the mic, especially on stations where talk is either not expected or not especially welcome.  So, conventional wisdom says, shut up, play hits - in other words, bland wins.

And then there're the economic realities, getting worse by the month.  Airstaffers are being fired, PDs are being consolidated, research and marketing dollars are becoming endangered.  A sign of the times, as Tom Taylor reports, is that more and more radio operators are voicetracking 7 to midnight in an effort to save money.  Or they're turning to syndicated shows at night in order to keep expenses down.  And in the process, there are fewer personalities being developed for the future.  The only success stories on voicetracked nights are on the bottom line, because listeners increasingly understand that when stations put very little into the product, why should they invest their time to tune in?

On the other hand, there's the pressure to build great brands in order to compete with the growing number of options available to consumers.  As Connoisseur's Jeff Warshaw points out (also in Tom's trade), most of radio's problems are of the self-inflicted variety: "We did it to ourselves.  People consolidated, borrowed too much, paid too much, cut training, cut innovations, and they're also cutting rates.  When a car dealer is buying advertising and he can buy wonderful stations for cheap rates?  Well, that's why the market is shrinking."

As WiMax makes it way into cars, and AM/FM Radio is forced to compete against everything else on the Internet, our brands and local identity will be our lifeblood.  Of course, that's assuming we still have viable brands, strong personalities, and a local presence left.  Most broadcasters have worked their entire lives to build great radio stations, but in the past decade, many heritage call letters have eroded into mere shadows of their former selves.  No longer do people define themselves by the radio station they listen to, hence the lack of bumper stickers on Camrys and Malibus.

So, what's it going to be?  Slash expenses, shut up, and save money.  Or go against the tide of fear and panic, and rebuild great stations, grow and nurture personalities, build viable roots into the local community, and invest in radio's future.  No one said it was going to be easy.