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I saw a breakdown of why Donald Trump voters continue to choose him in spite of his bat shit crazy rhetoric.

Immigration pales by comparison to Trump’s ability to cut through the establishment that voters increasingly do not trust and challenge conventional thinking.

On the Democratic side to some extent Bernie Sanders’ Millennial supporters are tired of what they perceive as being worked by an old time politician from another decade with tons of baggage.

The media business is also suspect.

When viewers give more credibility to Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert and John Oliver than they do the cable news channels, you know there is a problem.

Radio stations by and large sound like they did in the 60’s – although not as good due to cutbacks and a de-emphasis on personalities and air talent.

Radio thrives on denial.

They even institutionalize it through their trade organizations – The NAB and RAB.

Most radio companies are incapable of change.

They want to do radio their way not in the new way that listeners may want.

So you have talk radio today that sounds like the 70’s.

Music stations that are worse than their heyday because they are just a laptop in the closet with sweepers and no personalities.

And this – there has been no innovation in radio in decades.

So, while Trump has found a way to channel this contempt for business as usual, radio exemplifies it.

Now we hear CBS Radio is officially for sale – all of it.

Cumulus and iHeart will go bankrupt.

Entercom is a hanger on and not strong enough to carry an industry.

So now it is time for all those people who are NOT planning on selling their stations or filing for bankruptcy to innovate.

And by innovate I am not talking about making minor adjustments. I’m saying, reinvent radio the way radio reinvented itself when television came along.

That’s why I am doing my 7^th annual media conference in Philadelphia, April 6^th – for independent local operators who know they have to be the leaders in innovation to survive and hopefully thrive in the future.

This is for people who want it straight and want to get it right.

Not willing to sit back and see radio take its final bow because the people who run the stations are afraid of innovating.

That would be easy and predictable.

Take a look at the solutions that will be offered at this event and see if it makes sense for you and your people to stop doing radio as usual and let us fire up the creative juices that could bring a major turnaround.

It’s an Advanced Radio Management Program unlike anything else.

Outperforming a Slowing Revenue Trend
Learn how to compete against consolidators who are driving ad prices down in desperation to avoid bankruptcy by making it difficult for competitors to get paid what they are actually worth.

Getting Millennials To Listen
Discover the things that 18-34 year old Millennial listeners say they want from radio that they are not currently getting. Former Cox and CBS programmer Dan Mason joins us to help you begin a Millennial Radio Makeover that incorporates these needs.

Making Money From Digital
Learn why there isn’t a radio station in the country deriving significant ad revenue from their digital strategies and where exactly to focus limited resources to achieve a much better outcome.

Programming To Shorter Attention Spans
Learn how to rethink formats that are currently appealing to older audiences by adapting them to younger listeners who are distracted by mobile devices and social media.

Your New Competitor: User-Generated Content
Discover why younger money demos are now insisting on being their own “program director” which explains the popularity of YouTube and social media that allows them to be in charge. Once you know how to translate this need into radio programming, you’ll be riding the next wave.

Reinvigorating the Morning Show
Morning shows should deliver 50-60% of a radio stations total revenue but their chief appeal – personalities, news, traffic, weather – are no longer audience magnets. Learn how to pick up the pace of change for your most valuable asset – the one thing station’s must get right to succeed.

Repurposing 7pm to 5am
Voice tracking and syndication will not be enough to generate the extra revenue needed to stay on the road to success. Learn how these time periods are being used successfully to gain audience and revenue – sometimes in ways that are unorthodox.

Getting Around a Rigged Ratings System
Listen to researcher Richard Harker and talk show host Sean Hannity explain the study they did that discovered a majority of actual listening to Sean’s show was not credited by PPM. Engage them directly. Get answers to how to get around a rigged ratings system.

What To Do About Podcasting
Learn why podcasting may have a future as a radio format but not as a standalone business. Go beyond basic podcasting to pod-radio and explore all the details for making podcasting a radio station with all the revenue that would attract.

Finding New Revenue Streams
In a world where audiences click to buy apps (75% of which they never use) and access entertainment and information on-demand, radio now sees a model where paid subscriptions, product placement and other strategies are increasingly an option.

Changing the Way We Engage Audiences
Learn how radio can become more relevant to 86 million money demo listeners by sounding more Millennial. You’ll leave with a plan that will enable you to start teaching on-air talent to change the way they talk to their audience.

Eliminating Listeners’ Biggest Objections
Learn what to do to deal with the negatives of long commercial stop sets, repetitious music and morning shows that don’t do it for them any longer.

One day, April 6^th at The Hub Conference Center in Philadelphia.

Not available on tape or by streaming.

Flexible format – you join the discussion.

Continued involvement – the learning and feedback don’t stop here, you can follow up when you return home to maximize what you’ve learned.

Jerry Del Colliano is your program leader – former radio, television talent, program director, author & publisher, speaker and professor at the University of Southern California now in his seventh year of presenting this annual executive media conference.

Consider the impact the Advanced Radio Management Program can have as you advance your career and lead your stations, media outlets or entrepreneurial company towards further success.

Register here. 

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Millennials have no real relationship with a radio station.

Not true of baby boomers who to their dying day still recall their favorite stations and personalities.

Even Gen Xers who were first to coin the term “radio sucks” had no real other choice the way 86 million Millennials do.

Gen Xers are today’s podcasters and they are cheating on radio.

The important thing is to build relationships.

And it’s time radio stations that are serious about succeeding in a digital age rethink the way they connect with Millennials.

One thing is for sure.

If we’re serious about attracting Millennials who constitute 100% of the prime 18-34 year old demographic now, radio is going to have to be open to some pretty substantial changes.

The way we talk to Millennials must change.

Each station must adopt the 5 most important values Millennials care about the most yet most stations don’t even know what these values are.

I’m going to get into all of this at my Philly Conference in 3 weeks from now because it is possible to have a new beginning with the digital generation.

But we only have one chance to get it right.

The timing is right which is why I have elevated this topic to the top of the list. Millennials are growing tired of streaming music services and they are sure not paying for them. Even Spotify only has 20 million paid subscribers. Apple Music about half that.

Radio can offer a new approach to music, which will take away any advantage millions of songs on-demand can have. But no station is doing this yet. You will at least want to hear about it and be early to adopt if it is right for you.

How to prevent Millennials from being drive-by listeners who tune-in and then turn to their other devices – the digital ones. I’ll give you three compelling strategies that you will love. This will hook even the most skeptical Millennial as you’re about to hear.

Changing time-tested radio formats and go with a “no rules” approach. Millennials hate rules. The hot clock is out but how do you maintain order?

The importance of doing news but not newscasts. And not fast paced entertainment reports with music behind them. The Twitter approach to news – yes, even on a music station. Let me describe the sound and then fire away with questions.

New uses for radio that fit into the Millennial lifestyle.

Let’s be honest, radio hasn’t come up with a new format in three decades.

And new formats alone are not the only answer – a new use for radio is. And before our time together is up, you’ll hear my ideas and contribute your own.

As I said, the hour is late. It’s more than time for some deadly honest approaches to strengthen radio.

How to get Millennials to listen to radio.

Here are 9 other critical issues on deck for the April 6^th meeting:

1. Change the way we talk to audiences. Radio dates itself every time the mic is open, but audiences want authenticity, no hype and at least three other things that most radio stations do not have. Training to teach on-air people to sound the way the audience sounds. How to get away from: “this station is not for me” to a new affinity.   Sweepers, positioners – how are they testing with Millennials?
2. Making money from digital. Enough, already. What most stations are doing is not generating very significant digital revenue. Here’s what they are missing that can work for you.
3. Getting Millennials to listen. After we change the way we talk to 18-34 year old audiences, what is so compelling that they will have to listen. How about three things that have never been done that I think you will agree will make radio a destination again even in the digital age.
4. Reinvigorating the morning show. See where I’m going with all this so far. We can’t blow up everything but there are changes we can make like the way we talk to audiences, the things we do to make radio relevant to them, improving digital and this one – redesigning outdated morning shows that 18-34’s are not relating to. Then generate 50-60% of your total station’s revenue from the more relevant morning show alone.
5. Outpacing radio’s declining revenue trend. Every financial analyst is calling for a negative year -- off anywhere from 1% to over 5%. And yes, price gouging by major consolidators is helping radio’s race to the bottom. Let’s cut to the chase. What can be done to outperform this negative trend? Fighting rate cuts, over-bonusing, short-term flights, unwillingness to pay a premium plus adding revenue from subscriptions (don’t knock it), product placement and digital so foreign to radio you will likely be the first in your market doing it.
6. A Millennial Station Makeover – leave with a long list of things you can do to make the rest of your station sound cool to critical 18-34 while also meeting with the approval of your older audiences.
7. What to do about podcasting, which doesn’t monetize well but intrigues Gen X and baby boomer audiences.
8. Standing up to a rigged ratings system. Harker Research and Sean Hannity will share research that shows the type of listening talk and music stations are losing with PPM ratings and how to fight back and reclaim the listening you’ve earned.
9. Eliminating listener’s biggest objections. At least start with this and tear down some barriers to increased listening.

A day of information and inspiration where we work together.

This event will not be available by stream or video – only live and in person.

I can’t wait to bring our collective enthusiasm together using this blueprint to make a real difference in doing great radio.

Reserve a seat

Inquire about group rates

INSIDE …

• Why Wall Street has gone so negative so fast on Mary Berner.
• Where does this leave Cumulus employees who will be blindsided.
• From the “raise pool” to the “dead pool”.
• And it’s not the debt, it’s something Lew Dickey did on the way out the door.

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1. Go on the air and wage war against digital. I didn’t say don’t do digital. I said declare war and point out its weaknesses of which there are many.
2. Every week a radio station should make news and I don’t care if you play the most vanilla music that anyone ever heard. Reset their attention every Monday.
3. Don’t give me this negative stuff about how Millennials don’t listen to radio. I already know it!! If I made the decisions on your station I’d have more Millennials than you can handle with this one move.
4. Okay, okay. I’ll tell you the move. Become the station that pays down student loan debt. I’ll tell you how this works without going broke and how you can get the Mexicans to pay for it – alright that part is bullshit – but I will show you how to get someone else to pay for this life changing promotion at my upcoming Philly conference.
5. If you are a really young skewing station, tell your listeners no one over 50 allowed. Say it again and again. Come on, all that old branding stuff isn’t working anymore. Speak in terms 18-34’s can readily understand.
6. Pick apart other radio stations on-air for the things they do that are not cool with Millennials – and hit them again and again. This is the age of no bullshit not political correctness.
7. When it comes time to do traffic, tell them to take their phones out and use Google Traffic while you use what was traffic report time to tell them who is hiring good jobs. You think they’d like that tradeoff since only old people use radio for traffic info.
8. Punish competitors for being robots by making all your jocks live.
9. Let jocks talk (no longer than a tweet) every three minutes except twice an hour. I’ll show you how in Philly.
10. From now on everyone on your station talks like they tweet – but first you have to learn how to adapt tweeting to radio.
11. Attack streaming while simultaneously doing it.
12. Your station must sound like its listeners from now on – this doesn’t necessarily mean all air talent has to be 22 years old. Know the secret ingredient.
13. I sold millions and millions of trade press ads a year when I owned Inside Radio and I dictated price, length of contract and terms. Why did so many advertisers buy me?  Ask my friend Barry O’Brien the best R&R salesperson that ever lived.
14. The next time your competitor drops their pants and throws tons of bonus spots at an advertiser to win the majority of the buy, immediately take your offer off the table and walk. Secret for those with cajones: advertisers want what they can’t have and they’ll think you’re better (and they may have a dictate to buy you so now they’ll have to negotiate fairly). More strategies like this, not by sitting home and continue getting bonused to death.
15. Blow up your morning show. Want to find out what Millennials want from a radio morning show – by the way, we’re not giving it to them. Dan Mason will bring direct requests from listeners in a Millennial Radio Makeover. Wait until you hear it from the mouths of Millennials.
16. Want to make more money than all your current digital endeavors now?  Take the time between 7pm and 5am and create binge content to sell at a premium.  This can turn dead time into a license to print money.

Hitchhike on ideas that restore radio to that medium that adapted to television.

Now a new strategy for the digital age.

I plan to give it to you in my refreshingly honest way April 6 in Philadelphia at my next media solutions conference.

Not available on tape or by streaming.

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Radio keeps getting whacked in the revenue department.

Cumulus bottomed out yesterday with awful Q4 and yearly revenue figures.

iHeart and the others are down and that doesn’t bode well.

Will everyone have to be Townsquare a company that says they’re a digital company not a radio company and in their memos to employees reminds them:

“As you know we are a digital company that owns radio stations.”

The emails continue with some online content ideas and concludes by saying:

“Please tell, remind, ask, and beg your listeners to go to your website.”

Beg?

Is that what radio has become?

I’m saying no and I’ve got the evidence to prove it.

There are plenty of better ways to increase revenue while doing the best radio programming possible. For example:

• Premium spot rates – the only way around big consolidators driving down local ad prices is to adopt a policy like this which I will lay out at my upcoming management conference.
• Binge programming – develop binge programming for after 7pm until 5am and weekends following the latest information we have about younger money demos and watch your revenue totals increase now – not three quarters from now.
• Paid subscriptions – you’re talking to the right guy when I share the power of paid subscriptions when added to special in-demand programming. And if you don’t think your on-air audience will pay up, wait until you see the evidence.
• Product placement – yes, we can do that in radio. It’s no longer just for TV and there are companies like Macy’s and Target that have budgets for these things not to mention local advertisers who will love the concept.
• Defending against big operators driving down radio rates – that is the number one problem according to radio group heads. No matter how you may be, companies with nothing to lose are dropping rates and bonusing spots in effect killing the rest of the radio market. This puts a stop to that pronto.
• Short-form video – inexpensive, social media friendly and a perfect companion for radio.

Let’s continue this conversation when we get together in Philadelphia April 6^th.

Look, I’m into dealing with the truth even if it is painful but I am also optimistic about what we can do when we innovate and directly respond to the forces that are posing a long-term threat to radio operators.

So, we’ll start with finding new radio revenue streams and then we’ll deliver on solutions for these critical issues:

1. Change the way we talk to audiences.
2. Making money from digital.
3. Getting Millennials to listen.
4. Reinvigorating the morning show.
5. Turning around radio’s alarming revenue declines.
6. What to do about podcasting.
7. How to do a Millennial Radio Makeover to win more 18-34’s.
8. Selling around a rigged ratings system (Harker Research and Sean Hannity share research that shows the type of listening talk and music stations are losing with PPM ratings and how to reclaim the listening you’ve lost).
9. Eliminating radio’s biggest objections

A day of information and inspiration with topics that really matter.

This event will not be available by stream or video – only live and in person.

Reserve a seat

Inquire about group rates

Read the full article now.

Free samples of our work here.

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“Finding New Revenue Streams” @ my April 6th Radio Conference -- details here.

Report Newstips confidentially in our Witness Protection Program here.

Inquire about having Jerry work with your station and staff here.

Talk to Jerry privately here.

Read the full article now.

Free samples of our work here.

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One month until my New Radio Conference -- details here.

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Talk to Jerry privately here.

Most radio stations sound like they are broadcasting to Gen Xers or baby boomers.

And 86 million Millennials 18-34, the largest available audience, know it.

Radio is not essential to their lives.

To be deadly honest – they can’t relate.

So getting Millennials to listen to radio is among our highest priorities at my upcoming April 6 New Radio Conference in Philadelphia.

Here’s how that segment will go.

I will be working with Dan Mason, the very able programmer of Cox and CBS fame, who has taken a keen interest in what it takes to attract Millennials.

Attendees will be part of the discussion if they like as we go through some of the things that we know Millennials want from radio.

And we will brainstorm together.

For example:

• How they don’t like djs that try to be relatable. But wait -- isn’t that what program directors tell their jocks to do – be relatable? But there is one other thing Millennials would appreciate most.  Let’s see if we can put our heads together to find ways to do it.

• More talk about the music – and as we know djs never talk about the music other than an occasional casual mention. They’re lucky to talk at all – maybe four times an hour with nothing worth listening to. But what specifically do 18-34’s want to know about these recording artists? Let’s explain it.

• From an actual Millennial listener: “trying to relate current music to what’s happening in the world”. Hell, radio doesn’t do that! Maybe that’s why radio is so meaningless to Millennials. By the way if we can make some adjustments, that leaves streaming music services just being – well, music services. Apparently Millennials are starting to want more.

• What constitutes a radio personality to Millennial listeners.

• What they like and don’t want in a morning show.

• Ways radio can stop offending Millennials with – of all things – social media. Yes, radio is doing social media like a new age direct mail campaign.  

• Gossip, hot topic talk – the only real stuff djs do when they say anything – here’s how that goes over with Millennials.

• And believe it or not Millennials want terrestrial radio to personalize the their stations like Pandora. I know, it can’t be done. But they think it can. Here’s what they want you to do.

• And they want you to change the way you engage them on-the-air.  And we’ll be specific about this.

This is a big piece of our agenda in Philly for good reason.

Fix the Millennial problem and radio may be able to show some real growth again.

This is the 7^th annual conference I have put together for progressive thinking broadcasters and media executives who want deadly honest solutions to critical problems that are hurting the radio industry.

The “How To Get Millennials To Listen” session.

Here are all 9 critical issues on deck for the April 6^th meeting:

1. Change the way we talk to audiences. Radio dates itself every time the mic is open, but audiences want authenticity, no hype and at least three other things that most radio stations do not have. Training to teach on-air people to sound the way the audience sounds. How to get away from: “this station is not for me” to a new affinity.  Sweepers, positioners – how are they testing with Millennials?
2. Making money from digital. Enough, already. What most stations are doing is not generating very significant digital revenue. Here’s what they are missing that can work for you.
3. Getting Millennials to listen. After we change the way we talk to 18-34 year old audiences, what is so compelling that they will have to listen. How about three things that have never been done that I think you will agree will make radio a destination again even in the digital age.
4. Reinvigorating the morning show. See where I’m going with all this so far. We can’t blow up everything but there are changes we can make like the way we talk to audiences, the things we do to make radio relevant to them, improving digital and this one – redesigning outdated morning shows that 18-34’s are not relating to. Then generate 50-60% of your total station’s revenue from the more relevant morning show alone.
5. Outpacing radio’s declining revenue trend.  Every financial analyst is calling for a negative year -- off anywhere from 1% to over 5%. And yes, price gouging by major consolidators is helping radio’s race to the bottom. Let’s cut to the chase. What can be done to outperform this negative trend? Fighting rate cuts, over-bonusing, short-term flights, unwillingness to pay a premium plus adding revenue from subscriptions (don’t knock it), product placement and digital so foreign to radio you will likely be the first in your market doing it.
6. A Millennial Station Makeover – leave with a long list of things you can do to make the rest of your station sound cool to critical 18-34 while also meeting with the approval of your older audiences.
7. What to do about podcasting, which doesn’t monetize well but intrigues Gen X and baby boomer audiences.
8. Standing up to a rigged ratings system.  Harker Research and Sean Hannity will share research that shows the type of listening talk and music stations are losing with PPM ratings and how to fight back and reclaim the listening you’ve earned.
9. Eliminating listener’s biggest objections. At least start with this and tear down some barriers to increased listening.

A day of information and inspiration where we work together. This is an interactive format so you can participate to the fullest extent.

This event will not be available by stream or video – only live and in person.

I can’t wait to bring our collective enthusiasm together using this blueprint to make a real difference in doing great radio.

Reserve a seat

Inquire about group rates

One month until my New Radio Conference -- details here.

Now Ron Jacobs is gone.

It seems like they are falling like flies from the second great golden age of radio.

Paul Drew several years ago.

The great Bill Drake.

My friend Charlie Tuna.

Robert W. Morgan way back.

John Rook, the other day.

And many more.

Ron’s credits include “Boss Radio”, “American Top 40”, “The Elvis Presley Story” (he was the first to make popular Elvis impersonators), “The History of Rock and Roll”, the CRUISIN’ series albums that sounded like a radio station because these albums included commercials and jingles.

Ron may have been as old as 80 – there is evidence he was born in 1936 but with Ron you never know.

He was crazy.

And I say that with love, admiration and much respect.

I told him this as early as 2002 when Clear Channel was suing me for $100 million. They didn’t like my exposes about them in Inside Radio, which I founded. Randy Michaels was CEO of Clear Channel Radio at the time and a real dirty tricks artist.

Ron hated him. Thought Randy was bad for radio and he spoke up and took the bully on publicly. Keep in mind life was lonely for me then (until I won my $125 million countersuit settlement) and few people publicly crossed Randy.

Ron had cojones.

Ron was one of the greatest programmers of all time or as I told him – the greatest because he was nuts.

He was the program director all of us wanted to be – crazy like a fox for our listeners and an advocate for less bullshit.

KHJ, the Los Angeles iconic station of the 60’s with Bill Drake and Ron Jacobs was a combination of – well, both discipline and total lack of discipline.

Today’s radio sucks by comparison because there is no passion in it. You can tell the suits have taken over and turned even good people into robots. But Ron Jacobs was no robot. He was crazy.

Ron until his dying day was programming an Internet station of native Hawaiian music. And I loved that. Who better to do something that worthwhile than Ron Jacobs.

A lot will be written in the weeks ahead about this true genius of radio who called out bullshit when he saw it and came down on the side of the audience all the time.

His stations were alive with personality and yet structured to deliver on expectations.

After all, that was the Drake way.

I couldn’t carry Ron’s briefcase and I told him so but as a major market program director I channeled his wildness. One station I programmed during a recession I gave away jobs like they were vacations or trips to the Caribbean. Yes, jobs! Good jobs.  And the cume audience skyrocketed in several months from 400,000 to 1.1 million.

And I’m going to bring this up at my April conference because if we want 18-34 year old Millennials then we have to be more like Ron Jacobs.

Ron once sent me a picture of his beautiful daughter of whom he was so proud. He was making a rare trip back to the mainland to attend her graduation.

He loved Hawaii and lived not in splendor but among the beauty of Maui.

We’re losing a lot of great PDs from the second golden age of radio but I plan to keep them alive --- their philosophies, their edge and humor, their dedication to audiences.

Ron was a good radio man, an advocate for the audience and there is no higher compliment I can offer.

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Radio may be having a hard time attracting Millennial listeners but radio stations are employing a majority of Millennials aged 18-34.

This is a very different generation – not at all like their baby boomer or Gen X bosses.

Millennials don’t stay anywhere very long.

At Google arguably the best place to work with benefits like free lunch, dry cleaning, child care and spending one day a week on any project you want – Millennials still leave even that job.

At USC my students who worked at the university radio station enjoyed the camaraderie of being with others but rarely listened to the station on their own time.

When new Cumulus CEO Mary Berner did questionnaire after questionnaire about employee job attitudes recently she publicly admitted that the results showed they liked their job but not the company.

Is there a way to motivate Millennial workers and those who have been through hell working without raises, promotions or for that matter even encouragement?

At my upcoming Philly conference I think we should have this discussion because there are a lot of things that can be done.  

A quick preview …

Money is never the number one motivator for employees. Believe it. Never. In fact do you know where salary ranks in job satisfaction? You will.

Empowerment – the one thing most radio companies refuse to do. Even the managers at Cumulus have to bow down to corporate infrastructure.

How to empower people who you may not be used to empowering and where do you start.

This one thing – and this is worth the trip to Philly for this alone – that can motivate anyone even an employee who has been abused in the workplace or taken for granted.

This works 100% of the time and you can learn how to do it.

But don’t get me wrong – sincerity matters. Just to do the things that we know are working at stations that bring about great productivity will fail if they are not applied sincerely.

How to resolve disputes.

To get employees to get along with each other.

The best way to show appreciation.

How to handle cutbacks.

Even firings if it comes to that.

Radio people are brutal. Learn from other industries where being laid off is not the career ending move that it has become in radio.

Setting goals that motivate not discourage – and remember, money doesn’t motivate even for salespeople the way this does. Come and learn some new ways.

Radio is at a crossroads and not enough attention has been paid the past decade to the art of managing people.

Bring your concerns and we’ll offer refreshingly honest solutions that can make all the difference as part of our Open Forum.

Motivation tips for radio employees – another important subject to be covered at my April 6^th radio conference in Philadelphia in four weeks.

Here are 9 critical issues on the agenda:

1. Change the way we talk to audiences. Radio dates itself every time the mic is open, but audiences want authenticity, no hype and at least three other things that most radio stations do not have. Training to teach on-air people to sound the way the audience sounds. How to get away from: “this station is not for me” to a new affinity.  Sweepers, positioners – how are they testing with Millennials?
2. Making money from digital. Enough, already. What most stations are doing is not generating very significant digital revenue. Here’s what they are missing that can work for you.
3. Getting Millennials to listen. After we change the way we talk to 18-34 year old audiences, what is so compelling that they will have to listen. How about three things that have never been done that I think you will agree will make radio a destination again even in the digital age.
4. Reinvigorating the morning show. See where I’m going with all this so far. We can’t blow up everything but there are changes we can make like the way we talk to audiences, the things we do to make radio relevant to them, improving digital and this one – redesigning outdated morning shows that 18-34’s are not relating to. Then generate 50-60% of your total station’s revenue from the more relevant morning show alone.
5. Outpacing radio’s declining revenue trend.  Every financial analyst is calling for a negative year -- off anywhere from 1% to over 5%. And yes, price gouging by major consolidators is helping radio’s race to the bottom. Let’s cut to the chase. What can be done to outperform this negative trend? Fighting rate cuts, over-bonusing, short-term flights, unwillingness to pay a premium plus adding revenue from subscriptions (don’t knock it), product placement and digital so foreign to radio you will likely be the first in your market doing it.
6. A Millennial Station Makeover – leave with a long list of things you can do to make the rest of your station sound cool to critical 18-34 while also meeting with the approval of your older audiences.
7. What to do about podcasting, which doesn’t monetize well but intrigues Gen X and baby boomer audiences.
8. Standing up to a rigged ratings system.  Harker Research and Sean Hannity will share research that shows the type of listening talk and music stations are losing with PPM ratings and how to fight back and reclaim the listening you’ve earned.
9. Eliminating listener’s biggest objections. At least start with this and tear down some barriers to increased listening.

A day of information and inspiration where we work together. This is an interactive format so you can participate to the fullest extent.

This event will not be available by stream or video – only live and in person.

I can’t wait to bring our collective enthusiasm together using this blueprint to make a real difference in doing great radio.

Reserve a seat

Inquire about group rates

Read the full article now.

Free samples of our work here.

Scroll through my previous stories list here.

Hear deadly honest solutions to radio’s growing problems at my new radio conference in a month. Preview here.

Report Newstips confidentially in our Witness Protection Program here.

Inquire about having Jerry work with your station and staff here.

Talk to Jerry privately here.

Millennials are famous for embracing authenticity.

But radio is the least authentic sounding thing to them – hype, promos, 8 minutes of commercials with meaningless gibberish every 30 minutes and features that make no sense (like traffic when they can get it live on their phones).

When jocks talk it is often only every 15 minutes and well, they say nothing.

Few people on radio sound like the audience that now represents 86 million 18-34 year olds.

By and large radio sounds the same way it sounded in the 60’s and 70’s.

There hasn’t been one significant new radio format innovated in many decades even though audience tastes have changed.

Djs sound like they were all descendants from Cousin Brucie.

The only thing that has changed about the way we engage radio audiences is that the audience has left us and turned to their own devices – digital devices.

So top priority to remain relevant is to change how we engage audiences.

This is not going to be easy but it is a must.

How to do news that’s more compelling then Twitter.

And music that makes listeners forget about streaming services.

How to remove hype that 18-34’s hate so much they won’t even tune in.

To replace the sweepers we are addicted to that scream “this station is not for you”.

In fact, we will need to train our air talent to be as interesting as they are on their Twitter pages.

On radio they are dumbed down, but at my upcoming conference in Philadelphia, I’m going to show you how to train your on-air talent to be as compelling as they are on Twitter.

Training on-air people to sound like the audiences they are targeting (and as I will show you this doesn’t mean they all have to be 24 years old).

Our goal is for you to return to your market and have enough things you can do to push your station into the present in as painless a way as possible. But it’s going to require an open mind.

I am so proud that we have numerous independent local radio groups not only attending this training but bringing their people so that change will begin at this conference for them organically when they return home.

 Let’s start with a big problem.

Changing the way we engage audiences.

Here are the 9 critical issues on deck for the April 6^th meeting:

1. Change the way we talk to audiences. Radio dates itself every time the mic is open, but audiences want authenticity, no hype and at least three other things that most radio stations do not have. Training to teach on-air people to sound the way the audience sounds. How to get away from: “this station is not for me” to a new affinity.  Sweepers, positioners – how are they testing with Millennials?
2. Making money from digital. Enough, already. What most stations are doing is not generating very significant digital revenue. Here’s what they are missing that can work for you.
3. Getting Millennials to listen. After we change the way we talk to 18-34 year old audiences, what is so compelling that they will have to listen. How about three things that have never been done that I think you will agree will make radio a destination again even in the digital age.
4. Reinvigorating the morning show. See where I’m going with all this so far. We can’t blow up everything but there are changes we can make like the way we talk to audiences, the things we do to make radio relevant to them, improving digital and this one – redesigning outdated morning shows that 18-34’s are not relating to. Then generate 50-60% of your total station’s revenue from the more relevant morning show alone.
5. Outpacing radio’s declining revenue trend.  Every financial analyst is calling for a negative year -- off anywhere from 1% to over 5%. And yes, price gouging by major consolidators is helping radio’s race to the bottom. Let’s cut to the chase. What can be done to outperform this negative trend? Fighting rate cuts, over-bonusing, short-term flights, unwillingness to pay a premium plus adding revenue from subscriptions (don’t knock it), product placement and digital so foreign to radio you will likely be the first in your market doing it.
6. A Millennial Station Makeover – leave with a long list of things you can do to make the rest of your station sound cool to critical 18-34 while also meeting with the approval of your older audiences.
7. What to do about podcasting, which doesn’t monetize well but intrigues Gen X and baby boomer audiences.
8. Standing up to a rigged ratings system.  Harker Research and Sean Hannity will share research that shows the type of listening talk and music stations are losing with PPM ratings and how to fight back and reclaim the listening you’ve earned.
9. Eliminating listener’s biggest objections. At least start with this and tear down some barriers to increased listening.

A day of information and inspiration where we work together. This is an interactive format so you can participate to the fullest extent.

This event will not be available by stream or video – only live and in person.

I can’t wait to bring our collective enthusiasm together using this blueprint to make a real difference in doing great radio.

Reserve a seat

Inquire about group rates

Read the full article now.

Free samples of our work here.

Scroll through my previous stories list here.

Hear deadly honest solutions to radio’s growing problems at my new radio conference in about a month. Preview here.

Report Newstips confidentially in our Witness Protection Program here.

Inquire about having Jerry work with your station and staff here.

Talk to Jerry privately here.

According to my Survey Monkey questionnaire sent to those who have already registered for my upcoming conference, repurposing 7pm to 5am is now tied for number one in terms of their interests.

Think about the farce of Nielsen PPM.

Their drive-by technology has all but relegated 7pm to just before morning drive useless, a low-income burden to radio stations.

And if you’re not in a ratings intensive situation, chances are your station is acting like it is by wasting valuable real estate that can be sold.

There are ways to turn 7pm and beyond into a revenue machine and I’m not talking about running paid programming. That never really does much.

I’m aiming bigger and if you are as well, think about this.

I know of a successful attempt to take just a handful of evening hours and virtually turn it into another radio station with the ability to bill at high rates. I’m going to share this when we meet in Philly but for now, look under the hood.

In fact, the repurposed “down time” gave birth to a radio station that was bigger than the original format.

But there are other steps along the way.

Here’s a second idea you may like.

What if I told you that while 86 million 18-34 year old Millennials are bingeing on Netflix during these hours, you could offer them this alternative for bingeing that would empower your station’s reach and breed loyalty among a demographic radio has not been attracting.

Binge-worthy listening.

Should these hours be an extension of your current programming or is that no longer a necessity?

Wait, wait, wait – this is going to cost more money, right?

No, not unless you have an urge to spend it. There are several uses for this “down time” that will be accretive from day one.

Advertisers will expect bonus spots from it – and don’t you even think about offering them bonus spots to get them to buy daytime hours because this period charges a premium!

Perhaps you can see why there is so much interest in this topic.

Sometimes the solution to radio’s revenue problems are right in front of our eyes and this is one that we’ll have fun talking about and I’ll bet you won’t be able to stop thinking about it when we’re done. 

Repurposing 7pm to 5am.

Here are 9 other critical issues on deck for the April 6^th meeting:

1. Change the way we talk to audiences. Radio dates itself every time the mic is open, but audiences want authenticity, no hype and at least three other things that most radio stations do not have. Training to teach on-air people to sound the way the audience sounds. How to get away from: “this station is not for me” to a new affinity.  Sweepers, positioners – how are they testing with Millennials?
2. Making money from digital. Enough, already. What most stations are doing is not generating very significant digital revenue. Here’s what they are missing that can work for you.
3. Getting Millennials to listen. After we change the way we talk to 18-34 year old audiences, what is so compelling that they will have to listen. How about three things that have never been done that I think you will agree will make radio a destination again even in the digital age.
4. Reinvigorating the morning show. See where I’m going with all this so far. We can’t blow up everything but there are changes we can make like the way we talk to audiences, the things we do to make radio relevant to them, improving digital and this one – redesigning outdated morning shows that 18-34’s are not relating to. Then generate 50-60% of your total station’s revenue from the more relevant morning show alone.
5. Outpacing radio’s declining revenue trend.  Every financial analyst is calling for a negative year -- off anywhere from 1% to over 5%. And yes, price gouging by major consolidators is helping radio’s race to the bottom. Let’s cut to the chase. What can be done to outperform this negative trend? Fighting rate cuts, over-bonusing, short-term flights, unwillingness to pay a premium plus adding revenue from subscriptions (don’t knock it), product placement and digital so foreign to radio you will likely be the first in your market doing it.
6. A Millennial Station Makeover – leave with a long list of things you can do to make the rest of your station sound cool to critical 18-34 while also meeting with the approval of your older audiences.
7. What to do about podcasting, which doesn’t monetize well but intrigues Gen X and baby boomer audiences.
8. Standing up to a rigged ratings system.  Harker Research and Sean Hannity will share research that shows the type of listening talk and music stations are losing with PPM ratings and how to fight back and reclaim the listening you’ve earned.
9. Eliminating listener’s biggest objections. At least start with this and tear down some barriers to increased listening.

A day of information and inspiration where we work together. This is an interactive format so you can participate to the fullest extent.

This event will not be available by stream or video – only live and in person.

I can’t wait to bring our collective enthusiasm together using this blueprint to make a real difference in doing great radio.

Reserve a seat

Inquire about group rates

Read the full article now.

Free samples of our work here.

Scroll through my previous stories list here.

Some deadly honest solutions to radio’s growing problems at my new radio conference in less than 5 weeks. Preview here.

Report Newstips confidentially in our Witness Protection Program here.

Inquire about having Jerry work with your station and staff here.

Talk to Jerry privately here.

Here’s the part that is hard to understand.

If no radio station in the country is making any significant money from their digital projects, why don’t we do something else?

Good question.

At the heart of the matter are radio execs who frankly are expert in radio but not necessarily digital media. They have to rely on what others do.

Townsquare claims that 50% of their revenue is from non-radio advertising but that doesn’t mean that it’s from digital. Townsquare makes their money from events the way iHeart does.

The wakeup call came last year when agencies put out the edict to spend one-third of their radio budget on digital. So you can see why this all of a sudden ramps up the importance.

Streaming doesn’t make any money and isn’t worth the effort. You can stream to have presence online but don’t confuse that with making money.

Websites are money losers in general as are apps.

Social media?

Even Twitter can’t figure out how to make money.

What else is there?

Well that’s what I’m doing to drill down into at my Philly Conference in less than 5 weeks from now because waiting can be devastating.

Video.

14-year old kids make more money with videos featuring product placement than most radio stations – I played a bunch of them at last year’s conference.

But now, video – especially short-form video – is something radio content providers can get into and as I am going to show you, it doesn’t have to be strictly limited to what you do on the air. There is a world of possibilities.

Running ads is not cool, but selling product placement is – so how do you go about it?

Where do you get the content – will it cost you even more money to produce short-form video?

Well, the one thing you won’t want to do is force you air staff to do digital.

Please re-read that line because it is the mistake almost every radio company makes.

But there is a win-win way to create a side-business that someday may outperform even your spot radio revenue.

Then there are subscriptions that can be tied into your digital products. You tell me what is so special about your station and I’ll tell you some can’t miss digital products you can affordably produce. (At this conference, that’s the way we do things).

You’ll want to see the latest evidence on podcasting before putting your resources there but a paid subscription podcast? Let me show you how and what mistake to avoid making.

Social media is big and the mistake is to use it as a promotional tool. Well, if not a promotional tool, how do you monetize social media, which is everything to 18-34 year olds.

And don’t forget binge content – check out this plan to create binge-worthy radio content that plays right into one of the most popular trends in digital media.

Maybe you, too, are getting the feeling that there’s a lot we can do.

Making money from digital.

Here are 9 other critical issues on deck for the April 6^th meeting:

1. Change the way we talk to audiences. Radio dates itself every time the mic is open, but audiences want authenticity, no hype and at least three other things that most radio stations do not have. Training to teach on-air people to sound the way the audience sounds. How to get away from: “this station is not for me” to a new affinity. Sweepers, positioners – how are they testing with Millennials?
2. Making money from digital. Enough, already. What most stations are doing is not generating very significant digital revenue. Here’s what they are missing that can work for you.
3. Getting Millennials to listen. After we change the way we talk to 18-34 year old audiences, what is so compelling that they will have to listen. How about three things that have never been done that I think you will agree will make radio a destination again even in the digital age.
4. Reinvigorating the morning show. See where I’m going with all this so far. We can’t blow up everything but there are changes we can make like the way we talk to audiences, the things we do to make radio relevant to them, improving digital and this one – redesigning outdated morning shows that 18-34’s are not relating to. Then generate 50-60% of your total station’s revenue from the more relevant morning show alone.
5. Outpacing radio’s declining revenue trend. Every financial analyst is calling for a negative year -- off anywhere from 1% to over 5%. And yes, price gouging by major consolidators is helping radio’s race to the bottom. Let’s cut to the chase. What can be done to outperform this negative trend? Fighting rate cuts, over-bonusing, short-term flights, unwillingness to pay a premium plus adding revenue from subscriptions (don’t knock it), product placement and digital so foreign to radio you will likely be the first in your market doing it.
6. A Millennial Station Makeover – leave with a long list of things you can do to make the rest of your station sound cool to critical 18-34 while also meeting with the approval of your older audiences.
7. What to do about podcasting, which doesn’t monetize well but intrigues Gen X and baby boomer audiences.
8. Standing up to a rigged ratings system. Harker Research and Sean Hannity will share research that shows the type of listening talk and music stations are losing with PPM ratings and how to fight back and reclaim the listening you’ve earned.
9. Eliminating listener’s biggest objections. At least start with this and tear down some barriers to increased listening.

A day of information and inspiration where we work together. This is an interactive format so you can participate to the fullest extent.

This event will not be available by stream or video – only live and in person.

I can’t wait to bring our collective enthusiasm together using this blueprint to make a real difference in doing great radio.

Reserve a seat

Inquire about group rates

Read the full article now.

Free samples of our work here.

Scroll through my previous stories list here.

Some deadly honest solutions to radio’s growing problems at my new radio conference in 5 weeks. Preview here.

Report Newstips confidentially in our Witness Protection Program here.

Inquire about working with Jerry here.

Talk to Jerry privately here.

Millennials have no real relationship with a radio station.

Not true of baby boomers who to their dying day still recall their favorite stations and personalities.

Even Gen Xers who were first to coin the term “radio sucks” had no real other choice the way 86 million Millennials do.

Gen Xers are today’s podcasters and they are cheating on radio.

The important thing is to build relationships.

And it’s time radio stations that are serious about succeeding in a digital age rethink the way they connect with Millennials.

One thing is for sure.

If we’re serious about attracting Millennials who constitute 100% of the prime 18-34 year old demographic now, radio is going to have to be open to some pretty substantial changes.

The way we talk to Millennials must change.

Each station must adopt the 5 most important values Millennials care about the most yet most stations don’t even know what these values are.

I’m going to get into all of this at my Philly Conference in 5 weeks from now because it is possible to have a new beginning with the digital generation.

But we only have one chance to get it right.

The timing is right which is why I have elevated this topic to the top of the list. Millennials are growing tired of streaming music services and they are sure not paying for them. Even Spotify only has 20 million paid subscribers. Apple Music about half that.

Radio can offer a new approach to music which will take away any advantage millions of songs on-demand can have. But no station is doing this yet. You will at least want to hear about it and be early to adopt if it is right for you.

How to prevent Millennials from being drive-by listeners who tune-in and then turn to their other devices – the digital ones. I’ll give you three compelling strategies that you will love. This will hook even the most skeptical Millennial as you’re about to hear.

Changing time-tested radio formats and go with a “no rules” approach. Millennials hate rules. The hot clock is out but how do you maintain order?

The importance of doing news but not newscasts. And not fast paced entertainment reports with music behind them. The Twitter approach to news – yes, even on a music station. Let me describe the sound and then fire away with questions.

New uses for radio that fit into the Millennial lifestyle.

Let’s be honest, radio hasn’t come up with a new format in three decades.

And new formats alone are not the only answer – a new use for radio is. And before our time together is up, you’ll hear my ideas and contribute your own.

As I said, the hour is late. It’s more than time for some deadly honest approaches to strengthen radio.

How to get Millennials to listen to radio.

Here are 9 other critical issues on deck for the April 6^th meeting:

1. Change the way we talk to audiences. Radio dates itself every time the mic is open, but audiences want authenticity, no hype and at least three other things that most radio stations do not have. Training to teach on-air people to sound the way the audience sounds. How to get away from: “this station is not for me” to a new affinity. Sweepers, positioners – how are they testing with Millennials?
2. Making money from digital.  Enough, already. What most stations are doing is not generating very significant digital revenue. Here’s what they are missing that can work for you.
3. Getting Millennials to listen. After we change the way we talk to 18-34 year old audiences, what is so compelling that they will have to listen. How about three things that have never been done that I think you will agree will make radio a destination again even in the digital age.
4. Reinvigorating the morning show. See where I’m going with all this so far. We can’t blow up everything but there are changes we can make like the way we talk to audiences, the things we do to make radio relevant to them, improving digital and this one – redesigning outdated morning shows that 18-34’s are not relating to. Then generate 50-60% of your total station’s revenue from the more relevant morning show alone.
5. Outpacing radio’s declining revenue trend. Every financial analyst is calling for a negative year -- off anywhere from 1% to over 5%. And yes, price gouging by major consolidators is helping radio’s race to the bottom. Let’s cut to the chase. What can be done to outperform this negative trend? Fighting rate cuts, over-bonusing, short-term flights, unwillingness to pay a premium plus adding revenue from subscriptions (don’t knock it), product placement and digital so foreign to radio you will likely be the first in your market doing it.
6. A Millennial Station Makeover – leave with a long list of things you can do to make the rest of your station sound cool to critical 18-34 while also meeting with the approval of your older audiences.
7. What to do about podcasting, which doesn’t monetize well but intrigues Gen X and baby boomer audiences.      
8. Standing up to a rigged ratings system. Harker Research and Sean Hannity will share research that shows the type of listening talk and music stations are losing with PPM ratings and how to fight back and reclaim the listening you’ve earned.
9. Eliminating listener’s biggest objections. At least start with this and tear down some barriers to increased listening.

A day of information and inspiration where we work together. This is an interactive format so you can participate to the fullest extent.

This event will not be available by stream or video – only live and in person.
I can’t wait to bring our collective enthusiasm together using this blueprint to make a real difference in doing great radio.

Reserve a seat

Inquire about group rates

Read the full article now.

Free samples of our work here.

Scroll through my previous stories list here.

Some deadly honest solutions to radio’s growing problems at my new radio conference in 5 weeks. Preview here.

Report Newstips confidentially in our Witness Protection Program here.

Inquire about working with Jerry here.

Talk to Jerry privately here.

The easiest fix is often the toughest.

Is there any doubt why radio has fallen so far out of favor with audiences especially the young money demo of 18-34 – the first meaningful media Millennial audience.

There is no doubt that Millennials love their phones more than radio but the industry during the 20 years since consolidation has done its best to take for granted the largest generation ever born – 86 million.

But a first start – and a major step in the right direction – is for radio stations to change the way we talk to audiences.

I’ve isolated specific ideas and strategies that can be easily implemented by any radio station, any format, any market and I’m going to spend some time on this at my Philly conference 5 weeks from now.

The problem is that radio is talking to the past.

The personalities (even voice trackers) do not sound like anything the audience recognizes and it unfortunately screams “this radio station is not for you”.

As you will see, this can be fixed.

Many stations looking to save money and pander to PPM which rewards strident music or talking only allow live jocks to talk as few as four times an hour which means what they hear the rest of the time – sweepers, positioners and promos – defines today’s radio as out of touch with audiences.

This is going to be a fruitful dialogue because without spending a single dime, smart radio stations can fine-tune their strategy for changing the way they talk to audiences and for the first time have a chance to win the hearts of younger ones.

How to sound authentic, which is the Holy Grail of the age group, that radio is letting get away.

What to do beyond promos and sweepers to remake the station’s sound and reconnect with listeners.

Teaching jocks how to talk the way they tweet – I’ll show you how so you can return and show them.

How to make the way the station sounds embody the 5 values that Millennials treasure most.

Here are 8 other critical issues on deck for the April 6^th meeting:

1. Making money from digital. Enough, already. What most stations are doing is not generating very significant digital revenue. Here’s what they are missing that can work for you.
2. Getting Millennials to listen. After we change the way we talk to 18-34 year old audiences, what is so compelling that they will have to listen. How about three things that have never been done that I think you will agree will make radio a destination again even in the digital age.
3. Reinvigorating the morning show. See where I’m going with all this so far. We can’t blow up everything but there are changes we can make like the way we talk to audiences, the things we do to make radio relevant to them, improving digital and this one – redesigning outdated morning shows that 18-34’s are not relating to. Then generate 50-60% of your total station’s revenue from the more relevant morning show alone.
4. Outpacing radio’s declining revenue trend. Every financial analyst is calling for a negative year -- off anywhere from 1% to over 5%. And yes, price gouging by major consolidators is helping radio’s race to the bottom. Let’s cut to the chase. What can be done to outperform this negative trend? Fighting rate cuts, over-bonusing, short-term flights, unwillingness to pay a premium plus adding revenue from subscriptions (don’t knock it), product placement and digital so foreign to radio you will likely be the first in your market doing it.
5. A Millennial Station Makeover – leave with a long list of things you can do to make the rest of your station sound cool to critical 18-34 while also meeting with the approval of your older audiences.
6. What to do about podcasting, which doesn’t monetize well but intrigues Gen X and baby boomer audiences.
7. Standing up to a rigged ratings system. Harker Research and Sean Hannity will share research that shows the type of listening talk and music stations are losing with PPM ratings and how to fight back and reclaim the listening you’ve earned.
8. Eliminating listener’s biggest objections. At least start with this and tear down some barriers to increased listening.

A day of information and inspiration where we work together. This is an interactive format so you can participate to the fullest extent.

This event will not be available by stream or video – only live and in person.

I can’t wait to bring our collective enthusiasm together using this blueprint to make a real difference in doing great radio.

Reserve a seat

Inquire about group rates

Charlie Tuna cannot be dead.

The last conversation we had he was 25 – and holding.

Yet, Charlie (aka Art Ferguson) passed away at the age of 71.

This one really hits close to home because what I admired most about Charlie was how relevant he remained right up until the end.

I cannot make that statement about a lot of people no matter how much I admire them.

Let me tell you why.

In our conversations, which could go on for hours, Charlie was fascinated by our shared view that air personalities must remain relevant to succeed.

Up until last year Charlie was a fantastic weekend jock on CBS’ K-Earth 101 and he previously was the morning fill in. There was no let down in the ratings when Charlie subbed.

He worked the Internet like a Millennial looking for relevant material that would transcend the older audience that a classic hits station like K-Earth attracts.

Charlie was fascinated with my view that radio people must stay relevant and work in the present or as I used to say to him, “we can always go to a reunion if we want to live in the past”.

We traded Drake stories, Drew stories and anything that had to do with radio’s second golden age.

He tried material out over the phone with me.

And when Cumulus’ Westwood One screwed over their format subscribers, Charlie worked to provide quality replacement options – something he did primarily up until the day he died.

He was a family man.

And humble.

Charlie shared a story of how he grew up in a town where the soon to become legendary Dr. Don Rose was the morning personality – an earlier, positive role model.

Charlie was so much more savvy than Bob Pittman or Lew Dickey when it came to understanding today’s audiences. I dare say that most of his listeners never knew his real age.

The family news release concerning his death described a life well lived – and it was that.

He was recognized, honored, appreciated and he lived in real time in Los Angeles, the market that was closest to his heart.

To me Charlie Tuna wins the highest praise I could give a person in the industry we love.

I can always look to someone’s achievements and that’s more than enough.

But it’s rare when I can add that I will always remember Charlie Tuna because his mission was to remain relevant – and he succeeded.

What an inspiration for me, perhaps you and hopefully the radio companies who are resting on their pasts when the future is so enticing.

Will miss you, buddy.

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Some deadly honest solutions to radio’s growing problems at my new radio conference in 5 weeks. Preview here.

Report Newstips confidentially in our Witness Protection Program here.

Inquire about consulting here.

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If you want to understand the dumbing down of American politics (if that is even possible – the dumbing down part, I mean), then look no further than Stephen Colbert and Jon Stewart.

For years they poked fun at public figures playing and replaying embarrassing videos and taking the brunt of their unorthodox way of reporting news.

All the while they were considered the more reliable news sources compared to traditional TV, cable and newspapers according to polls.

Before Colbert and Stewart, cable news networks re-set the expectations of political candidates, for instance to feed their news cycle.

While their audiences were treated to commercials for Hoverounds and Cialis, everyone else was watching these two firebrands hijacking the news cycle.

So it should be no surprise that a Donald Trump could come along and do the impossible.

No, not be ahead in the Republican primary.

Challenge Roger Ailes and Fox News – and win.

Trump says bat shit crazy things and his popularity goes up every time he does so Ted Cruz and especially Marco Rubio have finally figured it out and they have now gone bat shit crazy (that’s a term South Carolina Republican senator Lindsey Graham used over the weekend).

Then Trump brings in the bully from New Jersey and sics him on Rubio – this isn’t an election, it’s a smackdown on WWE.

Moderates are threatening to bring back Mitt Romney.

Huh?

And everyone is wondering not if there is a Democratic primary going on over on the other side but what Trump will do to expose Hillary Clinton in the many ways that she is vulnerable.

This is better than Keeping Up With the Kardashians.

Our forefathers are turning over in their graves.

Yet we are amazed yes, surprised no.

This was all in the making while media companies were living in their little bubble – the same bubble that has radio thinking it actually has 230 million listeners a week and that talk radio is alive and music radio will never die.

I can’t watch the radio industry go down without a fight. It’s time for some deadly honest intelligence to wake up an industry in dire search of a leader, an innovator – someone to turn things around.

News stations sound like they are from the 60’s – come on, let’s fix that and do something as compelling as Twitter where, by the way, most young people get their news.

You give THEM 20 seconds and they’ll give you the world on Twitter.

Talk is so dead – as dead as the conservative movement, which is being killed off by Donald Trump not the Tea Party (and do you even hear the words Tea Party anymore?).

But podcasting which flops on digital devices at least as a revenue producer is the model for the next talk radio. Wouldn’t you like to hear how to do this?

Streaming music services are consolidating and dying and yet good old terrestrial radio is playing the same short playlist with non-authentic sweepers, no djs and personalities, no music discovery and believe it or not radio stations can’t see that the outcome is going to be ugly.

But radio could offer a very different music service that streamers could not be able to do but they are too scared to even hear about it let alone try to save the industry.

After all, it only takes one innovator to turn around a radio group and save the industry.

So with that in mind, I’d like you to consider putting aside April 6^th and come work with me in Philadelphia where we will address these issues and interact with you and your station’s problems.

I will be my usual shy self and suck up to all the big names.

We will also pave the way for the next generation of digital entrepreneurs if you think your future will take you there – I think so.

Take a look at the solutions that will be offered at this event and see if it makes sense for you and your people to stop doing radio as usual and let us fire up the creative juices that could bring a major turnaround.

5 weeks away.

Outperforming a Slowing Revenue Trend
Learn how to compete against consolidators who are driving ad prices down in desperation to avoid bankruptcy by making it difficult for competitors to get paid what they are actually worth.

Getting Millennials To Listen
Discover the things that 18-34 year old Millennial listeners say they want from radio that they are not currently getting. Former Cox and CBS programmer Dan Mason joins us to help you begin a Millennial Radio Makeover that incorporates these needs.

Making Money From Digital
Learn why there isn’t a radio station in the country deriving significant ad revenue from their digital strategies and where exactly to focus limited resources to achieve a much better outcome.

Programming To Shorter Attention Spans
Learn how to rethink formats that are currently appealing to older audiences by adapting them to younger listeners who are distracted by mobile devices and social media.

Your New Competitor: User-Generated Content
Discover why younger money demos are now insisting on being their own “program director” which explains the popularity of YouTube and social media that allows them to be in charge. Once you know how to translate this need into radio programming, you’ll be riding the next wave.

Reinvigorating the Morning Show
Morning shows should deliver 50-60% of a radio stations total revenue but their chief appeal – personalities, news, traffic, weather – are no longer audience magnets. Learn how to pick up the pace of change for your most valuable asset – the one thing station’s must get right to succeed.

Repurposing 7pm to 5am
Voice tracking and syndication will not be enough to generate the extra revenue needed to stay on the road to success. Learn how these time periods are being used successfully to gain audience and revenue – sometimes in ways that are unorthodox.

Getting Around a Rigged Ratings System
Listen to researcher Richard Harker and talk show host Sean Hannity explain the study they did that discovered a majority of actual listening to Sean’s show was not credited by PPM. Engage them directly. Get answers to how to get around a rigged ratings system.

What To Do About Podcasting
Learn why podcasting may have a future as a radio format but not as a standalone business. Go beyond basic podcasting to pod-radio and explore all the details for making podcasting a radio station with all the revenue that would attract.

Finding New Revenue Streams
In a world where audiences click to buy apps (75% of which they never use) and access entertainment and information on-demand, radio now sees a model where paid subscriptions, product placement and other strategies are increasingly an option.

Changing the Way We Engage Audiences
Learn how radio can become more relevant to 86 million money demo listeners by sounding more Millennial. You’ll leave with a plan that will enable you to start teaching on-air talent to change the way they talk to their audience.

Eliminating Listeners’ Biggest Objections
Learn what to do to deal with the negatives of long commercial stop sets, repetitious music and morning shows that don’t do it for them any longer.

One day, April 6^th at The Hub Conference Center in Philadelphia.

Not available on tape or by streaming.

Flexible format – you join the discussion.

Continued involvement – the learning and feedback don’t stop here, you can follow up when you return home to maximize what you’ve learned.

Jerry Del Colliano is your program leader – former radio, television talent, program director, author & publisher, speaker and professor at the University of Southern California now in his seventh year of presenting this annual executive media conference.

Consider the impact the Advanced Radio Management Program can have as you advance your career and lead your stations, media outlets or entrepreneurial company towards further success. 

Register here.

Inquire about group rates.

Read the full article now.

Free samples of our work here.

Scroll through my previous stories list here.

$200 discount ends today for my April 6^th media conference in Philadelphia - here.

Report Newstips confidentially in our Witness Protection Program here.

Inquire about consulting here.

Talk to Jerry privately here.

iHeart released its abysmal fourth quarter results Friday so the hits just keep on coming as their $20.6 billion in debt continues to grow out of hand.

Number two radio group Cumulus will announce its bad news March 10^th and by all analyst reports it’s also going to be ugly.

Number three CBS Radio already missed its numbers for Q4.

Number four Entercom is the only one of the top four to report some gains and investors are not jumping for joy about that stock which has peaked after spiking two bucks on the news of modest earnings.

That’s radio’s top four and they own a lot of outstanding real estate. Other companies – some of them good operators – will also report losses before the fourth quarter results are made public.

What’s worse, they’re playing with the numbers.

They routinely pull out political to make the numbers look better and remember, they are working off some comps from the previous year that should be easy to beat now.

When your major owners are grabbing onto any revenue they can get at any price just to mitigate losses, the entire industry suffers.

We have to learn how to compete against consolidators who are driving ad prices down – not easy, but very doable.

We need to create premium inventory that advertisers will want but on which there is no room for negotiation.

We need a new strategy to stop the damn bonusing that drives down radio’s effective unit rate.

We need to be mindful of what iHeart and Cumulus are doing to switch to automated media buying which will have the effect of lowering ad rates even further (that’s what happened in the digital space where automated media buying predominates).

We need to create and sell binge programming that listeners would want – you know, like they binge on Netflix content. This is a source of great revenue and price integrity for radio. And I’ve got an example that will inspire you.

We need to stop trying to turn radio into a digital play and start making digital money from video not what we do on the air.   And then do better programming – live and local – over the air.

How to motivate salespeople to sell in an increasingly bleak traditional advertising environment – Pandora has done it by stealing the best radio sellers.

This is one of the reasons to attend my 7^th annual April 6 media conference in Philadelphia – the refreshingly honest executive learning program that has earned a reputation for providing real solutions to radio problems.

No sponsors paying to waste your time and pitch their services.

Take a look at the other solutions that will be offered at this event and see if it makes sense for you and your people to stop doing radio as usual and let us fire up the creative juices that could bring a major turnaround.

Getting Millennials To Listen
Discover the things that 18-34 year old Millennial listeners say they want from radio that they are not currently getting. Former Cox and CBS programmer Dan Mason joins us to help you begin a Millennial Radio Makeover that incorporates these needs.

Making Money From Digital
Learn why there isn’t a radio station in the country deriving significant ad revenue from their digital strategies and where exactly to focus limited resources to achieve a much better outcome.

Programming To Shorter Attention Spans
Learn how to rethink formats that are currently appealing to older audiences by adapting them to younger listeners who are distracted by mobile devices and social media.

Your New Competitor: User-Generated Content
Discover why younger money demos are now insisting on being their own “program director” which explains the popularity of YouTube and social media that allows them to be in charge. Once you know how to translate this need into radio programming, you’ll be riding the next wave.

Reinvigorating the Morning Show
Morning shows should deliver 50-60% of a radio stations total revenue but their chief appeal – personalities, news, traffic, weather – are no longer audience magnets. Learn how to pick up the pace of change for your most valuable asset – the one thing station’s must get right to succeed.

Repurposing 7pm to 5am
Voice tracking and syndication will not be enough to generate the extra revenue needed to stay on the road to success. Learn how these time periods are being used successfully to gain audience and revenue – sometimes in ways that are unorthodox.

Getting Around a Rigged Ratings System
Listen to researcher Richard Harker and talk show host Sean Hannity explain the study they did that discovered a majority of actual listening to Sean’s show was not credited by PPM. Engage them directly. Get answers to how to get around a rigged ratings system.

What To Do About Podcasting
Learn why podcasting may have a future as a radio format but not as a standalone business. Go beyond basic podcasting to pod-radio and explore all the details for making podcasting a radio station with all the revenue that would attract.

Finding New Revenue Streams
In a world where audiences click to buy apps (75% of which they never use) and access entertainment and information on-demand, radio now sees a model where paid subscriptions, product placement and other strategies are increasingly an option.

Changing the Way We Engage Audiences
Learn how radio can become more relevant to 86 million money demo listeners by sounding more Millennial. You’ll leave with a plan that will enable you to start teaching on-air talent to change the way they talk to their audience.

Eliminating Listeners’ Biggest Objections
Learn what to do to deal with the negatives of long commercial stop sets, repetitious music and morning shows that don’t do it for them any longer.

One day, April 6^th at The Hub Conference Center in Philadelphia.

Not available on tape or by streaming.

Flexible format – you join the discussion.

Continued involvement – the learning and feedback don’t stop here, you can follow up when you return home to maximize what you’ve learned.

Jerry Del Colliano is your program leader – former radio, television talent, program director, author & publisher, speaker and professor at the University of Southern California now in his seventh year of presenting this annual executive media conference.

Consider the impact the Advanced Radio Management Program can have as you advance your career and lead your stations, media outlets or entrepreneurial company towards further success. 

Register here. 

Inquire about group rates.

Read the full article now.

Free samples of our work here.

Scroll through my previous stories list here.

Last 24 hours to save $200 if you are registering for my April 6^th media conference in Philadelphia -- Details here.

Report Newstips confidentially in our Witness Protection Program here.

Inquire about consulting here.

Talk to Jerry privately here.

Read the full article now.

Free samples of our work here.

Scroll through my previous stories list here.

Last call to save $200 if you are registering for my April 6^th media conference in Philadelphia -- Details here.

Report Newstips confidentially in our Witness Protection Program here.

Inquire about consulting here.

Talk to Jerry privately here.

Two things we know.

People of both parties and all ages are more than fed up with politicians and government.

Young Bernie Sanders Millennials love socialism because capitalism and its student debt and partial employment opportunities was a poor introduction to it for their generation.

I heard someone say the other day that Donald Trump, as outrageous and offensive as he can be, is like chemotherapy.

He is blasting his toxic approach to the establishment and everything that the electorate would like to see blown up. They are obviously forgiving him for not being politically correct.

Trump is like radio used to be.

As soon as his ratings go down, he resets the programming.

Radio sadly has lost that ability.

The other day moments after he won a big victory in the South Carolina primary, he was testing that Marco Rubio was not a citizen to see if it would fly.

Yes, he throws shit on the wall to see if it sticks.

Donald Trump’s success is ironically because of conservative talk radio, which in its day put forward an epic political movement that was also good for our industry.

Not so much anymore.

But Rush Limbaugh created Donald Trump in a way along with the Tea Party, Fox News, Drudge and others.

All or nothing.

Conservative values or nothing.

Well, with 86 million Millennials 18-34 years old and embracing socialism, conservatism is on the decline as older people phase out and younger people take control.

Trump stuck it to Fox News – you don’t do that. But he did and won.

He’s attacking women and Muslims and Mexicans and on and on but in the process he is the dirty trick artist that some Power Pig radio programmers were.

No one likes radio even if they listen to it these days – it’s vanilla.

Radio has lost its purpose and there are no – like in zero – innovators willing to blow up bullshit and deliver the kind of service that new audiences would actually embrace.

That’s why I am doing my 7^th annual media conference in Philadelphia, April 6^th.

This is for people who want it straight and want to get it right.

Not willing to sit back and see radio take its final bow because the people who run the stations are afraid of innovating.

That would be easy and predictable.

Take a look at the solutions that will be offered at this event and see if it makes sense for you and your people to stop doing radio as usual and let us fire up the creative juices that could bring a major turnaround.

Outperforming a Slowing Revenue Trend
Learn how to compete against consolidators who are driving ad prices down in desperation to avoid bankruptcy by making it difficult for competitors to get paid what they are actually worth.

Getting Millennials To Listen
Discover the things that 18-34 year old Millennial listeners say they want from radio that they are not currently getting. Former Cox and CBS programmer Dan Mason joins us to help you begin a Millennial Radio Makeover that incorporates these needs.

Making Money From Digital
Learn why there isn’t a radio station in the country deriving significant ad revenue from their digital strategies and where exactly to focus limited resources to achieve a much better outcome.

Programming To Shorter Attention Spans
Learn how to rethink formats that are currently appealing to older audiences by adapting them to younger listeners who are distracted by mobile devices and social media.

Your New Competitor: User-Generated Content
Discover why younger money demos are now insisting on being their own “program director” which explains the popularity of YouTube and social media that allows them to be in charge. Once you know how to translate this need into radio programming, you’ll be riding the next wave.

Reinvigorating the Morning Show
Morning shows should deliver 50-60% of a radio stations total revenue but their chief appeal – personalities, news, traffic, weather – are no longer audience magnets. Learn how to pick up the pace of change for your most valuable asset – the one thing station’s must get right to succeed.

Repurposing 7pm to 5am
Voice tracking and syndication will not be enough to generate the extra revenue needed to stay on the road to success. Learn how these time periods are being used successfully to gain audience and revenue – sometimes in ways that are unorthodox.

Getting Around a Rigged Ratings System
Listen to researcher Richard Harker and talk show host Sean Hannity explain the study they did that discovered a majority of actual listening to Sean’s show was not credited by PPM. Engage them directly. Get answers to how to get around a rigged ratings system.

What To Do About Podcasting
Learn why podcasting may have a future as a radio format but not as a standalone business. Go beyond basic podcasting to pod-radio and explore all the details for making podcasting a radio station with all the revenue that would attract.

Finding New Revenue Streams
In a world where audiences click to buy apps (75% of which they never use) and access entertainment and information on-demand, radio now sees a model where paid subscriptions, product placement and other strategies are increasingly an option.

Changing the Way We Engage Audiences
Learn how radio can become more relevant to 86 million money demo listeners by sounding more Millennial. You’ll leave with a plan that will enable you to start teaching on-air talent to change the way they talk to their audience.

Eliminating Listeners’ Biggest Objections
Learn what to do to deal with the negatives of long commercial stop sets, repetitious music and morning shows that don’t do it for them any longer.

One day, April 6^th at The Hub Conference Center in Philadelphia.

Not available on tape or by streaming.

Flexible format – you join the discussion.

Continued involvement – the learning and feedback don’t stop here, you can follow up when you return home to maximize what you’ve learned.

Jerry Del Colliano is your program leader – former radio, television talent, program director, author & publisher, speaker and professor at the University of Southern California now in his seventh year of presenting this annual executive media conference.

Consider the impact the Advanced Radio Management Program can have as you advance your career and lead your stations, media outlets or entrepreneurial company towards further success.

Register here. 

Inquire about group rates.

Read the full article now.

Free samples of our work here.

Scroll through my previous stories list here.

Solutions for radio companies that do not plan to be in bankruptcy at my upcoming media conference in Philadelphia April 6^th. Learn more here.

Report Newstips confidentially in our Witness Protection Program here.

Inquire about consulting here.

Talk to Jerry privately here.

The 2016 Advanced Radio Management Program is a one-day learning experience that focuses on the challenges and opportunities ahead for the radio and media industries in a digital and social world.

This year we will be dealing with these issues central to radio’s future …

Outperforming a Slowing Revenue Trend
Learn how to compete against consolidators who are driving ad prices down in desperation to avoid bankruptcy by making it difficult for competitors to get paid what they are actually worth.

Getting Millennials To Listen
Discover the things that 18-34 year old Millennial listeners say they want from radio that they are not currently getting. Former Cox and CBS programmer Dan Mason joins us to help you begin a Millennial Radio Makeover that incorporates these needs.

Making Money From Digital
Learn why there isn’t a radio station in the country deriving significant ad revenue from their digital strategies and where exactly to focus limited resources to achieve a much better outcome.

Programming To Shorter Attention Spans
Learn how to rethink formats that are currently appealing to older audiences by adapting them to younger listeners who are distracted by mobile devices and social media.

Your New Competitor: User-Generated Content
Discover why younger money demos are now insisting on being their own “program director” which explains the popularity of YouTube and social media that allows them to be in charge. Once you know how to translate this need into radio programming, you’ll be riding the next wave.

Reinvigorating the Morning Show
Morning shows should deliver 50-60% of a radio stations total revenue but their chief appeal – personalities, news, traffic, weather – are no longer audience magnets. Learn how to pick up the pace of change for your most valuable asset – the one thing station’s must get right to succeed.

Repurposing 7pm to 5am
Voice tracking and syndication will not be enough to generate the extra revenue needed to stay on the road to success. Learn how these time periods are being used successfully to gain audience and revenue – sometimes in ways that are unorthodox.

Getting Around a Rigged Ratings System
Listen to researcher Richard Harker and talk show host Sean Hannity explain the study they did that discovered a majority of actual listening to Sean’s show was not credited by PPM. Engage them directly. Get answers to how to get around a rigged ratings system.

What To Do About Podcasting
Learn why podcasting may have a future as a radio format but not as a standalone business. Go beyond basic podcasting to pod-radio and explore all the details for making podcasting a radio station with all the revenue that would attract.

Finding New Revenue Streams
In a world where audiences click to buy apps (75% of which they never use) and access entertainment and information on-demand, radio now sees a model where paid subscriptions, product placement and other strategies are increasingly an option.

Changing the Way We Engage Audiences
Learn how radio can become more relevant to 86 million money demo listeners by sounding more Millennial. You’ll leave with a plan that will enable you to start teaching on-air talent to change the way they talk to their audience.

Eliminating Listeners’ Biggest Objections
Learn what to do to deal with the negatives of long commercial stop sets, repetitious music and morning shows that don’t do it for them any longer.

One day, April 6^th at The Hub Conference Center in Philadelphia.

Flexible format – you join the discussion.

Continued involvement – the learning and feedback don’t stop here, you can follow up when you return home to maximize what you’ve learned.

Jerry Del Colliano is your program leader – former radio, television talent, program director, author & publisher, speaker and professor at the University of Southern California now in his seventh year of presenting this annual executive media conference.

Consider the impact the Advanced Radio Management Program can have as you advance your career and lead your stations, media outlets or entrepreneurial company towards further success. 

For more information or to register / Click Here

To inquire about group discounts / Click Here

Read the full article now.

Free samples of our work here.

Scroll through my previous stories list here.

6 weeks until my April media conference – See the agenda and reserve a seat here.

Report Newstips confidentially in our Witness Protection Program here.

I work with independent, progressive radio companies -- details here.

Talk to Jerry privately here.

Read the full article now.

Free samples of our work here.

Scroll through my previous stories list here.

6 weeks until my April media conference – See the agenda and reserve a seat here.

Report Newstips confidentially in our Witness Protection Program here.

I work with independent, progressive radio companies -- details here.

Talk to Jerry privately here.

Read the full article now.

Free samples of our work here.

Scroll through my previous stories list here.

Register for my April media conference -- Reserve a seat here.

Report Newstips confidentially in our Witness Protection Program here.

I work with independent, progressive radio companies -- details here.

Talk to Jerry privately here.

Okay, this shit storm is getting out of hand.

Now Trump and Rubio are fighting with the Pope.

Didn’t it used to be that presidential candidates worried about the Catholic vote and now Trump is saying if and when ISIS hits Vatican City the Pope will be glad Donald Trump is president.

Pinch me, but this reminds me of Randy Michaels for president.

The dirty trickster of radio was a man ahead of his time and for many of us who felt his bullying, Randy was this year’s presidential material before Trump, Rubio, Cruz or even Clinton had scorched earth on their minds.

Yes, radio did all this before the current crop of presidential candidates did but it worked in radio – then.

Now, forgive me for saying it again, 86 million Millennials are the difference.

They could care less about religion but they want everyone to get along so calling people liars or hitting the Savior of Socialism with a low blow does not work.

Trump is winning and the more batshit crazy he goes, the more he wins.

Like Marc Chase stealing Big Boy from Power 106 in LA and beating the station up as irrelevant works.

In radio, this is deep in our blood and we’re going to go down with it sooner than most politicians.

Let me be frank.

The audience has changed.

They don’t like things that are irrelevant to them.

They don’t like that radio doesn’t do music discovery but almost every PD thinks if they don’t play fewer than 30 currents over and over again they won’t get ratings.

Or stations that play songs all the way through because of their A.D.D.

And Millennials would love talk stations if they sounded like their generation and moved quickly instead of vitriol from conservative commentators who are out of touch with America’s future.

Demographers warn that whether Bernier Sanders wins or not, the electorate will be socialistic for many decades to come in the U.S.

In other words conservatism wanes as their older audience is replaced by younger Millennial socialists.

I’m generalizing but not without reason.

No one wants to live in the past more than the radio industry. If you don’t go back there with them, you’re a traitor.

Frankly, any radio operator who is not planning to go bankrupt needs to blow up the content they put on the air and start sounding like their audience.

The broadcasters who are signing up for my April 6^th conference will get a full dose of what needs to be done to take a proactive approach to engaging the younger audiences that are rejecting radio.

Radio sounds exactly like it did 10, 20 even 30 years ago but audiences are begging for something very different.

We either change or get left behind.

Among the issues we will tackle:

SUCCEEDING IN A ZERO GROWTH INDUSTRY

IT’S TIME TO MAKE DIGITAL A SIGNIFICANT RADIO REVENUE STREAM

COMBATTING BIG GROUP ATTEMPTS TO CUT RADIO RATES

FIGHTING FOR ADVERTISERS PUTTING RADIO MONEY INTO DIGITAL

IMPROVING MORING SHOWS WHERE 50% OF RADIO’S INCOME COMES FROM

DEVELOPING NEW REVENUE – AFTER 7 PM, PRODUCT PLACEMENT, SUBSCRIPTION FEES, BINGE CONTENT

STRENGTHENING THE WAY WE TALK TO TODAY’S AUDIENCES

RADIO SUSTAINABILITY FOR THE NEXT 20 PLUS YEARS

BEGINNING A “MILLENNIAL RADIO MAKEOVER”

RATINGS & AUDIENCE EQUALITY (Researcher Richard Harker did a study of how much audience Sean Hannity’s talk show lost due to Nielsen PPM. They will be live with solutions).

IMPROVING AVG. ¼ HOUR LISTENING

ELIMINATING THE 3 BIGGEST OBJECTIONS TO RADIO LISTENING

CAREER ADVICE AND NEW SKILLS TO STAY RELEVANT

This event will not be available by audio or video recording or streaming.

Join us Wednesday, April 6 in Philadelphia.

Reserve a seat

Inquire about discounts for groups of 2 or more

Read the full article now.

Free samples of our work here.

Scroll through my previous stories list here.

Less than 7 weeks to me next media conference -- Reserve a seat here.

Report Newstips confidentially in our Witness Protection Program here.

I work with independent, progressive radio companies -- details here.

Talk to Jerry privately here.

Millennials 18-34 have turned to their own devices and away from radio.

If the model Kendall Jenner is any indication (and she has almost 100 million Instagram followers in social media), radio stations need to adapt.

She says she always has to be the DJ in her car.

Oops, radio thinks it has to be the DJ.

Kendall Jenner, like her generation, is obsessed with playlists.

Radio station playlists are short, predictable and repetitious.

She likes an eclectic mix of music not the same thing over and over. A few classics and the newer stuff nobody ever heard.

Radio plays virtually nothing new.

And the so-called “classics” are always within the same genre.

Kendall likes to crisscross musical genres.

KISS and the hits channels stick strictly to the same genre.

She like many other Millennials has no favorite musical genre. I can attest to this as a professor of music industry at USC. Professors are a lot more rigid about their music than their students who are open to everything and almost anything.

Kendall Jenner like her generation doesn’t listen to any song all the way through.

Radio does not want to hear this but it is true and widespread and we need to fully understand how to deal with this.

The reason Millennials 18-34 are so averse to radio is that radio in almost every way reflects what they don’t like, not what they like.

Stations can no longer ignore this and put together even more format changes that do not address the real issues.

That’s why at my upcoming Philly conference April 6^th, former Cox and CBS programmer Dan Mason and I are going to literally take the words out of the mouths of Millennials regarding their expectations for radio and offer solutions.

You can hitchhike on any part of this but one thing is for sure – you will be closer to offering up broadcasting Millennials can embrace than ever before.

We’ll answer:

• What to do about djs in a world where Millennials want to be the dj. Fire them all or change them?
• How to give that personal playlist feel on a broadcast station for everyone.
• What music to mix together – how far should you or can you stray for your station’s musical format genre?
• Dealing with repetition the thing every programmer believes in their heart of heart is important to getting ratings? Obviously, radio needs to do some thinking about this in light of what 18-34s want.
• Plus that ticklish issue where Millennials almost to a person do not listen to even their favorite songs all the way through and yet stations continue to play them – all the way through. What to do?

This conference is worth the investment of one day.

Among the other issues we will tackle:

SUCCEEDING IN A ZERO GROWTH INDUSTRY

IT’S TIME TO MAKE DIGITAL A SIGNIFICANT RADIO REVENUE STREAM

COMBATTING BIG GROUP ATTEMPTS TO CUT RADIO RATES

FIGHTING FOR ADVERTISERS PUTTING RADIO MONEY INTO DIGITAL

IMPROVING MORING SHOWS WHERE 50% OF RADIO’S INCOME COMES FROM

DEVELOPING NEW REVENUE – AFTER 7 PM, PRODUCT PLACEMENT, SUBSCRIPTION FEES, BINGE CONTENT

STRENGTHENING THE WAY WE TALK TO TODAY’S AUDIENCES

RADIO SUSTAINABILITY FOR THE NEXT 20 PLUS YEARS

BEGINNING A “MILLENNIAL RADIO MAKEOVER”

RATINGS & AUDIENCE EQUALITY (Researcher Richard Harker did a study of how much audience Sean Hannity’s talk show lost due to Nielsen PPM. They will be live with solutions).

IMPROVING AVG. ¼ HOUR LISTENING

ELIMINATING THE 3 BIGGEST OBJECTIONS TO RADIO LISTENING

CAREER ADVICE AND NEW SKILLS TO STAY RELEVANT

This event will not be available by audio or video recording or streaming.

Join us Wednesday, April 6 in Philadelphia

Reserve a seat

Inquire about discounts for groups of 2 or more

Read the full article now.

Free samples of our work here.

Scroll through my previous stories list here.

New Radio Conference Countdown: 7 weeks from today.   Reserve a seat here.

Report Newstips confidentially in our Witness Protection Program here.

I work with independent, progressive radio companies -- details here.

Talk to Jerry privately here.

Economists predict a recession in the next 12 months.

The stock market is acting funny.

And the U.S. is overdue based on the average lapse between recessions.

What a lousy time to have a recession.

Digital money that used to go to radio is going to that not ready for prime time player. And no radio station has an effective firewall against digital.

Millennials have come of age without an enduring relationship with radio.

Our four biggest radio groups are doing some of the worst broadcasting at the precise worst time.

But it doesn’t have to be this way.

Independent, locally focused radio groups can follow a plan to make their stations recession proof now in anticipation of what’s to come.

Here are a few thoughts I’m putting together for my New Radio Conference in Philly seven weeks from now.

• The 3 things that will win over any Millennial to radio if your station does it soon and consistently.

• Mastering digital revenue without having to rely on streaming which doesn’t make money for radio stations.

• How to do a Millennial Radio Makeover. Former Cox and CBS programmer Dan Mason will join me in sharing the actual things Millennials want from your station.

• Why you must blow up your present content model and replace it with the one that cooperates with shorter attention spans. Take a look at the radio station of the future that doesn’t look or sound anything like what is on the air now.

• 3 prizes that will even make an 18-34 Millennial keep listening – I’m going to identify them and tell you how to own it.

• Stop selling radio spots for undervalued prices. Go ahead, take the money if you must but create this new class of advertising that starts with a heavy premium advertisers will be willing if not anxious to pay.

• Change the way your station talks to audiences – from something from the past to this approach which is hyper authentic.

• Prevent user-generated content (i.e., things posted to apps and social media by audiences) from competing with your on-air content.

• How to deal with short attention spans. Today’s audiences don’t even listen to favorite songs all the way through. How to deal with it.

• Bring your morning show into the 21^st century.  Fix this and you’ll have a banner year. The morning show of the future does not have traffic or weather (except in unusual circumstances) but if you add replacement features Millennials like, you’re back in the game.

• Learn how to get your air people to talk on-air the way they tweet so Millennials can finally relate to them.

• You’ll rip up your plan from 7pm to 5am when you see what happened when this station went rogue with just one show. It’s like having two moneymaking stations on the same frequency.

• What’s better than podcasting at actually making money for your station.

• Stop losing audience you actually have. Researcher Richard Harker did a study of how much audience Sean Hannity’s talk show lost due to Nielsen PPM. Harker and Hannity will be in Philly to tell you and suggest ways to recapture what you deserve.

• Explore new forms of revenue such as subscriptions and product placement. Digital competitors do this and make a bundle. Here’s radio’s way forward.

• How radio can create binge content that audiences are demanding from content providers like Netflix. You’ll marvel at how this approach is a natural for radio.

• How to compete better against popular streaming music services so radio can take back the music listener and get them to log longer quarter hours listening.

• Eliminate the biggest objections to radio. Identify and fix them.

• How to get audiences to listen longer in a world where attention spans are growing shorter.

• Some day radio will not exist as we know it – how to plan for the future.

Thanks to the groups who are bringing multiple people to this one-day learning opportunity.

It’s fun, totally interactive and full of benefits that can help you recession proof your station in any tough times ahead.

I hope to see you 7 weeks from today at my New Radio Conference.

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What to do?

Is it worth a radio station betting the future on 70 million people between the ages of 50 and 70 or just ignore them and concentrate on Millennials of which there are 86 million?

Radio isn’t big with Millennials so to be blunt, we need them more than they need us currently.

But there are more Baby Boomers than the even younger Gen Xers (about 45 million) and no one seems to want to bet the station on Xers.

It’s complicated.

When creating content in the digital age, it is preferable to target the change makers who in this case are Millennials.

But to do so means changing radio in a way that is so radical, not one radio operator that I am aware of has taken the leap.

Some think they have but they are really radio stations pretending to include Millennials and what it will take is total disruption of what the radio industry has always been.

But, I’ve isolated specific strategies that can be implemented by any radio station, any format in any market and I’m going to get into this at my Philly conference in a little more than six weeks from now.

As you will see, these concepts – the ones Millennials value the most – will never alienate Baby Boomers and will actually please them although ironically many of the things baby boomers still want from radio will drive Millennials away.

One of the 5 things that it takes to meet the needs of the next generation is to be more authentic but radio comes off as one of the least authentic things. Almost nothing about a radio station is authentic. It’s full of hype, commercials, promos and nonsensical sweepers.

That can be fixed.

The other 4 things that young demos require and that older listeners will also welcome are just as important and we will go through them one at a time.

Dan Mason of Cox and CBS is bringing a raw list of things that Millennials want from radio and you will be horrified with what’s on that list.   Wait until you hear them in the listeners’ own words.

This is going to be a fruitful dialog because without spending one single dime, smart stations can fine tune their strategy for not only satisfying loyal hard core listeners but for the first time have a chance to win the hearts of younger ones.

Here are 7 other critical issues at our April 6^th meeting:

1. Competing with streaming music services that along with YouTube are the go to sources for music entertainment for young audiences that make music radio less relevant. Streaming services are in for big trouble that radio can take advantage of. Pandora is for sale. Need I saw more? Someone bigger may buy them. What is radio going to do about this number one source of music competition?
2. Create your own social media. We’re blowing it. Social media is in great turmoil. Younger audiences like Snapchat not Facebook and radio needs to learn how to use the best available social media better – not as a hype machine. Snapchat’s message disappears in ten seconds or less.  A new set of skills will be needed.
3. Video, video, video. Unless you have tons of money to spend on trying to figure out how to monetize digital, let me show you how to create a significant cash stream from short form video on the budget of a Millennial teenager.
4. Your biggest competitor is not the competitor you think. It’s user-generated content. Did you see how Snapchat is competing with news services (old school as well as new) to cover the presidential election in 10 seconds or less. If this sounds alien to you, come join the conversation because if they could create new age content, radio can, too.
5. There is a place in hell for any woman who doesn’t support another woman – did you see how that Madeleine Albright one-liner has set off a debate on gender. Yet, my day job is working in generational media and I’m here to tell you that gender neutrality threatens to alienate radio from even more listeners if we don’t get this thing right. Men and women really blurring the gender lines. Are you ready for this? Let’s learn.
6. Listen to any radio station and tell me if it doesn’t sound like a robot is talking to you. But go to the Twitter page of any of your on-air people and be bowled over by how eloquent they are on Twitter but not on-the-air. I have something for you to take back with you that will change all of this.

A day of information and inspiration where we work together in a positive atmosphere.

This event will not be available by stream or video – only live and in person.

I can’t wait to be with you and share my enthusiasm and knowledge with you.

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7 weeks until my New Radio Conference April 6^th in Philadelphia. Reserve your seat or learn more here.

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1. Not Enough Millennial Listeners
2. Fixing Morning Drive
3. What To Do With 7pm-5am
4. Making Significantly More Money From Digital
5. Competing Against Rate Droppers
6. Understanding Gender Neutrality
7. Changing The Way Radio Talks To Younger Listeners
8. To Podcast Or Not?
9. Competing Against Radio’s Surprising New Competitor
10. How To Identify The Next New Radio Formats?
11. What To Do With 70 Million Baby Boomers
12. How Radio Can Create Binge Content Like Netflix
13. Stopping the Damage From Nielsen & PPM (Sean Hannity and researcher Richard Harker).
14. How To Do A Total Millennial Radio Station Makeover (Former Cox & CBS PD Dan Mason)
15. Eliminating The 3 Biggest Listener Objections To Radio

Independent broadcasters and digital entrepreneurs are invited to my April 6^th New Radio Conference in Philadelphia to have a conversation about these most critical radio issues.

Register Now.

Contact Jerry about the conference and group rates

Read the full article now.

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How fascinating is it to watch the decline of the establishment?

On both sides of the presidential primaries, outsiders are now in. Insiders are out and very few people even understand what forces are really at work.

It’s like radio.

Those damn Millennials are shaking everything up, radio people say.

Well, that, too.

Analysts say the reason the electorate believes Bernie over Hillary is that he is more authentic.

Hey, radio – haven’t we been talking about authenticity for ages and doing nothing about it?   Radio stations are the most non-authentic things around.

That one third of the Democratic voters in New Hampshire exit polling Tuesday said that integrity was the most important thing that helped them decide on who to vote for and 92% of that group voted for Sanders.

Gloria Steinem, a Hillary supporter, got caught telling Bill Maher that young women were supporting Sanders because that’s where they would find the guys.

Ouch, could even Gloria Steinem be out of touch?

Whether Sanders wins or not, these socialist Millennials will not be going away but conservative talk radio will.

And you can blame the kids if that makes you feel better but you would be wrong.

Some of my best friends are conservative talk show hosts but I have warned again and again that Bob Pittman and Lew Dickey did as much to kill the format as Rush Limbaugh and his misogynist mouth.

Dickey and Pittman ran the stations that were conservative talk and they didn’t give a shit what these shows did – just don’t put them on FM. And look what happened? They pandered to their conservative baby boomer audience over 65.

Take optics.

Hillary would stand with baby boomer women behind her during the events leading up to New Hampshire’s election day but Bernie’s kids were behind him. Now, you’ll note, the old folks are out of the picture when Hillary stands at a podium.

Voila, look at the Millennials for Hillary.

We are witnessing a world that rejects bullshit.

That doesn’t want anymore of the same old thing.

That wants you to speak to their interests because, after all, it’s all about them.

As Chuck Todd of NBC News and Meet the Press said on MSNBC after the election, he can easily name what Bernie stands for but he can’t name why Hillary wants to be president – just because she can get things done? Todd suggesting voters may feel the same way.

And my radio friends know that they can’t name what their stations stand for because they stand for cutbacks and cheap programming because they can just do it thanks to digital automation.

When a radio station thinks “Your Hit Music Station” is a compelling reason to listen, isn’t it time to find out what young in demo audiences want not what you think they should want?

And who needs all-news all the time?

A 70 year old, maybe but not anyone with a Twitter account.

When Scott Herman asks his news listeners to give his news stations 22 minutes and they will give them the world, he’s showing how out of touch he really is.

Millennials need just 22 seconds to get the world via Twitter.

In fact, I envision a radio news format that sounds more like Twitter than anything radio currently has to offer.

And the new age radio music stations sound more like Twitter than a traditional radio format.

Some of my readers wrote to me the other day to say they would love to reimagine radio in this way and I think we should continue this discussion at my Philly conference April 6^th.

A Twitter news format.

A Twitter music format.

What’s all that about?

Or this question I get all the time.

I’m scared to make these major changes even though I know it must be done, how is a safe way to get started?

We’ll talk about that more, too. But to stay the same is a death sentence for radio.

Just as it is in politics.

Remain the establishment and some politician is going to lose the election.

Keep doing the unimaginative, non-authentic, older skewing radio that is on the air and the programming will be fit for funeral homes not people who are buying new homes.

This is perhaps a different way to describe the conversation we will have for 7 hours in April. But authenticity and Millennial values are no longer curiosity pieces.

It’s real.

It’s politics.

At work.

At home.

In the radio business.

Take the first step and listen to the future.

Thanks for the independent radio groups that are sending contingencies of their people to attend this timely event.

One station is sending all their employees but one to Philly so they can return on the same page.

This gives me hope that the radio industry will once again be saved from what Bernie Sanders would call the 1% by independent operators.

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Face it.

Radio thinks that a format change, adjustment, new digital or social presence or something they add to what they are doing now will make the industry relevant again.

Nothing that radio can do that it has done before will work now.

Let’s do the math.

70 million baby boomers

45 million Gen Xers

Almost 90 million Millennials now roughly between 18-34.

And probably 70 or more million Plurals (17 and under and still being born).

Music radio has become a computer in the closet airing the same songs, sweepers and far fewer personalities than ever before.

And no music discovery to speak of – the one thing the music loving audience really wants from radio.

Talk radio is dying with the conservative movement as socialism rears its head whether Bernie Sanders prevails or not.

Millennials are just not conservatives nor will they be so. It’s been a nice run but conservative talk radio show hosts and stations should be preparing for the end.

Unless, they’re up for some big changes.

News is dead and died earlier on radio even before Twitter, which is a far better means of receiving news, was born.

Hey, Jerry – I thought you were going to tell me the one format that can save radio.

Okay, let’s start with what is not going to work.

Anything that is on the air now.

If you’re still with me, get a feel for what Millennials would want from the station that could command their attention:

• A station that sounds like them not the baby boomers who run them.

• No rules radio – Millennials hate rules. And they don’t like branding either so don’t call it “no rules radio” or you’ll sound like their parents.

• Commercials that discover instead of preach, teach, lie, irritate or bore.

• No clock.

• No weather.

• No time.

• No traffic.

• No news unless it is not already on Twitter.

• They have all these things – move on.

• A station that is neither all talk nor all music.

• A format that would drive you crazy because it moves so fast that it would feed their short attention spans.

• A station with a cause (bet your station doesn’t have a cause the majority of this new audience can embrace).

• Aim young even if you also want an older audience because young people are the change makers as Hillary Clinton is finding out now.

• No podcasting, it’s suicidal for Millennial audiences but there is something podcasters are doing that can port over to them.  One big thing and it’s not podcasting itself.

• Everything most of us have been taught as the Holy Grail of radio no longer applies so if you want to pioneer you will need an adventurous spirit and a very open mind.

• Odd lengths of shows, which really won’t be shows in the traditional sense.

• What to call your new Millennial station – beware of branding, it will backfire as will mottos, cool phrases and hype.

• And Nielsen is not going to keep up with you because Nielsen is owned by the people who own iHeart and they have no interest in changing radio so it’s up to you – change or follow them.

If you think you can’t do it, think again.

Millennials are in love with a 74-year old Democratic socialist.

They look up to Steve Jobs, a baby boomer.

To be blunt, most (not all) radio people are not up for blowing up what they’ve done all their lives so continue at your own risk. The ratings and revenue predict where this is headed.

Let’s have more of this conversation at my New Radio Conference in Philadelphia April 6^th – less than two months from now.

We’re going to build this new radio station of the future with the help of former Cox and CBS programmer Dan Mason who will share comments from Millennials that may shock you, make you mad or inspire you.

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You can learn a lot about radio when you look elsewhere.

When Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders debated last Thursday night, they spoke volumes in their own way about what is wrong with traditional media and why Millennial audiences are not understood.

Hillary answers questions about Sanders 70% support by young people which they don’t have to be for me, I’m for them.

That sounds like a parent.

Wrong answer.

Bernie lets Hillary beat him up when he presses her on her vote for the Iraq War no matter how visibly irritated she appears because it’s not cool to get into a meaningless shouting match.

In fact, Millennials dislike confrontation which makes debating before them particularly challenging.

Don’t worry; they didn’t watch the debate on cable. They saw what they wanted to on YouTube.

Hype doesn’t work so Sanders is careful to be humble about his accomplishments while Clinton is more forceful.

Baby boomers between the ages of 50-70 want to see a woman president in their lifetime.

Millennials 18-34 absolutely know they are going to see many women presidents in their lifetime and maybe even an LGBT chief executive. So, while baby boomers only have so long to see their wish come true, Millennials want what socialism has to offer even over electing the first woman president.

Madeleine Albright said there would be a special place in hell for any woman who doesn’t vote for Hillary.

Huh?

Millenials don’t believe in hell.

How did socialism go from a bad word to something good?

Because capitalism has not been good to Millennials who graduated from college to a lousy economy, unemployment or underemployment, college debt, glass ceilings, and the ravages of Wall Street.

But how can – let’s be honest here – an old white man (74) become president with the support he is getting from young people?

Or on the alternative, how did baby boomer Steve Jobs get to be so iconic among this same generation?

Both looked to Millennials as the change makers and then the older generations adopted later.

So Millennial audiences 18-34 don’t hate radio, they hate the kind of radio stations are doing.

They dislike hype, which is epitomized by radio stations.

They crave authenticity in a world of bullshit. Notice how Hillary said she’d consider revealing the transcripts of her $200,000 Goldman Sachs speeches and how young people wonder, what’s there to consider. Just do it.

And she still hasn’t done it.

Radio hasn’t had a revolution since progressive rock in the 1960’s.

It has pioneered precious few new formats after all-news and conservative talk.

Radio needs a revolution if it is to have meaning in the lives of almost 90 million Millennials.

And a voice that actually sounds like the audience it wants to attract.

Or at least saying something that their youthful audience can relate to.

There are many formats that do not exist today that can be created for Millennials.

It doesn’t matter if Millennials are in love with their phones. That has nothing to do with the future of radio.

As I’m writing this I looked up to gaze out of my office window to a golf course where a young man just hit his drive, put his club away and pulled out his phone while he walked 200+ yards to his ball.

The phone didn’t stop him from playing golf (although it might irritate the hell out of older players). He likes golf and his cell phone – both.

In your heart you know that radio is not as good as it was at befriending audiences. If it were, voice tracking would be off the table. Sweepers would be outlawed and meaningless commercials that are the antithesis of no hype wouldn’t be stacked up one after the other for eight minutes every half hour.

I don’t know who will win the presidency.

I do know that an old white man who is admired by young people is worth studying because Millennials have disrupted everything and they are about to disrupt politics in 2016 as never before whatever party wins.

Lying is out (politicians lie).

Boasting used to be a right. Now it’s a bad move. Yeah, I’d like to crow about every prediction I ever made about media that came true but who cares?

Hillary said she believed in the death penalty and Bernie walked it back and said the government should not be killing people. He got the louder applause.

Stand for something or you stand for nothing.

What does radio stand for?

Not much.

Repetition in music, not discovery.

Savings over entertainment.

Abuse of social media for promotional purposes not entertainment or enlightenment.

No news at all.

No one-on-one communication.

Nothing to binge on even over the weekend.

We can do better than this.

Can we name the top five things Millennials value this year?

If you’d like to continue the discussion, reserve a seat at my upcoming April 6 New Radio Conference in Philadelphia.

Stand up to ratings that are inaccurate and killing the business.

Sean Hannity and researcher Richard Harker will be there live to discuss disturbing findings about how certain formats are losing the majority of their audience to PPM technology and ways to deal with this inequity. (Harker did a survey for Hannity’s show that will shock when you see how much audience was lost to PPM). And it’s not just talk stations taking a hit.

See exciting ways to do a Millennial Makeover of your radio station.

Former Cox and CBS programmer Dan Mason will join me in providing useful ideas that can transform your station from the past to the future.

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All the financial experts agree – flat is the new growth curve for radio.

Putting the consolidators who are staring down bankruptcy aside, there are a lot of good operators being forced to sell in markets where rates have been driven down by desperate stations.

And even the good radio companies are uncharacteristically laying off – Emmis, for example handed out 32 pink slips.

All of this begs the question, how DO you succeed in a zero growth business?

• Give your station a Millennial makeover. If radio keeps fine tuning formats that just aren’t resonating with young money demos, it just keeps stunting radio’s growth.

• Focus on these 6 hours each day to return 50-60% of your profit. No one has resources they had years ago. Now, hyper focusing on the 6 hours that can bring in the most revenue makes sense. But which hours are they?

• What to do with 7pm-5am. If I told you you could start a new radio station somewhere in that time period and nurture it until it is ready to fly on its own, would you believe it? How about learning from someone who did it.

• Avoid podcasting. It’s not your friend. Will not make money to make it worthwhile. Even the latest Serial is laying an egg compared to the first one. Podcasting is for older listeners looking for an alternative to political talk radio. There’s no way to adequately monetize podcasting for radio owners. But there is one thing that podcasters – the good ones – do that can cross over to your station.

• Ditto with digital. No matter how many times we say it, digital by radio stations comes out sounding like, well – radio. With salaries being cut, jobs being shared, people be laid off and not enough potential upside to make digital worthwhile, don’t do it. But podcasting is doing something right that radio ought to steal.

• Cut spots, raise prices and then re-invent the commercial. It’s easier to just take the stuff agencies give us or run spots that our cheapest air talent can produce but that’s not going to get you higher rates. And radio cannot survive as your low cost leader. That’s a loser’s game plan. We asked Millennials if they hate commercials. No, they said … and they shared the kind they would listen to.

Sitting back is not the answer.

No business ever grew by getting smaller.

Millennials don’t care for radio but they are not that wild about streaming music services or podcasting for that matter.

That says opportunity.

So what I am proposing is about funneling resources to the things that are guaranteed to at least bring in more revenue if not tap into a need that even Millennials have for something new and better.

Here are a few other critical issues:

1. What to do with 75 million baby boomers 50-70. That generation is still almost as big as 83 million Millennials. Is it possible to do hybrid formats that cherry pick demos from each?
2. Mastering digital as a revenue source not as part of your radio station. I’ll tell you flat out, it’s video, video and more video, but the rules have changed even in the past year.
3. Gender neutrality. Young girls want to look like boys, dress like boys, wear boy’s clothes and assume “traditional” boy roles. And boys are comfortable reassessing their gender preferences.  This is going to have a major impact on what we are and what we say to audiences.
4. Radio’s most dangerous competitor is user-generated content. Your audience wants to be your new PD. Most stations don’t really get this so they are assuming the traditional role of content creator assuming that audiences are content consumers.  More than ever, this is just plain wrong.
5. Dealing with shortened attention spans requires a major revamping of radio’s format clock, delivery and formatic elements.  This is an audience that doesn’t even listen to songs they like all the way through, how do you work with that?
6. How radio can be like Netflix and create binge content – that’s right, programming to binge on – for audiences that demand it. There is a great example of radio bingeing that few people even in the industry recognize.
7. New forms of revenue such as subscriptions and product placement (“mentions”). Audiences 45 and under gleefully buy apps like it is nothing and most don’t use 25% of them even when they pay. Money left on the table ripe for the picking.

Now, does THIS sound like a dying business to you?

If you’d like to continue the discussion, clear April 6 for my New Radio Conference in Philadelphia.

Sean Hannity and researcher Richard Harker will be there live to discuss disturbing findings about how certain formats are losing the majority of their audience to PPM technology and ways to deal with this inequity. (Harker did a survey for Hannity’s show that will shock when you see how much audience was lost to PPM). And it’s not just talk stations taking a hit.

And former Cox and CBS programmer Dan Mason will help with the Millennial Radio Makeover – useful ideas that can transform your station from the past to the future.

See the Program / Reserve a Seat

Inquire about group rates

If you’d like to stay close to the Hub Conference Center, find nearby hotels here.

Read the full article now.

Free samples of our work here.

Scroll through my previous stories list here.

Please reserve April 6, 2016 so you can attend my next New Radio Conference here. Two months from now.

Report Newstips confidentially in our Witness Protection Program here.

I consult radio and media companies on audience trends -- details here.

Talk to Jerry privately here.

If the Republican candidates needed anything to tee off on in New Hampshire, President Obama came through for them today.

Obama visited a mosque outside of Baltimore and basically said this land is your land and this land is my land.

That Muslims are welcome here and that they didn’t have to choose between being a Muslim and an American.

This stuff is so instructional from the perspective of generational media.

Older voters (and radio listeners) may tend to get riled by this one.

Younger voters, the ones who helped elect Obama and from whom he hopes to preserve a legacy are championing his call.

The media business panders the way politicians pander.

How many times have you had to watch advertisers say “I”, “you”, “your way” on commercials aimed at Millennials almost as if the rules don’t apply to them.

Which they don’t, by the way.

And some voters believe that all Muslims are bad people and they shouldn’t be allowed in the country.

Let’s do the math again.

Almost 90 million Millennials some of whom have Muslim friends, love dreamers who should become citizens, want free college, free health care and Wall Street punished for screwing the middle class.

And there are 75 million baby boomers between 50-70 who tend to believe the opposite.

Then there is radio, an industry run by baby boomers who think the world never changed.

Hell, the radio industry ignored the Internet, Napster, social media and streaming music services while busily cutting costs to do a poorer job.

Radio has to be more inclusive if it wants to see a rebirth among the money demo.

• Top 40 radio, progressive and rock radio was a radical idea back in the 50’s and 60’s. What has radio offered in the last 25 years that is equally as radical and compelling?
• Republican candidate John Kasich got in the face of a questioner at a New Hampshire rally the other day and said he was not going to suck up to him with his answer. A reporter interviewing the questioner afterward said he was satisfied with Kasich’ answer. Radio, too, must stop sucking up and start standing for something new and different.

• Radio has it all wrong. Radio must become a community not a computer in a closet playing the same songs over and over and airing meaningless self-serving sweepers.

• Radio must fund itself. I’m not saying use the public radio model and beg for money.  But win over listeners by discovering companies (advertisers) who address their needs, share their values and offer value. Then speak to them authentically and even guarantee the sponsor’s authenticity.  This is a topic I’ll bet you’ll love. Right now radio is running anything it can get paid for as a commercial and no one is listening which guarantees radio will never earn a premium price for what they do.

• Personalities never go out of style. Sorry, iHeart and Cumulus, two radio groups who can’t resist reducing expenses by reducing the number of well paid radio personalities. Look at Cumulus in New York. New “Frickin’ York and they have amateur hour on their Nash station mornings imported from Nashville. Here’s what I’m saying. They should have done an Underground Local country station for New York because most New Yorkers don’t like country but the ones who do could be had by making it a special community.

This stuff is so fascinating and so doable.

We’re going to continue this conversation at my April 6^th Philly New Radio Conference but let me thank the folks who have registered so far and give special props to the groups – many independents – who are sending more people than CBS sent to the NAB Radio Show when Scott Herman was its chairman.

Independent operators are the future of radio – there is no other way back.

If you’d be interested in having this discussion, please reserve the date April 6^th for my one day New Radio Conference in Philadelphia.

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Peggy Noonan, the conservative Wall Street Journal columnist warned the other day that whether Bernie Sanders wins his bid for president or not, socialism may be America’s future.

This is an insightful conclusion about some 90 million Millennials who have not really enjoyed capitalism.

During their young lives (18-34 years old), they graduated from college to unemployment or underemployment.

They have seen the lion’s share of wealth go to the top 1% while they struggle with college loans and work in jobs where they can’t pay them back.

No wonder free college, healthcare for all and fight those dirty bastards on Wall Street resonates.

Sanders may have lost the Iowa caucuses by fewer than 4 electoral equivalents but he won 70% of the young voters.

This is instructive if you are a radio station or media exec trying to make sense of the future.

1. When Ted Cruz quoted scripture in accepting victory among the Republicans, he turned off a great number of young people who are not religious and certainly not Evangelicals. He may have appeased Iowa GOP voters, but religion is a personal thing with Millennials. They may be spiritual but they are not going to church or thumb a bible publicly.
2. Rubio is going to defend gun rights (a no, no for most Millennials) and repeal an entitlement called Obamacare (try it, Millennials will go nuts). He can talk about American exceptionalism all he wants but that’s not how Millennials see it. And getting tough on immigration is not in the future of 90 million Millennials any time soon.
3. Donald Trump may well roar back but he didn’t connect with Millennials not because he wasn’t afraid to be a non-politician but because he seemed to pander to whatever interests would serve his deal-making skills.
4. Somehow Hillary Clinton sounded like something they’ve heard before. Yes, she’ll help make college more affordable but they want freebies. Hillary’s approach is a loser among 18-34s.  Hillary has a coalition of baby boomer women and minorities who want to help her become the first woman president but it won’t happen without the Millennials who flock to Bernie Sanders. Trying to come off as a pragmatist doesn’t seem to fit with Millennials who reach for the sky.
5. The establishment candidates are getting no traction because older people are sick of politicians and younger people are already sick of politicians.

Who knows how this will end, but I suspect Noonan is correct.

We live in a socialist world. Hell, Millennials invented the words “social media”. Any word with social sounds good. It’s not the dog whistle for communism that older people think.

Conservative talk radio attracts old baby boomer men and talk radio is over. Will not last until the next presidential election. But there will be no socialistic Democratic replacement because radio is yesterday’s news to Millennials.

If politicians can’t figure out how to win over 18-34’s, what can we learn from a 74 year old white man in a rumpled suit that would help radio turn it around?

• Be authentic. Radio is lacking this component badly.
• Be humble. Radio personalities must be all about the listeners not themselves.
• Less hype. Can you think of anything that has more hype than a radio station? Okay, WWE. See what I mean?

• Provide dreams. What radio station do you listen to that plays up the fantasy of the mind to cooperate with a generation of dreamers?

• Be civic. Millennials love people who accept others as they are and work together for the common good. Don’t tell them that climate change is not a big issue.

• Monetize with the help of the audience. Sanders keeps raking in record hauls of small donations (average $26 per person) and he has no political PACs. Radio just runs commercial after commercial of garbage that no listener can stand and makes absolutely no connection with the audience. Imagine if radio monetized with an assist from their listeners.  There’s a way, I promise you.

• Be gender agnostic. At my April 6th conference I will present some startling information about young people and their view of sexual orientation. Any station not in alignment with this view will be caught whistling Dixie.

My belief is and has always been, the solution for radio is mastering the next generation the way Steve Jobs did at Apple when they reinvented their company and the world.

If you’d be interested in having this discussion, please reserve the date April 6th for my one day New Radio Conference in Philadelphia.

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The average radio station is poised to close out the year down 1-5% from 2015 unless they can hyper focus on three of four bright spots that have been recently identified and confirmed.

Millennials (18-34) are likely to continue to shun FM radio unless stations undergo a Millennial radio makeover, a total disruption of what their stations sound like.

The biggest audience threat in the year ahead is from user-generated content not a radio competitor.

The biggest threat to local sales revenue is large radio groups giving away free spots and dropping rates drastically in order to win the large part of the buy from competitors – but there are at least two solid ways to earn a premium for ads while competitors race to the bottom.

A recession is more likely by the end of the year or early 2017, which would accelerate the bankruptcy of iHeart and Cumulus that would upend the entire business – a contingency plan if you compete against these companies should be prepared.

Morning drive shows will have to be reinvented and surprisingly, some popular current features dropped if they are to account for 50-60% of a stations profit – which they should.

The off hours of 7pm-5am now take on new importance – a “mini” radio station is a pathway to turning dead time into needed sources of revenue.

So what’s hot? Gender neutrality among young audiences that will force the radio industry to change the way it looks, sounds and talks to audience. Short form video as a replacement for the digital projects (websites, audio, apps) that stations consider digital media. New forms of revenue generation, including subscription based products.

And what’s not hot? Podcasting. Podcasting is a popular replacement for politically based talk radio that appeals to older listeners but it is not monetizable and diverts listening from radio. But some of the appeal of non-broadcast podcasting can be captured for a new generation of talk radio stations.

The popularity of binge TV viewing (via Netflix, et al) is causing radio stations to consider adapting bingeing to broadcast radio. Long form, continuous, special programming. You can create binge content that is impossible to tune out and get a premium for ads in it.

Digital is taking on a new meaning for radio stations. The Townsquare model of using air personalities to also produce video, audio and text for sale with broadcast is fading. Digital, separate and apart from what stations are putting on the air, is a better path to additional cash flow.

18-34 year olds hate commercials, right? But there is new antidotal evidence that there is one kind of radio commercial so compelling that even short attention span Millennials cannot resist. No radio station is producing such a commercial, but this will change.

There are still 75 million baby boomers, but they are becoming less interested in radio listening because station owners have been happy to run the same types of formats without innovation in music, personalities or service. In other words, to keep the massive 50-70 year old market, it will require the same type of reinvention that stations must face to attract Millennials 18-34. Note that there are several new options under consideration.

If stations could do only one thing to bring quick revenue into their stations before the end of what will be a challenging year, it would be to master video. There is money in video right now without adding additional expense. Product placement is the secret.

You are invited to take advantage of a special reduced introductory offer to attend my annual New Radio Conference April 6^th in Philadelphia where these issues and others will be explored.

Trustworthy advice to help radio stations survive the tough year ahead and thrive on new innovations, marketing opportunities and related businesses.

Sean Hannity, Richard Harker & former Cox and CBS programmer Dan Mason will help lead the discussion.

April 6, 2016, Philadelphia for the New Radio Conference in Philly.

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They’re predicting another flat year for radio.

And there is talk of a recession possibly kicking in before the end of 2016 or early the following year.

iHeart is out selling multi-million chunks of advertising for one large lump sum, which is good for them but drives down the price of local advertising for everyone else.

So for those of you who plan to be in this business for a longtime to come, what are the options for an infusion of free cash flow?

• Attract more young money demos by giving your station a Millennial radio makeover. This is not difficult if you have an open mind but a warning – your radio station is going to sound real different. Are you ready for that?

• Put the majority of your precious resources into just these 6 hours each day to return 50-60% of your profit. You probably don’t have money to spend on everything these days, so how to focus on what will bring you the greatest return.

• Start monetizing the 7pm-5am time period. It’s a wasteland for radio right now but if I told you you could start a new “mini” radio station somewhere in that time period and generate some serious revenue, would you believe me? How about if we talk about one station that actually did it and started a new franchise – in off-hours, yet?

• Do podcasting on the air instead of on digital devices. You can’t monetize podcasting no matter how you try but by taking a “over the air” approach to podcasting, you have a legitimate replacement for older skewing talk radio. Let’s talk about what this podcasting station would sound like and how you sell it.
• Do digital that is separate and apart from what is on your air. Save the money and wasted time and go right for the one digital project that will give you a stream of income in six to 12 months.

• Re-invent the commercial. I’ve got some research that 18-34’s do like commercials, just not the ones radio is doing. Focus on these and you’ve got something that will earn you a premium with local advertisers.
• Target 75 million baby boomers 50-70. That generation is still almost as big as 83 million Millennials. Don’t just air the same old programming, reinvent radio for baby boomers as well as Millennials. Format options.
• Master video. There is money in video right now and I’m not talking about using your station personnel to generate it. There’s an even better and less expensive way.

• Cash in on gender neutrality. Young girls want to look like boys, dress like boys, wear boy’s clothes and assume “traditional” boy roles. And boys are comfortable reassessing their gender preferences. This is going to have a major impact on what we are and what we say to audiences. Savvy advertisers are already in tune with this change.  Let’s discuss.

• Radio’s most dangerous competitor is user-generated content so get into the user-generated content business for additional revenue streams.

• Create major radio binge content like Netflix does for TV. You can create binge content that is impossible to tune out and get a premium for ads in it. Interested? A blueprint for you.

• Take the step to embrace new forms of revenue such as subscriptions and product placement (“mentions”). Yes, subscriptions. Audiences 45 and under gleefully buy apps like it is nothing and most don’t use 25% of them even when they pay. Don’t stick your nose up at the subscription model. It’s money being left on the table as an adjunct to free radio.

If you can master even just one of the above suggestions for new revenue, it could easily make the difference between a zero-growth year or a growth year.

Would that be a good investment of time for one day – April 6^th at my New Radio Conference in Philadelphia.

Sean Hannity and researcher Richard Harker will be there live to discuss how Nielsen is robbing stations of ratings they’ve earned and the money that goes with it.

And former Cox and CBS programmer Dan Mason will lead a discussion with me on doing a Millennial Radio Makeover – you can bring your own questions or ideas to share in the discussion.

I love doing these conferences because they are for people who love radio and want to do it right.

Reserve April 6, 2016 to attend my next New Radio Conference in Philly – hurry, last days of the biggest early discount here.

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• The shit hits the fan in Atlanta
• Tom Schurr’s final PERP walk
• Mary Berner’s hiring spree
• War on misogyny

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Reserve a seat at my April 6^th New Radio Conference in Philadelphia to deal with these emerging issues:

• How To Do a Millennial Radio Makeover to Reach More 18-34’s.

• How To Make Your Station’s Budget in Just 6 Hours of Airtime Daily.

• How To Better Monetize 7pm-5am.

• What To Do About Podcasting.

• How To Finally Make Money on Digital.
• Commercials Even Young Millennials Cannot Resist.

• How To Handle the Growing Trend of Gender Neutrality.

• Why User-Generated Content is Radio’s Most Dangerous Competitor.

• Dealing With Ever-Shortening Attention Spans.

• How Radio Can Create Binge Content Like Netflix That Audiences Are Demanding.

• Explore New Forms of Revenue Such as Subscriptions and Product Placement (“mentions”).

• What To Do With 75 Million Baby Boomers.

• The 3 On-Air Prizes That Will Make an Audience Addicted to Radio.

• How Music Radio Can Compete With Free Streaming Music Services.

• Learn How to Talk to Your Audience the Way You Tweet.

• How To Finally Make Money on Digital

• Getting Fair Credit For the Audience That Nielsen Is Missing (Richard Harker & Sean Hannity present a study about how much audience is being lost by ratings services and what to do about it).

• What Real Millennial Listeners Want From Radio Stations (Former Cox & CBS programmer Dan Mason presents a long list of changes audiences demand).

I can’t wait to continue the conversation with you face to face.

Not available by streaming, audio or video.

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• Mary burning mad.
• McVay’s sexist comments.
• Lew returning?

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Just like we have thick accents on the east coast, Texas has bigger accents to match or exceed them.

John Tyler, the founder of Satellite Music Network that he subsequently sold to ABC for many millions, had that big Texas drawl.

He started SMN in a garage so he was exactly the guy I wanted to pitch when I had a cockamamie idea for a new radio publication to run past him.

In the early 90’s I had been toying with the idea of taking my weekly trade publication Inside Radio daily.

But wait, that was before the Internet.

I had this idea to send out the daily radio news by fax machine but back then no one really used fax machines other than for junk and most of them used thermal paper that was stuffed into them in large rolls.

The printing was ugly and nothing about this seemed like a good idea for my publication that was getting $400 a year for subscriptions as a weekly newsletter if I just maintained the status quo.

We did a research project for some $30,000 that told us that, in fact, we would lose 85% of our paid subscribers if we tried to pull this stunt.

Tom Taylor, who worked as my editor at that time, returned to my office after the researcher ended his presentation and he said, “You’re going to do it anyway, aren’t you?”

Tom and my excellent President Steve Butler now at KYW in Philadelphia were doing dry runs just in case.

But the big hang up was that I couldn’t find an advertiser willing to commit to this concept.

Until I talked with the best entrepreneur I knew, John Tyler.

Previously, I must have pitched a hundred advertising prospects and most said no and some said they’d throw only a few hundred bucks at it – not enough to get started.

But John heard me out. Let me go through my pitch and when I ended he said in his Texas drawl, “I’ll take one every week for a $1,000 an ad”.

I almost passed out.

Then John added, “I want a three year contract”.

I’m flabbergasted at this point.

“And I want page one”.

Satellite Music Network provided enough revenue to pay for the distribution costs of faxing Inside Radio and set a standard for our ad rates – the ones John established for me. Without John, the idea could have never happened.

From then on when I went to pitch an advertiser on Inside Radio, they could argue all they wanted to about price but if they wanted to be in with SMN they had to pay what their competitor was paying or sit there and watch him succeed.

John, Marty Raab and Marianne Bellinger then pioneered a new kind of daily advertising that allowed SMN to “announce” new affiliates almost as fast as they got them as if we had invented the Internet of its time.

It was a great relationship, but when the three year contract was up, I called on John not knowing what he would do next and he said, “Jerry (and you should hear my name pronounced in thick Texas-ese), you need to start charging a premium for page one and he went on to tell me how before he added this.

“I’m going to pay the old price for another three years and I’m going to be on page one. But for the other four days a week, you’re going to charge everyone else a premium”.

John saw a vision of providing quality programming with live personalities in real time to markets where that was not feasible. He and SMN were a huge success because he made all the right decisions.

Finally, John sold SMN to ABC and in the period of time where they had John remain on to transition the company from quick think to corporate think, John hated every minute of it.

He left and was done with the corporate world.

As I am writing this I can think of a handful but not a lot of radio entrepreneurs who had the balls to shake things up and innovate.

John did it.

He showed me how to do it.

And as he rests in peace I can pay John Tyler the highest compliment.

A true radio entrepreneur the likes of which we could really use today.

Comment on this story for publication by scrolling down to “comment” or send your thoughts for my eyes only not for publication. I value your input, wisdom and opinions and respond to every email.

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I work with radio companies on trends like these here.

As much as 50% of the local radio spend is going to digital and digital isn’t even that great.

Indie agency AdLarge is now avoiding buying ads on any type of AM station.

Major groups are driving the ad rates down so low that the industry cannot even equal last year’s easy comps to break even.

And every one of the financial soothsayers is predicting an off or zero growth year for radio.

STOP.

STOP.

STOP.

I have to report this stuff but I don’t have to sit back and accept it and neither do you.

Let’s not just force positive talk, let’s do some positive things.

Ways to create meaningful revenue right now.

For example …

• Do not spend money or a second of your time on podcasting. It is the enemy and detracts from radio listening. There is also no comparable way to monetize it.   A better idea, do podcasting on the air.      

• Stream your on-air signal all you like, you’re not going to make any decent revenue from it. Shut down your station website, nobody will notice. Go into the video business which now, you can monetize it in all kinds of ways including product placement.

• Make 60% of your revenue budget this year from only six hours of air-time. Which six hours matters as does what you do with it, but no sense spending in places that cannot contribute to the bottom line.

• Monetize 7pm-5am – the time Nielsen says is not radio’s best listening times. In fact, I have seen just four hours in this time period explode into an entire new radio station.

• If you’re not selling subscriptions to something, you’re leaving big money on the table. I know a little bit about the subscription model and can show you a number of ways your listeners will readily pay you a monthly fee (hey, they buy apps like crazy and only use 25% of them).

• Do a Millennial Radio Makeover on your entire station.  Former Cox and CBS programmer Dan Mason has some great ideas he will share with you when we meet face to face at my April New Radio Conference. Listen to what young listeners want you to do over the air.

• Reinvent the commercial. I did work at USC for some broadcasters focused on young listeners to see why they hate commercials and the answer was, they absolutely hate radio commercials except for the ones they don’t. Unfortunately radio does very very few of these. But master these and get a premium plus lots of renewals.

• Raise rates.  WHAT?  You’re shaking your head?  Why?  Radio is too cheap. Do a Millennial Radio Makeover like we’re suggesting and then bite the bullet.  Radio cannot survive as a low cost leader so either step up or accept that you’re going down with your other fearful competitors.

• Radio’s most dangerous competitor is user-generated content – period. Anyone who works with Millennials knows this. So, do you let these users eat you alive or get into the user-generated content business? You know what’s getting my vote.

• Create binge content. Yes, Netflix type binge content. Radio can do this, too. In fact, there is precedent. There’s a way to do it and market it.

So I get that things are rough and that our big consolidators have finally given us their disease (the inability to preside over a growth industry), but reflect on the above and join me in Philadelphia, April 6th for one day that can make your year.

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INSIDE …

• The latest insults to Cumulus air talent.
• Examples of the kind of workweek that is coming soon to Cumulus employees.
• In their own words, how bad things are getting.
• Examples of how multi-tasking is going bat shit crazy at Cumulus.
• Why employees are fast losing faith in the new CEO’s promise to change their losing culture.

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Succeeding in radio in a zero growth industry is what my upcoming New Radio Conference is all about. Check out these 7 ways to outperform zero growth. Then tell me does this look like a dying business to you -- here.

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Jerry identifies 28 Emerging Trends Impacting Radio starting here.

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INSIDE …

• This time it wasn’t Rush that did AM in – it’s even worse.
• Details of this total ban on all AM stations.
• When the mandate kicks in and what can be done.
• Here are the culprits trashing radio in front of ad buyers – the people radio thinks are friends.
• What radio opponents are doing now to assure radio doesn’t get bought.
• Speaking of Rush, he may escape unscathed – new blockbuster deal in the works with a new company.

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Succeeding in radio in a zero growth industry is what my upcoming New Radio Conference is all about. Check out these 7 ways to outperform zero growth. Then tell me does this look like a dying business to you -- here.

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Jerry identifies 28 Emerging Trends Impacting Radio starting here.

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INSIDE …

• A dirty trick to get their stock to go up 30% in one day.
• Why share price has become more important than ratings and revenue.
• What you’re not being told about iHeart’s new management restructuring.
• What is iHeart’s new “Rub & Stroke” management system.
• Come Google with me and I’ll show you the hypocrisy of iHeart’s latest management concept.

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Succeeding in radio in a zero growth industry is what my upcoming New Radio Conference is all about. Check out these 7 ways to outperform zero growth. Then tell me does this look like a dying business to you -- here.

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Jerry identifies 28 Emerging Trends Impacting Radio starting here.

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INSIDE …

• How this sets up firings never before possible.
• Who keeps their jobs.
• Who will be hanging on by Velcro to their jobs. Details.
• How eliminating “major” and “regional” markets will work with far fewer people.
• The scary new jobs SpongeBob and SuperRich created for their Final Four henchmen.

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INSIDE …

• What Cumulus is doing to buy more time – but at a price.
• How iHeart is flirting with bankruptcy by another name.
• What bondholders know about iHeart that you should know.
• Can Cumulus do a Citadel-type pre-packaged bankruptcy and still come away with operating authority the way Farid Suleman did?
• Who runs Cumulus when it emerges from bankruptcy.

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INSIDE …

• A source close to iHeart corporate reveals all.
• The Enron-like techniques that iHeart is planning to use to cook the books.
• Their tricky new barter scheme that allegedly misrepresents income.
• How iHeart is spitting in the face of Generally Accepted Accounting Principles.
• The 2 companies you never knew iHeart had that will be on the books next time. Seriously, they’re going to try and get away with this.

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INSIDE …

• The city that will be among the ones taking the biggest Entercom hits.
• The reason for this round of cutbacks.
• The depth of the firings compared to previous layoffs.
• What’s weighing the company down now.

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INSIDE …

• The likely chances of the entire company being sold in whole or in part.
• The latest on next week’s Big Announcement – so big managers are being told to report to New York to hear it in person.
• Everyone thinks the proceeds from yesterday’s half billion sale of inconsequential outdoor markets is going to go to pay down some of their $20.6 billion debt – here’s where it’s really going.
• Why iHeart is declaring war on a certain type of employee – you don’t want to be this person from here on out.
• Why things are so bad iHeart people are now jumping ship before they’re thrown overboard to go work for – Cumulus of all places. Is that a good move now?

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INSIDE …

• How big and how hurtful.
• What top iHeart execs who will be attending are being told ahead of the major announcement.
• How these changes will affect employees when the managers return to their markets next Friday.
• Is this big change tied into spiraling debt – now up to $20.6 billion.
• What’s the date January 15, 2016 mean? Everything if you work at iHeart.

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We just had another group registration, plan to attend my New Radio Conference April 6^th here. Ask about group discounts.

Scroll through my previous stories list here.

Jerry identifies 28 Emerging Trends Impacting Radio starting here.

Talk to Jerry privately here.

INSIDE …

• Okay, okay – so you know the two stinkiest groups in radio. But would you like to bet me on which one is the worst of the worst?
• Shocker! This group even shocked me when you voted it down. What is it doing on this list of losers?
• Some of the groups that made the best groups list yesterday are – you guessed it – also on the worst groups list meaning you may want to not work for them because bad things are ahead.
• The Worst Group that is too big to fail without taking everyone with them – and I’m not talking about Cumulus or iHeart.
• Avoid working for the majority of these 18 radio groups unless you are desperate for another lousy ending in 2016 – your comrades are warning you.

Read the full article now.

Free samples of our work here.

Report Newstips confidentially in our Witness Protection Program here.

Registration is underway for my next New Radio Conference April 6^th here.

Scroll through my previous stories list here.

Jerry identifies 28 Emerging Trends Impacting Radio starting here.

Talk to Jerry privately here.

INSIDE …

• Who my subscribers picked as the best radio groups.
• Then, my top ten with reasons.
• The most people friendly radio groups to keep in mind when you are applying for a new radio job.
• The one group my readers and I think is declining rapidly although still in the top ten – so you know.
• Three radio groups that should not have made YOUR top ten – you must have been too full of the holiday spirit when voting for these rascals.

Read the full article now.

Free samples of our work here.

Report Newstips confidentially in our Witness Protection Program here.

Registration continues today for my next New Radio Conference April 6^th here.

Scroll through my previous stories list here.

Jerry identifies 28 Emerging Trends Impacting Radio starting here.

Talk to Jerry privately here.

INSIDE …

• So how dangerous is all of this.
• What a restructuring would mean for current employees already worried about their jobs.
• Why this is the first time lenders who are getting stiffed are going after iHeart and Pittman in such a public way – what worries them.
• Lenders are sensing trouble ahead with iHeart – here’s how.
• The nightmare bankruptcy scenario that would just about kill off iHeart as we know it.
• Believe it or not, iHeart has one more screwing for investors even as debt holders start to panic – beware of this plan.

Read the full article now.

Free samples of our work here.

Report Newstips confidentially in our Witness Protection Program here.

Registration is underway starting today for my next New Radio Conference April 6^th here.

Scroll through my previous stories list here.

Jerry identifies 28 Emerging Trends Impacting Radio starting here.

Talk to Jerry privately here.

INSIDE …

• Big salaried talent, read this before buying a house (this major Cumulus morning man just reportedly put his on the market).
• How Clue-u-less CEO Mary Berner is going to deal with morning and expensive air talent.
• The two choices for talent or else walk the unemployment line.
• The two choices for Cumulus without big air talent salaries to burden them.
• What’s becoming more important than ratings or even cutting expenses to the desperate new Cumulus.

Read the full article now.

Vote for the Best & Worst Radio groups. Results will be revealed soon to Inside Music Media members. Vote here.

Free samples of our work here.

Report Newstips confidentially in our Witness Protection Program here.

Talk to Jerry privately here.

See a complete list of my previous stories here

Reserve April 6, 2016 so you can attend my next New Radio Conference.

INSIDE …

• Cumulus denies it but now iHeart actually talks about it – this is some scary s@#t.
• iHeart’s latest move to try and sucker investors into buying investments in a subsidiary group – with no protection to them. Details.
• Actual wording of how investors will get screwed hoping you won’t read this.
• Which prestigious Wall Street firm has called iHeart the junk bonds of junk bonds.
• The new debt for equity stock got this many takers on day one.
• It’s not whether but when – Wall Street money people revised their timetable for a Chapter 11 filing.

Read the full article now.

Weigh in on who you think are the Best & Worst Radio groups. One vote per member. It’s anonymous (Witness Protection Program). Results will be revealed soon to Inside Music Media members. Vote here.

Free samples of our work here.

Report Newstips confidentially in our Witness Protection Program here.

Talk to Jerry privately here.

See a complete list of my previous stories here

INSIDE …

• The full extent of the CBS Radio layoffs now in progress.
• How long will phase 2 of the layoffs last.
• Will it be the last big CBS layoff.
• Why so close to Christmas – what’s the rush.
• The types of jobs Santa Scrooge Scott Herman is targeting now – see the trend for future layoffs.
• Why all-news WNEW-FM, Washington won’t be the only CBS station to have the plug pulled.
• What’s up with not replacing all-news with an inexpensive music station – why lease it out to Bloomberg?

Read the full article now.

Free samples of our work here.

Report Newstips confidentially in our Witness Protection Program here.

Talk to Jerry privately here.

See a complete list of my previous stories here

INSIDE …

• Why Mary Berner is just Lew Dickey in a pantsuit.
• The end of Westwood One is now in the cards – how it will happen.
• Why is Berner doubling down on the worst radio format in the history of civilization, Nash, if she cares about turning around Cumulus?
• What’s up with creating an office of programming for Mike McVay and former John Hogan impersonator Tom Schurr?
• Engage, the hated two-hour a day waste of time for sellers, is now dead – or is it?       Details.

Read the full article now.

Free samples of our work here.

Report Newstips confidentially in our Witness Protection Program here.

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See a complete list of my previous stories here

Yes, we do still have some pretty damn good radio groups left even working in an industry that is tainted by the consolidators.

You have a good sense of where my head is at on this.

Now I’d like yours for an article that will run very soon for Inside Music Media members.

The good, the bad and the ugly.

We try to keep it authentic by calling out the greedy bastards who are ruining our industry and giving kudos to the ones we think are serving their audiences and their advertisers.

A few important things.

• One vote only – you may hate the worst radio group but you can only hate them once.
• Easily number the groups in order of your preference.
• Unlike some red states, you don’t need any identification to vote. I don’t want to know who you are so my Witness Protection Program applies here – my word that your vote will be as secret as an election in Haiti. Just kidding. No one will ever know your vote, which is more than we can say for some elections in New Jersey.

Our goal, recognize the good radio companies.

Call out the bad ones.

Put them in some order.

And then I’ll try to make sense of it all.

Let the games begin.

Vote here.

INSIDE …

• iHeart is right on schedule for bankruptcy in this quarter.
• The one thing that Bob Pittman did to make lenders turn tail and run.
• What will the next year be like for employees – programming, sales, management.
• Bigger commercial loads? Details.
• Pittman’s one last chance to snooker investors into giving him more time.
• Why Pittman doesn’t just get up and leave now – there’s a good reason.
• For real – no b.s. – what iHeart would have to do in revenue and share price to avoid bankruptcy.

Read the full article now.

Free samples of our work here.

Report Newstips confidentially in our Witness Protection Program here.

Talk to Jerry privately here.

See a complete list of my previous stories here

Reserve April 6, 2016 so you can attend my next New Radio Conference – Limited time save $300 here.

INSIDE …

• Here’s how Howard Stern would turnaround iHeart even with $20.5 billion in debt (7 ways)
• And how Bob Pittman will run it into the ground instead (4 key ways no one sees coming).
• What Pittman is going to drop on his employees at the upcoming January webcast – consider this an early warning.
• Okay, Stern has a new contract with SiriusXM – here’s another winner who could turn iHeart around even with all that debt.
• What Stern would do with podcasting (you should heed his advice, he’s dead right).
• How he would get sales back on track.
• Move over Jingle Ball, for this …

Read the full article now.

Free samples of our work here.

Report Newstips confidentially in our Witness Protection Program here.

Talk to Jerry privately here.

See a complete list of my previous stories here

INSIDE...

• What iHeart is offering greedy investors to get immediate interest rate relief.
• Why some are being fooled but others are rejecting the plan.
• Here’s the pitch to debt holders that tanked iHeart’s stock below a buck yesterday.
• How current investors will get screwed.
• What happens to $100 million in annual interest expenses if Bob Pittman’s latest plan is rejected.
• Plus a just-discovered hilarious new video in which Pittman says his job is to ride the rides.

Read the full article now.

Free samples of our work here.

Report Newstips confidentially in our Witness Protection Program here.

Talk to Jerry privately here.

See a complete list of my previous stories here

INSIDE …

• The brutal and powerful new assistant is worse than John Dickey.
• How he ordered the firing of the father of two dead newly born triplets at his previous job to save a few bucks – get to know him here or just run for your life now.
• Mary’s new man who will help her turn the company around has been known to be a buzz kill at sales meetings telling sales managers in front of coworkers that they wouldn’t be needed any longer.      
• Why this is a bad omen for women at Cumulus with Mary’s latest mistake.
• Part of the role for Mary’s new right hand man is to keep an eye on Mike McVay – details on just exactly how he thinks he will do that.
• Why Wall Street money will see this move as proof that Cumulus cannot be saved.
• How Berner will put lipstick on this pig this week during the employee pre-Christmas webcast.

Read the full article now.

Free samples of our work here.

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Talk to Jerry privately here.

See a complete list of my previous stories here

INSIDE …

• What’s keeping CBS from selling the stations Andre Fernandez was brought in to deal – and for how long.
• The merger from hell that buyers are afraid of.
• The best prospects to trade with CBS – there are not many, but we name them.
• What happens to CBS Radio next if it can’t unload at least one-third of its non-essential stations.
• The bad news on multiples – this is all you can get now if you sell the average radio station.

Read the full article now.

Free samples of our work here.

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Talk to Jerry privately here.

See a complete list of my previous stories here

INSIDE …

• The sneaky little trick Bob Pittman is looking to pull off on employees.
• How it is built to blindside them into going along with it.
• Details on the scary terms that employees will have to approve.
• Why would a company that is about to reduce its workforce by the end of the year want to sign some people to contracts now.
• Why iHeart is even offering “incentives” to get what they want – quickly.  Details.
• Most importantly – why is this being done now.
• And what happens to employees who already have contracts and non-competes.

Read the full article now.

Free samples of our work here.

Report Newstips confidentially in our Witness Protection Program here.

Talk to Jerry privately here.

See a complete list of my previous stories here

INSIDE …

• The growing concern leery investors have about iHeart’s ability to stay afloat.
• Why iHeart’s declining stock price – now a buck and a quarter – is not what lenders who control refinancing their debt are really worried about. Details.
• What to expect next from this cash strapped radio group that has lost Wall Street.
• Tough plans iHeart has for air talent – not pretty.
• The across the board sales commission cuts now being planned.
• The new timetable on automated media buying to reduce sales jobs.
• Why to keep an eye on Premiere Radio Networks.
• A new previously untouched group of iHeart employees is being targeted for layoffs right now.

Read the full article now.

Free samples of our work here.

Report Newstips confidentially in our Witness Protection Program here.

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See a complete list of my previous stories here

INSIDE …

• What the new CEO is likely to reveal in her much-awaited employee webcast.
• Her verdict on McVay and Pizzati – deal with it or punt.
• Does she get rid of that time wasting sales software program ENGAGE or bullshit a couple of minor changes.
• Layoffs – they’re coming, does she decide to own them.
• Nash – dead or coming back stronger.
• Sexism, racism and discrimination against women employees – does she dodge it or face it.
• My checklist of 6 critical things Mary Berner must do to win the employees and have a chance to succeed. Do this and I’ll sell Apple and buy Cumulus.

Read the full article now.

Free samples of our work here.

Report Newstips confidentially in our Witness Protection Program here.

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See a complete list of my previous stories here

INSIDE …

• How banning all Muslims will go over with Millennials (your younger 18-34 year old money demo).
• How to change the radio industry’s Vietnam mentality before it kills the last hope of talk radio.
• Why the current terrorism scare is a moment to attract the next generation of listeners.
• Authenticity – how the radio industry is losing the largest generation ever because it is not authentic.
• The litmus test to see if your station is in tune with 18-34 year old values.

Read the full article now.

Free samples of our work here.

Report Newstips confidentially in our Witness Protection Program here.

Talk to Jerry privately here.

See a complete list of my previous stories here

INSIDE …

• When Pittman will head for the exit.
• Who will be iHeart’s “next Bob Pittman” – better, worse, the same.
• How Pittman’s departure will impact long-suffering employees.
• The reason he has been laying low lately.
• What pays off better for Pittman: get fired, quit or see the company sold.
• Golden Showers – Pittman’s unbelievable golden parachute.
• Why he will cost a lot more employees their jobs in his final days.

Read the full article now.

Free samples of our work here.

Report Newstips confidentially in our Witness Protection Program here.

Talk to Jerry privately here.

See a complete list of my previous stories here

INSIDE …

• Why Gary Pizzati is the new Mike McVay.
• How Pizzati is helping the new CEO with the upcoming mass layoffs.
• The type of employee that Cumulus will cut first – details.
• Why Cumulus managers are beginning to get picked off even ahead of the layoff onslaught.
• The percentage of workforce expected to lose their jobs.
• How many rounds of layoffs will be necessitated.
• How pay cuts will work following layoffs.

Read the full article now.

Free samples of our work here.

Report Newstips confidentially in our Witness Protection Program here.

Talk to Jerry privately here.

See a complete list of my previous stories here

INSIDE …

• Why this latest round of layoffs just now underway is really f@#ked up.
• How iHeart virtually wiped out an entire division yesterday to get warmed up – details.
• The divisions that should hunker down for big cuts.
• Keep an eye on “Hardly” Adkins – that’s all I will say.
• The final decision on laying off more iHeart salespeople.
• Survivors will get this take it or leave it offer.
• How corporate is pressing market managers to creatively fire people.
• The good news is that the current round of layoffs will be complete within a few weeks – maybe even before Christmas Eve. The bad news is …

Read the full article now.

Free samples of our work here.

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See a complete list of my previous stories here

INSIDE …

• The big names who could meet their demise this time coming as a shock to no one but them.
• We name some of the most vulnerable.
• Watch for these firings around rampant cronyism the kind that Mary Berner abhors.
• Formerly safe big name air talent now in harm’s way.
• Job security updates on Mike McVay, Todd Pettengill, Jack Diamond, Michael Savage and others.
• The senior level Cumulus exec who reportedly has asked the happy talk trade press to eliminate commenting on stories representing them.
• The Cumulus honcho who plans to lay low during the holidays while loyal and dedicated Cumulus employees get fired unless new CEO Mary Berner gets him too.
• The timeframe.
• And for laughs – the word on the enormously popular John Dickey and where he will land. Consider this a warning.

Read the full article now.

Free samples of our work here.

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Talk to Jerry privately here.

See a complete list of my previous stories here

INSIDE …

• Jeff Marcus’ desperation move to make it look like Cumulus stock is taking off again (when it isn’t).
• The slight of hand trick now being employed to halt the stock’s steep decline.
• Which competing radio group just bought very cheap Cumulus stock.
• Is this a distress sale?
• The one thing investors fear about the future of Cumulus even more than a crummy 4^th quarter.
• What’s wrong with the fundamentals at Cumulus from an investor’s point of view.
• How some lenders are beginning to question whether radio is more like the newspaper industry which would be devastating – how so?

Read the full article now.

Free samples of our work here.

Report Newstips confidentially in our Witness Protection Program here.

Talk to Jerry privately here.

See a complete list of my previous stories here

INSIDE …

• The fate of the Nash country format systemwide.
• Examples of how Mary Berner is and will be getting actively involved in programming.
• And then, how much rope that leaves interim programming chief Mike McVay.
• The unintended consequences to former Dickey employees who Berner has discovered are working her.
• Toxic workplace – married people having affairs with senior level Cumulus execs – next move, Mary? Broken homes, low morale. Details.
• She will attack cronyism – McVay’s agent (yes, he has one) also reps other Cumulus talent that he pimps for.
• Westwood One – Mary already knows what she’s going to do with Lew Dickey’s $260 million acquisition.

Read the full article now.

Free samples of our work here.

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Talk to Jerry privately here.

See a complete list of my previous stories here

INSIDE …

• What Larry Wilson is going to be forced to sell to make this deal fly.
• Are any Alpha stations going to have to get sold to afford the Digity purchase.
• The interest rates on his Digity loan would choke a horse – details.
• The one “lifeline call” that could save the Alpha stations that Wilson puts at risk by buying Digity to grow.
• The timeline for this deal and the big question – is there a way out for Alpha before it’s too late.

Read the full article now.

Free samples of our work here.

Report Newstips confidentially in our Witness Protection Program here.

Talk to Jerry privately here.

See a complete list of my previous stories here

INSIDE …

• What made Mary Berner reverse Mike McVay’s decision to run Westwood formats on only local Cumulus jocks.
• New salary and work schedule details.
• Why the desperate rehire move is already in trouble.
• The May Day Call to fired talent – would you take a used job from a company making this pitch?
• Why this move is an indication of things to come at Cumulus stations after the first of the year.
• The increasing turmoil inside Westwood One that threatens to take it down.
• What Mike McVay’s Tampa clone hired to pump up Westwood morale was caught doing.

Read the full article now.

Free samples of our work here.

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Talk to Jerry privately here.

See a complete list of my previous stories here

INSIDE …

• The two things that can trigger premature Cumulus bankruptcy and I’m not talking about failure to pay debt – even worse.
• Why Wall Street thinks Cumulus (and even iHeart) are now trying to tank their companies – here’s their strategy.
• The feeling on the Street that Mary Berner will turn Cumulus around and avoid bankruptcy.
• Some debt holders may salvage 30 cents on the dollar or nothing.
• Why Cumulus can’t sell its non-essential stations – no way, no how.
• How Mary Berner has gone underground – radio silence – ahead of her next huge strategic gamble (revealed here).

Read the full article now.

Free samples of our work here.

Report Newstips confidentially in our Witness Protection Program here.

Talk to Jerry privately here.

See a complete list of my previous stories here

INSIDE …

• Why iHeart is actually asking all sales people to fudge numbers for next year – that’s right pull them right out of thin air.
• The one question corporate wants salespeople to answer about their projections – or else.
• Massive employee benefit givebacks ahead – details.
• How they want employees to pay them! Here’s how.
• The first concrete sign that layoffs are only weeks away.
• Why market managers – even high performers -- are an endangered species now and for the next year.
• The pathetic new way Hartley “Hardley” Adkins has come up with for firing people, saving money and saving his job.

Read the full article now.

Free samples of our work here.

Report Newstips confidentially in our Witness Protection Program here.

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See a complete list of my previous stories here

INSIDE …

• How these 3 radio groups are headed for the shitter in the Q4 and Q1 of next year and ready to take the rest of the industry down with them.
• What iHeart is going to force their account execs to do within the next week – details.
• How iHeart is preparing to punish even its super-achieving market managers who are outpacing the losses of the group’s laggards.
• What Entercom has the unmitigated gall to ask its best advertising clients to do – laughable to their old pros left shaking their heads.
• With just about 6 weeks left until the end of the year, how new Cumulus CEO Mary Berner is tying the hands of her salespeople at the absolute worst time.

Read the full article now.

Free samples of our work here.

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See a complete list of my previous stories here

INSIDE …

• Does this hasten a Cumulus bankruptcy?
• Little known details on the court managed Rdio bankruptcy – you may want to take notes on this because it could happen this way for Cumulus.
• The startling amount of money this failed investment is going to come out of Cumulus revenue.
• Why is iHeart competitor Bob Pittman having an orgasm.
• How badly does Cumulus get dinged now that Rdio is in bankruptcy.
• Oh no – how the Rdio bankruptcy is waking up the much needed buyers of Cumulus tower site real estate in LA and DC that is absolutely critical to Cumulus staying afloat.
• How does the Rdio bankruptcy impact the sale of Westwood One or the $2 billion acquisition of Citadel/ABC legacy stations now.
• What’s worse than Cumulus not being able to repay its loans or refinance them – this is what everyone should be afraid of.

Read the full article now.

Free samples of our work here.

Report Newstips confidentially in our Witness Protection Program here.

Talk to Jerry privately here.

See a complete list of my previous stories here

INSIDE …

• How the spy app will be force-installed on all account executives’ phones.
• What info and data corporate will now instantly have access to – both business and private. The NSA would be envious.
• 9 specific base spy categories – but that’s just the beginning, they can go even deeper than these (described here).
• Can the app know where each salesperson is and whether they are making a proposal – details.
• The reason why a cash-starved radio company would make it more difficult for sellers to sell at this critical point.
• Where the spy app is being tested right now.
• How some account execs are refusing to comply – and the consequences.

Read the full article now.

Free samples of our work here.

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See a complete list of my previous stories here

INSIDE …

• This juicy benefit would be created for a company now hopelessly headed for bankruptcy – details.
• Ramifications for current employees – there are many so be alert.
• What it would take to get remaining shareholders to say yes.
• How taking Cumulus private could be financed.
• Effect on the rest of the radio industry.
• What’s in it for chief shareholder Crestview Partners (28%) and the Dickey family (25%).

Read the full article now.

Free samples of our work here.

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See a complete list of my previous stories here

INSIDE …

• What’s up with iHeart’s Total Traffic & Weather Network?
• How Cumulus is rethinking non-essential businesses (wait until you hear what is considered non-essential).
• Clear Channel hired a company that did a radio bankruptcy to sell some outdoor markets and they want to keep it quiet – full details.
• The amount of cash Wall Street financial people predict iHeart will burn through by the end of this year – and then what?
• The real reason Lee & Bain keep Bob Pittman in a job he is clearly not up for.
• How iHeart owners Lee & Bain are selling off their stakes in other companies ahead of a bankruptcy play.
• Cumulus is reportedly targeting programmers with 10 or more year’s experience that have done this one thing to can them.
• Mary Berner’s accelerated layoff timetable.

Read the full article now.

Free samples of our work here.

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See a complete list of my previous stories here

INSIDE …

• How bankruptcy could come to iHeart even BEFORE they default on loans – the scenario financial people fear the most.
• What happens to employees before and after a bankruptcy filing.
• How iHeart can stop burning through cash – over $300 million so far this year alone.
• Why they don’t sell radio stations to raise much needed cash – qualified buyers are in the wings so why not.
• How long can iHeart last before filing for Chapter 11 – Wall Street’s updated estimate.

Read the full article now.

Free samples of our work here.

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See a complete list of my previous stories here

INSIDE …

• The very serious problems that employees, vendors and investors will want to know about.
• What iHeart said when they revealed third quarter earnings that caused their stock to tank 40% -- in one day.
• How iHeart is apparently cooking the books on the last day of each revenue quarter – and now Wall Street is on to it.
• Employees with this type of compensation package should be worried – details.
• The drop-dead date for iHeart to actually run out of money.
• What investment firms are telling investors about iHeart.
• How iHeart employees should protect themselves for the worse possible outcome – what to do.

Read the full article now.

Free samples of our work here.

Report Newstips confidentially in our Witness Protection Program here.

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See a complete list of my previous stories here

INSIDE …

• How Nielsen’s $1 million lawsuit against Todd Clem will backfire and leave them vulnerable to fraud charges instead.
• The real story of what went down – not Nielsen’s version that Clem sought to cheat the system.
• What’s behind Nielsen’s rough treatment of Beasley – they’re not cheaters.
• Can Clem turn this lawsuit into a countersuit to expose Voltair – the game plan.
• How Nielsen apparently suckered Clem to win his admission and then sued him once they got it.
• Can you say Bain? How they’re all over this bully tactic.

Read the full article now.

Free samples of our work here.

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See a complete list of my previous stories here

INSIDE …

• The new CEO finally reveals how Cumulus programming will operate.
• The verdict on more local autonomy – this may surprise you.
• ENGAGE, the hated sales software that wastes up to 2 hours a day is going nowhere – details.
• 48% of Cumulus staff turned over in the past year – you’ll never guess the number one reason.
• Sale of the LA and DC tower sites is critical but there is a new wrinkle developing.
• How much the Cumulus board paid the Dickeys to leave – and what they wasted on stock compensation.
• Cumulus on the prospect of selling assets.

Read the full article now.

Free samples of our work here.

Report Newstips confidentially in our Witness Protection Program here.

Talk to Jerry privately here.

See a complete list of my previous stories here

INSIDE …

• Investors can’t tell where iHeart moved their liabilities.
• How they are making revenue appear and expenses disappear – and getting away with it.
• We out them – details here.
• Subtract the tower sales from their revenue and you get this scary figure to run the entire company on right now.
• Insiders are selling iHeart stock in droves – why now?
• Evidence that iHeart needs to start selling more assets – but what’s next? And what can they get for them?

Read the full article now.

Free samples of our work here.

Report Newstips confidentially in our Witness Protection Program here.

Talk to Jerry privately here.

See a complete list of my previous stories here

INSIDE …

• Examples of how Cumulus programming is just as centralized as it was under John Dickey – maybe even more.
• Details on the mandates that are starting to go out to Cumulus program directors.
• Who will be doing the local music playlists going forward.
• The new ban on program director hiring at some stations – where, for how long.
• An uprising in one market that threatens to spread to others over having to do local shows and bail out Westwood One in real time.
• Meanwhile another Mike McVay video surfaces – this time not topless like the last one lecturing programmers while doing sits-ups. See it here.
• Okay, okay – here’s the topless McVay video he took down about Disneyland. See why he closed his Vimeo account.

Read the full article now.

Free samples of our work here.

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See a complete list of my previous stories here

INSIDE …

• This is their convoluted plan to use Westwood to whack local talent – details.
• The hidden new mission of Westwood One.
• Why Jerry King was brought in at this point – and it’s not to raise morale as they have been saying.
• Cutbacks in benefits to any new Westwood One format affiliates.
• One giant reason why Cumulus had better think twice about selling Westwood One – in addition to the fact that nobody wants a used radio network.
• What bad decisions are now saddling Westwood One putting its future in doubt.

Read the full article now.

Free samples of our work here.

Report Newstips confidentially in our Witness Protection Program here.

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See a complete list of my previous stories here

INSIDE …

• Current status of the CBS stations buyer pool.
• Which potential buyers are now in the “dead pool”.
• Townsquare, Beasley, Entercom, Alpha and Hubbard – buyers?
• CBS is down 5% in Q3 – how this impacts the sale or trade of stations.
• How iHeart – yes, iHeart – is affecting the future of CBS Radio.

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• About how bad things really are and how she’s going to mislead Wall Street analysts this week about the company’s future.
• That she has finally decided the fate of Interim programming chief Mike McVay.
• And the fate of much-despised market manager Gary Pizzati.
• What she is going to have to do to save Westwood One at this point after John Dickey and McVay fired all the format talent.
• The one radio group that could be the likely recipient of some Cumulus stations – this could be your future employer.
• Why Berner is handing out motivational sweaters for some employees rather than firing them (believe it or not)– details on this baffling tactic.
• That these stations will likely have to be sold for pennies on the dollar.
• A heads up: Her last ditch bankruptcy timetable.

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INSIDE …

• New examples of how programming people see Mike McVay as a cluster f@#k ruining the one chance to recover from John Dickey.
• Big bad mistakes ahead in the major markets.
• The effect McVay’s cronies will have on existing programming people.
• Promoting the wrong people – details.
• How McVay blew the format switch in DC while channeling his inner Randy Michaels.
• The dubious plan to turn Nash country around.
• Two Cumulus program directors at one major market station – why?
• McVay’s futile attempt to hire a friend to turn Westwood One morale around – oh, for a staff of only 6 employees.

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INSIDE …

• Layoffs that are sure to come will be a little different this time around – details.
• Why employee “give backs” are an option at this time.
• The hammer Cumulus has over employees who will be told to take a cut or be out of work.
• And the biggest defense employees have.
• How Cumulus employees feel about Mary Berner’s ability to turn the company around without firing people or demanding “give backs”.
• Mary Berner’s own words on firing – will they make employees feel safe and secure or nervous and concerned.

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• Who gets to make the decision to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.
• How 28% owner Crestview can screw creditors out of their stake while remaining in control of the company – details.
• The big problem that has nothing to do with sales or revenue that Cumulus (and for that matter any other radio company) just cannot overcome right now.
• Get to know about “Debtor in Possession” – it could be the future at Cumulus.
• A lot of creditors and investors are likely to get screwed – how about Cumulus employees.
• New CEO Mary Berner’s 4 million stock options – what’s that all about in a company ready to go under.

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INSIDE …

• Why after just two weeks, new CEO Mary Berner is taking the gloves off (already).
• Examples of her new zero tolerance policy that will surely get a lot of good old boy managers fired.
• Mary’s own words that she won’t take shit from anyone.
• The big sales shakeup that’s coming – soon.
• Why Interim Programming chief Mike McVay’s days are now numbered – details.
• Why hasn’t Berner axed accused discriminator Gary Pizzati yet? What’s the holdup?
• Why did major Cumulus shareholder Jeff Marcus wait so long to replace Lew Dickey with Mary Berner.
• How long does Mary Berner get to turn around Cumulus.

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INSIDE …

• Before bankruptcy, here’s what Cumulus is likely to sell to break up the company
• Which stations will be sold – yes, selling stations for pennies on the dollar.
• Even some of their more attractive assets must go – details inside.
• The problem with Westwood One that could force Cumulus into bankruptcy sooner.
• Layoffs – but when?

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INSIDE …

• Is the plan really to avoid bankruptcy as employees are being told.
• Who will make the bankruptcy call and when – it’s not who you think.
• How big investors can hedge against bankruptcy.
• How New CEO Mary Berner is going to deal with ENGAGE sales software in order to boost revenue – she made an intriguing first move Friday.
• 16-minute stop sets – it happened Thursday.  Details.
• The ugly alternative no one ever talks about if somehow, some way Cumulus manages not to file for bankruptcy – revealed.

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INSIDE …

• The first indications of how the new CEO is going to run Cumulus in the post-Dickey era.
• How her town meetings are having the reverse effect on employees.
• How employees are bullied into playing nice at these meetings by bosses who are afraid of losing their jobs.
• Gary Pizzati’s job security under Berner.
• What Berner is saying about her head of programming that is scaring people.
• The growing disrespect for her “interim” group PD Mike McVay.
• Case in point: A video of McVay making a fool out of himself talking programming half out of it and shirtless – Not suitable for viewing on an empty stomach.
• What she is doing about the outbreak of favoritism.
• How salespeople don’t know what to tell prospects because of corporate game playing. Details.
• Who brought up bankruptcy, the elephant in the room.
• The black hole ahead for Cumulus programmers.

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• ENGAGE may soon be replaced with this nightmare from hell.
• The person behind the new customer relationship management (CRM) software who is responsible for the much-hated ENGAGE system.
• Improprieties galore – a potential conflict of interest surrounds this new CRM. Details.
• Sobering rumors of who may be a backer of what could become the next ENGAGE.
• Will the new CEO kill off ENGAGE or subject sellers to something even worse?

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• The botched execution of Dickeyite Jan Jeffries is the template for future Cumulus firings.
• Who did him in – and it wasn’t the new CEO.  Details.
• The Cumulus exec who will be deciding which PDs and talent will get laid off – their version of CBS’ Scott Herman.
• Which format will replace Nash country as the Cumulus favorite.
• The chances that Gary Pizzati gets it next.
• Which programmers are safe and which ones think they are safe – here’s the difference.

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• New CEO Mary Berner’s chilling own words on reducing staff (spoken publicly).
• Why the Cumulus layoffs are even more urgent than the ones debt-laden iHeart is about to undertake.
• Mike McVay gets to keep his job – but here’s the catch.
• Programming will take the biggest hit – here’s how.
• Revealed: The air-talent Cumulus will deem non-essential thus expendable.
• A shakeup in morning shows nationwide across formats other than Nash country – details.
• ENGAGE may be gone but employees should be careful what they wish for – what replaces it.
• Why you absolutely don’t want to be a market manager at Cumulus under this new CEO.
• What about the devastating Dickey cutbacks at Westwood One – will they stick.

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• How new CEO Mary Berner’s lack of experience in radio is already killing her Cumulus resuscitation – details.
• How the suck-ups are already getting her ear setting up some bad decisions coming soon.
• Why Berner was supposed to be in San Francisco this morning as part of her ten market magical mystery tour – and why it was abruptly cancelled.
• The markets she intended to visit.
• How idiot market managers are asking staff to prepare for the CEO’s visit.
• How much of a brownnoser is Mike McVay after one week with his new boss – what he will be directing his programming people to do.
• Senior VP ALERT.
• 5 bold decisions Berner failed to make that would have won over her employees.

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• The debt elephant in the room – revealed.
• The date Wall Street equity people think could see a Cumulus bankruptcy unless things improve a lot, quickly.
• And the one thing that could trigger a default years in advance – a concern so real, even major shareholder Jeff Marcus isn’t taking chances by staying the present course.
• The best-case scenario for Cumulus that actually could happen but not with current management presiding over a revenue race to the bottom.

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• What about Engage, the sales program the Dickeys installed.
• What about Gary Pizzati, the nemesis of market managers trying to do a hood job.
• Will women get more significant jobs and promotions now.
• Who will be handling programming, the “oxygen” of Cumulus – her words.
• What are the real plans for Nash radio’s all-time worst format.
• How can bankruptcy be ruled out, Cumulus is a penny stock and declining.
• Layoffs – Berner’s history as CEO of other big media companies has been to do massive layoffs. What about Cumulus?

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• Why Mary Berner’s first webcast to company employees went over like ISIS ordering in.
• What she said about filing for bankruptcy and the one little detail she left out.
• Berner said programming is the oxygen of Cumulus but here’s the part she dare not tell employees.
• What Mary never bothered to bring up struck some employees as suspicious. Details.
• A scary new approach to advertising that could have Cumulus sponsors asking for their money back – Mary did the exact same thing in publishing.
• How she said Nash was off-limits, but really?  It does suck.
• How employees can expect a change in corporate culture but here’s why they are not going to like it.

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• Why Jeff Marcus can’t stand to hear the word “bankruptcy”.
• How Marcus’ Crestview plans to make money on Cumulus debt.
• Is Crestview buying up Cumulus debt as an insurance policy for bankruptcy.
• Westwood One – for sale or not.
• What is likely to be sold off to raise money to pay down debt.
• As incredible as it may seem – the radio group that the new Cumulus most admires and wants to be. No, not iHeart. Worse.
• The verdict on Pizzati and McVay.
• Should employees believe that new CEO Mary Berner who is known for layoffs won’t do the same thing now.

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• While Lew Dickey’s replacement starts this week, Mary Berner’s controversial plan for the future of Westwood One was determined a long time ago.
• What happens to the dumbed down programming that Lew Dickey instituted when he ordered more than 70 Westwood format personalities to be fired.
• Her surprising plan to stop the exodus of Westwood affiliates.
• The likelihood of Berner rehiring some or most of the fired Westwood jocks.
• One major jaw-dropping move that has everyone more than concerned.

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INSIDE …

• Why Cumulus employees are so nervous about Mary Berner’s first day October 13^th.
• What Cumulus gave Lew and John to shut up and prance – right out the door.
• Employees who thought they could take the employees’ survey anonymously may have put themselves at risk – details.
• At long last -- Mary Berner’s shocking makeover plans for Westwood One.
• Will the local Cumulus jock now doing his show plus a format show on 8 Westwood affiliates soon get relief.
• The fate of Lew Dickey’s wet dream – the Nash brand.
• Mary Berner’s decision on what to do with Sweet Jack (Sweet Deals), the Dickey GroupOn imitation.
• How fast will change come to Cumulus.

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• Ironically, how Lowry Mays is holding up an iHeart bankruptcy filing.
• The reason iHeart is more than willing to pay 14% interest to keep the company out of bankruptcy – for now.
• How Sam Zell figures into all of this.
• The new owner has big plans for iHeart.
• The surprising stations that will be spun off and the ones that will likely remain in the new, debt-free version of iHeart.

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• What’s the reason for an employee survey when Berner has already told her board what she is going to do – it’s explained here.
• The unbelievable questions -- only 5 of them – that she is asking employees to answer that speaks volumes for where her head is at.
• See the actual survey before Berner takes the link down.
• How Cumulus managers who have spoken to Berner feel about her – their first impressions.
• What’s really going to happen to Gary Pizzati and the other leftovers from the Dickey era who couldn’t get elected dogcatcher by employees. You need a survey for this?
• How Berner will handle the fact that her best qualification is to lead companies into bankruptcy and that she has no radio experience.
• Early warning: don’t be surprised if Cumulus employees will be directed to take on this additional job. For the same pay.

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• The big lie that no one is talking about in the Bubba/Nielsen ratings tampering case.
• How Todd Clem (Bubba)’s apology caught Nielsen with their pants down.
• The best replacement for Bubba on the air.
• The best replacement for president of Nielsen radio.
• How Nielsen punished everyone except the party that caused the problem in the first place – revealed.

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• What’s up with Lew getting forced out with not even a whimper from him?
• The reported talks between the Cumulus board and Lew Dickey about what Dickey wanted to take with him.
• Why Lew Dickey and Jeff Marcus may still be working together – details.
• What’s the payoff for Lew for not making a stink and going away quietly until the company is bankrupted?
• The chances that Lew returns to a Cumulus operating position – while not perfect, we have a pretty good record on calling these things.
• How Marcus (and Dickey) will use the bankruptcy of Cumulus to lobby for relaxation of ownership rules. And they might win.

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• Two weeks ahead of her first day, here’s the down low on Cumulus CEO Mary Berner.
• Details about the management style that is going to make Cumulus employees want Lew Dickey back – and I’m only half kidding.
• How she describes herself in her own words – this will scare the bejesus out of anyone.
• Will bankruptcy be her end game -- here’s how she took over Reader’s Digest to turn it around but led it to bankruptcy instead.
• Mary Berner’s history on layoffs that preview what she is likely to do at Cumulus.
• Get to know “Mary’s Mafia” before they get to know you.
• How she pissed off advertisers and agencies when running the publishing industry’s version of the NAB.
• Berner’s one “strength” that Lew Dickey did not have.

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• Why Westwood One format clients are going to be up in arms about the latest boneheaded move to save money.
• Big changes to Westwood formats ahead. Details.
• What remaining Westwood affiliates now fear the most.
• The latest on affiliates who are drawing up “ditch the dish” campaigns to replace Westwood formats. Details.
• All about the weekend of announcements Westwood ran that constantly told listeners to “turn the radio off” making affiliates see red.
• The damndest customer service you’ve ever heard of – don’t do it like Westwood does.

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Interesting that the best performing Republican presidential candidates are outsiders with no political experience.

Donald Trump could actually be the gift Democrats have been waiting for.

Or not.

Even among the Democrats, Bernie Sanders is surging while the establishment candidate Hillary Clinton is faltering – in part due to her own missteps with state department email and a phony tactic on the part of the other party to make Benghazi an issue with the sole intent to hurt her politically.

I have to laugh when Bernie Sanders is disparaged because he is a socialist.

Socialist, what a dirty word.

Unfortunately, America is a socialist capitalist democracy.

Medicare.

Medicaid.

Social Security.

The Affordable Care Act.

Unemployment insurance.

It looks like in spite of the rhetoric, the electorate wants government on their back when it comes to social programs – even conservatives take these social programs.

This brings me to Millennials basically 18-34 and disinterested in traditional media.

Washington gridlock turns them off.

They want entitlement programs – after all they are the most entitled generation we have ever seen.

But they are fiscal conservatives like their grandparents.

For those of us in the media business, go no further than the presidential election circus to see Millennials having even more impact on a changing world.

The number one thing they want is authenticity.

Bernie Sanders seems authentic enough as a political figure.

And Donald Trump is certainly not like any presidential candidate the electorate has ever seen.

Trump’s appeal is that he is the exact opposite of rehearsed politicians who say one thing and mean the other.

Trump sounds authentic whether you like the message or not.

Of course, he will never win among Millennials because they are a generation that grew up with immigrant friends, embraced sexual equality and don’t like rules.

You can see why radio is so over.

Radio is non-authentic to anyone under 65.

We brag too much.

We say things we don’t mean.

We’re tricky – like offering contest prizes that are shared by many if not all the markets their owners compete in vastly limiting the chance to win. Even Alpha, a company that fancies itself live and local, does national contests.

Radio is loaded with commercials that are unbelievable.

What radio personalities that are left are a horrible imitation of their ancestors (Cousin Brucie) and vapid voices that no one can relate to because they never say anything.

Radio used to be about relationships, but not now.

It’s voice tracking, meaningless self-serving sweepers, segued music, out of market programming and the same music you can get without 16 minutes of commercials on your mobile device.

The same thing that is disrupting politics has already fatally disrupted radio, an industry whose best days ahead are bankruptcies and more consolidation.

Those traitors at the NAB, the same people who won consolidation for the fat cats in 1996 are lobbying hard even at this moment for lifting more ownership rules.

In other words, you can own more of a dying industry that 95 million Millennials want no part of and that perhaps as many as 70 million Plurals (the generation after Millennials) don’t want either.

Trump seems like a no bullshit guy even if he is full of bullshit.

Bob Pittman, on the other hand, seems like he’s all bullshit and he is. That’s authentic in a bad way. And this is the guy who runs the largest radio group in the world.

The Dickey family was a Shakespearean tragedy for radio because John Dickey couldn’t communicate with his own employees let alone with radio audiences.

Mary Berner, Lew’s successor, could be Carly Fiorina. We’ll have to wait and see.

Fiorina is an outsider who brutally fired massive numbers of HP employees and to most business people is considered a failed CEO.

Yet, she’s not a politician and she sounds refreshing to many in spite of her well-earned reputation for tanking companies.

Mary Berner is a tough CEO and Cumulus employees will see that in short order.

What we don’t know because these guys are not authentic is whether she was hired to run the company with no radio experience or bankrupt it with the experience she learned from taking Reader’s Digest into Chapter 11.

The one thing that we seem not to learn is that Millennials – the generation that cuts the cord, wants what they want, doesn’t trust media and won’t watch or listen – want us to be authentic like Donald Trump and other non-politicians but with a heart as well as a brain.

Trump’s admitted weakness is that he doesn’t do well in likeability.

What?

A brash New Yorker not likeable?

Nah.

I invite you to observe the coming election cycle and not get too caught up in the usual gotcha issues that will be bandied about.

The real election issues for those of us in the media industry are authenticity and compassion.

The ability to communicate effectively.

Ronald Reagan did it.

Bill Clinton did it.

And last but not least – what we do has to be all about them (the audience), not us.

Radio is about us and that won’t work any longer.

The question is whether it is too late and it would seem so. While the greedy bastards who have consolidated radio by cutting and slashing their way to mediocrity may have made it permanent.

Still, if I’m running a radio station, I’m trying hard to mirror my target audience’s best traits.

Looking to be bold and different.

Develop formats for children and very young people by throwing away all the rules of radio that used to serve us well.

The most effective Millennial commercial of the future, for example, is one where the advertiser admits that we suck at this but we’re really good at something you care about.

Sucking means you’re authentic and more believable when you say what you’re good at.

Not an endless string of unlistenable commercials that shout how great advertisers are when this generation is not buying it.

No wonder advertisers don’t value radio and won’t pay the best rates for effective advertising.

Your politics are your business. As my mother, a Democratic election worker in Springfield, PA, used to say, “You can’t talk someone out of their politics”.

But your media savvy belongs to your target audience – right now that is Millennials and some older Plurals.

Do you want Donald Trump’s finger on our nuclear arsenal?

Of course not.

He’s a blowhard who just happens to blowup the bullshit of the American political system.

People just want someone to cut the crap and say what they mean even if it is outrageous.

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INSIDE …

• McVay is not only staying, he’s been put in charge of all programming – is that change you can count on?
• What new CEO Mary Berner was horrified to find after surveying Cumulus stations for the board – and she’s hell bent to confront it.
• How the Cumulus station of the future will be run when she takes over soon.
• The $260 million mess at Westwood one – rehire the old talent, keep pawning off recycled local Cumulus talent, sell?
• Nightmare scenario she must deal with on day one – revolt of Cumulus air talent. Details.
• Let’s just confront this big elephant in the room upfront – was Mary Berner hired to take Cumulus into bankruptcy as she did Reader’s Digest?

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• How Cumulus is going to be a radically different company under Mary Berner – no radio background.
• Was she brought in to take Cumulus to bankruptcy – she did it to Reader’s Digest. Details.
• What’s this keeping Mike McVay to replace John Dickey in programming all about? Did Mary Berner really do this?
• The big F@#k You that Jeff Marcus may have given Lew Dickey on the way out the door.
• How soon will Mary Berner make more major changes – the time line.
• And what about Westwood One – more of the same, fixed or sold.
• How local markets will soon operate – will Mary Berner make it more local or more national with a different management team.
• The fate of the Cumulus computerized sales tracking system that makes sellers lose up to two hours of productive time per day.
• If you think Mary Berner has no radio experience, look at who interviewed for the Cumulus CEO job with even less.
• The prospects for merger or sale of assets under new management.
• Now that the Dickeys have fallen from grace, which radio group CEO is next?

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INSIDE …

• How about brother John – is there anyway Jeff Marcus’ new CEO would keep the current programming “genius” – say for transition purposes.
• Both Dickey brothers were reportedly seen cleaning out their offices. Take a look at their future plans.
• McVay? Does he stay or does he go – and when.
• Jan Jeffries – rumor has it that Jeffries has something over the Dickeys that kept him employed. Will Lew’s successor feel the same way?
• And what about the guy many Cumulus employees feel is public enemy number one – Gary Pizzati. A role in the new management scheme under one of the possible job candidates to replace Lew.
• Some market managers are outta there when Lew leaves – how long will they have.
• Plus, two job candidates who could replace Lew as CEO where it would actually be better to keep Lew (can’t believe I said that, but it’s true). Here’s who you don’t want Jeff Marcus to choose.

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INSIDE …

• Here’s how Lew Dickey’s official end will come and what will happen next.
• And when.
• Why is principal shareholder Jeff Marcus waiting this long to axe Lew Dickey hanging him out there to dry – after this, you’ll understand the delay.
• The big and surprising changes largest shareholder Jeff Marcus is going to make.
• Not likely Marcus will promote from within – but here is the CEO he’s getting ready to announce soon.
• Why the Dickey replacement will surprise – no, shock you when this person’s name is announced.
• The one last hope for surviving Cumulus employees if they like this new definition of a radio company coming soon.

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• Details on the big time pay cuts coming in the next few months.
• Here’s the minimum giveback – sit down and stay away from sharp objects.
• What a Cumulus “take it or leave it” agreement is going to look like.
• Who is going to be told take less or leave.
• If Mike McVay is going to have to take less – assuming he still has a job under the new CEO – he’s starting from this inflated salary number.
• Why some big names in Cumulus have turned on Lew Dickey and what’s going to happen to them now.

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• The surprising front-runner to replace Lew Dickey.
• If this guy gets the gig (and it’s a guy), save the celebration. And I’m hearing it’s not John Hogan.
• Then what happens to his brother John and the lackeys he has hired.
• Sources report the end should come soon.
• Which influential people did Lew Dickey cross to lose goodwill on Wall Street at the worst time – some of whom actually are said to have badmouthed him.
• How Jeff Marcus is likely to handle Lew’s embarrassing demise.

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INSIDE …

• No sooner than majority owner Jeff Marcus leaves San Francisco, these people arrive.
• And other markets will reportedly get the same treatment – how many?
• How Cumulus seems to be doubling down on making even deeper cuts.
• Suspiciously Cumulus is trying to clean up old business – some years old to tidy things up ahead of a bankruptcy. The specifics.
• What a pre-pack bankruptcy would mean to equity holders, banks, bondholders and employees.
• How analysts can in clear conscience give a “buy” or “outperform” rating to a company this sketchy.

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• The unthinkable thing that happened when one affiliate told Westwood it wanted to stop running their programming.
• How Westwood bullied the owners and backed down – but at this price.
• How badly Westwood format affiliates want out of their contracts – the things they are willing to do to get as far away from them as possible.
• The ransom Westwood attorneys are demanding to stop format affiliates from all leaving at once.
• The catastrophic effect on Westwood One if even this number of format affiliates bolt.
• How bad things are getting now at Westwood’s format division in the words of one who was burned.
• Now we know how Cumulus got local talent to replace fired Westwood talent.       Clue: it was not the $5,000 a year “bonus”. Worse.

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• The name of the firm Cumulus has reportedly hired to deal with a potential Cumulus bankruptcy – we’re naming names here.
• The new Cumulus board member who has hardnosed experience in bankrupting companies.
• When?
• The kind of bankruptcy that is likely.
• Three scary things that will happen should Cumulus file.
• Is there anything that can prevent bankruptcy?

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• How bad is it – really.
• What is expected to increase by 3 to 5 times current levels putting iHeart in survival mode.
• Who gets cut back – I’ll tell you this, it is the usual victims but in a way iHeart has never done before.
• iHeart’s No Manager Left Behind program – details.
• But, what’s on the air will change drastically.  The time periods iHeart is targeting.
• Why iHeart keeps cutting expenses when even if they fired everyone but Bob Pittman they couldn’t pay down their debt enough to survive.
• Wall Street venture firms don’t expect iHeart to make it – here’s when they think iHeart has a date with a bankruptcy judge.

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• Can you get your $15,000 per Voltair unit back now?
• Read the contract clause – word for word – that slyly prohibits their client stations from using Voltair going forward.
• This in spite of suspicions that Nielsen knew that their encoded signal favored certain stations.
• The formats that are getting screwed by PPM – one of them is losing 90% of its audience to faulty technology.
• The chances of a class action lawsuit back at Nielsen for this.
• How PPM that only reliably reports loud stations is helping radio’s competitors.

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• Here are the first concrete results of Jeff Marcus’ “intervention” to save Cumulus and his 30% stake in the company from further Dickey damage.
• How these new changes will be rolled out – which markets first and how soon.
• What about the Dickey appointees that are in place and who have supported their ill-fated strategy? Here’s how Marcus will handle them.
• Specifically – let’s get to it – what about McVay and John Dickey.
• In one market, employees are ecstatic because of this announcement – and it may repeat in other markets – details.   Cumulus pride!
• The fundamental change in which Cumulus stations will be managed in the post-Dickey era.

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• The one option left to turnaround Westwood One that Cumulus is ignoring.
• What happened within weeks of Cumulus acquiring Westwood One that accelerated their decline and it continues to grow worse.
• Specific contracts that Cumulus/Westwood cannot get out of leaving them little left to cutback – details.
• The latest on the affiliate revolt that threatens to bring Westwood down.
• Westwood for sale?

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INSIDE …

• How widespread is this revolt by once loyal top execs turning on Lew and John Dickey.
• One of the surprising turncoats is this Cumulus exec who has his head so far up Lew’s you know what that he can’t see the light of day.
• The one thing that has been holding up largest shareholder Jeff Marcus from reassuring shareholders he has things under control and ready to turnaround.
• What has been stopping Marcus from going public with the changes he has already made privately.
• What Jeff Marcus is hearing on his lone listening tour of troubled Cumulus clusters without Lew Dickey by his side.
• What Marcus is discovering that the Dickeys have covered up.
• The fate of Lew and John’s “mafia” under Jeff Marcus.
• Who is likely to handle Cumulus operations now – 12 months after Lew refused the board’s demand that he hire a non-Dickey for the job.

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• An analyst trips up CBS CEO Les Moonves making him reveal what it will take to sell CBS Radio – here it is word for word.
• Are competing radio CEOs buying Les’ B.S. about standing pat.
• The main reason why Moonves has to start selling off his CBS stations now – there are several reasons but none bigger than this.
• What will be left standing at CBS radio stations that are not sold by the end of this year.
• Best thinking on how the CBS station sales will be unveiled and in what order.
• Latest list of potential buyers.
• The exceptions: Moonves may keep a select few radio stations. Here’s a hint of who they are likely to be.

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INSIDE …

• A taste of the John Dickey you may not have known that is leading to his demise.       True stories that have been kept secret.
• Will Jeff Marcus keep Mike McVay and Jan Jeffries – let’s just get right to it.
• John Dickey’s programming hire from Subway – that’s right, like in “eat fresh” that isn’t helping his ability to save his job now.
• Where John Dickey got the cockamamie idea to have one local jock replace three Westwood One format hosts. This makes him look like a lightweight to his new boss.
• Will Jeff Marcus realize what’s wrong and return power to local Cumulus PDs. The very surprising answer.
• How Marcus could save his $260 million Westwood One investment if he’s really listening to those in the company who know – details.
• Nash – a keeper or a goner.

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• How the Dickeys are using insider trading to bet against the company.
• What is happening in the boardroom that does not bode well for the Dickeys.
• The final nail in Lew Dickey’s coffin – this one unintended consequence turned the board against him and sealed his fate.
• The 3 Dickey initiatives that crashed and burned causing the board to see them in such a negative light.
• How Lew Dickey spit in the face of the board in less than a year but it got all over him.
• Ways in which Lew Dickey lost control of Cumulus.

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• Which market Jeff Marcus is in this very morning without nominal CEO Lew Dickey.
• The person who will be at Marcus’ side today and what the purpose of going directly to sick Cumulus clusters is.
• Why Marcus is on this magical mystery tour and where he is likely to go next.       Get ready.
• How Lew Dickey could have avoided this fate – the one and only thing he needed to do and wouldn’t do it (iHeart and Entercom are guilty of the same thing).
• What important move will likely happen next when Jeff Marcus gets his fill of Cumulus employees pointing to the Dickey brothers as the main problem.
• But what about that multi-year Lew Dickey contract extension he signed earlier in the year.

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• They have no choice – here’s what Cumulus is forcing Westwood replacement jocks to do in real time.
• How Westwood is getting away with charging more for one of these slipshod services – yes, a premium.
• The part of this dirty deal that is being kept secret from thousands of Westwood affiliates because they are already pissed.
• The name Cumulus is now using to describe Westwood’s sub-par programming. Hint, the first word is “Nearly”. You’ll die laughing when you hear the next word.
• The money. What Cumulus is now paying their local jocks to do 3 formats at the same time.
• The Dickeys are going to pay for this with their jobs – details on a big announcement about top executives expected soon.

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• Why a company that just fired all their talent is suddenly launching a recruiting campaign just 2 weeks after they left the building.
• The bait – here’s what Westwood is looking for now.
• The pay – you’ll have to see it to believe it.
• The job requirements in their own words. I’ll bet you a Philly cheesesteak that you have never read requirements like these – ever.
• A link for those of you who would like to take this offer.
• What became of the Westwood idea to use local Cumulus jocks to do their local show and the syndicated format simultaneously in real time.
• A quality syndicator who is peeling off disgruntled Westwood affiliates – they’re hiring – details inside.

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• How Marcus is personally taking control of Cumulus and what it means.
• The surprising moves he is reportedly making to assess damage.
• Details from sources close to the situation who report when this power change happened and why it is not being made public yet.
• Lew’s a big shareholder, what Marcus is doing to him now that he is being neutered.
• What happens to “Other” Brother John Dickey, Gary Pizzati, Mike McVay and the other Dickey lemmings.
• Who will eventually make operations decisions at Cumulus.
• What’s ahead for Cumulus employees under Jeff Marcus.

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• A new twist that could have adverse effects on markets where competitors now enjoy an advantage.
• When – when is this CBS / Hubbard deal going down?
• The radio groups that are bidding against Hubbard.
• That wouldn’t include hapless Cumulus, would it?
• What CBS President Les Moonves really means when he says CBS will keep radio in markets where they already own local TV. Sly fox.
• What about CBS Radio’s major markets – for sale or not.
• Which CBS radio stations are safe from the first round of sales and which employees will kiss the ground to know Hubbard is their new boss.

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• How disgruntled Westwood One format affiliates are dumping the not ready for prime time formats.
• The best way to get out from under Westwood formats as quickly as possible.
• The kinds of insults Westwood affiliates have to take even as the new, cheaper Westwood One feeds them programming that you wouldn’t put on the air anywhere.
• How Cumulus is hurting its own company even more than Westwood – and that means more job insecurity.
• What happens when a new Westwood double-duty jock gets sick, takes a day off or goes on vacation – brace for the Doomsday scenario.
• Who is going after these unhappy Westwood affiliates.

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• Why these firings uncover Scott Herman’s plan to greatly reduce CBS staff even further – the trends are now clearly established.
• Details on the latest brutal firings in LA Thursday.
• The dreck that CBS Radio is prepared to put on the air instead – warning, this is headed to other CBS markets.
• Herman’s reported plan to rethink morning shows.
• The dayparts Herman thinks are not worth live talent or creative programming everywhere.
• His final decision on off-air PDs and production types.
• All stations will soon sound more east coast – here’s how.
• One big bright spot – a Herman victim is planning to hire lots of ousted talent very soon for a huge programming startup. Details inside.

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• There is an intriguing radio executive out there who is on nobody’s radar except maybe major Cumulus shareholder Jeff Marcus.
• Why this would be a fabulous hire – the anti-Dickey. Employees would rejoice.
• This man spends money to make money – not a cheap ass.
• Three other candidates that Marcus may be looking at.
• How Jeff Marcus will resolve getting the Dickeys and their henchmen out of operating power.

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• Entercom’s next acquisition plans that defy logic.
• Their likely deal to expand.
• Specifics on how the company is shooting itself in the foot waiting to get larger.
• The big mistake Entercom makes just when it finally gets some stations to generate lots of revenue – and then caput.      
• How David Field is moving toward the Bain playbook for Entercom – bad news for employees.
• Entercom’s likely merger partner.

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Almost every original “boss jock” from WFIL, Philadelphia is now gone.

Frank Kingston Smith is still alive and using his considerable skills announcing airshows. Old pilots never retire.

Dave Parks succumbed to a short illness at his home in San Diego a few days ago.

Parks spent many years as a jock at WFIL and then went on to be a successful program director at KS103 San Diego.

He was funny.

Consistent.

A great guy to be around.

In fact his radio station WFIL was legendary.

Consultant Mike Joseph hired all the original jocks.

But Joseph’s M.O. was to install the format, give advice for about a year and install another program director.

WFIL had no shortage of good PDs not the least of which was the master himself, Jim Hilliard.

Jim was great with people.

He understood the format of the day – Drake.

And in my view had the ability to calm the feathers of ownership when the station went further than they were comfortable with.

An early slogan for WFIL was “Tune In, Turn On” from the “Tune In, Turn On, Drop Out” LSD days of Timothy Leary.

How great was “Tune In, Turn On”?

Eventually they settled on “Tune In / Famous 56”.

But WFIL was owned by Walter Annenberg and Triangle Publications. The top management was, well – old and constipated.

I don’t know how they ever approved turning WFIL into a Top 40 station but they did it reluctantly and seemed to get bent out of shape a lot.

When Dave Parks was known for being “Dave Six Pack Parks” with a reference to a six-pack of beer (not his abs), ownership didn’t like the drinking imagery for the young target audience.

The Daver became “Dave The Rave” Parks with jock logo jingles and all.

Jimmy Hilliard found a way. Without him and the team he inherited of great radio communicators, WFIL would have just been another station.

I wished Dave happy birthday greetings recently on his last birthday, he said, “Still getting up in the morning so I guess I’m still OK”.

Jocks like Dave Parks were hard to find even back then.

Even harder to find today.

Not because they aren’t out there, but because radio is no longer about relationships.

Dave Parks and his fellow jocks spent a lot of their free time out in the community with the audience. They weren’t in a studio voice tracking or trying to do two shows simultaneously in real time the way Cumulus is doing content for Westwood One affiliates and their local stations to save money.

Dave and company took the market by storm and became a big revenue producer for Triangle and then LIN when they bought it.

They didn’t have to sell 5 second spots the way iHeart routinely does.

They limited commercials.

Charged the best rate they could get.

In other words, Jim Hilliard and his “Boss Jocks” attracted a large audience and the salespeople sold it – the old fashioned way.

If radio is ever looking for where it went wrong, yes, consolidation was one big mistake, but getting in the way of DJ/listener relationships was the other.

In fact, 95 million Millennials grew up without a relationship with radio and the industry is suffering now because of it.

Dave Parks will be missed along with what he stood for.

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INSIDE …

• The documented Bush League programming screw-ups that the new Westwood passed off to format affiliates Monday.
• The unsolvable “local” break problem.
• The comical and sad first break for a new midday jock in one format.
• Cumulus had trouble recruiting show hosts to do double duty with the network and their local show – here’s what they finally decided on.
• The final blow for a lot of Westwood affiliates who have had professional talent on their air for upward of 15 years – and what they are going to do about it.
• The first look at the Westwood severance agreement that was held out until the Eleventh Hour Friday – here’s why.
• What to expect in the days ahead for Westwood format clients now that the wheels have come off their programming.

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• How Lew Dickey is being forced to stick it to Westwood One before the Cumulus board sticks it to him.
• The new Westwood management shakeup coming.
• How Cumulus is dealing with djs who are not volunteering to do simultaneous double duty on Westwood One formats in real time.
• How they have reworked dj compensation.
• The severance package fired Westwood employees will get.
• And the conditions.
• How Lew Dickey now plans to service thousands of Westwood client stations with no people and no shows. He’s really going to try this.
• The kind of deal Lew Dickey could get to step down as CEO as the Westwood mishap may be the thing that brings him down. Compare it to what fired Westwood employees are getting.

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• The scope of the pending deal between CBS and Hubbard revealed – which markets, how big a deal.
• Will CBS retain some stations.
• How close the parties are to finalizing an acquisition.
• The pieces Hubbard has put into place to smooth a transition from CBS to Hubbard with as little disruption as possible.
• The possibility of spinoffs addressed here.
• What happens to CBS Radio now.

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• How about Dan Mason? Well, HOW ABOUT Dan Mason running Cumulus – what we know as of yesterday.
• What will likely trigger the axe falling on Lew – watch this one thing and you can probably name the exact day.
• What happens to a fired Lew Dickey – after all, Cumulus chief shareholder Jeff Marcus put him in the job. There is a plan.
• Other Cumulus bigwigs will also go – here’s a sampling with some surprises.
• Signs of discord between the Dickeys and their chief shareholder – it’s ugly as you’re about to find out. Can you say Scott Shannon?
• The rock star Jeff Marcus is shooting to replace Lew Dickey.

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• This is Plan C – Plan A and B failed – here is the Cumulus solution for a major dumbing down of Westwood One.
• The genius scheme John Dickey came up with when his local radio jocks balked at the $5,000 a year he was paying for them to do double duty and replace the fired Westwood hosts.
• Why thousands of Westwood affiliates are seeing red over the new Westwood One format programming.
• Why Lew Dickey is taking the risk of pissing off so many thousands of customers at this moment in time.
• The unintended consequence that happened after 70 plus Westwood hosts were fired.

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• Something big is up with the Little Engine That Couldn’t Do Radio But Can Do Digital – details inside.
• The two “odd couple” radio groups that may play a role in a Townsquare future.
• How centralizing management will affect local Townsquare markets within the next 90 days – or less.
• A change in the way Townsquare will be operated on the local level.
• Townsquare is run by investors who own the majority of the company – here’s what they are thinking that could really screw things up.
• Townsquare’s highflying digital business is going down – then what? Here’s how.

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• The new evidence that is pointing to a meaningful shakeup ahead.
• How Jeff Marcus, the biggest Cumulus shareholder, will deal with the removal of the Dickeys considering that he was the one who pumped them up in the first place.
• Why the name John Hogan is relevant here.
• Details on a reported blowup between the Dickey’s and Marcus.
• Where Lew Dickey’s replacement would look to get new blood in the company STAT – three prime places.
• What about speculation that Lew and family could be bought off – not with money, but with this.  

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• It’s been decided -- the cockamamie way Cumulus plans to replace the 70 plus Westwood jocks – only John Dickey can come up with this one.
• How they will handle two shows at the same time – no one in programming thinks this has any chance of working even on a good day.
• What happens to the thousands of Westwood format clients in a few weeks when Westwood talent leaves the building and the handoff to this replacement program is implemented.
• Implications for Cumulus local stations.
• The one Westwood One national format that will be spared this ill-fated plan – at least for now.
• The biggest concern that Westwood format clients should keep an eye on.
• The money Cumulus is offering their talent to double up – details inside.
• This doomsday scenario for thousands of Westwood One format clients the moment this cheap talent replacement method comes crashing down.