Radio's Looming Crisis Is Not Digital
Written Sep. 24, 2009 by Tom Webster in Terrestrial Radio with 22 Comments
This is a long post, but I hope you'll indulge me and read it through, because I hope you'll agree that the issue is too important to treat lightly.
I just sat through a panel comprising some of the top programming executives in radio at the NAB Radio Show in Philadelphia (in fact, it ended about an hour ago, which tells you how passionate I really am about this topic.) During this session, programming leaders from companies like Clear Channel, Emmis, Saga and Radio One talked about all of the ways they are using social media, streaming, mobile applications and other digital tools to grow radio and engage audience. If you came to the session wondering if today's radio corporations "get" digital, you got your answer--they do.
And yet, there was something tremendously disappointing about this panel--in particular, how the panelists responded to some of the audience's questions about growing and nurturing talent in an industry that is relying increasingly on syndication, voice-tracking, and other "right-sizing" measures. The response to one question struck a particularly sour note--how do we nurture our "farm system" when so many of the potential jobs for newcomers have been eliminated and automated?
The response from one panelist was that there continues to be a "farm system": small and medium markets. Talent can still work their way up the system in smaller markets--only, the progression is now from morning show in small market "a" to morning show in medium market "b" (and not from overnights in market "a" to drive time in market "a.") He then gave a sports analogy--when a rookie is drafted in baseball, they don't start out making millions in the big leagues, they "pay their dues" in single A, double A and so on. The big market jobs are there for talented people that "pay their dues in the minors" before they make the big leagues.
Full disclosure: I despise sports analogies in business. I find them not only simplistic, but generally irrelevant. In this case, trotting out this analogy revealed quite clearly that the biggest problem in broadcast radio is not their digital strategy, but their HR strategy. Work has changed dramatically in the past 10 years, and the workplace of today has little in common with the workplace of the previous decade. I sit on the Alumni Board of the business school from which I got my MBA, and from an admissions and retention perspective, the world of work has changed irrevocably. Where MBA programs used to get mid-level managers from big companies in droves, those big companies and those mid-level managerial positions have disappeared. The potential student body for our program has become the thousands of young entrepreneurs in our area that the Internet revolution has created, and our challenge is no longer to give an assistant manager the sheepskin they need to be a manager--it's to keep these thousands of entrepreneurs in business and improve the economic climate of our region.
Into this new world of work comes today's talented young creative professional. They have the tools to create their own future, and they are using them, not waiting around for their "shot." Attracting young talent has to be the primary focus for the radio industry today--there simply are not enough young people in the business for it to be sustainably competitive in the medium term. One of the panelists reiterated the importance of their digital strategy, and that young talent will think radio is "cool" when they are able to use all of the digital tools to make it so. This is the wrong end of the funnel. Today's web-savvy young creatives already know how to use the tools, and most of them are free. They already have that knowledge, and they are already using it. The solution is not to make a bunch of tools and hope young creatives are attracted to the business to use them--it's to hire the best young creatives now and tap into the knowledge they already have.
In one breath, a panelist in today's session proclaimed that "we need to have a strong digital strategy" to attract young talent, but then added "I don't know how we are going to pay them." THAT is the problem, in a nutshell, and all the Twittering in the world won't really address it.
Radio needs two basic types of professionals: creative talent (for on-air, programming and promotions) and business talent (the quants and marketing analysts that will blend science into the art). In the case of the latter, Radio has never done a good job of attracting the best talent. I've noted before in this space that when I finished my undergraduate degree, I had three choices: I could go to graduate school, I could take a high-paying job with one of the McKinsey/Andersen/PWC-esque companies recruiting on campus, or I could get Carlos and the Chicken's coffee for two years in the hopes of getting an overnight shift someday. Guess which one I didn't choose. Attracting the best minds in marketing, analysis and finance is not a matter of working people from Kaline to Moline and asking them to tough it out--it's attracting the best people NOW and creating attractive positions, favorable working conditions, and humane career paths that don't involve uprooting families every 18 months.
For creatives, things have changed dramatically. There was once a time when we could expect creative talent to gravitate to radio, tough it out for a decade or so, and finally crack the big time. Today, however, all the most creative people need is a Mac and a mic and they already have the same potential access to a digital audience that we do, without all of the restrictions of corporate broadcasting today. The brightest young talent today is more entrepreneurial, and has the means to syndicate themselves anytime they want--and do things their way. Maybe they will fail, maybe not--but they can do it on their terms, and that is increasingly important to today's potential young talent. If they are going to "pay their dues" for little money, they are more willing to do it on their own than ever before.
This is a long post, and it's long because I'm passionate about this and alarmed by broadcast radio's response to date. Is a digital strategy important? You betcha. But the secret to all the options that young web-savvy talent have before them is the fact that all of these tools are free, and they are already using them. The real strategic issue at the root of radio's problem is this:
We cannot continue to say, over and over, that content is king--and then continue to invest in tools. Tools don't make content, people do. The tools are free. Pay the people.
Reader Comments
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Bravos, Tom. You are spot-on in your take. Broadcasting continues to suffer from a serious HR problem. Let me suggest the root problem here is how radio values the HR function/process. My sense is beyond meeting the requirements set forth in their EEO model broadcasters are doing a failing grade job with HR. At our firm we believe the recruitment, development and retention of exceptionally gifted talent is the wellspring of every great enterprise. Too many broadcasters willingly accept the notion that HR is a "girl job" (most often an additional duty assigned to the overworked business manager). Until such time that broadcasters get serious and recognize the critical importance of HR they are gambling with their future and the odds are increasingly against them. Going forward broadcasters should recruit an HR professional to lead the process. This person should be an officer, report directly to the CEO and serve an active role on the board of directors. The HR role must embrace far more than compliance issues. HRD (human resources development including continuing professional education) deserves a place on the agenda. While labor and related expenses remain the single biggest line item in every broadcaster's budget the investment in HR and respect for the function is practically nonexistent - this must change. This must start at the top. Every employee needs and deserves to be valued as talent. "In all of art, it's the singer not the song" so said Penn Fraser Jillette. He's right. We need to compete for the future and it will begin by making a welcome home for talent.
The disingenuous comments from these so-called industry leaders is the most disgusting aspect of what's wrong with the radio business. No one tells the truth -- ever. The fact is that they don't know how they are going to pay creative people because the whole focus of radio since consolidation has been to siphon the money away from employee salaries to a few at the top. People can't make a go of it in radio and pay their bills at the same time. For every million dollar show host, there's a guy who is in his 30s still making between 20-30 K, unable to be anything but an apartment renter and used car buyer. He might be talented but the people above him don't care, their job is to make sure he feels enough fear to never ask for a raise.
What's wrong with radio? It's the people running it. Sale people should sell, they should never run a company.
Thanks Tom.
Thankyou for sharing.
Thanks for that, Dave. Job design is one area that has changed enormously over the past decade, and the career path for a radio professional has not caught up with the times. HR is not just about getting forms signed--it's about designing careers that are fulfilling for employees and profitable for corporations. This--not getting FM radios on phones--is the REAL root crisis for the industry. Smart, talented and fulfilled employees will get FM radios on phones, trust me.
BRAVO....and the struggle continues....
Great article! I am one of the new creative talents you are referring too! Nobody would give me a chance, so I did it on my own. I had a half a million listeners, but the cost was high.
I plan on re-doing the station becasue nobody will hire me even though I had a successfull Internet radio station with no money just pure creativity!
Tom,
I agree with almost all of what you say. I take on BIG exception however. You say "Radio needs two basic types of professionals: creative talent (for on-air, programming and promotions) and business talent". I must ask you then if radio attracts great talent and great business minds, who is going to make it all work? Radio needs a third type of professional, the technical kind. Radio continues to lay off and not attract new engineers to the industry. Instead Telco companies and IT companies are attracting the engineering talent.
Remember if it wasn't for the engineers no talent or business person would have a Radio station. I guess in that respect you are spoken like a true MBA.
There a 3 types of professionals that radio needs to attract.....talent, business and ENGINEERS.
Jeff
Well said, Jeff, and no slight intended. In my defense I could say that I lumped technical talent in with the quants, but I didn't write that, and you are correct to point it out. Thanks for reading. But lets not bash MBA's, either!
As an employee of Live365, I've always felt we are a great farm league for creative talent. My team and I speak with great programmers and talented DJs every single day.
These range from passionate kids with no training (but lots of time to research and listen to new music) to ex-DJs from almost every era of radio. So maybe it's not just a farm league but a minor league, where you have those on their way down as well as up. And who knows, sometimes these old DJs are ready to break it open again with new niche formats or more experimental shows.
(Sorry going with the sports analogy) As with most minor leagues, the majority are NOT going to make it into the majors, but without the minor league, THERE WILL EVENTUALLY BE NO MAJOR LEAGUE.
So get your recruiter out there and discover that great talent that will lead your team in the future. They are probably going to make it with or without you, why not with?
I've used up my sports analogies for the next month now. Thanks for letting me rant.
J
Great post. The biggest problem with radio is that it is being run by non-radio people.
"In one breath, a panelist in today's session proclaimed that 'we need to have a strong digital strategy' to attract young talent, but then added 'I don't know how we are going to pay them.' THAT is the problem, in a nutshell, and all the Twittering in the world won't really address it."
Kudos Tom! You've hit the nail on the proverbial head (and I hate metaphors). :)
But . . . there's more to "value" than money. IMHO, in an age where attention is the new scarcity, radio needs to strategically access how best to add the specific value that the young talent desires. And they should do it now, before the lose their ability.
Thanks, Tom--appreciate the comment. Big fan!
What a post, Tom. Can we make this required reading in radio board rooms?
I come from the perspective that the radio industry, for the most part, does NOT really grasp what can be truly done with digital and social. It's so much more than just streaming, setting up a fan page, and occasionally some Twittering by the morning show.
Thanks for reminding us all so viscerally that it's the people that actually do make the difference. The corporate double speak is so tiresome. All the "Our people are our most important asset" nonsense, spoken to the stockholders after yet another round of massive cuts.
Even Ed Christian in his interview with Tom Taylor for the NAB Radio award is busy saying something like, "If you have good creative, radio advertising will work." And yet at the vast majority of Saga stations the sales reps are left to write the copy.
Everything in radio today is based on short-term numbers, quick fixes, another round of expense cuts that never can be added back, and making it generally worse and worse for actual talented people to want to stay or come on board in the first place. And we are the very people who look business clients straight in the eye and tell them that when times are tight the LAST thing they should cut is their advertising budget... While our station's own marketing "budget" has been reduced to whatever T-shirts and trinkets that can be traded.
Compelling content with great advertising creative means things will rock. But, as you note, that actually requires people. Who have talent. As opposed to shiny new tools that are either cool or cost-saving, along with some more stockholder spin about "our greatest asset."
Bravo Tom.
Tom--excellent post. I was at that session and it was not programmings finest hour. Some of what we saw and heard today is not the result of the current economic situation or even the digital revolution, but a systematic devaluation of the programming side of the radio business. Sure there are exceptions, but what has become the rule in so many cases doesn't leave radio in a very good position going forward. I have linked to your post at http://harvealan.blogspot.com/2009/09/people-and-tools.html
Great piece Tom. I worked in radio in the 90s and even then I recognized that radio is its own worst enemy. Right when they need to be attracting motivated, talented people, they are overly cost conscious and efficiency oriented, like they are staffing a factory making widgets. This mentality extends into the way radio builds its product for its audience as well; as potential listeners have more and more choices for what to listen to and where to find it, traditional broadcasting has chosen to play it overly safe, retreating to the "tried and true", aka boring, overly tested, overly unadventurous, and overly filled with commercial inventory, chasing whatever available audience more quickly into someone else's digitally distributed content. From my now external perspective, sure feels like a vicious circle, one with a fast track to a death spiral.
You NAILED it Tom. Thank you. We at RadioGuruPDX.com are really trying to get this across to the industry. Tools Schmools. Tuning IN is what is going to count in the end. By the way we wrote an audio poem that reflects what you are saying here. It is about how Radio is the ORIGINAL wireless and connects all of human consciousness, as well as drumming business. It's cool. Check it out: http://tinyurl.com/yae7h3c
Again, thank you. I'll pass this blog along to my colleagues.
I completely agree with your assesment on the current state of focusing on "content." I am the instructor/PD of a high school radio station in Indiana, and I can see we have the creativity and talent wanting to get in the business, just not the jobs available. Over the last five years we have taken a station that was little more than a speech class on-air and turned it around to go 24/7, get on the cover of a national magazine (CMJ), start competing in our state competetions (IASB), and even start meeting the 1% minimum on Arbitron. We now have a website, although not fancy with tons of moving objects, it still gets an average of 10 unique hits an hour with SIMPLE content. Not too bad for a high school station that is on its way up. Professional stations have started to notice us.
Guess who challenged the traditional way of doing radio in this community? A group of approx 30 individuals all under the age 30 (including two instructors). How many of them tell me they are thinking about radio in college? Less than 5. They know the issues with the industry and want to make a living.
Tom
I agree toally with you and the site comments.
Having worked as a presenter in the UK over 30 years now with commercial radio shows in USA, Australia+ NZ i feel qualified to comment.
If "talent" is to flourish it needs to breathe.It will not make it in the present climate.
1. If you are a music jock you have to select your own music.Sitting there for hours playing repetitive playlists chosen by a safe out of touch PC is not encouraging.
2 .In our area we have too many local stations pitching for the same market.Some of these stations demand presenters work free.
3 Others instruct presenters to read liner cards when allowed to speak.
4 No interaction with the listeners.They think an OB is a banner at an event with no presenter prescence.
5 Voice -tracking is killing our radio industry.I know one station who from 12 noon on a Saturday until 6am Sunday has one "live show" .
6 Networking is so poorly managed .If you live in Southampton you don't want someone obviously in Leeds shouting at you.
Creative talent is never given a chance- jobs are decided on who you know.
This is all great news for Community radio in UK which continues to prosper because its truly local.
It gives the listener what it wants =professionals with variety
Its run by people who know radio not some mathmagician in a suit
One commercial station that uses this Community formula is Revolution in Oldham /Lancs -run by Steve Penk
because he
LISTENS
As a independent Internet radio Entrepreneur who knows how to use new media. How can people like me with little money, but a growing audiance make it to the big leauges?
This post was as relevant 10 years ago as it is today. But now you can look at the evidence, 10 years ago, all you had were clues to predict this outcome; and it's only getting worse. Nobody is in a position to care enough to invest enough time and energy to change the course.
I'm not afraid to admit that I was that talent you were speaking of. When I was 19 years old I was doing nights for Jeff Kapugi at KSLZ in St Louis. I took 4 years off to go to college, worked at Z104 and KDWB on the side, and came back to again do nights for Kapugi, this time at WFLZ in Tampa. I was voice tracked in some markets and didn't feel the least bit guilty about it, of course. After 2 years there, seeing the future, I left radio in favor of my undergraduate degree in advertising. I'm now in graduate school at VCU Brandcenter and in May will be absolutely and totally committed to an entirely different industry. But I still love radio.
I adore radio.
Radio is my passion. Particularly, making it relevant again. Specifically CHR, because if there's any format that should be at the forefront of this relevance revolution, it must be that which is on the front lines of popular culture -- bringing in the next generation of listeners -- creating CONTENT worthy of inspiring a new generation of talent.
The fact is this: Those inside the radio bubble won't be the ones to "change" radio -- they've lived in it and grown up in it, and haven't known anything OUTSIDE of it; talk about not seeing the forest for the trees. Sure they want to see listenership increase and ad dollars sell easier, but in order to make themselves relevant again they don't know where to look, or what to look for. So, most are simply throwing as much up against the wall as possible in hopes of making something stick -- and very few can afford, or are willing to afford, long term strategies.
Radio is like an alcoholic family member that you keep trying to "change", and you want to give up on them, but you can't. You see their future, and know they should change, and you believe with all your heart that they CAN change, but they keep falling and letting you down...until one day they've got nothing anymore.
Anyone over 12 thinks of FM radio like I used to think of AM radio when I was young... old.
Someone simply needs to build the case, crack the nut, and then make a business argument to sell it to the top... many have tried, many have failed. I would like to be the next one to try, and honestly want to give the industry something it doesn't already know, or have. But who really wants to take the time to cut through the bureaucracy? Not many.
Contact me if you're really interested.
Ryan
Radio won't buy more gasoline until the tank is empty. Sure the needle is on E, but many believe E stands for Enough.