Investigate These Radio Groups For Payola

Nobody does payola like radio.

Forget the investigation of labels trying to screw Pandora.

It’s happening right out there in public.

Let’s name a few names.

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  1. How CBS is cozying up to indie record labels in a way that is raising eyebrows.
  2. A CBS source reveals the questionable songs played for music industry “friends”.
  3. Why Entercom isn’t getting jack from its record label partnerships.
  4. The Cumulus deal someone ought to reveal in testimony before Congress.
  5. Information like this that could save the radio industry from yet another music royalty tax at the worse possible time ever.

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Dream On, Jeff Smulyan

Look, there is no one I like more in the radio industry than Emmis CEO Jeff Smulyan.

But he is all wet on trying to pass off a cellphone as a radio to anyone under 70.

Jeff went out and did a deal with a mobile carrier in which radio companies pay to get the carrier to activate the radio chip.

Tell me.

Ever see a young person listen to the crap that passes for radio on their phones?

They text.

And text.

And use Instagram.

Open apps.

Play games.

Watch videos.

Just about everything but listen to broadcast radio.

This industry is delusional.

Now we find out Coleman Research did an online survey of smartphone owners.

Get this.

They play a 90-second video for NextRadio to 800 18-49 year olds and unabashedly conclude that 56% of those who watched it had a “very positive reaction”.

WHAT!

So what!

I know the NAB funded it and I don’t blame Coleman for taking the money from these clueless curators of the status quo, but really.

Show me the young people using their phones to listen to 8-minutes of non-stop commercials every hour.

Or the cheaper half of the morning team that remains on the air because their station fired the star and saved their salaries.

Or the hype that young audiences hate but radio stations just can’t let go.

And I haven’t even gotten to the monotonous music rotations and lack of local curation.

They’re delusional.

You’ve gotta love today’s radio.

The worst product we have put out in decades and more commercials than any human can handle and we think the medium is still viable and the phone is now a Walkman.

If you believe this, you won’t pretty soon.

There have been chip-enabled phones available where listeners can listen to commercial radio and it doesn’t make a dent in audience listening.

But we still sell the snake oil.

How irrelevant is radio, anyway?

Open your eyes – pay Coleman the money, take the study and then put it in the drawer because it’s bullshit.

Here’s what’s real:

  1. Listeners love personalities and we’re firing them all.
  2. Listeners love music variety and we play the same crap over and over almost as if it’s still the 90’s when listeners didn’t have other alternatives.
  3. Listeners will never listen to a frickin’ 8-minute stop set every hour even if they love your station.  Hello!  Cut the load drastically and increase the price of your spots.  Wait, you can’t because you’re whoring out your rates and making it up with quantity. 
  4. Listeners hate the way radio talks to them.  Change the way you talk to listeners.

Start with that.

There’s more.

Or believe the hype that killed radio in the eyes of young listeners and it will kill this business eventually.

All together now.

A smartphone is not a Walkman.

Radio is not worth listening to.

Improve the product and listeners will come back.

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Think Twice Before Working For This Emerging Radio Group

It’s not Clear Channel.

Not Cumulus.

Not the usual suspects.

I’m concerned about the growing number of second-tier consolidators who are buying up radio stations.

They seem to be no better than the evil owners operating right out of the Clear Channel/Cumulus playbook.

Today, I feel compelled to put one of these companies on the “Watch List”.

Use caution.

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  1. Of all the emerging radio groups, which one may be the most dangerous to your career if stability, respect and fair pay matter to you.
  2. Firing at a Clear Channel pace.
  3. EEOC lawsuits.
  4. More than 75% management turnover.
  5. Commission cuts and fears that managers making over a certain amount of money are being targeted for cut.

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Clownsquare’s IPO

What is dumber than buying Townsquare stock at $11 a share?

Glad you asked.

Clown, clown – everywhere a clown.

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  1. Pandora’s plan to steal more radio revenue.
  2. Clear Channel’s answer to the shitty Townsquare IPO.
  3. The scary future of iHeartRadio.
  4. All about Weezie Kramer.
  5. How Townsquare will pay for its underperforming IPO.

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Radio in the Digital Age (FREE VIDEO)

I thought you might like to hear my comments about the challenges and opportunities for radio in the digital age as I addressed Michael Harrison’s Talkers Conference in New York.

In the video, I distinguish between what radio is doing wrong to attract younger listeners and how to change the way we talk to young audiences many of whom are already in the money demo.

The video was recorded in New York City by our friend Art Vuolo.  Thanks to Michael for his gracious invitation to tackle one of radio’s most important issues.

The video begins with an introduction by Sean Hannity.

If you have thoughts or comments or would like to inquire about my availability to speak to your group or do a private brainstorming session with your staff, click here.

If player does not load, Click here to Watch >>>

Greedy Bastards Killing Radio Rates

They can’t make their quarterly numbers so they don’t want you to make yours.

An orchestrated plan.

Secretly tested in the last three weeks of June.

Thanks to moles familiar with this tactic first hand who are now safely in our Witness Protection Program we know how they are making revenue appear out of thin air at the expense of their competitors.

I’m exposing the greedy bastards because this really will hurt radio.

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  1. How it worked in beta testing.
  2. The new take anything attitude spreading to infect solid radio markets.
  3. Most effective way competitors can foil this kind of rate killing.
  4. A big advertiser caught in the act of prostituting radio rates thanks to Clear Channel.
  5. The ad agencies that now specialize in driving radio rates down in markets everywhere.
  6. Worse yet, even good radio companies are getting desperate – we out them, too.

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Pay Your Debt Down Like Clear Channel Just Did

The wheels are coming off.

They are burning through cash at a record pace.

Their big markets are down 12% or more in revenue.

No prospect of breaking even by the end of the year.

Then how is it possible to pay your debt down by $2.5 billion?

You want what Bob Pittman is having. 

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  1. How Clear Channel got their debt to under $20 billion for the first time since Lee & Bain acquired the company.
  2. And that’s turning in two lousy revenue quarters and tracking down for the rest of the year – how is it possible?
  3. Why now?  The reason Clear Channel is under pressure to get that number under $20 billion even if they have to use this trick.
  4. Why Bressler refuses to break out radio revenue for analysts.

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Bressler & Pittman’s Next Move

Forget the earnings report.

There’s bigger news.

Bob and Rich are setting the table for a grand plan that will fleece investors.

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  1. What Clear Channel is hiding from Wall Street investors.
  2. The honest numbers you will not see anywhere.
  3. The wacky snake oil soaked IPO that Clear Channel is looking at launching.
  4. How much their largest revenue market – LA – missed budget by compared to last year.  Sorry, Bob, someone has to tell them.
  5. How much ratings are off – they’re not talking about this either.
  6. The planned power shift underway at Clear Channel corporate. 
  7. The new management on the way.

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The 2 Things Never To Do On a Morning Show

Make any mistake you want.

Just don’t make these 2.

Because times are changing and you will lose audience and revenue so fast that you can’t get it back.

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  1. Avoid doing this to your personality morning show at all costs.
  2. Never handle music on radio like stations are starting to do now – never.
  3. The new trend in radio morning shows that is not even a year old – avoid it.
  4. Your insurance policy against audience erosion in the mornings – 7 things stations with great ratings are now doing.
  5. Placement of those Nielsen PPM commercial clusters – you’ll want to change them – they’re killing your ratings.

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Look Who Clear Channel Is Sending To Fix Their Stations

Pittman’s latest brain fart is deadly.

How to get the billing up.

How to get lazy, dumb, incompetent sellers that work for the Evil Empire to shape up and fly right.

Warning:  this latest abuse just hit the road last week and it’s ugly.

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  1. Pittman’s new secret to scaring the pants off sales management and sellers one and for all.
  2. The abuse that is coming your way that has reduced professional sales management to tears.
  3. What’s the next stop for Pittman’s SWAT team.
  4. What happens when they get all those responsible for selling into a conference room behind closed doors – with real time quotes who have survived it.
  5. Pittman’s three goons who are being sent in to rip a new assh#@e.

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The Clear Channel Firings You Don’t Know About

These clowns at Clear Channel are making me look like I actually know what I’m talking about.

They’ve started the firings I’ve been warning are on the way.

But you know me.  I just make it up, right?

And they are working right now on a few more eye-popping strategies to save money at all costs.

You won’t believe what they’re into – unless, of course, you’re among the first to get the axe in these new ways.

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  1. It’s now Christmas every day at Clear Channel – how they are pulling off major holiday-type reductions in force and nary a word leaks out.
  2. The big honcho who just got wasted and had to push his belongings to the car in none other than a freakin’ shopping cart no less – the new mean is coming to a station near you.
  3. You’ve heard of corporate “right-sizing” – now meet career “downsizing” – you don’t want to be around for this. 
  4. Salary cuts – if you can’t be fired, now you can always have your pay cut like this.
  5. The Trick Hiring – a cutesy tactic being used by The Evil Empire to make it look like no one was being fired at all.  You have to stay up late at night to come up with something this frightful.
  6. Why 2015 will be the year Clear Channel starts wiping out entire stations in one fell swoop – with an early warning about what to keep an eye out for.

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Clear Channel Caving on Ad Rates

Corporate is saying hold the line on rates.

But what is really going on – often under the radar – is the exact opposite.

Here is evidence that agencies are running roughshod over Clear Channel sellers caught in the middle.

And their commission checks are starting to feel it.

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  1. The Regional Senior VP of Operations who is taking low ball rates in apparent violation of official company policies.
  2. The mega ad agency that is having its way with Clear Channel.
  3. How they negotiate rates so low they aren’t worth taking the business.
  4. How sellers are getting screwed in their paychecks when forced to take the lowball business.
  5. And how they are being punished for taking it!
  6. What competing stations are being forced to do to combat this revenue giveaway.

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47% of Listeners Can’t Last a Day Without This

A new consumer study will give radio operators reason to take pause and reconsider what they do.

Both on-the-air and off.

If you want to hone your strategy in the complex digital age, you’re going to want to see this research and brainstorm these new solutions

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  1. The surprising one thing listeners want most.
  2. Should you program only radio or radio with digital content.
  3. The disturbing new thinking on audience traditional ratings.
  4. Why website metrics are flawed and what to do about it.
  5. The best approach for radio stations competing in the digital space.

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The Dirty David DuBose, Summit Mess

Why is everyone acting like Clear Channel and Cumulus these days?

I thought they hated them.

As I’ve been fearing, the smaller groups that were supposed to be saving radio from the likes of these evildoers are turning out to be not much better.

Take what happened to David DuBose, the man who built the Birmingham cluster for Cox and then helped former Heftel exec Carl Parmer and a local investment group put the deal together to buy Birmingham and some other smaller markets from Cox who worked for them for years.

Now DuBose is the bad guy and the investment people are the saints.

Not so fast.

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  1. How DuBose’s boss, a friend since 1st grade and godfather to his son, managed to fire his pal like he was John Dickey.
  2. The down low on the not-ready for prime time owners who haven’t been in radio for decades.
  3. Two possible motivations why Parmer wanted to fire the only man who knew how to run a radio station in the company.
  4. The dirty deal on their employment contracts that conveniently allowed a Cumulus-type “lynching”.
  5. Flying lawsuits and EEOC complaints that have broken out.

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Talk Out, This Is In At Cumulus

You heard about DJLew entering the urban business with half a New York radio station booming into Harlem from lilywhite Westchester County.

I’ll bet Emmis is really shaking in their boots in the New York market.

Dickey does urban.

Dickey does country.

Dickey does whatever he wants to but he isn’t going to be doing talk.

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  1. Before calling the undertaker, Cumulus has one more radical idea for its suffering talk stations.  Sit down for this one.
  2. The model that will replace Cumulus talk – it’s ready for roll out now.
  3. How Cumulus will out cut the cutbacks at Clear Channel by taking a radically different approach to reducing staff. 
  4. When talk will be a goner at Cumulus.
  5. The surprising candidate to replace talk on the current stations.

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Bye-Bye Benefits At Clear Channel

We’re now beginning to see why Clear Channel has changed from paying bi-monthly to 26 paychecks a year.

When Metro Networks did this, it was the beginning of the end for employees.

Now Clear Channel workers are growing increasingly concerned as they get wind of what The Evil Empire has up its sleeves.

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  1. Their new thinking on salaried and part-time employees.
  2. What’s behind coming changes in how they compensate workers.
  3. The sneaky move employees fear will rob them of health care benefits.
  4. When employees are most vulnerable to have to fend for themselves on health care.
  5. A major employee-tracking program that is said to be changing by year’s end.

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Baby Clear Channels

Like Dean Goodman’s Digity.

People close to the situation – i.e., in the direct line of fire – will tell you that these small groups want what Clear Channel is having.

Profit by not necessarily earning it.

Just by buying assets.

Cutting costs.

Firing people.

Managing from the top down.

This sends a chill up your spine when you realize that the buyers we’re all rooting for many are no better than the buyer’s we know and despise.

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  1. How smaller groups are now implementing the same barbaric management tactics of the big boys.
  2. The new way local managers are expected to meet goals without being able to track their progress.
  3. The GM’s are being paid on performance, which is virtually impossible to make their promised compensation.
  4. How some small acquirers are planning regular Clear Channel-style RIFs of their own.
  5. Why investment groups are buying up small market radio stations that will die when their local staffs are let go – what’s that all about?

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Cumulus Talk Shakeup Coming

Cumulus talk ratings are tanking as each new Nielsen market is issued this week.

Lew Dickey is taking “other” brother John to the woodshed.

Heads are going to roll.

But they won’t be John Dickey’s.

Or Benedict Arnold McVay.

This is getting embarrassing now and Lew has had enough.

But wait.

The cure may be worse than the disease as you’re about to find out.

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  1. The surprising “savior” Lew has identified to turn his failing talk stations around on a dime – his identity is revealed here.
  2. The high profile hiring of Congressman Mike Rogers is ready to take a radical turn.
  3. A big Cumulus talk firing is coming soon – big.
  4. How bad blood between the Dickeys and some of their talk talent is killing the format.
  5. Where the next batch of Cumulus talkers will come from.
  6. How the demise of WABC could take down the entire talk format.

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Nielsen Nonsense

You’ve gotta hand it to those greedy bastards who run radio.

You know -- the consolidators, the one rep firm and the one ratings company.

They don’t give a shit.

Take Nielsen.

They screw up the Los Angeles ratings for the past 12 months to the point where no one really can have any confidence in them and then they refuse to reissue the market ratings for that are in question.

No reissue needed.

Trust them.

What?

The ratings don’t have any “significant differences” after a Univision KSCA employee reportedly handed his meter that he should not have had in the first place over to family members while on vacation.

We have a situation.

I’m told that 8 family members were involved in the no “significant differences”.

I didn’t know that Nielsen accepts households with up to 12 members allowed to participate.

That’s just asking for trouble, but let’s save that for another day.

I’ve got the creeps.

Tuesday K-Earth 101 beat the pants off the LA market.

And yes, KRTH is a very good station and I personally love it.

But why am I creeped out as to whether K-Earth really beat KIIS?

Why am I not accepting it without question?

That would require credibility and Nielsen doesn’t have that with me.

With the establishment, yes, of course they love Nielsen.  They look across the table and see the same greedy bastards that they are.

Remember, these are only audience estimates.

Nielsen goes through great legal disclaimer pain to tell paying clients that the ratings are not accurate.

And now they are adding another public farce – I mean, face – to it.

Now why wouldn’t Nielsen just reissue the questionable ratings in the name of credibility and if not that, accuracy?

After all, they claim to know that there are no “significant differences” so I assume that they actually ran the numbers.

If they didn’t, why didn’t they?

And if they did to the point where they know there were no “significant differences” then why not just for accuracy’s sake and maybe for their reputation –just do it right the second time.

Maybe because Bain owns part of Nielsen and half of Clear Channel, Nielsen feels bulletproof.

If its number one $100 million a year client isn’t going to make a fuss, screw everyone else.

And that’s the problem with radio.

Too few have integrity.

Just Ed Christian who is refusing to roll over and play dead to fight the Nielsen lawsuit that accuses non-subscriber Saga of illegally using ratings – the same thing Nielsen reportedly looks the other way on for some companies.

I’ll be very disappointed if Eddy settles his suit with Nielsen quietly and makes everything go away.

He ought to make Nielsen go away.

Radio is in bad enough shape and it has Katz as its one rep firm owned by Clear Channel and their investment bank blah blah bah.

No balls.

No integrity.

This industry deserves what it gets when it can stand by and allow so many destructive things to happen to radio because they have no guts.

And don’t get me started on the music royalty scam being proffered by ASCAP and others.

Crying to Congress that radio is the bad guy and too few radio people are standing up and shouting this message – that without radio you would never have had a music industry in the first place.

And the sanctimonious Congressmen who pretend to stand up for starving artists when record labels have done more to cause artists to starve than anyone else.

We in radio want to play their music – a lot, even too much.

And the labels get to keep all the profit from record sales and we’ve never complained about the arrangement because it was a win-win then and a win-win now.

Get me before Congress.  I’ll tell them.

But never mind.

The Nielsen thing lit my fire because the industry that is losing its ground to digital is the very reason why radio will die.

Speak up.

Stand up.

Get fed up.

To quote the old r&b song “is you is or is you ain’t” going to fight for what is right.

Nielsen, print the correct LA ratings.

You screwed up.

It’s the right thing to do.

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Fox, Time Warner Merger

If this merger happens, it will reshape movies, television and even radio.

Take a look at the unintended consequences of Rupert Murdoch buying Time Warner.

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  1. Why CBS would be pressured to respond in kind with something earthshattering.
  2. What a Fox, Time Warner merger does to CBS’ timetable to divest itself of radio.
  3. The fallout that will occur from the era of big mergers that is coming.
  4. How the content business will without a doubt change if a handful of ready mergers redefine the media business.
  5. The one safe business you want to be in as these big players alter the landscape of media.

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Opie and Misogyny

Hating is so out.

Talk radio is so dying.

Audiences have changed but radio has not.

If you want the secret to relating to today’s 95 million Millennials, there are 7 new rules. 

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  1. Why outrageous doesn’t work on radio any more and what is replacing it.
  2. An absolute mandatory change ahead of how you relate to women and minorities – compare your show or station with this checklist.
  3. Three new role models for radio personalities – with these you cannot go wrong.
  4. How to handle transgender and gay issues without offending younger money demos.
  5. What will stop radio sexism and racism dead in its tracks.

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Who Is Sleeping With Whom In Radio

Get this.

Thomas Lee Partners is co-owner with Bain Capital of Clear Channel.

Thomas Lee Partners also has a stake in Univision.

And in Cumulus.

And Nielsen.

Hmm, now I get why Clear Channel pays $100 million dollars of play money that they don’t have to Nielsen for a sketchy audience ratings service.

And you thought consolidation ended years ago.

This is what negatively impacts free market competition.

But there’s more.

Oaktree Capital owns Townsquare CEO Steven Price’s ass.

And now they are taking it to market for a payday like no other on the backs of stupid institutional investors who don’t know that Townsquare is a media company consisting on a lot of shitty market radio stations masquerading as the digital future.

Oh, Oaktree owns Triton Media, too.

And co-owns Tribune Company.

And yes, even owns a piece of Cumulus that supposedly competes with Townsquare and has even engineered deals between the two co-conspirators.

But, to paraphrase TV huckster Ron Popeil, if you order now you’ll get two for the price of one.

In addition to co-owning Clear Channel with Thomas Lee Partners, Bain Capital also owns a piece of Cumulus.

Entercom is owned by and large by 22 major investors including State of New Jersey Common Pension Fund A.

See, I told you these institutional funds have no idea that they are buying yesterday’s technology, clueless management, lots of debt and no future.

They’re all sleeping with each other.

When this country began to fail, it did so when Wall Street became more powerful than Washington.

Investment banks are not too big to fail, they are too omnipresent to compete freely.

When clowns at the Southern California Broadcasters Association make a case for the viability of radio going forward they are just – well, shills.

The RAB is a trade association that talks up radio and I get it. But you can’t expect solutions from them – only spin.

The NAB is the association that sold radio down the river in the first place by requesting and getting a rider added to The Telecommunications Act of 1996 that in effect allowed consolidation to ravage a pretty damn good local business.

The deck is stacked against the people who know how to run radio and keep it relevant going forward.

Maybe that’s why Jerry Lee’s More FM outbills the big boys in Philadelphia year after year.

The devastation to careers and local communities is beyond description.

And as digital challenges radio in the media space, the few inbred partners that control everything are after one thing and one thing only.

A rigged game that makes them more money.

Oaktree now has the audacity to be cashing in on the Townsquare IPO – a crappy little company that never made it in radio or digital and did so taking advantage of its fine employees who were sold a bill of goods.

Clear Channel will go public next to repay its owners and pay down some debt to make it look like a viable merger partner.

Even the little guys make me nervous.

Digity?

Betcha they roll up some more shitty little markets and sell the whole damn thing. Are they really among the saviors of radio or carpetbaggers?

And even Larry Wilson who is seen as the Messiah of Saving Radio sold the last company he put together, Citadel, to Forstmann Little for a neat $2.1 billion.

Everybody wants to sell.

Nobody wants to operate.

It’s hard enough to compete in the almost infinite media business today but harder still when the people who own you are playing their own game of Monopoly.

$100 is awarded for the Best News Tip of the Month. And my anonymous Witness Protection Program has never revealed a source. Report news or share emails and memos in confidence here.

Talk to Jerry privately here.

Townsquare Horror Stories

Look at how low Townsquare will go to whip its employees into a big payday for inventors.

Now employees are coming forward with stories of what it has been like working at Townsquare in the run up to what many were fearing – an IPO.

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

  1. Townsquare’s policy on raises.
  2. The questionable story TS is apparently giving part-timers to keep them working for slave wages. 
  3. Part-timers who tell of being forced to work whatever hours it takes to meet digital goals are raising questions about the legality of not paying for their added time.
  4. The big surprise for Townsquare national live events.
  5. Embarrassing treatment for employees at Townsquare live events – when they are working the event.
  6. The TS executive who gets stuck with all the work as employees get cut.  You don’t want this job.

Access this story now and try a monthly subscription here.

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$100 is awarded for the Best News Tip of the Month.  And my anonymous Witness Protection Program has never revealed a source.  Report news or share emails and memos in confidence here.

Talk to Jerry privately here.

8 Tips For Getting a Better Radio Job

We’re halfway through what has become radio’s most difficult year.

The music industry wants a piece of radio.

Big investor groups want their money off the table creating more uncertainty.

Media buyers are demanding 35% or more digital in their buys.

And radio is caving in on rates at the absolute worst time.

Check the broadcasting schools at major universities – few want to go into a business that has little or no growth potential.

There are good companies out there but it’s a buyers market and you’ll have to change the way you engage them.

You’ve never seen tools like this before.

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

  1. Which radio groups are career-friendly.  A link to the best of the best.
  2. Resumes are out – here’s what is replacing them.
  3. The big mistake NOT to make on LinkedIn.
  4. The new and best way to handle references when applying to outstanding radio groups.
  5. “Seven Ways To Get the Job of Your Dreams” from my book – I’ve unlocked the entire chapter for free for a few days so you can study it.
  6. The absolute best – I mean phenomenal – bio that I have ever seen for applying for the position you want.  It’s 31 pages – that’s right – and yes, I have it for you to study until you are bleary-eyed.  (By the way, this person got the job and still has it today).
  7. What one thing about a radio company is a deal breaker no questions asked – if you see this, don’t go there.

Access this story now and try a monthly subscription here.

Become an annual member and also access 2,736 previous stories, here.  Search Stories.

$100 is awarded for the Best News Tip of the Month.  And my anonymous Witness Protection Program has never revealed a source.  Report news or share emails and memos in confidence here.

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Radio Should Abandon the Car

Hear me out.

Apple just signed nine more auto manufacturers yesterday to its CarPlay technology which allows smartphone users to carry over their favorite music experiences to a car, use voice recognition and a vehicles existing navigation display for a safer experience.

Full disclosure:  I own Apple stock but competing Android software is also being deployed to do the same thing.

Ironically, radio has been locked out of the car.

Now, I know radio trade associations and researchers who suck up to fidgety radio people will scoff at this idea, but they are pissing in the wind.

Radio is all screwed up.

We think Pandora is no match for terrestrial radio (sorry, Scott Herman I know you hate that word) yet Pandora keeps growing and its users are very happy with their relationship together.

Radio hated satellite radio back in the day fearing the worst and nothing happened to diminish radio – at least at the hands of its satellite competitors.

Now satellite radio has problems because no young person with lots of student loans to repay will fork out those outrageous monthly subscription fees for music when they can get it for free on an app.

Radio keeps living in denial and one of the biggest points of denial is that it will have a prominent place in the digital dashboard of the future.

Those days are over.

A place, yes.

A prominent place?

Not unless prominent means along with an infinite number of websites and apps.

Now radio would be wise to concentrate on their relationship with the end user – or as I like to call them – our listeners.

We have been crapping on our listeners for almost two decades.

Taking away their favorite morning personalities, dumbing down the stations to save money, eliminating reasons for listeners to remain addicted to radio, offering less music variety in a world where listeners have endless music discovery right in the palm of their hands.

And did I mention the mother of all audience disrespect – the garbage dump of commercials for 8 minutes every half hour. 

Unlistenable and unremarkable.

The only thing dumber than that is an advertiser or buyer paying money NOT to be heard in those bloated stop sets.

No, it’s not about the digital dashboard any longer.

It’s about rebuilding a relationship with listeners.

Where WTOP outperforms everyone else is because it is not just a radio station.  It’s a favorite place for listeners.

WTOP has an implied relationship with each and every one of them.

The station is not on autopilot.

So, we can huff and puff all we want that radio will always be in the car and people will always listen to radio but we will be wrong.

The car is no big deal.  In fact, young people love public transit and love to live in cities.

And Millennials have already given up on radio.

If I’m running a station, I am forgetting about being stroked by RAB, NAB, Nielsen or whomever and I am going to blow up the way I do radio.

Learn how to talk nice to the audience again.

Appeal to the six things that matters most to them – not our venture capital owners.

Get rid of the arrogance.

Be real and authentic.

Give listeners a reason to tune in other than they have nothing else on their dashboard but a basic radio because the car radio is dead.

If you plan to be relevant in the future, bet on rebuilding relationships not building your station into a car.

And one more thing.

If you’re content to say my stations or company does not operate like Cumulus and Clear Channel so we’re still okay, you’re not.

Companies like those and Entercom and Townsquare and others have blighted the radio business.

Make 100% of the focus on rebuilding the relationship with listeners as the best strategy for competing with a smartphone seamlessly in tomorrow’s automobile.

The digital dashboard is just an illusion.

$100 is awarded for the Best News Tip of the Month.  And my anonymous Witness Protection Program has never revealed a source.  Report news or share emails and memos in confidence here.

Talk to Jerry privately here.