Beyond Frequency

Lessons From Paul Harvey

There is nothing that I can write here about Paul Harvey's life, influence, intelligence and impact that will not be written by those that knew him well - either in person or through the radio.  I will be sure to pass on those articles and tributes that do him justice.

I merely wanted to write a quick note that I hope we can find in the digital age the soul that Mr. Harvey embodied over his 75 year career in radio.  By soul I mean the honesty with which he delivered both the news and his own commentary.  I refer to the passion with which he presented all views in a voice that was not just good for the country because it had an amazing audio quality for radio, but because it represented a mind that relied both on inherent intelligence & insight as well as the pulse of the nation.

I was able to listen to Mr. Harvey for only a fraction of his career, but I can honestly say that it impacted my life, leading me to a professional career that now attempts to bridge multiple media outlets with a common theme - transparency, honesty, passion, truthfulness.  Don't get me wrong, I did not agree with him all of the time, but I admired the method of his delivery.  Regardless of the medium, those values attract listeners, readers and viewers and, more importantly, inspire all of us to pass them on to others.

I encourage all those who are not familiar with Paul Harvey to take a few minutes and listen to one of his broadcasts.  I know that it will not have the impact on everyone as he had on me over the years, but at the very least he is a key part of our nation's zeitgeist and worthy of your time.

And from that you can find out the "Rest of the story"

Music Tests Should Be Abandoned

Sean Ross, author of the Infinte Dial and Ross On Radio and a member of the well-respected Edison Research team, often has some very insightful information to share with the music and larger entertainment community. He has presented new technologies and, in many cases, shows how the traditional radio industry can benefit from them.

Unfortunately, his most recent post, "What To Do When You Can't Do A Music Test", is based on a methodology that the radio industry should just completely abandon, music tests.  In the traditional music test, a station will hire a firm to call listeners, play them pieces of a song and log their feedback.

It is an expensive process, reaches only a small percentage of listeners, is limited in scope in terms of the breadth of music and, despite the feedback from listeners, is really artificial in terms of identifying music that will move fans to listen and be engaged.

The range of consumer-centric services is VERY long, well-reported by great thinkers like Mark Ramsey and Sean Ross himself, but I have been disappointed that they have not been employed to replace this once per year or once per season callout research.

Music moves fast, new songs constantly appear and new artists generate fans without radio at all so to "learn" about new music and its impact on listeners in a given market only once per year is just unbelievable to me.  Services from Twitter to Blip.FM, HypeMachine to GoogleTrends can provide near real-time insight about new music.

The key difference is the intelligence comes from the collective activity of millions of music lovers, not the random few who happened to be home and answered their phone.

Even The Smartest Companies Have Trouble Fighting Interactive Inertia

After much lauded entries into traditional media outlets radio and newspaper, Google has now decided to exit both.  At the risk of trying to think inside Google, I do not view these exits as an inherent strike against those media, but a strike against the lack of mobility and flexibility of those media in a swiftly changing world.

Google exists on targeting, accountability and consumer pull where radio and newspapers have been slow to move with their audiences in that direction.  Hopefully the exit of Google is a catalyst for a complete upheaval of the models...not a revision, not a slight change, a complete upheaval of the products.

Google Spurns Radio Ads; Will Develop AdSense For Streaming Audio Instead

By David Kaplan - Thu 12 Feb 2009 01:54 PM PST

Last month Google (NSDQ: GOOG) gave up on serving newspaper ads; now the search giant is calling the radio business quits. In a post on Google’s blog, the company will exit the broadcast radio business and instead focus on streaming audio. The Google Audio Ads and AdSense for Audio products will be phased out; Google also plans to sell the Google Radio Automation business, the software that automates broadcast radio programming. Advertisers will still to be able to use Google Audio Ads until May 31. Google didn’t offer a specific reason for its decision to abandon radio ads. But even the search giant has been affected by the economic downturn and radio, like newspapers, have been struggling mightily. As UBS Equities analyst Matthieu Coppet stated in his revised media ad spend report yesterday,  radio ad spend is expected to fall 8 percent this year.

Google got into the radio business in January 2006, when it bought dMarc Broadcasting, a digital solutions provider for radio. The deal was for $102 million cash consideration with earn-out targets that, at the time, were valued at up to $1.136 billion. The company’s founders, Chad and Ryan Steelberg, left Google a year after the purchase offer was made.

At least one radio ad sales company is welcoming Google’s entry into the streaming audio space. In an email exchange, Doug Perlson, CEO of CBS-backed streaming media ad firm TargetSpot, told us, “Having Google introduce their million-plus advertisers to ... the highly targeted streaming audio ad market further validates its value. Google will have a positive impact to the entire internet radio community.  We welcome their entry into the space.”

Top Ad Categories And Brands In January 2009

With the economy as it is, the top categories and brands that are advertising on radio should not come as much of a surprise.  

The National Association of Realtors struggle to keep homeowners confident and prices from plummeting further while Operation Hope seeks to eradicate poverty, which is a tough mission when more people are losing their jobs and entering it.

Retailers like WalMart and Kohl's, which represent lower cost options, continue to gain customers and with a tax refund representing cash infusion potential, Turbo Tax and H&R Block, along with others in the Tax category have increased their presence.

The category that is noticeably absent from the top 10 is Automotive.  Neither manufacturers nor dealers are spending as much these days as their industry figures out what it needs to look like and how it will retain jobs going forward.

Top Brands Advertised On Radio - Week of 1-26-09

Hopeful That Media Fragmentation Changes Broadcast Music Model

The social media blog Mashable just posted a head-to-head comparison of interactive radio services Slacker and Last.FM. 

They compare Playlist Creation, Social Features, Mobile Apps and "Music Extras".  It is a very interesting comparison which I leave to you to evaluate and decide for yourself who wins.

The most interesting point to me is not necessarily any of the individual points of comparison, which can always be debated ad nauseum, but the fact that the comparison took place at all and, really, represents only a small portion of the interactive music and radio landscape that exists and that is coming.

The combination of personal playlists, mobile access to streams and music micro-blogging via Blip or Twitter, to name a few, are very quickly moving into the area that was once the domain of radio - local communication.  If I can both tell you what songs I like and lifestream (Facebook, Twitter, Friendfeed, etc.) things that occur in my neighborhood, then you have a sense of the local context and gain local information.

Do I think such niche, personal music and information streams would completely replace radio? No. 

But I do think the form of the content of 'radio' must fundamentally change to incorporate those social tools or risk losing the audience to continued fragmentation.

This business reality, to me, becomes even more relevant in light of the re-development of the performance rights debate for broadcast radio.  If one class of musicians wants to charge for this medium that is, of course, their right but I think in the end; after the stations look at their options, the result will not be much, if any, additional revenue for the artists or major labels. 

Instead, I believe you will see a tremendous increase in independent label and artist songs who will freely give music to take advantage of the wide promotional reach of broadcast while focusing on niche, direct-to-fan interactive tools to generate revenue based on that promotional value. The multitude of music discovery options means that it is easier for MDs, PDs and DJs to find high quality music to play. 

In addition, the fact that social media tools can provide direct, real-time consumer feedback means that stations can base their playlists on the real, proven desires of the music fans in their market, which is increasingly not solely major label artists.  Economic reality and the combination of dynamic & passive listener input will trump the need for heavily marketed names that come with a price tag

The fact is that media fragmentation has already occurred and is accelerating.  The platforms that already reach millions of listeners or viewers must ultimately fragment along with it to ensure they can have the same, or similar, personal relationship with the users that we have all come to expect.  

But fragmentation does not mean the elimination of previous outlets.  While we all consume music in new ways, broadcast media like radio will continue to reach millions cost-effectively, but the revenue models both for the content owners and stations will need to adapt to embrace the new competition.