Excerpts:

 “Now you’re losing toddlers who will think a radio is something old people listen to – ‘old’ people like their brothers and sisters”

“Kids under 2 spend an average of 15 minutes a day using the devices – that’s more time than they spend being potty trained.”

“Content providers such as radio, TV and publications should be packaging short-form content for everyone because by the time the toddlers in this study can talk, they won’t be talking about radio, TV and publications”.

“If it isn’t under 140 characters, you’ve got no chance communicating.  Texting was the real revolution, not the cellphone.  And even Millennials don’t want to talk on the phone.  Imagine when their little brothers and sisters grow up.  You’re going to have to radically change the way you think of content, I guarantee it”.

“You can see why Netflix is going to be king of content because it is not a TV station, not a movie studio, not a cable company – it’s an aggregator that disrupts everyone else’s business … You need to do what Netflix does”.

We can do better than streaming websites that don’t make money.

And aggregating cheap content from others and wondering why advertisers are not compelled to knock down the doors.

We can do social media that puts Facebook to shame by creating “red meat” that audiences are hungry to feed on.

Become master of short-form digital.

And give new meaning to the brands that go us to the digital age – the ones on-the-air.

So why don’t we do it?  Why is radio lagging so far behind the digital revolution?

Two honest answers.

Most radio companies are into cutting costs and focusing on putting a cheap product on air.

And, most radio executives are looking in the wrong place for the digital future.

Digital is not an add-on, it is THE future. 

The way it is going now owners will be left with stations that have declining audiences and advertisers willing to pay only pennies on the dollar to add radio to their digital buy.

So we’re going to roll up our sleeves and brainstorm about how to reinvent radio for the digital age when we meet face to face.

1. Better radio on a budget.  There are other great options besides layoffs, syndicated programming and voice tracking.  Get your innovative juices flowing.
2. Harnessing personalities.  How would you like to own the radio personalities fired by competitors in your market without having to pay their salary?  You’ll love this plan because it is a win-win that most owners don’t even know about.
3. What’s the one thing – only one – that your audience cannot live without?  I’ll get you started on how to take that “one” thing and make better radio along with digital businesses you’re probably not currently doing.
4. Find the digital sweet spot, put a big price tag on it and wait a year if you have to for your first big sponsor.  You won’t be waiting anywhere near that long and you won’t just have one sponsor – they’ll want to be all-in.
5. Deemphasize Facebook and Twitter – but you can keep using them – and invent your own Facebook and Twitter on one site that you own and operate.  Ask me about it.

There are more ideas that you can use in a year, but you’ve got to be there to benefit.

The 2014 Media Solutions Lab.

This year in Philadelphia.

Here is the the curriculum:

1.  Disrupt Your Radio Station

• Blow it up without losing listeners.
• We clear up how to gain audience by attacking all the things digital age listeners hate about radio before a digital competitor does it.
• Use this plan to drastically alter and destroy the old structure the way Apple, Google, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, SnapChat and Netflix did.
• Turn ordinary radio into new revenue streams.
• Solve virtually every critical objection digital-age listeners have about radio with newfound confidence to innovate.

2.  Master Digital

• Learn how people you probably don’t know make millions of dollars in digital without running commercials or even selling banner ads.  It is being done right now but traditional media isn’t doing it.  Consider this your game plan. 
• Reinvent the station website to churn out money.  Rethink social media.  Forget clicks and “likes”. 
• A better option than streaming and a way for your station to become the “Netflix of Radio”.

3.  Succeed With New Social Media Strategies

• End radio’s social media slump:  Instagram is ousting Facebook.  And Twitter is in trouble.  Time to alter the way you do social media with this new plan.
• Social Media Shakeup: texting with pictures is where you should be.  Fast track it.
• Social Media SOS:  social media is no longer just about staying connected so if your radio station is relying on today’s social media, this is a heads up to get with it.

4.  Reinvent Radio For the Digital Age

• Shake up the way you do radio to make it a growth industry again.  3 month plan of action to get started.
• Better radio on a budget
• Harnessing personalities – how to build a stable of personalities from you station, your farm system and the ones let go by competitors to be part of a new venture.  Best yet, you never have to pay their salaries.
• Finding the digital sweet spot – creating something so compelling that you put a big price tag on it and wait until the first advertiser pays it.  It won’t be a long wait.
• Don’t go down with Facebook and Twitter, boost social connectivity by building your own local replacement.
• Fiscally responsible alternatives for innovating local radio. 
• Learn the most effective approach to reinvigorating a radio station that is under attack from digital competitors.  The secret is in one paragraph you will want to memorize as your credo. 

5.  Growth Opportunities in Short-Form Video

• Discover how entrepreneurs are making millions by doing short form video that contains no ads and has no subscription fees.  This more than pays for your tuition!
• Target key areas of growth for short-form video.
• The one-stop solution to making social, short-form video for a profit.

6.  Engage 80 Million Millennials

• Audience building secrets to engage Millennials and win them back to radio. 
• One-Day Life-Changer:  Make radio instantly cooler.
• I will share my work in generational media that indicates this young and massive audience is available to traditional media such as radio, TV and the record industry but not by continuing the status quo. 
• Come away knowing their hot buttons and their turn offs.

7. Time Shift Radio

• New rules:  All content must be available on-demand – everything.  The audience is demanding it all and all at once. 
• The real solution for creating time shifted radio content. 
• Critical question that will be answered: Whether to rely on over-the-air broadcasts for time shifting or create new content. 
• Boost revenue by marketing time shifting as a new stream of revenue.  Go to school on time shifting.

If you like to earn the maximum discount, Click here to register now.

I can hardly wait to share with you some of the most amazing ideas I’ve ever discovered about creating short form video that makes big money – really big money.

One powerful example you’ll learn about makes many millions a year doing exactly this.

You see how it is being done right now – not by mega media companies like Comcast or Disney – but by entrepreneurs like us.

And it’s being done in ways that media companies just don’t get.

No banner ads.

No video ads.

No ads at all! 

That’s right let me say it again, no ads at all.

Earn all those millions without even charging fees or subscription prices.

I know I’ve probably got your attention because this concept had me at “millions with no ads”.

At my conference last year I started with these words, “video, video and short form video”.

This year it will be “video, video and millions of dollars from short-form video”.

If you can find a way to break loose for one day, March 26, 2014, I’ll share it all.

Here’s the curriculum:

1.  Disrupt Your Radio Station

• Blow it up without losing listeners.
• We clear up how to gain audience by attacking all the things digital age listeners hate about radio before a digital competitor does it.
• Use this plan to drastically alter and destroy the old structure the way Apple, Google, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, SnapChat and Netflix did.
• Turn ordinary radio into new revenue streams.
• Solve virtually every critical objection digital-age listeners have about radio with newfound confidence to innovate.

2.  Master Digital

• Learn how people you probably don’t know make millions of dollars in digital without running commercials or even selling banner ads.  It is being done right now but traditional media isn’t doing it.  Consider this your game plan. 
• Reinvent the station website to churn out money.  Rethink social media.  Forget clicks and “likes”. 
• A better option than streaming and a way for your station to become the “Netflix of Radio”.

3.  Succeed With New Social Media Strategies

• End radio’s social media slump:  Instagram is ousting Facebook.  And Twitter is in trouble.  Time to alter the way you do social media with this new plan.
• Social Media Shakeup: texting with pictures is where you should be.  Fast track it.
• Social Media SOS:  social media is no longer just about staying connected so if your radio station is relying on today’s social media, this is a heads up to get with it.

4.  Reinvent Radio for the Digital Age

• Shake up the way you do radio to make it a growth industry again.  3-month plan of action to get started.
• Maximize audience and advertisers distracted by digital alternatives. 
• Earn an exponential increase in revenue by following this one simple plan that will help you.  
• Fiscally responsible alternatives for innovating local radio. 
• Learn the most effective approach to reinvigorating a radio station that is under attack from digital competitors.  The secret is in one paragraph you will want to memorize as your credo. 
• We will brainstorm together on steps that will guarantee that you will find new radio listeners by outsmarting digital competitors.

5.  Growth Opportunities in Short-Form Video

• Discover how entrepreneurs are making millions by doing short-form video that contains no ads and has no subscription fees.  This more than pays for your tuition!
• Target key areas of growth for short-form video.
• The one-stop solution to making social, short-form video for a profit.

6.  Engage 80 Million Millennials

• Audience building secrets to engage Millennials and win them back to radio. 
• One-Day Life-Changer:  Make radio instantly cooler.
• I will share my work in generational media that indicates this young and massive audience is available to traditional media such as radio, TV and the record industry but not by continuing the status quo. 
• Come away knowing their hot buttons and their turn offs.

7. Time Shift Radio

• New rules:  All content must be available on-demand – everything.  The audience is demanding it all and all at once. 
• The real solution for creating time shifted radio content. 
• Critical question that will be answered: Whether to rely on over-the-air broadcasts for time shifting or create new content. 
• Boost revenue by marketing time shifting as a new stream of revenue.  Go to school on time shifting.

Join forward-thinking media people who are attending my one-day seminar March 26, 2014 at the Rittenhouse Hotel, Philadelphia.

Guaranteed $200 discount today.

And lowest room rate on-site.

Click here to register now.

As a generation they would never pay for what’s tantamount to commercial radio for a fee. 

But they will absolutely find $9 a month to give to Netflix even with student loans, part-time jobs and the miserable economy they graduated into.

And Millennials don’t care that terrestrial radio is free – to them, it is worth exactly what they are paying for it – nothing.

Yet they continue to love Pandora, which is a free music service.

And they put up with Pandora’s commercials probably because they are short, relatively infrequent compared to radio and have an element to them that Millennials rather like – no production, all talk.

Millennials drive the music market yet they are buying fewer CDs and even downloads than ever.  Only a few million of them will pay to make Spotify mobile even though they generally like Spotify.

They’ll never pay for cable because they hate bundling even more than their compliant parents and satellite TV is another version of pay cable.

So you have to laugh when Sirius XM raises its monthly subscription rate by 50 cents as it did last week when it is a well-known fact that they’ll drop their pants and almost let you name your price if you simply threaten to cancel. 

What I’m saying is Millennials don’t want services like these at any price and if you study why, you learn a lot of useful things.

Your kids know more about where the media business is heading than you do.

The other day when I wrote that the well-known fact that Millennials don’t like to drive and could care less about the connected dashboard, one high profile radio exec wrote to me to say:

“Jerry, sometimes you make comments that are just comical.  I love the one below where millenials now want public transportation.  It's not really an option in most markets, but many of them are still sleeping on mom and dads couch so they have no place to go...why need a car?  I have two kids are ARE millenials, and suggesting they give up that car would be like giving up an appendage”.

Comical?

Guess who will have the last laugh – the person who studies the data and cooperates with the inevitable.

Talk about denial.

Here’s what we know about the changing preferences of a generation that numbers 80 million people coming of age:

1. The number one must-have media service for any Millennial is a portal to video entertainment such as Netflix, Hulu, Hulu Plus and to a lesser but still significant extent HBO Go and other on-demand services.  This generation can’t live without video.  For those who cannot afford any of this, there’s always the DVR.
2. Podcasting is just broadcasting delivered over the Internet.  It is so never going to be a meaningful and profitable endeavor.  It’s too long.  Sounds too much like talk radio.  Millennials hate talk radio and have short attention spans.  Nice try, but podcasting is not going to be a factor with Millennials.

Continue reading the rest of this article by clicking “Read More” below …

Anyone honest knows that people 30-years old and under have no relationship with a radio.

That’s why turning a cellphone into a radio is a waste of time.

The radio industry is scared – it has to be – because there are too many smart people in it who are in denial.

Take Millennials.

You need them!

They are the next generation and they were raised on everything but radio while the industry was out consolidating.

By the end of this year financial analysts tell us radio revenue will have one of its worst years ever – pummeled by digital media.

Let’s get real.

The next generation likes on-demand content, binge watch videos (look at Netflix go through the roof on Monday), shorter and shorter videos, social connectivity, music discovery, a sense of community, dreamers …

Radio does not answer the call.

But it could.

• Create separate short-form content that is not on the radio – first run, extremely compelling audio, video, text and social connection. 
• Shut the cameras off in the studio, take them out and create content that only radio people can create.
• Disconnect from the tower and transmitter.  Yes, put the best programming you can on-the-air for the available, older audience.  Then think of it like this, start an entirely new business and new revenue stream for content that may have nothing to do with what’s on the air.
• Five or ten years from now, surviving radio companies will be bringing in more revenue from what’s not on the air than what is but you might be surprised to find out that a hit music radio station could also be a zip code based content provider. 
• Give control back to the audience.  Upload content to their phones.  Let them mash it up and listen to as much as they want whenever they want.
• Millennials are very civic-minded.  While radio stations are less civic-minded than ever.  Get more civic-minded.  Serve the community to attract young listeners.  Duh!  We used to do this all the time.
• Millennials are dreamers – radio is about brass tacks.  Cutting costs.  Best practices.  See the disconnect?

Join me at my Philadelphia Media Conference to join the conversation.

Here’s the curriculum:

1.  Disrupt Your Radio Station

Blow it up without losing your loyal fans.  Gain audience by attacking all the things digital age listeners hate about radio before a digital competitor does.  Study the plan to drastically alter and destroy the old structure the way Apple, Google, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, SnapChat and Netflix did.  Innovate the next radio creating new revenue streams and solving virtually every objection digital-age listeners have about radio.

2.  Master Digital

Learn how people you probably don’t know make millions of dollars in digital without running commercials or even selling banner ads.  It is being done right now but traditional media isn’t doing it.  Consider this your game plan.  Reinventing the station website to churn out money.  Rethink social media.  Forget clicks and “likes”.  A better option than streaming and a way for your station to become the “Netflix of Radio”.

3.  Most Effective Social Media Strategies

Social media shakeup alert!  Instagram is ousting Facebook.  Twitter is in trouble despite its IPO.  Horror of all horrors – texting with pictures is where you should be but social media is no longer just about staying connected so if your radio station is relying on today’s social media, this is a heads up to get with it.

4.  Reverse The Decline of Radio Listening

Learn the most effective approach to reinvigorating a radio station that is under attack from digital competitors.  The secret is in one paragraph you will want to memorize as your credo.  We will brainstorm together on steps that will guarantee that you will find new radio listeners by outsmarting digital competitors.

5.  Succeed At Short Form Video

No matter what kind of content you create going forward, it must include short form video.  But short form video is no longer your children’s YouTube.  There are new risks, new rewards and endless ways to create video content that is compelling and financially rewarding.  We will cover it.

6.  Engaging 80 Million Millennials

They hate radio.  And use music like toothpaste.  But there is a way to engage Millennials.  I will share my work in generational media that indicates this young and massive audience is available to traditional media such as radio, TV and the record industry but not by continuing the status quo.  You’ll come away knowing their hot buttons and their turn offs.

7.  Time Shifting Radio

All content must be available on-demand – everything.  The audience is demanding it and every medium except radio is responding.  How to create time shifted radio content.  Whether to rely on over-the-air broadcasts for time shifting or create new content.  How to market time shifting as a new stream of revenue. Go to school on time shifting.

The 5^th Annual Media Solutions Conference, March 26, 2014 at the Rittenhouse Hotel, Philadelphia.

Reserve a Seat

The CEO of Vice Media, a very irreverent media powerhouse that attracts the money demos, is a disrespectful guy with a lot wisdom.

Disrespectful in that his advice to old media is – and I quote – “They can go to hell quite frankly”.

On the east coast we call that a compliment.

But it is Shane Smith’s advice to traditional media companies that is so genius that I want to share it with you from CNN Money:

“You can't retrofit it. If there's a bunch of old dudes in a boardroom that go, "OK. Let's start making video," what they try to do is hire pedigreed people. What you get is a shittier version of TV. You really have to rip out the pipes. You have to make things in a different way, hire people who have never worked in TV or commercials or film, get people straight out of schools, get people who don't know what they're doing, form your own school and train these kids. The reason I'm telling you all this, the reason I'm giving away my secrets, is that's it's nearly impossible to do”.

NONE of which radio or television does.

We cut jobs and expenses – that’s what we do.

Oh, and pass off garbage for content when we know how to make great content.  Most of this is because of the investment bank owners who only know how to wreck things, not build them.

Let’s take Shane Smith’s advice and apply it to radio – that’s what I going to do at my upcoming teaching seminar:

1. Take the part about old dudes hiring pedigreed people to make videos they don’t understand.  Isn’t this what Miley Cyrus is so intuitively talking about when she says she will not let a 70-year old record executive tell her what’s popular in clubs.  She’s right.  I don’t care if she licks everything in sight.  She’s right!  What is radio afraid of?  Young people?  It was never that way before consolidation because radio was automatically reborn with each new generation.  Let’s talk about how to bring young people and fresh ideas from all ages into a radio station.  I have a plan.
2. Smith says you have to “rip out the pipes” and “make things in a different way”.  Tell me, what’s different about a hit music station these days?  Okay then, how about a classic hits or classic rock station or a country station or an all-news station?  Nothing.  They are dying on the vine from lack of innovation.  There are specific ways to change these formats up and rip out the clock to reinvent radio.
3. Smith says hire people who have never worked in media.  Hey, Cumulus is doing that.  They’re hiring people right off the Cintas uniform truck.  Somehow I don’t think that’s what Smith meant.  He says get young people who don’t know what they are doing and – and this is the key point Cumulus is missing – train them!  You may or may not be interested in the techniques I use when I work as a facilitator for media companies.  All the ideas you need are already on your staff.  Try these techniques to breath life into them.  My focus is generational media – training must be different than it ever was for previous generations.
4. I love Shane Smith’s last line in which he says he is sharing his secrets because they are nearly impossible to do.  I feel like this when I write sometimes – lots of good ideas that will work if radio people will not snivele about “You can’t do this, Jerry”.  Yes you can or someone else will.

To reverse the decline of radio, we need disruptors.

If you want to know how to do this, consider attending my media conference and invest one day to get enough useable ideas to last you the year.  Among my industry credentials is my work in generational media as a professor at the University of Southern California.

No industry conference has a curriculum like this:

1.  Disrupt Your Radio Station

Blow it up without losing your loyal fans.  Gain audience by attacking all the things digital age listeners hate about radio before a digital competitor does.  Study the plan to drastically alter and destroy the old structure the way Apple, Google, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, SnapChat and Netflix did.  Innovate the next radio creating new revenue streams and solving virtually every objection digital-age listeners have about radio.

2.  Master Digital

Learn how people you probably don’t know make millions of dollars in digital without running commercials or even selling banner ads.  It is being done right now but traditional media isn’t doing it.  Consider this your game plan.  Reinventing the station website to churn out money.  Rethink social media.  Forget clicks and “likes”.  A better option than streaming and a way for your station to become the “Netflix of Radio”.

3.  Most Effective Social Media Strategies

Social media shakeup alert!  Instagram is ousting Facebook.  Twitter is in trouble despite its IPO.  Horror of all horrors – texting with pictures is where you should be but social media is no longer just about staying connected so if your radio station is relying on today’s social media, this is a heads up to get with it.

4.  Reverse The Decline of Radio Listening

Learn the most effective approach to reinvigorating a radio station that is under attack from digital competitors.  The secret is in one paragraph you will want to memorize as your credo.  We will brainstorm together on steps that will guarantee that you will find new radio listeners by outsmarting digital competitors.

5.  Succeed At Short Form Video

No matter what kind of content you create going forward, it must include short form video.  But short form video is no longer your children’s YouTube.  There are new risks, new rewards and endless ways to create video content that is compelling and financially rewarding.  We will cover it.

6.  Engaging 80 Million Millennials

They hate radio.  And use music like toothpaste.  But there is a way to engage Millennials.  I will share my work in generational media that indicates this young and massive audience is available to traditional media such as radio, TV and the record industry but not by continuing the status quo.  You’ll come away knowing their hot buttons and their turn offs.

7.  Time Shifting Radio

All content must be available on-demand – everything.  The audience is demanding it and every medium except radio is responding.  How to create time shifted radio content.  Whether to rely on over-the-air broadcasts for time shifting or create new content.  How to market time shifting as a new stream of revenue. Go to school on time shifting.

This is not a convention or show.  It’s a learning session.

Consider attending my one-day seminar March 26, 2014 at the Rittenhouse Hotel, Philadelphia.

Reserve a Seat

I love Jeff Smulyan.

And he loves radio a whole lot.

You just have to root for an owner who is trying to will today’s radio on the mobile-mined next generation.

But turning a smartphone into a radio, as Jeff advocates, has not made a difference to radio listeners and likely will not.  It’s a dangerous strategy to rely on.

The radio industry is obsessed with embracing the digital future on its own terms and that spells disaster.

Too many radio stations think their social media sites are mini-ratings opportunities the way they whore themselves out for a click or a “like”.  And, as we’ve seen, all the clicks and “likes” in the world are not a suitable digital strategy. 

But you can’t tell that to radio groups who love metrics.

Radio websites are a waste – frumpy, self-serving and without value to today’s audiences.

Quick:  name the main purpose of your station’s website. 

Good luck.

And streaming? 

Don’t get me started.

The radio mentality is to stream what’s declining in audience on the air – their programming because it is cheap.

Not very potent. 

And streaming rarely makes money for radio operators.  In fact, it costs money.

I could go on, but these are just a few of the examples of how the radio industry is squandering its digital future.

But it doesn’t have to be that way.

Help is on the way to forward-thinking radio people who are willing to spend some time studying change:

1. Blow up the station website – the entire thing – and build one that has just one focus.  One thing that is important to your target audience and then pour your time and effort into making it compelling.  And you’ll have to hire some full-timers.  What a joke.  Radio thinks digital deserves part-timers when their full-time future is digital. 
2. There are new strategies emerging to use Instagram instead of Facebook for social media.  Instagram is the next Facebook so if your social media strategy is based on Facebook, you lose.
3. See what I wrote about making radio grow again.  Four ideas you should be thinking about now.  Read it here. 
4. Discover what is ten times more important than seeking clicks and “likes” from digital fans.  This changes everything.
5. Streaming your station to an emerging audience that has attention deficit defies reality which is why streaming radio stations rarely get even 3% additional audience tacked on to its ratings.  I get that if a listener can’t hear your station at work that they can always listen to the stream.  Well, they are not doing it – not in any meaningful numbers.  There are better ways to use your creative programming content than streams.  Ask me when we’re together.
6. The most important digital strategy you probably don’t know about is the one that turns your radio station into Netflix for Radio.  You’re going to love this and you’ll wonder why no one has ever thought of it.

It’s getting late.

Master digital now.

Here is the curriculum for the 2014 Media Solutions Conference along with a link to reserve a seat:

1.  Disrupt Your Radio Station

Blow it up without losing your loyal fans.  Gain audience by attacking all the things digital age listeners hate about radio before a digital competitor does.  Study the plan to drastically alter and destroy the old structure the way Apple, Google, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, SnapChat and Netflix did.  Innovate the next radio creating new revenue streams and solving virtually every objection digital-age listeners have about radio.

2.  Master Digital

Learn how people you probably don’t know make millions of dollars in digital without running commercials or even selling banner ads.  It is being done right now but traditional media isn’t doing it.  Consider this your game plan.  Reinventing the station website to churn out money.  Rethink social media.  Forget clicks and “likes”.  A better option than streaming and a way for your station to become the “Netflix of Radio”.

3.  Most Effective Social Media Strategies

Social media shakeup alert!  Instagram is ousting Facebook.  Twitter is in trouble despite its IPO.  Horror of all horrors – texting with pictures is where you should be but social media is no longer just about staying connected so if your radio station is relying on today’s social media, this is a heads up to get with it.

4.  Reverse The Decline of Radio Listening

Learn the most effective approach to reinvigorating a radio station that is under attack from digital competitors.  The secret is in one paragraph you will want to memorize as your credo.  We will brainstorm together on steps that will guarantee that you will find new radio listeners by outsmarting digital competitors.

5.  Succeed At Short Form Video

No matter what kind of content you create going forward, it must include short form video.  But short form video is no longer your children’s YouTube.  There are new risks, new rewards and endless ways to create video content that is compelling and financially rewarding.  We will cover it.

6.  Engaging 80 Million Millennials

They hate radio.  And use music like toothpaste.  But there is a way to engage Millennials.  I will share my work in generational media that indicates this young and massive audience is available to traditional media such as radio, TV and the record industry but not by continuing the status quo.  You’ll come away knowing their hot buttons and their turn offs.

7.  Time Shifting Radio

All content must be available on-demand – everything.  The audience is demanding it and every medium except radio is responding.  How to create time shifted radio content.  Whether to rely on over-the-air broadcasts for time shifting or create new content.  How to market time shifting as a new stream of revenue. Go to school on time shifting.

This is not a convention or show.  It’s a learning session.

Consider attending my one-day seminar March 26, 2014 at the Rittenhouse Hotel, Philadelphia.

Reserve a Seat

I have been having trouble with my iPad ever since iOS 7 was introduced. 

The screen freezes when I try to read Radio Ink. 

I kid the good folks at Radio Ink.

No, really.  The screen freezes when I use Safari on my iPad.  So after numerous calls to Apple Tech Support by my wife (who has the patience in the family), Apple concluded, “You need a new iPad”.

Say WHAT?

I didn’t ask for a new iPad, just that they fix the one that is a year old.  But that’s the kind of customer service Apple still has that makes me an Apple fan boy.

Android, Schmandroid!

I can’t see straight because Apple loves me and cares about me – at least that has been my experience with them.

Wouldn’t it be nice if radio could care the same way about its listeners and advertisers?

Well, I know a station owner that does.

It’s Jerry Lee at B101 in Philly along with his chief exec Blaise Howard.  They are so impressive I don’t know why we aren’t all sitting in a hotel room in Philly and stealing everything they do.

Actually, there is no need.  They will give it away because Lee has this cockamamie idea that if all radio does well, he does well. 

Jerry Lee has agreed to work with me on my upcoming 5^th annual Media Solutions Conference in Philadelphia.  There’s no spin with this guy.  He tells you how he feels.

Here’s what other stations are missing as radio continues its self-imposed decline.

We’re not going to make radio a growth industry again by getting young listeners.  Young people have found other devices to use for on-demand content.  Our audience is aging.

We’re not going turn a smartphone into a radio as much as we may want to because phones make lousy radios and radio is generally lousy compared to even ten years ago.

What we should be doing is what B101 does which is super serve the available audience and then work as concerned partners with advertisers.

B101 tests their commercials to see if they are effective as part of their deal.

Most radio stations don’t even follow up on flights.  They just try to sell something else which is why the rates reflect the commodity that radio has become.

This is worth focusing on.

Radio has a lot of good years left even without audience growth if it learns to super serve its available audience and help advertisers convey commercial messages more effectively.

In fact, there can be growth.  B101 is one of the top billers in Philadelphia year after year, in spite of Millennial erosion, the People Meter and without much of a digital presence – and no streaming!

This is what I want to get into:

1. Creating a new partnership with advertisers by helping them help you.  No more selling spots.  Let Clear Channel and Cumulus do the automated selling.  If radio ads reach consumers and ring the cash register of advertisers, you grow.  You’ll want to take notes on this.
2. Developing on-air content that is so consistent and desirable that audiences crave it. 
3. Creating stations where listeners want to identify themselves with your station.  If you talk to some of the radio pros who programmed radio stations in the 60’s and 70’s, they will tell you their audiences identified themselves by what the station stood for.  Now, do you ever hear anyone say “I love W-whatever because of iHeartRadio”?  But WMMS in Cleveland, WMMR in Philly and KMET in Los Angeles were a few stations where the station was the embodiment of the programming not the owner.
4. And how to do all of this without breaking the bank in a new cost-conscious age of radio.  Actually, there’s a new way to look at cost effectiveness.

Make radio grow again.

Here is the curriculum for the 2014 Media Solutions Conference along with a link to reserve a seat:

1.  Disrupt Your Radio Station

Blow it up without losing your loyal fans.  Gain audience by attacking all the things digital age listeners hate about radio before a digital competitor does.  Study the plan to drastically alter and destroy the old structure the way Apple, Google, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, SnapChat and Netflix did.  Innovate the next radio creating new revenue streams and solving virtually every objection digital-age listeners have about radio.

2.  Master Digital

Learn how people you probably don’t know make millions of dollars in digital without running commercials or even selling banner ads.  It is being done right now but traditional media isn’t doing it.  Consider this your game plan.

3.  Most Effective Social Media Strategies

Social media shakeup alert!  Instagram is ousting Facebook.  Twitter is in trouble despite its IPO.  Horror of all horrors – texting with pictures is where you should be but social media is no longer just about staying connected so if your radio station is relying on today’s social media, this is a heads up to get with it.

4.  Reverse The Decline of Radio Listening

Learn the most effective approach to reinvigorating a radio station that is under attack from digital competitors.  The secret is in one paragraph you will want to memorize as your credo.  We will brainstorm together on steps that will guarantee that you will find new radio listeners by outsmarting digital competitors.

5.  Succeed At Short Form Video

No matter what kind of content you create going forward, it must include short form video.  But short form video is no longer your children’s YouTube.  There are new risks, new rewards and endless ways to create video content that is compelling and financially rewarding.  We will cover it.

6.  Engaging 80 Million Millennials

They hate radio.  And use music like toothpaste.  But there is a way to engage Millennials.  I will share my work in generational media that indicates this young and massive audience is available to traditional media such as radio, TV and the record industry but not by continuing the status quo.  You’ll come away knowing their hot buttons and their turn offs.

7.  Time Shifting Radio

All content must be available on-demand – everything.  The audience is demanding it and every medium except radio is responding.  How to create time shifted radio content.  Whether to rely on over-the-air broadcasts for time shifting or create new content.  How to market time shifting as a new stream of revenue. Go to school on time shifting.

Now that’s a media conference worth attending.

A one-day seminar presented by Jerry Del Colliano March 26, 2014 at the Rittenhouse Hotel, Philadelphia with the assistance of clinical guest faculty.

Reserve a Seat

Group Registrations

Netflix doesn’t measure its success by ratings.

Their House of Cards became a hit without Nielsen and no matter how the media establishment tries to get Netflix to release viewership totals they refuse.

I know.

Media people say if the numbers were really smash hit big, Netflix would release them.  But Netflix sees the media future better than that.

After just three weeks of the new TV season, networks are slightly – and I mean – slightly up in attracting national audiences.  Network execs are on their hands and knees each night praying that when DVR numbers come in they can show some growth because their live audiences are down 10-30%.

What’s worse is that the new TV season isn’t attracting the money demos networks want because, to be honest, Millennials don’t watch TV.  They watch streaming media and video.  They are left to their own devices.

Perhaps you saw Netflix stock go through the roof yesterday – up almost $24 for the day to close above $324.  Full disclosure:  I own Netflix stock and if you’re a regular reader you can probably figure out why.

Media people love metrics and that’s the world radio stations live in.  Now with Nielsen taking over Arbitron and emphasizing audio instead of only radio, you can see that this is going to end ugly.

Unless, good operators can find ways to move beyond their addiction to audience estimates that aren’t fully crediting them with the legitimate audiences they attract.

Ask any talk station if Pee Pee M ratings are accurately reflecting audience.  And there is a reason Dan Mason has most of his CBS music stations sucking up to Pee Pee M methodology. 

But now, think beyond audience ratings.

Are you getting credit for lost listening?

The answer is no and is never going to be yes as long as there is a lopsided reliance on Nielsen metrics. 

At my upcoming conference I am going to demonstrate how to create the most compelling audience smorgasbord for potential advertisers to feast on.

1.  How to put ratings in perspective.

You know what some of the brightest radio managers and market managers do when Pee Pee M gives them a ratings boost.  They ignore it and ask salespeople to keep selling without shooting off their mouths because Nielsen giveth and taketh away.  Caution:  you’re entering a danger zone even when you get good Pee Pee M ratings and smart managers know it.  Desperate managers try to sell it until the instability of Pee Pee M blows up in their faces.

2.  Heavy up on ways to show audience influence.  That’s what Netflix does.  All that positive press, social buzz and Millennial pandering.  If you join us at this conference, please ask me how to create events, content and buzz that is so palpable that buyers will be more interested in them than in cold, unreliable ratings.

3.  Find someone other than Nielsen to give your audience listening more legitimacy.  Again that’s what Netflix did yesterday to get that one-day $24 increase in share price.  They announced a deal with Sony Pictures to develop television shows exclusively for Netflix – the first big studio to do such a thing.  See what I mean?  Sony made Netflix more legitimate.  We need to work on ways to do this because Beyoncé and Katy Perry appearing at a trumped up music festival isn’t getting that job done.

Once and for all, see ahead to a new way to get credit for lost listening.

Here is the curriculum for the 2014 Media Solutions Conference along with a link to reserve a seat today:

1.  Disrupt Your Radio Station

Blow it up without losing your loyal fans.  Gain audience by attacking all the things digital age listeners hate about radio before a digital competitor does.  Study the plan to drastically alter and destroy the old structure the way Apple, Google, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, SnapChat and Netflix did.  Innovate the next radio creating new revenue streams and solving virtually every objection digital-age listeners have about radio.

2.  Master Digital

Learn how people you probably don’t know make millions of dollars in digital without running commercials or even selling banner ads.  It is being done right now but traditional media isn’t doing it.  Consider this your game plan.

3.  Most Effective Social Media Strategies

Social media shakeup alert!  Instagram is ousting Facebook.  Twitter is in trouble despite its IPO.  Horror of all horrors – texting with pictures is where you should be but social media is no longer just about staying connected so if your radio station is relying on today’s social media, this is a heads up to get with it.

4.  Reverse The Decline of Radio Listening

Learn the most effective approach to reinvigorating a radio station that is under attack from digital competitors.  The secret is in one paragraph you will want to memorize as your credo.  We will brainstorm together on steps that will guarantee that you will find new radio listeners by outsmarting digital competitors.

5.  Succeed At Short Form Video

No matter what kind of content you create going forward, it must include short form video.  But short form video is no longer your children’s YouTube.  There are new risks, new rewards and endless ways to create video content that is compelling and financially rewarding.  We will cover it.

6.  Engaging 80 Million Millennials

They hate radio.  And use music like toothpaste.  But there is a way to engage Millennials.  I will share my work in generational media that indicates this young and massive audience is available to traditional media such as radio, TV and the record industry but not by continuing the status quo.  You’ll come away knowing their hot buttons and their turn offs.

7.  Time Shifting Radio

All content must be available on-demand – everything.  The audience is demanding it and every medium except radio is responding.  How to create time shifted radio content.  Whether to rely on over-the-air broadcasts for time shifting or create new content.  How to market time shifting as a new stream of revenue. Go to school on time shifting.

A powerful agenda for a media conference worth attending.

A one-day seminar presented by Jerry Del Colliano March 26, 2014 at the Rittenhouse Hotel, Philadelphia with the assistance of clinical guest faculty.

Reserve a Seat

Group Registrations

It’s not streaming or podcasting or repurposing radio programming that will insure the future.

It’s time shifting.

Time shifting is the hot trend by consumers to record content for replay on-demand at a later time.  On their schedules not those of broadcasters whose expertise is to air content in real-time.

Time shifting is turning the TV industry upside down right now as network programs viewed in real-time are down almost 30% on the average in Nielsen ratings for this new Fall TV season.

Netflix and HBO Go as well as other on-demand sources are feeding the monster that the radio industry to date has not even thought about.

There is no plan. 

No ideas. 

Failure of a good solid radio station to dominate their brand in the digital marketplace could be catastrophic in terms of audience and revenue.

Time shifting radio content has been added to the curriculum at my upcoming Media Solutions Conference.

Creating content for time shifting.

Assessing whether terrestrial content is also adaptable for time shifting or will new approaches be necessary.  Knowing this one thing alone will save time and money while moving decisively to stay relevant to money demographics.

How to brand it, deliver it, create it and sell it to advertisers.

The Fifth Annual 2014 Media Solutions Conference March 26^th in Philadelphia is presented for forward-thinking broadcasters and content creators who want to become proficient at time shifting and the most critical key areas below.  Final weeks to save $200 for each person registered.

Media Solutions Conference Curriculum:

1.  Disrupt your radio station

Blow it up without losing your loyal fans.  Gain audience by attacking all the things digital age listeners hate about radio before a digital competitor does.  Study the plan to drastically alter and destroy the old structure the way Apple, Google, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, SnapChat and Netflix did.

2.  Master digital

Learn how people you probably don’t know make millions of dollars in digital without running commercials or even selling banner ads.  It is being done right now but traditional media isn’t doing it.  Consider this your game plan.

3.  Most effective social media strategies

Social media shakeup alert!  Instagram is ousting Facebook.  Twitter is in trouble despite its IPO.  Horror of all horrors – texting with pictures is where you should be but social media is no longer just about staying connected so if your radio station is relying on today’s social media, this is a heads up.

4.  Reverse the decline of radio listening

Learn the most effective approach to reinvigorating a radio station that is under attack from digital competitors.  The secret is in one paragraph you will want to memorize as your credo.  We will brainstorm together on steps that will guarantee that you will find new radio listeners by outsmarting digital competitors.

5.  Succeed at short form video

No matter what kind of content you create, it must include short form video.  But short form video is no longer your children’s YouTube.  There are new risks, new rewards and endless ways to create video content that is compelling and financially rewarding.  We will cover it.

6.  Engaging 80 million Millennials

They hate radio.  And use music like toothpaste.  But there is a way to engage Millennials.  I will share my work in generational media that indicates this young and massive audience is available to traditional media such as radio, TV and the record industry but not by continuing the status quo.  You’ll come away knowing their hot buttons and their turn offs.

7.  Time shifting radio

All content must be available on-demand – everything.  The audience is demanding it and every medium except radio is responding.  How to create time shifted radio content.  Whether to rely on over-the-air broadcasts for time shifting or create new content.  How to market time shifting as a new stream of revenue. Go to school on time shifting.

This is a valuable one-day seminar presented by Jerry Del Colliano March 26, 2014 at the Rittenhouse Hotel, Philadelphia with the assistance of clinical guest faculty.

Reserve a Seat

Group Registrations

Time shifting is here.

Binge TV watching.  On-demand consumption of content.  The explosion of time shifted DVR watching of network programs.

Live is out. 

On-demand in.

This presents a great opportunity to radio where everything still starts on the top of the hour even though listeners don’t.  Where programming decisions are made for how they will help Nielsen ratings rather than how they will affect audiences who access content on their terms not ours.

All this is going to have to change.  Radio will have to learn how to time shift as well or fall further behind.

But there are major hazards ahead.

Radio people think time shifting is podcasting or making some radio content (or all) available on a delayed basis.  Some erroneously think it is delay streaming of terrestrial content.

It’s the other way around.

Radio will need to do the best on-air broadcasting it has ever done – and it’s safe to say that is not happening in the era of consolidation.

And what’s more, radio stations will have to master the fine art of creating short form content for hungry on-demand listeners who are time shifting everything else and will expect it of radio if radio is to remain relevant.

Creating a new kind of short form content for time shifted audiences is in the curriculum at the 2014 Media Solutions Conference March 26^th in Philadelphia.

Media Solutions Conference Curriculum:

1.  Disrupt your radio station

Blow it up without losing your loyal fans.  Gain audience by attacking all the things digital age listeners hate about radio before a digital competitor does.  Study the plan to drastically alter and destroy the old structure the way Apple, Google, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, SnapChat and Netflix did.

2.  Master digital

Learn how people you probably don’t know make millions of dollars in digital without running commercials or even selling banner ads.  It is being done right now but traditional media isn’t doing it.  Consider this your game plan.

3.  Most effective social media strategies

Social media shakeup alert!  Instagram is ousting Facebook.  Twitter is in trouble despite its IPO.  Horror of all horrors – texting with pictures is where you should be but social media is no longer just about staying connected so if your radio station is relying on today’s social media, this is a heads up.

4.  Reverse the decline of radio listening

Learn the most effective approach to reinvigorating a radio station that is under attack from digital competitors.  The secret is in one paragraph you will want to memorize as your credo.  We will brainstorm together on steps that will guarantee that you will find new radio listeners by outsmarting digital competitors.

5.  Succeed at short form video

No matter what kind of content you create, it must include short form video.  But short form video is no longer your children’s YouTube.  There are new risks, new rewards and endless ways to create video content that is compelling and financially rewarding.  We will cover it.

6.  Engaging 80 million Millennials

They hate radio.  And use music like toothpaste.  But there is a way to engage Millennials.  I will share my work in generational media that indicates this young and massive audience is available to traditional media such as radio, TV and the record industry but not by continuing the status quo.  You’ll come away knowing their hot buttons and their turn offs.

7.  Time shifting radio

All content must be available on-demand – everything.  The audience is demanding it and every medium except radio is responding.  How to create time shifted radio content.  Whether to rely on over-the-air broadcasts for time shifting or create new content.  How to market time shifting as a new stream of revenue. Go to school on time shifting.

This is a valuable one-day seminar presented by Jerry Del Colliano March 26, 2014 at the Rittenhouse Hotel, Philadelphia with the assistance of clinical guest faculty.

Reserve a Seat

Group Registrations

Did you hear about Twitter?

In a Wall Street Journal poll dichotomy exists between the most popular network TV shows and the most tweeted TV shows.

Breaking Bad had 9.3 million tweets and The Voice had 3.8 million.

As popular as Breaking Bad is, the most tweeted about show isn’t even in Nielsen’s top ten. 

Meanwhile media companies are making big decisions on bad information.

Here’s some good information.

If you’ve been thinking about subscribing and would like to access this story, let me tell you what you will get.

1.  Real time broadcasting is declining but this is red hot.

2.  Social media as we know it is ready to crash and burn – the 2 survivors.

3.  Pandora’s continuing popularity is a monumental shift in music preference – here’s your counter attack.

4.  They hate commercials, banner ads and pre-roll video commercials but they crave this!

5.  They have already replaced Facebook with this and the numbers don’t lie.

Access this story now and try a monthly subscription, here.

Access this story PLUS 2,450 previous stories, here.  Search Stories.

It’s worth it!  You can’t get honest and insightful media information like this anywhere else. Thousands of members are all in.  Unlock this story and see for yourself.

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