1. Too Many Commercials – Scheduling spots in stop sets exclusively by length.       Roving stop sets. Making local commercials so compelling that they repel the usual tune out. The type of commercial that Millennials love that radio does not presently do.  Just as running many :10 and :15s can make listeners feel the stop sets are even longer than they are, there is now a way to make them seem shorter.
2. What To Do with 70 Million Baby Boomers – New evidence that making formatic changes that Millennials like also pleases baby boomers but customizing content and presentation for Boomers risks turning off 95 million Millennials.
3. Music Radio TSL Losses – Prevent music radio listening declines due to streaming music services such as Pandora, Spotify and YouTube, the biggest source of new music for young people by changing the way playlists are put together.
4. Eliminating the 3 Biggest Listener Objections To Radio – Too many lousy commercials, outdated morning shows and playing the same repetitive music. Focus on three new features to replace traffic, time checks and weather.  Three features that are not available on smartphones and entice eager new advertisers.
5. Music That Is Too Repetitive – Two new strategies. One adds more new music without watering down the hits.  The better approach is to rip up the traditional playlist and present shorter cuts of songs that are now played all the way through. Research shows music listeners do not listen to any song all the way through.
6. How To Get Listeners To Listen Longer – TSL has been down every year since the early 90’s. Ironically, long music sweeps are considered a turn off when money demo listeners are studied. Changing the formatic elements to create more interruptions not less to feed short attention spans.
7. Selling Against Competitors Who Cut Their Rates – Most of the major groups have given in on rates making it hard for independent competitors to hold the line. Why you should never sell digital and terrestrial radio on the same sales call – ever. How the biggest radio revenue producers protect their rates, increase their billing and breed loyalty in their increasingly crucial top spending advertisers.
8. Turn-Ons & Turn-Offs. Change the way you speak to audiences, dangerous sweepers, surprising words that turn off young audiences when used on the air, etc. For example: avoid words with “est” on the end. Hear about how male audiences now care more about whether they are fun to be with and how that should trigger changes in how radio relates to all audiences.
9. How To Attract Millennials To Radio – Demographers have discovered 5 things that Millennials crave. Do these 5 things every hour of every day and radio becomes more relevant to the 95 million members of this age group. If you do nothing else, take notes on how the make your stations sound more authentic in their eyes – one of the 5 important things to do.
10. What To Do About the Digital Dashboard – What folks are missing is that the only thing that has changed is more competitors for fewer pre-sets. Consider ways to win a place on the pre-sets rather than take on the issue of digital dashboards.
11. The Decline of News & Talk – Two staple radio formats are seeing audiences erode or attracting unsellable aging demographics. It’s not likely owners will be launching new news stations and less likely that traditional radio talk formats will be successfully launched on the old model. But don’t miss this glimmer of hope – a spoken word format that young money demos actually want. Young audiences love storytelling as much as Boomers loved political talk.  Time to transition.
12. The Demise of AM Radio – By the time the FCC gets around to helping AM owners it will be too late. Is it even possible for anyone under 60 to locate or listen to an AM station?  I’ll answer that.  No.  But AM could do to FM what radio did to it.

All 12 are on the agenda at my upcoming Media Solutions Conference in Philadelphia in 6 weeks

Register Now

Contact Jerry about conference questions and group rates here.

Visit the conference website.

What is it with live streaming?

When radio does it, hardly 3% of their total listeners access it and the stations still can’t find a way to monetize it.

When TV networks do it, they think they have discovered the next gold rush.

NBC Universal started a live stream but they still don’t get it – you have to be a cable customer to be able to view it on phones, computers and tablets. Maybe that’s because Comcast owns NBC U – just sayin’.

CBS made live streaming of its network available for digital devices but you don’t get football (its biggest attraction) and you have to wait 24 hours to see the primetime CBS shows that fewer people are watching on TV according to Nielsen.

How dumb is that?

HBO, which always got it – is going to disrupt everything by letting non-cable subscribers subscribe to HBO Go – unbundled. Hooray!

Disney got into live streaming of ABC a year earlier ahead of the pack.

NBC’s TV Everywhere is a joke.

Its motto is “Watch TV Without the TV” – they pay people to come up with this stuff.

When the real slogan ought to be “Watch TV With Your Cable Subscription” because no cable, no TV without the TV.

Did you see that NPR gets more financial contributions than the “Downton Abbey” network PBS?

This makes me enthusiastic about sharing pathways to revenue by creating content specifically designed for the medium in mind.

Where do we get off thinking listeners want to listen to radio online when so few do. I know, Bob Pittman, a lot of people have the iHeartRadio app. Hell, I have it too. I just use it and apparently I’m not alone.

So let’s think about the potential of radio – that’s right I said “potential” – if we stop feeling sorry for ourselves and start actually getting back to our real business – creating content.

The last 20 years were about consolidation – good, now it’s over.

Let’s get on with innovating our way into the future.

A morning show without mornings – that is less than 10 minutes long with no traffic and weather for my phone and built for where I live or work delivered right to me.

No, maybe ten shows like that. Or 20.

And what if we imagined a new way to use our radio signals – by creating compelling content.

Music formats that are unpredictable and exciting and curated by experts.

Spoken word formats that are not political talk or old men trying to do lifestyle talk for young people who cannot relate to them.

And I’m going to get to binge content.

Hell, Netflix does it – and audiences want to binge on that which we want.

Radio should be in this business and I am going to tantalize you so that you’ll rush back to your markets and get your content creators and marketers revved up.

We can do this.

At my upcoming media conference in Philly, we’re going to examine how to do the best radio we’ve ever done on-the-air and simultaneously create separate revenue streams based on new opportunities that we are currently ignoring.

We can make a real difference not by doing the same things, but also by drilling down with innovative thinking on these following ten problems that must be solved to have a positive outcome in 2015.

1. Too Many Commercials – How spots are scheduled can make a difference.       Also, the length of spots in each stop set. There is much that can be done. To proceed as is is not a solution.
2. Unremarkable Programming For 70 Million Baby Boomers – All the focus is on young money demo Millennials. Baby boomers have been radio’s most loyal listeners but that’s changing now. Ignore baby boomers, target them or better yet discover what the two disparate groups have in common.      
3. Outdated Morning Shows – They like personalities but increasingly they don’t like much else about morning shows.  Focus on three new features to replace traffic, time checks and weather. Yes, they don’t need them. But consider these three potent options to replace tired old staples of morning radio. (And you can sell them!)
4. Music That Is Too Repetitive – Audiences have hated music repetition on radio for decades but they had few alternatives. Not so anymore. Two new strategies show promise. One adds more new music without watering down the hits. The better approach is to rip up the traditional playlist and present the music differently.
5. No Compelling Reason To Listen Longer – Radio TSL has been down every year since the early 90’s. Under 30’s don’t even listen to any song all the way through even though music radio is built on the assumption that if you play the right songs, the audience will stay tuned in. Now, there is a way to keep listeners from straying and it isn’t longer music sweeps.
6. Don’t Like the Way Stations Talk To Them – Sounds dated, insincere. Too much bragging and hype. It all sounds like radio is out of touch. Talking down to listeners whether we mean to or not.  Surprising words that turn off young audiences when used on the air, in promos, sweepers, imaging and commercials. Learn them and overcome this objection.
7. Radio Is Not Authentic – Demographers have discovered 5 things that Millennials crave. Do these 5 things every hour of every day and radio becomes more relevant to the 95 million members of this age group.  One of the 5 things they crave is more authenticity. Learn the fastest way to master being truly authentic to Millennials but also the four other expectations that radio is currently not meeting. They are screaming this out for you to hear.
8. Lack of Music Variety and Customization – Spotify, Pandora and YouTube are killing radio when it comes to variety and customization. There may be no way to compete with that, but audiences are beginning to tell us what these streaming services are lacking presenting a great opportunity for responsive radio stations to do what streaming services cannot do.
9. Outdated News and Talk – Two staple radio formats are seeing audiences erode or attracting unsellable aging demographics.  News stations don’t just sound like their father’s radio station – they sound like their grandfathers radio station. Droning on and on with sleepy features designed for station sales managers not for listeners to crave. Conservative talk is also over because audiences want compromise not red meat. And Progressive talk radio never really worked. It’s a no-win. But spoken word is something young Millennials like, really like – here is the spoken word station of the future (bring an open mind).
10. Don’t Know Where the AM Band Is – Think about it. There’s nothing for audiences under 60 on AM. So you may be thinking that younger money demos won’t listen to an AM station, right? True, unless … well, I’ll show you a number of things you could do on two tin cans hooked together with a string that Millennials would eat up.  Will you take that challenge?  Because I’m going to do it and you’re going to want to brainstorm on it. Forget the FCC. AM needs to disrupt FM the way FM disrupted AM.

PLUS, What Audiences REALLY Want In Digital Content …

There is nothing worse than doing something well that doesn’t need to be done at all. Some stations are doing impressive digital initiatives that audiences simply don’t care about.

Instead, drill down on what listeners really want in digital and get a better return on your investment in time and money:

1. Storytelling Instead of Podcasting
2. Short-Form Video Revenue Stream
3. Non-hyped Social Media Beyond Facebook and Twitter
4. Content Audiences Can Binge on Just Like They Do Netflix
5. Apps Not Websites (and That Includes Radio)

This is a day worth your time and investment.

A clearly defined agenda, creative and innovative solutions to apply and a forum to discuss and hitchhike on new ideas that you hear.

Independent broadcasters and digital entrepreneurs are invited to the 6^th annual Media Solutions Seminar at the Hub Conference Center March 18^th in Philadelphia, walking distance from Amtrak’s 30^th Street Station and 20 minutes from Philadelphia International Airport.

Buffet breakfast, lunch and all breaks prepared by James Beard award-winning chef Jean-Marie Lacroix, former executive chef at The Four Seasons included.

Less than 2 months from today until the Media Solutions Conference.

Register Now

Contact Jerry about the conference and group rates here.

If there is one thing that deserves radio’s attention, it is finding a way to mitigate listener complaints about too many commercials.

Amazingly, 16 minutes an hour sounds like double that to a listener when you consider how many :10 and :15 second spots are run in two unlistenable stop sets an hour.

Ratings dictate where these stop sets run in the false illusion that stations will rack up more quarter hour listening.

To be blunt, keep this up and no matter how good a radio station’s programming content may be, listeners will continue fleeing for other options – not even other stations who likely follow the same bad practices.

Now there is hope.

To start with are you running the kind of commercials that even Millennial listeners say they like – that’s right, like? It’s important to know.

Do you know a way to load a lot of commercials into stop sets and reduce the irritation factor by up to 30%? It’s doable.

The one thing to never put in a stop set loaded with commercials or you’re likely asking for trouble.

Taking advantage of competitors who fail to follow the new rules to commercial placement.

Of course, the best way is to cut commercials loads, but Entercom has been trying this on test stations and promoting it. And you know what? It hasn’t helped – at least if you look at the ratings.

So, we’re going to focus on getting control of the biggest audience irritation factor for radio and you can try new ideas and make a real difference.

Here are the radio topics we will focus on at my upcoming Philly conference in 7 weeks from now …

1. Baby Boomers -- What to do with 70 million available baby boomers -- too many to ignore – when radio is focusing on 95 million Millennials.
2. Outdated Morning Shows – Replacing traffic, transit and weather with 3 things listeners can’t get on a smartphone.
3. Repetitive Music – Two new alternatives. One adds more new music without watering down the hits. The other is to rip up the traditional playlist and present the music in an entirely different way.
4. Listen Longer – Radio time spent listening has been declining every year for two decades. Under 30’s don’t even listen to any song all the way through even though music radio is built on the assumption that if you play the right songs, the audience will stay tuned in. New solutions that are proven to work.
5. Change the Way We Talk To Listeners – Radio sounds dated and stale. Too much bragging and hype. Learn surprising words that turn off young audiences when used on the air, in promos, sweepers, imaging and commercials.
6. Millennial Hot Buttons – Authenticity is number one plus four other things that will make younger money demo listeners crave your station.
7. Music Discovery – How to play the hits as we must while also competing with new music from streaming music services. A bold new way to safely make one format adjustment and do both.
8. Replacement Format for Talk – Political talk is not resonating with prime demos, but there is one thing that is right in radio’s wheelhouse that should be the next spoken word format. Storytelling – we’ll get into how all types of stations – even music formats – can do it.
9. Solving the “Too Many Commercials” Problem – For stations that can’t deeply cutback commercial minutes, some new solutions.

And these digital topics that deliver what audiences really want …

1. Storytelling Instead of Podcasting – Podcasting is radio online, but storytelling is the hottest thing that Millennials want.
2. Short-Form Video – New rules: don’t need air talent, expenses are under $500 (for the year) and the upside is tremendous.
3. Social Media After Facebook & Twitter – What’s next in the pipeline.
4. Binge Content – It’s not just for Netflix and Hulu. Here’s how radio can do it.
5. Apps Not Websites – How to refocus attention from station websites to specially targeted apps.

More than ever, you can accelerate your station’s success by developing innovative solutions to radio’s biggest challenges.

Make yourself indispensible by investing in yourself by transforming opportunities into success.

Independent broadcasters and digital entrepreneurs are invited to the 6^th annual Media Solutions Seminar at the Hub Conference Center March 18^th in Philadelphia, walking distance from Amtrak’s 30^th Street Station and 20 minutes from Philadelphia International Airport.

Buffet breakfast, lunch and all breaks prepared by James Beard award-winning chef Jean-Marie Lacroix, former executive chef at The Four Seasons included.

Only 7weeks from today to reserve a seat at the next Media Solutions Conference.

It’s your chance to register and reserve a seat at the lowest rate we offer.

Register Now

Contact Jerry about the conference and group rates here.

There is a bidding war going on among cable providers, networks and sports franchises.

Maybe you noticed the almost $300 million CBS is paying for some early season games on Thursday nights while the NFL gets the Thursday games for its own network as the sports race heats up later in the season.

The average cable household is paying $6 a month to have ESPN content whether they want it or not.

Want the Philadelphia Flyers games on Comcast Sportsnet in Philly? Even with the cheapest basic cable package you’ll pay $90 a month. The cable systems are passing their costs of acquiring sports rights on to audiences faster than the audience can say I don’t want them.

This is insane for many reasons and one that few people see.

Millennials don’t like sports the way previous generations do.

Go to a game and watch young people having fun on their phones, forget the game.

Football especially has generational problems because Gen X parents – especially moms – are rethinking whether they want their kids playing high school football. Many parents are concerned about whether they want to expose their children to concussions that could cause memory problems and expose their children to dementia later in life.

When a sport cools down in high school, it affects college and as hard as it is to believe on the eve of the next Super Bowl, sports has a problem with the Millennial generation.

We may look back on these times as great days for sports but in spite of what cable operators and networks will still pay for sports, it’s not a slam dunk going forward.

But you’d never know that to see baby boomer media execs making fools out of themselves to get in bidding wars over broadcast rights.

Why?

Because sports still brings them massive audiences and they can sell it. Their own prime time programming, on the other hand, is declining in ratings and increasing in older demographics.

Time Warner, Cablevision and other smaller cable companies are increasing their fees to pay for sports content as is DirecTV whose fees will increase by almost 6% this year. Of course, you can negotiate with them by cancelling – cable companies and satellite providers are losing subscribers at the fastest pace ever.

None of this makes sense.

Owners and operators do what they want even if it flies in the face of what audiences want. They’ll watch sports on free TV but they’re not going to pay for increased costs for sports rights.

Yes, Gen X and baby boom audiences want sports, but when you consider that Millennials are cord cutters and will not pay for television (other than Netflix, Hulu and custom content channels they choose), it doesn’t bode well.

Remember that Comcast is about to takeover Time Warner after the government rolls over on that monopoly.

And cable companies like Cablevision are getting into the phone business. You may have heard about Freewheel which is Cablevision’s $29.95 a month cellphone service that works only on WiFi.

Talk about disrupting – this could kill the mobile phone business.

Pity.

Radio is free and you can’t give it away.

God knows Jeff Smulyan has done everything he can to turn a cellphone into a Walkman and still, very few people want it.

iHeart says it has 60 million registered users but silly iHeart doesn’t track listening sessions as Pandora does.

Know why?

Because it is nearly impossible to listen to terrestrial radio on a mobile device with all those commercials and music repetition.

The dilemma for content providers is to change the way you think about audiences and you will do great things.

That’s the premise of my next media seminar in Philly in about 7 weeks from now.

Just for the heck of it, look at radio’s biggest problems below and make your goals match what we know about emerging audiences – 95 million Millennials many already in the money demo.

1. Too Many Commercials – Stations want to sell more ads for more competitive prices (translation: cheap ads) so they cram 16 or more minutes of them into each hour. Then they use PPM as their guide for placement of these commercials. How spots are scheduled can make a difference. Also, the length of spots in each stop set.  There is much that can be done.  To proceed as is is not a solution.
2. Unremarkable Programming For 70 Million Baby Boomers – Radio is guessing about Millennials and making incorrect assumptions about aging Baby Boomers. Baby boomers have been radio’s most loyal listeners but that’s changing now. Ignore baby boomers, target them or better yet discover what the two disparate groups have in common.  I think I can surprise you with what Baby Boomers and Millennials both want from radio that they are not now getting.
3. Outdated Morning Shows – Radio needs to sell traffic, transit, weather and even news to earn revenue and they want to cut costs by firing popular personalities and replacing them with cheaper alternatives. Listeners like personalities but increasingly they don’t like much else about morning shows. So it would make sense to focus on three new features to replace traffic, time checks and weather. Things they can’t get on their cellphones. Consider these three potent options to replace tired old staples of morning radio. (And you can sell them!)
4. Repetitive Music – Audiences have always hated music repetition on radio for decades but they had few alternatives. After all, somehow it gets ratings. But now it’s not that easy because listeners have alternative means to easily access music discovery. Two new strategies show promise. One adds more new music without watering down the hits. The better approach is to rip up the traditional playlist and present the music differently.
5. Declining TSL – Radio TSL has been down every year since the early 90’s. Under 30’s don’t even listen to any song all the way through even though music radio is built on the assumption that if you play the right songs, the audience will stay tuned in. Now, there is a way to keep listeners from straying and it isn’t longer music sweeps.
6. Listeners Don’t Like the Way Stations Talk to Them – Sounds dated, insincere. Too much bragging and hype. It all sounds like radio is out of touch. Talking down to listeners whether we mean to or not.  Surprising words that turn off young audiences when used on the air, in promos, sweepers, imaging and commercials. Learn them and overcome this objection.
7. Radio Is Not Authentic – Demographers have discovered 5 things that Millennials crave. Do these 5 things every hour of every day and radio becomes more relevant to the 95 million members of this age group.  One of the 5 things they crave is more authenticity. Learn the fastest way to master being truly authentic to Millennials but also the four other expectations that radio is currently not meeting.  They are screaming this out for you to hear.
8. Lack of Music Variety and Customization – Spotify, Pandora and YouTube are killing radio when it comes to variety and customization. There may be no way to compete with that, but audiences are beginning to tell us what these streaming services are lacking presenting a great opportunity for responsive radio stations to do what streaming services cannot do.
9. Outdated News and Talk – Two staple radio formats are seeing audiences erode or attracting unsellable aging demographics.  News stations don’t just sound like their father’s radio station – they sound like their grandfathers radio station. Droning on and on with sleepy features designed for station sales managers not for listeners to crave. Conservative talk is also over because audiences want compromise not red meat. And Progressive talk radio never really worked. It’s a no-win. But spoken word is something young Millennials like, really like – here is the spoken word station of the future (bring an open mind).
10. Don’t Know Where the AM Band Is – Think about it. There’s nothing for audiences under 60 on AM. So you may be thinking that younger money demos won’t listen to an AM station, right? True, unless … well, I’ll show you a number of things you could do on two tin cans hooked together with a string that Millennials would eat up.  Will you take that challenge?  Because I’m going to do it and you’re going to want to brainstorm on it. Forget the FCC. AM needs to disrupt FM the way FM disrupted AM.

PLUS, What Audiences REALLY Want In Digital Content …

There is nothing worse than doing something well that doesn’t need to be done at all. Some stations are doing impressive digital initiatives that audiences simply don’t care about.

Instead, drill down on what listeners really want in digital and get a better return on your investment in time and money:

1. Storytelling Instead of Podcasting
2. Short-Form Video Revenue Stream
3. Non-hyped Social Media Beyond Facebook and Twitter
4. Content Audiences Can Binge on Just Like They Do Netflix
5. Apps Not Websites (and That Includes Radio)

Our day together is worth your time and investment.

A clearly defined agenda, creative and innovative solutions to apply and a forum to discuss and hitchhike on new ideas that you hear.

Independent broadcasters and digital entrepreneurs are invited to the 6^th annual Media Solutions Seminar at the Hub Conference Center March 18^th in Philadelphia, walking distance from Amtrak’s 30^th Street Station and 20 minutes from Philadelphia International Airport.

Buffet breakfast, lunch and all breaks prepared by James Beard award-winning chef Jean-Marie Lacroix, former executive chef at The Four Seasons included.

Less than 8 weeks from today to reserve a seat at the next Media Solutions Conference.

Register Now

Contact Jerry about the conference and group rates here.

A new CEA/NATPE study shows only 55% of Millennials view programming on an actual TV.

Laptops, tablets and smartphones are headed to be the replacement for traditional television.

Other interesting findings:

• The Millennial group (13-34) is more likely to watch full-length TV shows from a streaming source (84% streamed in the past six months). They watch live TV 54% of the time and DVR’s 33%.
• 51% of Millennials consider Netflix more important than cable or TV. I wish I still owned Netflix stock last week when it climbed $100 a share.
• Older Gen Xers like video on-demand (76% watch video on-demand once a week). DVRs are used to avoid commercials.
• Multi-screen viewing is increasing. Millennials are fine watching Game of Thrones on a tablet or laptop – even a smartphone.

I mention all of this because today’s money demo consumers are platform agnostic.

Unfortunately, radio is not.

If a radio company paid $100 million for a cluster of stations in a given market or two they have this feeling of denial that clouds their thinking.

We keep getting studies to confirm that audiences will listen or watch content anywhere as long as they can control what they are consuming and even how much they get to consume.

That would be bingeing – a video concept radio stations would be wise to explore.

When radio stations create content that can only be consumed the way it was 10, 20 or 30 years ago on and for a radio, you can see where the first problem is.

Therefore, radio stations should sign off.

Not off the air, but sign off as only a radio station and if you’re going to do radio, do the best radio ever. Sadly, we both know that is not the case now.

They need to reset their focus to being creators of content.

This can, of course, include live 24/7 radio but it had better be more.

When you see the ad revenue tumbling in major markets – iHeart’s excellent LA cluster off double digits and Cumulus’ Chicago cluster off 30% -- it shouldn’t take much to realize that radio needs to face a few realities.

Become more platform agnostic – make separate content for as many devices as possible.

Stop programming for PPM and upend traditional hot clocks to create a new source of programming. Listeners are not PPM. They are nothing like it. To program to PPM is to hurt yourself.

Reduce radio’s reliance on simple music formats (short playlists cranking out music that is easily available in streaming music services or personal playlists).

Embrace storytelling – if you’re coming to Philly for my conference, I will wager that one of the most useful discussions is how to do storytelling on the air.

Millennial listeners love storytelling and sorry, storytelling is not podcasting. Or as I like to kid my friend Norm Pattiz of PodcastOne, podcasting is just a way for Norm to make more money doing Westwood One again online. It’s spoken word radio on the Internet – not going to fly with Millennials.

For radio operators, it is too dangerous to sit home and simply repeat last year.

I’ve isolated the 10 things that can make the biggest difference to radio stations if you are willing to think differently about them.

Here’s a quick sample:

1. Too Many Commercials – How spots are scheduled can make a difference. Also, the length of spots in each stop set. There is much that can be done. To proceed as is is not a solution.
2. Unremarkable Programming For 70 Million Baby Boomers – All the focus is on young money demo Millennials. Baby boomers have been radio’s most loyal listeners but that’s changing now. Ignore baby boomers, target them or better yet discover what the two disparate groups have in common.      
3. Outdated Morning Shows – They like personalities but increasingly they don’t like much else about morning shows.  Focus on three new features to replace traffic, time checks and weather. Yes, they don’t need them. But consider these three potent options to replace tired old staples of morning radio. (And you can sell them!)
4. Music That Is Too Repetitive – Audiences have hated music repetition on radio for decades but they had few alternatives. Not so anymore. Two new strategies show promise. One adds more new music without watering down the hits. The better approach is to rip up the traditional playlist and present the music differently.
5. No Compelling Reason To Listen Longer – Radio TSL has been down every year since the early 90’s. Under 30’s don’t even listen to any song all the way through even though music radio is built on the assumption that if you play the right songs, the audience will stay tuned in. Now, there is a way to keep listeners from straying and it isn’t longer music sweeps.
6. Don’t Like the Way Stations Talk To Them – Sounds dated, insincere. Too much bragging and hype. It all sounds like radio is out of touch. Talking down to listeners whether we mean to or not.  Surprising words that turn off young audiences when used on the air, in promos, sweepers, imaging and commercials. Learn them and overcome this objection.
7. Radio Is Not Authentic – Demographers have discovered 5 things that Millennials crave. Do these 5 things every hour of every day and radio becomes more relevant to the 95 million members of this age group.  One of the 5 things they crave is more authenticity. Learn the fastest way to master being truly authentic to Millennials but also the four other expectations that radio is currently not meeting.  They are screaming this out for you to hear.
8. Lack of Music Variety and Customization – Spotify, Pandora and YouTube are killing radio when it comes to variety and customization. There may be no way to compete with that, but audiences are beginning to tell us what these streaming services are lacking presenting a great opportunity for responsive radio stations to do what streaming services cannot do.
9. Outdated News and Talk – Two staple radio formats are seeing audiences erode or attracting unsellable aging demographics.  News stations don’t just sound like their father’s radio station – they sound like their grandfathers radio station. Droning on and on with sleepy features designed for station sales managers not for listeners to crave. Conservative talk is also over because audiences want compromise not red meat. And Progressive talk radio never really worked. It’s a no-win. But spoken word is something young Millennials like, really like – here is the spoken word station of the future (bring an open mind).
10. Don’t Know Where the AM Band Is – Think about it. There’s nothing for audiences under 60 on AM. So you may be thinking that younger money demos won’t listen to an AM station, right? True, unless … well, I’ll show you a number of things you could do on two tin cans hooked together with a string that Millennials would eat up.  Will you take that challenge?  Because I’m going to do it and you’re going to want to brainstorm on it. Forget the FCC. AM needs to disrupt FM the way FM disrupted AM.

PLUS, What Audiences REALLY Want In Digital Content …

There is nothing worse than doing something well that doesn’t need to be done at all. Some stations are doing impressive digital initiatives that audiences simply don’t care about.

Instead, drill down on what listeners really want in digital and get a better return on your investment in time and money:

1. Storytelling Instead of Podcasting
2. Short-Form Video Revenue Stream
3. Non-hyped Social Media Beyond Facebook and Twitter
4. Content Audiences Can Binge on Just Like They Do Netflix
5. Apps Not Websites (and That Includes Radio)

This is a day worth your time and investment.

A clearly defined agenda, creative and innovative solutions to apply and a forum to discuss and hitchhike on new ideas that you hear.

Independent broadcasters and digital entrepreneurs are invited to the 6^th annual Media Solutions Seminar at the Hub Conference Center March 18^th in Philadelphia, walking distance from Amtrak’s 30^th Street Station and 20 minutes from Philadelphia International Airport.

Buffet breakfast, lunch and all breaks prepared by James Beard award-winning chef Jean-Marie Lacroix, former executive chef at The Four Seasons included.

Less than 8 weeks from today to reserve as seat at the next Media Solutions Conference.

Register Now

Contact Jerry about the conference and group rates here.

Netflix stock rose $60.48 cents when trading closed yesterday to end at $409.28.

Netflix can be a volatile stock, but there is no denying its appeal not only to consumers but also to shareholders.

The market liked that Netflix beat its estimates for new subscribers outside the U.S. and that there is a lot more upside left. Netflix is in 50 countries and it wants to operate in 190+ so you can see why the stock price jumped.

More importantly Netflix is a business the radio industry ought to seriously study.

Not too many years ago Netflix was a snail mail dependent business when digital was just beginning to come of age. They were making plenty of money renting movies to customers but the future was not assured.

Just ask Blockbuster which went down in flames at the hands of the digital revolution when it refused to blow up its old model and innovate a new one.

Netflix not only adapted and moved toward their current digital market at about the same price per month as their mail service but also disrupted the network television business and cable in ways they couldn’t see coming.

Parallels to radio would be – a traditional medium, dependent on analog listening as an infinite number of new devices became available – namely the smartphone.

Netflix moved their business to digital.

Radio moved their business to digital streaming.

So why didn’t it work?

Streaming rarely makes money and in fact allows advertisers to bargain for lower on-air rates when they buy streaming (or vice versa).

Netflix encouraged binge watching – another disruption, this time a sociological one where consumers could take control of how much, when and where they could binge on content.

Suddenly network television was so not necessary. HBO caught on when it wisely launched HBO Go. If you had a cable subscription, you got HBO Go. Now you can just get HBO Go with no cable subscription – another disruption.

Hulu Plus modeled themselves after Netflix. Even CBS had to make its programming available on an app but did not include pro football and included a time delay for programming that aired on their local affiliates – a weak proposition.

Radio became background noise for riding in a car. Station owners were more interested in cutting expenses than creating new content, which, of course, is what Netflix went and did by doing deals for original programming like House of Cards, Orange is the New Black and lately Marco Polo.

Netflix changed listening habits.

Radio allowed digital competitors and devices to change their listening habits.

The takeaway from all of this is that the radio industry can learn the path to success from Netflix.

Create content for bingeing – not just 24/7 programming.

No one does this – and they had better learn how.

Institute subscription fees for some kinds of programming.

No radio content is apparently even worth $1 a month – I can tell you people will pay for something unique.

Don’t get distracted by podcasting which is tantamount to spoken word radio repackaged for the Internet – and learn how to do storytelling, an entirely new approach to content.

These are some of the things I am going to curate at my upcoming media conference in Philadelphia in less than 2 months from now. It’s worth your time because doing the same old thing over and over again is not an answer to the digital revolution.

And now with more Millennials than Baby Boomers – some as old as 33 and smack dab in the money demo sweet spot, we can do this – and must do this.

Here are radio’s top 10 critical problems – our goal is to attack them in innovative ways.

We can make a real difference not by doing the same things, but also by drilling down with innovative thinking on these following ten problems that must be solved to have a positive outcome in 2015.

1. Too Many Commercials – How spots are scheduled can make a difference.       Also, the length of spots in each stop set. There is much that can be done. To proceed as is is not a solution.
2. Unremarkable Programming For 70 Million Baby Boomers – All the focus is on young money demo Millennials. Baby boomers have been radio’s most loyal listeners but that’s changing now. Ignore baby boomers, target them or better yet discover what the two disparate groups have in common.  
3. Outdated Morning Shows – They like personalities but increasingly they don’t like much else about morning shows.  Focus on three new features to replace traffic, time checks and weather. Yes, they don’t need them. But consider these three potent options to replace tired old staples of morning radio. (And you can sell them!)
4. Music That Is Too Repetitive – Audiences have hated music repetition on radio for decades but they had few alternatives. Not so anymore. Two new strategies show promise. One adds more new music without watering down the hits. The better approach is to rip up the traditional playlist and present the music differently.
5. No Compelling Reason To Listen Longer – Radio TSL has been down every year since the early 90’s. Under 30’s don’t even listen to any song all the way through even though music radio is built on the assumption that if you play the right songs, the audience will stay tuned in. Now, there is a way to keep listeners from straying and it isn’t longer music sweeps.
6. Don’t Like the Way Stations Talk To Them – Sounds dated, insincere. Too much bragging and hype. It all sounds like radio is out of touch. Talking down to listeners whether we mean to or not.  Surprising words that turn off young audiences when used on the air, in promos, sweepers, imaging and commercials. Learn them and overcome this objection.
7. Radio Is Not Authentic – Demographers have discovered 5 things that Millennials crave. Do these 5 things every hour of every day and radio becomes more relevant to the 95 million members of this age group.  One of the 5 things they crave is more authenticity. Learn the fastest way to master being truly authentic to Millennials but also the four other expectations that radio is currently not meeting.  They are screaming this out for you to hear.
8. Lack of Music Variety and Customization – Spotify, Pandora and YouTube are killing radio when it comes to variety and customization. There may be no way to compete with that, but audiences are beginning to tell us what these streaming services are lacking presenting a great opportunity for responsive radio stations to do what streaming services cannot do.
9. Outdated News and Talk – Two staple radio formats are seeing audiences erode or attracting unsellable aging demographics.  News stations don’t just sound like their father’s radio station – they sound like their grandfathers radio station. Droning on and on with sleepy features designed for station sales managers not for listeners to crave. Conservative talk is also over because audiences want compromise not red meat. And Progressive talk radio never really worked. It’s a no-win. But spoken word is something young Millennials like, really like – here is the spoken word station of the future (bring an open mind).
10. Don’t Know Where the AM Band Is – Think about it. There’s nothing for audiences under 60 on AM. So you may be thinking that younger money demos won’t listen to an AM station, right? True, unless … well, I’ll show you a number of things you could do on two tin cans hooked together with a string that Millennials would eat up.  Will you take that challenge?  Because I’m going to do it and you’re going to want to brainstorm on it. Forget the FCC. AM needs to disrupt FM the way FM disrupted AM.

PLUS, What Audiences REALLY Want In Digital Content …

There is nothing worse than doing something well that doesn’t need to be done at all. Some stations are doing impressive digital initiatives that audiences simply don’t care about.

Instead, drill down on what listeners really want in digital and get a better return on your investment in time and money:

1. Storytelling Instead of Podcasting
2. Short-Form Video Revenue Stream
3. Non-hyped Social Media Beyond Facebook and Twitter
4. Content Audiences Can Binge on Just Like They Do Netflix
5. Apps Not Websites (and That Includes Radio)

This is a day worth your time and investment.

A clearly defined agenda, creative and innovative solutions to apply and a forum to discuss and hitchhike on new ideas that you hear.

Independent broadcasters and digital entrepreneurs are invited to the 6^th annual Media Solutions Seminar at the Hub Conference Center March 18^th in Philadelphia, walking distance from Amtrak’s 30^th Street Station and 20 minutes from Philadelphia International Airport.

Buffet breakfast, lunch and all breaks prepared by James Beard award-winning chef Jean-Marie Lacroix, former executive chef at The Four Seasons included.

Less than 2 months from today.

Register Now

Contact Jerry about the conference and group rates here.

75.3 million born between 1981 and 1997 – more than 75 million of the surviving Baby Boomers (1946-1964).

Baby Boomers are beginning to die in great numbers but an influx of immigrants according to a new Pew Survey is keeping their number around 75 million.

Arguably, deciding who has what tendencies is an art form beyond demographers.

Is a 50-year-old the same as a 68-year-old?

Does an 18-year-old think the same as a 33-year-old Millennial?

Obviously, not – so there could be as many as 95 million Millennial-leaning people on either side of the cutoff point. Same is true of older Gen Xers who find themselves thinking more like Boomers than Xers.

What a mess for radio.

The radio industry doesn’t pay attention to audience. They just defend the Radar number that over 200 million people listen to a radio every week. Too bad. Now it’s going to hurt.

Millennials don’t like Boomers.

They don’t like the way they are stereotyped by Boomers (which is true in my opinion). They want more respect.

My God, this is generational war like when Baby Boomers took on their Greatest Generation and Silent Gen parents on Vietnam, race relations, drugs and rock and roll.

But then, radio was leading the charge – spawning a new generation of listeners on the same radio dial that played big band and beautiful music for their parents.

Now, the radio is all that Boomers have left even though 15 million in that 75 million count are immigrants with few format choices on the radio.

And Millennials want more power – more influence. They want to be understood and they don’t have to bargain with media companies or anyone else for that matter because they have strength in numbers.

They are now the largest generation ever born.

They also live in an era of digital connectivity and social media which is why radio and other traditional media companies look so pathetic when they try to act younger.

Take what WOR did yesterday.

They try to do a morning show that will attract younger Xers with the addition of Len Berman and Todd Schnitt.

Lots of luck with that and Berman is a sports guy, which tells me that iHeart is leaving their options open for WOR down the line.

My greatest gift – and I mean this – was to be forced by a Clear Channel non-compete when I sold Inside Radio to them not to work in radio for four years. So, I accepted an appointment at USC to become a professor of music industry. There I got to know and love Millennials.

They are not self-absorbed – we all are today.

They don’t have A.D.D. to their own peril, their parents own DVRs because they can’t wait to get through the commercials and content.

It’s that we have all changed and Boomers have grown old and out of touch.

But for those who want to see things differently, Millennials are a great source of inspiration. A Millennial designed my Inside Music Media website. Who knew a Millennial thought I could get $99 for a subscription when my contemporaries were giving it away for free. And a 24-year-old runs it. I listen to them because I stop learning when I stop listening.

So what am I getting to?

Take a look at the 10 issues that are killing radio today and try to think of ways Millennials would solve these critical problems. Ask them. Or ask those who study them.

That’s what we’re going to do at my next conference in Philly in less than two months.

How to talk to the majority audience of Millennials differently.

How to stop guessing at what they want.

How to have the courage to actually do it when it flies in the face of Baby Boomer “wisdom”.

We can make a real difference not by doing the same things, but also by drilling down with innovative thinking on these following ten problems that must be solved to have a positive outcome in 2015.

1. Too Many Commercials – How spots are scheduled can make a difference.       Also, the length of spots in each stop set. There is much that can be done. To proceed as is is not a solution.
2. Unremarkable Programming For 70 Million Baby Boomers – All the focus is on young money demo Millennials. Baby boomers have been radio’s most loyal listeners but that’s changing now. Ignore baby boomers, target them or better yet discover what the two disparate groups have in common.  
3. Outdated Morning Shows – They like personalities but increasingly they don’t like much else about morning shows.  Focus on three new features to replace traffic, time checks and weather. Yes, they don’t need them. But consider these three potent options to replace tired old staples of morning radio. (And you can sell them!)
4. Music That Is Too Repetitive – Audiences have hated music repetition on radio for decades but they had few alternatives. Not so anymore. Two new strategies show promise. One adds more new music without watering down the hits. The better approach is to rip up the traditional playlist and present the music differently.
5. No Compelling Reason To Listen Longer – Radio TSL has been down every year since the early 90’s. Under 30’s don’t even listen to any song all the way through even though music radio is built on the assumption that if you play the right songs, the audience will stay tuned in. Now, there is a way to keep listeners from straying and it isn’t longer music sweeps.
6. Don’t Like the Way Stations Talk To Them – Sounds dated, insincere. Too much bragging and hype. It all sounds like radio is out of touch. Talking down to listeners whether we mean to or not.  Surprising words that turn off young audiences when used on the air, in promos, sweepers, imaging and commercials. Learn them and overcome this objection.
7. Radio Is Not Authentic – Demographers have discovered 5 things that Millennials crave. Do these 5 things every hour of every day and radio becomes more relevant to the 95 million members of this age group.  One of the 5 things they crave is more authenticity. Learn the fastest way to master being truly authentic to Millennials but also the four other expectations that radio is currently not meeting.  They are screaming this out for you to hear.
8. Lack of Music Variety and Customization – Spotify, Pandora and YouTube are killing radio when it comes to variety and customization. There may be no way to compete with that, but audiences are beginning to tell us what these streaming services are lacking presenting a great opportunity for responsive radio stations to do what streaming services cannot do.
9. Outdated News and Talk – Two staple radio formats are seeing audiences erode or attracting unsellable aging demographics.  News stations don’t just sound like their father’s radio station – they sound like their grandfathers radio station. Droning on and on with sleepy features designed for station sales managers not for listeners to crave. Conservative talk is also over because audiences want compromise not red meat. And Progressive talk radio never really worked. It’s a no-win. But spoken word is something young Millennials like, really like – here is the spoken word station of the future (bring an open mind).
10. Don’t Know Where the AM Band Is – Think about it. There’s nothing for audiences under 60 on AM. So you may be thinking that younger money demos won’t listen to an AM station, right? True, unless … well, I’ll show you a number of things you could do on two tin cans hooked together with a string that Millennials would eat up.  Will you take that challenge?  Because I’m going to do it and you’re going to want to brainstorm on it. Forget the FCC. AM needs to disrupt FM the way FM disrupted AM.

PLUS, What Audiences REALLY Want In Digital Content …

There is nothing worse than doing something well that doesn’t need to be done at all. Some stations are doing impressive digital initiatives that audiences simply don’t care about.

Instead, drill down on what listeners really want in digital and get a better return on your investment in time and money:

1. Storytelling Instead of Podcasting
2. Short-Form Video Revenue Stream
3. Non-hyped Social Media Beyond Facebook and Twitter
4. Content Audiences Can Binge on Just Like They Do Netflix
5. Apps Not Websites (and That Includes Radio)

This is a day worth your time and investment.

A clearly defined agenda, creative and innovative solutions to apply and a forum to discuss and hitchhike on new ideas that you hear.

Independent broadcasters and digital entrepreneurs are invited to the 6^th annual Media Solutions Seminar at the Hub Conference Center March 18^th in Philadelphia, walking distance from Amtrak’s 30^th Street Station and 20 minutes from Philadelphia International Airport.

Buffet breakfast, lunch and all breaks prepared by James Beard award-winning chef Jean-Marie Lacroix, former executive chef at The Four Seasons included.

Register Now

Contact Jerry about the conference and group rates here.

This says a lot about what’s wrong with the radio industry these days – and it’s not the people who are working in it.

It’s the people at the top.

The CEO of Aflac as quoted in Harvard Business Review:

“When I tried explaining to people what we were thinking about, no one got it. ‘well, there’s this duck,’ I’d say. ‘And he quacks Aflac.’ The response was always the same: a silent stare. So I stopped telling people. I didn’t even tell our board. The first Aflac Duck ad debuted on New Year’s Day 2000, on CNN… In the first year our sales in the United States were up 29%; in three years they had doubled.”

Contrast this with iHeart which owns over 800 radio stations and the best they can come up with is a silly iHeartRadio app for innovation.

Or Cumulus that can only think up a country format Nash that doesn’t get ratings and SweetJack, which is dying a thousand deaths as a Groupon imitator.

Or Entercom, which comes up with nothing.

Or for that matter just about any radio group that has stopped innovating – stopped turning problems into opportunities.

If I were to list radio’s 10 biggest problems, the Aflac CEO could no doubt get his people to come up with some interesting solutions – some progress.

In radio, we’d rather ignore the problems, cite self-serving research and soak up spin from the NAB and RAB.

Call me crazy but I believe these 10 problems can be mitigated.

This is the mission at my upcoming Media Solutions seminar in Philly in less than two months.

This is everything we need to work on collectively and separately.

We can make a real difference not by doing the same things, but also by drilling down with innovative thinking on these following ten problems that must be solved to have a positive outcome in 2015.

1. Too Many Commercials – How spots are scheduled can make a difference.       Also, the length of spots in each stop set. There is much that can be done. To proceed as is is not a solution.
2. Unremarkable Programming For 70 Million Baby Boomers – All the focus is on young money demo Millennials. Baby boomers have been radio’s most loyal listeners but that’s changing now. Ignore baby boomers, target them or better yet discover what the two disparate groups have in common.  
3. Outdated Morning Shows – They like personalities but increasingly they don’t like much else about morning shows.  Focus on three new features to replace traffic, time checks and weather. Yes, they don’t need them. But consider these three potent options to replace tired old staples of morning radio. (And you can sell them!)
4. Music That Is Too Repetitive – Audiences have hated music repetition on radio for decades but they had few alternatives. Not so anymore. Two new strategies show promise. One adds more new music without watering down the hits. The better approach is to rip up the traditional playlist and present the music differently.
5. No Compelling Reason To Listen Longer – Radio TSL has been down every year since the early 90’s. Under 30’s don’t even listen to any song all the way through even though music radio is built on the assumption that if you play the right songs, the audience will stay tuned in. Now, there is a way to keep listeners from straying and it isn’t longer music sweeps.
6. Don’t Like the Way Stations Talk To Them – Sounds dated, insincere. Too much bragging and hype. It all sounds like radio is out of touch. Talking down to listeners whether we mean to or not.  Surprising words that turn off young audiences when used on the air, in promos, sweepers, imaging and commercials. Learn them and overcome this objection.
7. Radio Is Not Authentic – Demographers have discovered 5 things that Millennials crave. Do these 5 things every hour of every day and radio becomes more relevant to the 95 million members of this age group.  One of the 5 things they crave is more authenticity. Learn the fastest way to master being truly authentic to Millennials but also the four other expectations that radio is currently not meeting.  They are screaming this out for you to hear.
8. Lack of Music Variety and Customization – Spotify, Pandora and YouTube are killing radio when it comes to variety and customization. There may be no way to compete with that, but audiences are beginning to tell us what these streaming services are lacking presenting a great opportunity for responsive radio stations to do what streaming services cannot do.
9. Outdated News and Talk – Two staple radio formats are seeing audiences erode or attracting unsellable aging demographics.  News stations don’t just sound like their father’s radio station – they sound like their grandfathers radio station. Droning on and on with sleepy features designed for station sales managers not for listeners to crave. Conservative talk is also over because audiences want compromise not red meat. And Progressive talk radio never really worked. It’s a no-win. But spoken word is something young Millennials like, really like – here is the spoken word station of the future (bring an open mind).
10. Don’t Know Where the AM Band Is – Think about it. There’s nothing for audiences under 60 on AM. So you may be thinking that younger money demos won’t listen to an AM station, right? True, unless … well, I’ll show you a number of things you could do on two tin cans hooked together with a string that Millennials would eat up.  Will you take that challenge?  Because I’m going to do it and you’re going to want to brainstorm on it. Forget the FCC. AM needs to disrupt FM the way FM disrupted AM.

PLUS, What Audiences REALLY Want In Digital Content …

There is nothing worse than doing something well that doesn’t need to be done at all. Some stations are doing impressive digital initiatives that audiences simply don’t care about.

Instead, drill down on what listeners really want in digital and get a better return on your investment in time and money:

1. Storytelling Instead of Podcasting
2. Short-Form Video Revenue Stream
3. Non-hyped Social Media Beyond Facebook and Twitter
4. Content Audiences Can Binge on Just Like They Do Netflix
5. Apps Not Websites (and That Includes Radio)

This is a day worth your time and investment.

A clearly defined agenda, creative and innovative solutions to apply and a forum to discuss and hitchhike on new ideas that you hear.

Independent broadcasters and digital entrepreneurs are invited to the 6^th annual Media Solutions Seminar at the Hub Conference Center March 18^th in Philadelphia, walking distance from Amtrak’s 30^th Street Station and 20 minutes from Philadelphia International Airport.

Buffet breakfast, lunch and all breaks prepared by James Beard award-winning chef Jean-Marie Lacroix, former executive chef at The Four Seasons included.

Register Now

Contact Jerry about the conference and group rates here.

Millennials may win the cord cutting battle against cable companies and yet lose the war in their passion to end bundling of television content.

The cable companies – in my view, as evil as iHeartMedia on their worst day – already know this.

Research shows that over 80% of consumers polled today expect to remain cable subscribers, but asked about ten years down the line about half that number see themselves subscribing to cable.

So in spite of their apparent attempts to fight for bundling so they can make all of us pay for ESPN and their expensive sports rights, cable companies are busily working at their more realistic strategy.

Selling super high-speed Internet.

Now there is something that Millennials need and want for gaming and consuming video content and your local cable company or phone utility plans to have you Millennials (and all of us) by the balls.

Utilities everywhere are installing fiber optics to make this possible. And why would they go through the great expense of running more fiber optics cable?

Because everyone will need WiFi – high speed Internet and lots of bandwidth.

I expect that even iHeartComcast, that Philadelphia based monopoly, will slowly unbundle programming content.

But Millennials don’t want to buy their content from Comcast clones, they want content where and when they want it. So what else is new?

And don’t think for a minute that cable operators aren’t going to put the screws to Millennials when they do sell them unbundled content. My prediction is Millennials will wish they could bundle again after they see what it will cost to cherry pick their content from cable operators.

We are having a discussion about something very significant right now – delivery systems. That’s something that isn’t happening in radio or for that matter music.

Radio stations just want to do 24/7 programming in spite of the fact that money demo audiences are addicted to bingeing. It’s unthinkable to radio companies that audio content could be put together for bingeing and yet without it, radio is even more out in left field.

Audiences want it.

Radio doesn’t want to do it.

See the disconnect?

Radio still wants to move things around their format clocks. They want to do what they always did – live programming delivered as it was in the 1920’s through today.

This will not work.

In fact, I believe if independent radio minds focused on creating binge content for listeners delivered in many new ways, they would simultaneously change the way they did live programming on the air.

To this end, we’ll discuss this in full at my upcoming Media Solutions seminar in Philly in less than two months.

We can make a real difference not by doing the same things, but also by drilling down with innovative thinking on these following ten problems that must be solved to have a positive outcome in 2015.

1. Too Many Commercials – How spots are scheduled can make a difference.       Also, the length of spots in each stop set. There is much that can be done. To proceed as is is not a solution.
2. Unremarkable Programming For 70 Million Baby Boomers – All the focus is on young money demo Millennials. Baby boomers have been radio’s most loyal listeners but that’s changing now. Ignore baby boomers, target them or better yet discover what the two disparate groups have in common.  
3. Outdated Morning Shows – They like personalities but increasingly they don’t like much else about morning shows.  Focus on three new features to replace traffic, time checks and weather. Yes, they don’t need them. But consider these three potent options to replace tired old staples of morning radio. (And you can sell them!)
4. Music That Is Too Repetitive – Audiences have hated music repetition on radio for decades but they had few alternatives. Not so anymore. Two new strategies show promise. One adds more new music without watering down the hits. The better approach is to rip up the traditional playlist and present the music differently.
5. No Compelling Reason To Listen Longer – Radio TSL has been down every year since the early 90’s. Under 30’s don’t even listen to any song all the way through even though music radio is built on the assumption that if you play the right songs, the audience will stay tuned in. Now, there is a way to keep listeners from straying and it isn’t longer music sweeps.
6. Don’t Like the Way Stations Talk To Them – Sounds dated, insincere. Too much bragging and hype. It all sounds like radio is out of touch. Talking down to listeners whether we mean to or not.  Surprising words that turn off young audiences when used on the air, in promos, sweepers, imaging and commercials. Learn them and overcome this objection.
7. Radio Is Not Authentic – Demographers have discovered 5 things that Millennials crave. Do these 5 things every hour of every day and radio becomes more relevant to the 95 million members of this age group.  One of the 5 things they crave is more authenticity. Learn the fastest way to master being truly authentic to Millennials but also the four other expectations that radio is currently not meeting. They are screaming this out for you to hear.
8. Lack of Music Variety and Customization – Spotify, Pandora and YouTube are killing radio when it comes to variety and customization. There may be no way to compete with that, but audiences are beginning to tell us what these streaming services are lacking presenting a great opportunity for responsive radio stations to do what streaming services cannot do.
9. Outdated News and Talk – Two staple radio formats are seeing audiences erode or attracting unsellable aging demographics.  News stations don’t just sound like their father’s radio station – they sound like their grandfathers radio station. Droning on and on with sleepy features designed for station sales managers not for listeners to crave. Conservative talk is also over because audiences want compromise not red meat. And Progressive talk radio never really worked. It’s a no-win. But spoken word is something young Millennials like, really like – here is the spoken word station of the future (bring an open mind).
10. Don’t Know Where the AM Band Is – Think about it. There’s nothing for audiences under 60 on AM. So you may be thinking that younger money demos won’t listen to an AM station, right? True, unless … well, I’ll show you a number of things you could do on two tin cans hooked together with a string that Millennials would eat up.  Will you take that challenge?  Because I’m going to do it and you’re going to want to brainstorm on it. Forget the FCC. AM needs to disrupt FM the way FM disrupted AM.

PLUS, What Audiences REALLY Want In Digital Content …

There is nothing worse than doing something well that doesn’t need to be done at all. Some stations are doing impressive digital initiatives that audiences simply don’t care about.

Instead, drill down on what listeners really want in digital and get a better return on your investment in time and money:

1. Storytelling Instead of Podcasting
2. Short-Form Video Revenue Stream
3. Non-hyped Social Media Beyond Facebook and Twitter
4. Content Audiences Can Binge on Just Like They Do Netflix
5. Apps Not Websites (and That Includes Radio)

This is a day worth your time and investment.

A clearly defined agenda, creative and innovative solutions to apply and a forum to discuss and hitchhike on new ideas that you hear.

Independent broadcasters and digital entrepreneurs are invited to the 6^th annual Media Solutions Seminar at the Hub Conference Center March 18^th in Philadelphia, walking distance from Amtrak’s 30^th Street Station and 20 minutes from Philadelphia International Airport.

Buffet breakfast, lunch and all breaks prepared by James Beard award-winning chef Jean-Marie Lacroix, former executive chef at The Four Seasons included.

Register Now

Contact Jerry about the conference and group rates here.

Just how bad does that concept suck?

Cumulus extends Michael Savage’s contract so that he can expand into non-political, lifestyle issues for syndication.

Just what younger demographics will return to radio for – a cranky old man showing how out of touch he is with the mainstream audience.

Can’t wait until Savage channels his homophobia in this “new” format.

You’ll remember Savage as the guy who famously told an audience he hopes they get AIDS and die.

Or his racist comments – if you know anything about the money demo, this kind of crap from radio turns these listeners off.

The radio business never learns.

They are out of touch – that’s the main problem.

Cumulus had another bad idea to do a town hall on WABC, New York to unite the community in the wake of the police controversy there. Let’s me get this right, the great divider is trying to come off as the great healer?

Conservative talk radio thrives on red meat thrown to hungry baby boomers but even they aren’t sticking around for this boring format.

Why don’t we get it?

Because radio is run by people who are out of touch and out of ideas.

My friend Beau Phillips reminded me that The New York Times – yes, the old gray lady no less -- recently created a new audience development department that was “charged with deeply understanding their product’s attributes - and getting them in front of audiences who will care”. Its “purpose is to expose as many people as possible to our finest work.” 

And this out of touch newspaper company increased new readers by 20% in just two months.

Don’t tell me radio can’t do this.

I get that a hand of sanctimonious owners propped up by greedy equity owners could care less about using their heads to improve the product, but what’s everyone else’s excuse?

“Unprotected Talk” can’t be one of those good ideas from a guy who can’t even get a 2 share in New York.

Or a New York station that favors chokeholds by police selling snake oil as healing the community.

Take the list of radio’s biggest problems below and image what those of us who believe we can do better can do to face the problems that are killing radio.

That’s a game plan that can favorably alter the outcome for 2015:

1. Too Many Commercials – How spots are scheduled can make a difference.       Also, the length of spots in each stop set. There is much that can be done. To proceed as is is not a solution.
2. Unremarkable Programming For 70 Million Baby Boomers – All the focus is on young money demo Millennials. Baby boomers have been radio’s most loyal listeners but that’s changing now. Ignore baby boomers, target them or better yet discover what the two disparate groups have in common.  
3. Outdated Morning Shows – They like personalities but increasingly they don’t like much else about morning shows. Focus on three new features to replace traffic, time checks and weather. Yes, they don’t need them. But consider these three potent options to replace tired old staples of morning radio. (And you can sell them!)
4. Music That Is Too Repetitive – Audiences have hated music repetition on radio for decades but they had few alternatives. Not so anymore. Two new strategies show promise. One adds more new music without watering down the hits. The better approach is to rip up the traditional playlist and present the music differently.
5. No Compelling Reason To Listen Longer – Radio TSL has been down every year since the early 90’s. Under 30’s don’t even listen to any song all the way through even though music radio is built on the assumption that if you play the right songs, the audience will stay tuned in. Now, there is a way to keep listeners from straying and it isn’t longer music sweeps.
6. Don’t Like the Way Stations Talk To Them – Sounds dated, insincere.  Too much bragging and hype.  It all sounds like radio is out of touch. Talking down to listeners whether we mean to or not. Surprising words that turn off young audiences when used on the air, in promos, sweepers, imaging and commercials. Learn them and overcome this objection.
7. Radio Is Not Authentic – Demographers have discovered 5 things that Millennials crave. Do these 5 things every hour of every day and radio becomes more relevant to the 95 million members of this age group. One of the 5 things they crave is more authenticity. Learn the fastest way to master being truly authentic to Millennials but also the four other expectations that radio is currently not meeting. They are screaming this out for you to hear.
8. Lack of Music Variety and Customization – Spotify, Pandora and YouTube are killing radio when it comes to variety and customization.  There may be no way to compete with that, but audiences are beginning to tell us what these streaming services are lacking presenting a great opportunity for responsive radio stations to do what streaming services cannot do.
9. Outdated News and Talk – Two staple radio formats are seeing audiences erode or attracting unsellable aging demographics. News stations don’t just sound like their father’s radio station – they sound like their grandfathers radio station. Droning on and on with sleepy features designed for station sales managers not for listeners to crave. Conservative talk is also over because audiences want compromise not red meat.  And Progressive talk radio never really worked. It’s a no-win. But spoken word is something young Millennials like, really like – here is the spoken word station of the future (bring an open mind).
10. Don’t Know Where the AM Band Is – Think about it. There’s nothing for audiences under 60 on AM. So you may be thinking that younger money demos won’t listen to an AM station, right? True, unless … well, I’ll show you a number of things you could do on two tin cans hooked together with a string that Millennials would eat up. Will you take that challenge?  Because I’m going to do it and you’re going to want to brainstorm on it.  Forget the FCC. AM needs to disrupt FM the way FM disrupted AM.      

PLUS, What Audiences REALLY Want In Digital Content …

There is nothing worse than doing something well that doesn’t need to be done at all. Some stations are doing impressive digital initiatives that audiences simply don’t care about.

Instead, drill down on what listeners really want in digital and get a better return on your investment in time and money:

1. Storytelling Instead of Podcasting
2. Short-Form Video Revenue Stream
3. Non-hyped Social Media Beyond Facebook and Twitter
4. Content Audiences Can Binge on Just Like They Do Netflix
5. Apps Not Websites (and That Includes Radio)

Two months until the Philly Conference and I’m getting excited to be with you and lead this seminar to transform the industry for the future.

Reserve a Seat

Contact Jerry about the conference and group rates here.

The 6^th annual Media Solutions Seminar is being held this year at The Hub Conference Center March 18^th in Philadelphia, walking distance from Amtrak’s 30^th Street Station and 20 minutes from Philadelphia International Airport.

Now downloads are down to under $1 billion.

Remember when record sales accounted for $16 billion a year?

It’s more like half of that now and declining.

Pandora, Spotify and YouTube are not coming anywhere near replacing the revenue from lost record sales even with those lopsided licensing deals that supposedly favor the labels.

Spotify has 15 million paid subscribers and with all due respect that is nothing compared to all the Spotify users who are getting it for free with ads.

The artists are getting pennies but don’t blame the streaming music services. Record labels have always screwed the talent out of their fair share of revenue.

YouTube is so popular with teens as a replacement for radio it is scary and still the geniuses in the music industry are making only pennies on streaming rights compared to record sales.

While the music industry contracts along the lines that a handful of powerful record labels have dictated, 95 million Millennials are now using music like toothpaste instead of the way baby boomers did.

Radio in an effort to save money has dumbed down its stations to a continuous loop of repetitive music with announcers that sound like their puking on the sweepers between the music.

There is no reason to believe that Millennials will use music any differently than they do now – it works on the fly, on digital devices, in the background for gaming. And they certainly don’t need radio stations to tell them what they want to hear.

Yet, things are about to change again in music and by extension, radio.

• High-resolution audio is coming. It’s present on TIDAL and Deezer now. Whether it will breath life into the music industry is not known. I doubt it.
• Apple will try to disrupt streaming media when it converts Beats into a more affordable monthly stream. Can’t see how Apple – the people who helped kill off albums – will stimulate the music business with this venture.
• Vinyl continues to grow – go figure.  Scratches and inconvenience equate to a warmer, richer sound for those who care. Question is, will enough people care. I doubt that, too.
• Pandora has been growing local ad revenue over 100% year to year and ended 2014 with 109 local sales reps (mostly recruited from radio) so while Pandora listening favorably competes with radio in many markets, they are also draining ad revenue from music radio.

Music is what made radio.

Now it is what’s helping to kill it.

Don’t get me wrong. People will always listen to music. But the way they value and use music has definitely changed.

Meanwhile radio companies are plowing ahead for another lousy year losing audiences, time spent listening and revenue and refuse to rethink their use of music as a programming tool.

If you’re open to changing the way you program music stations, you’ll want to hear the concept and information I am going to present at my Philly conference two months from now.

That’s a game plan that can favorably alter the outcome for 2015.

Here are some other critical things we should get ahead of:

1. Too Many Commercials – How spots are scheduled can make a difference.       Also, the length of spots in each stop set. There is much that can be done. To proceed as is is not a solution.
2. Unremarkable Programming For 70 Million Baby Boomers – All the focus is on young money demo Millennials. Baby boomers have been radio’s most loyal listeners but that’s changing now. Ignore baby boomers, target them or better yet discover what the two disparate groups have in common.      
3. Outdated Morning Shows – They like personalities but increasingly they don’t like much else about morning shows. Focus on three new features to replace traffic, time checks and weather. Yes, they don’t need them. But consider these three potent options to replace tired old staples of morning radio. (And you can sell them!)
4. Music That Is Too Repetitive – Audiences have hated music repetition on radio for decades but they had few alternatives. Not so anymore. Two new strategies show promise. One adds more new music without watering down the hits. The better approach is to rip up the traditional playlist and present the music differently.
5. No Compelling Reason To Listen Longer – Radio TSL has been down every year since the early 90’s. Under 30’s don’t even listen to any song all the way through even though music radio is built on the assumption that if you play the right songs, the audience will stay tuned in. Now, there is a way to keep listeners from straying and it isn’t longer music sweeps.
6. Don’t Like the Way Stations Talk To Them – Sounds dated, insincere.  Too much bragging and hype.  It all sounds like radio is out of touch. Talking down to listeners whether we mean to or not. Surprising words that turn off young audiences when used on the air, in promos, sweepers, imaging and commercials. Learn them and overcome this objection.
7. Radio Is Not Authentic – Demographers have discovered 5 things that Millennials crave. Do these 5 things every hour of every day and radio becomes more relevant to the 95 million members of this age group. One of the 5 things they crave is more authenticity. Learn the fastest way to master being truly authentic to Millennials but also the four other expectations that radio is currently not meeting. They are screaming this out for you to hear.
8. Lack of Music Variety and Customization – Spotify, Pandora and YouTube are killing radio when it comes to variety and customization.  There may be no way to compete with that, but audiences are beginning to tell us what these streaming services are lacking presenting a great opportunity for responsive radio stations to do what streaming services cannot do.
9. Outdated News and Talk – Two staple radio formats are seeing audiences erode or attracting unsellable aging demographics. News stations don’t just sound like their father’s radio station – they sound like their grandfathers radio station. Droning on and on with sleepy features designed for station sales managers not for listeners to crave. Conservative talk is also over because audiences want compromise not red meat.  And Progressive talk radio never really worked. It’s a no-win. But spoken word is something young Millennials like, really like – here is the spoken word station of the future (bring an open mind).
10. Don’t Know Where the AM Band Is – Think about it. There’s nothing for audiences under 60 on AM. So you may be thinking that younger money demos won’t listen to an AM station, right? True, unless … well, I’ll show you a number of things you could do on two tin cans hooked together with a string that Millennials would eat up. Will you take that challenge?   Because I’m going to do it and you’re going to want to brainstorm on it.  Forget the FCC. AM needs to disrupt FM the way FM disrupted AM.      

PLUS, What Audiences REALLY Want In Digital Content …

There is nothing worse than doing something well that doesn’t need to be done at all. Some stations are doing impressive digital initiatives that audiences simply don’t care about.

Instead, drill down on what listeners really want in digital and get a better return on your investment in time and money:

1. Storytelling Instead of Podcasting
2. Short-Form Video Revenue Stream
3. Non-hyped Social Media Beyond Facebook and Twitter
4. Content Audiences Can Binge on Just Like They Do Netflix
5. Apps Not Websites (and That Includes Radio)

Two months until the Philly Conference and I’m getting excited to be with you and lead this seminar to transform the industry for the future.

Reserve a Seat

Contact Jerry about the conference and group rates here.

The 6^th annual Media Solutions Seminar is being held this year at The Hub Conference Center March 18^th in Philadelphia, walking distance from Amtrak’s 30^th Street Station and 20 minutes from Philadelphia International Airport.

1. Too Many Commercials – How spots are scheduled can make a difference.       Also, the length of spots in each stop set. There is much that can be done. To proceed as is is not a solution.
2. Unremarkable Programming For 70 Million Baby Boomers – All the focus is on young money demo Millennials. Baby boomers have been radio’s most loyal listeners but that’s changing now. Ignore baby boomers, target them or better yet discover what the two disparate groups have in common.      
3. Outdated Morning Shows – They like personalities but increasingly they don’t like much else about morning shows. Focus on three new features to replace traffic, time checks and weather. Yes, they don’t need them. But consider these three potent options to replace tired old staples of morning radio. (And you can sell them!)
4. Music That Is Too Repetitive – Audiences have hated music repetition on radio for decades but they had few alternatives. No so anymore.  Two new strategies show promise. One adds more new music without watering down the hits. The better approach is to rip up the traditional playlist and present the music differently.
5. No Compelling Reason To Listen Longer – Radio TSL has been down every year since the early 90’s.  Under-30’s don’t even listen to any song all the way through even though music radio is built on the assumption that if you play the right songs, the audience will stay tuned in.  Now, there is a way to keep listeners from straying and it isn’t longer music sweeps.
6. Don’t Like the Way Stations Talk To Them – Sounds dated, insincere.  Too much bragging and hype.  It all sounds like radio is out of touch. Talking down to listeners whether we mean to or not. Surprising words that turn off young audiences when used on the air, in promos, sweepers, imaging and commercials. Learn them and overcome this objection.
7. Radio Is Not Authentic – Demographers have discovered 5 things that Millennials crave. Do these 5 things every hour of every day and radio becomes more relevant to the 95 million members of this age group. One of the 5 things they crave is more authenticity. Learn the fastest way to master being truly authentic to Millennials but also the four other expectations that radio is currently not meeting. They are screaming this out for you to hear.
8. Lack of Music Variety and Customization – Spotify, Pandora and YouTube are killing radio when it comes to variety and customization.  There may be no way to compete with that, but audiences are beginning to tell us what these streaming services are lacking presenting a great opportunity for responsive radio stations to do what streaming services cannot do.
9. Outdated News and Talk – Two staple radio formats are seeing audiences erode or attracting unsellable aging demographics. News stations don’t just sound like their father’s radio station – they sound like their grandfathers radio station. Droning on and on with sleepy features designed for station sales managers not for listeners to crave. Conservative talk is also over because audiences want compromise not red meat.  And Progressive talk radio never really worked. It’s a no-win. But spoken word is something young Millennials like, really like – here is the spoken word station of the future (bring an open mind).
10. Don’t Know Where the AM Band Is – Think about it. There’s nothing for audiences under 60 on AM. So you may be thinking that younger money demos won’t listen to an AM station, right? True, unless … well, I’ll show you a number of things you could do on two tin cans hooked together with a string that Millennials would eat up.  Will you take that challenge?  Because I’m going to do it and you’re going to want to brainstorm on it. Forget the FCC. AM needs to disrupt FM the way FM disrupted AM.

PLUS, What Audiences REALLY Want In Digital Content …

There is nothing worse than doing something well that doesn’t need to be done at all. Some stations are doing impressive digital initiatives that audiences simply don’t care about.

Instead, drill down on what listeners really want in digital and get a better return on your investment in time and money:

1. Storytelling Instead of Podcasting
2. Short-Form Video Revenue Stream
3. Non-hyped Social Media Beyond Facebook and Twitter
4. Content Audiences Can Binge on Just Like They Do Netflix
5. Apps Not Websites (and That Includes Radio)

This is a day worth your time and investment.

A clearly defined agenda, creative and innovative solutions to apply and a forum to discuss and hitchhike on new ideas that you hear.

Independent broadcasters and digital entrepreneurs are invited to the 6^th annual Media Solutions Seminar at the Hub Conference Center March 18^th in Philadelphia, walking distance from Amtrak’s 30^th Street Station and 20 minutes from Philadelphia International Airport.

Buffet breakfast, lunch and all breaks prepared by James Beard award-winning chef Jean-Marie Lacroix, former executive chef at The Four Seasons included.

Register Now

Contact Jerry about the conference and group rates here.

1. Too Many Commercials – How spots are scheduled can make a difference.       Also, the length of spots in each stop set.
2. What To Do with 70 Million Baby Boomers -- All the focus is on young money demo Millennials. Ignore baby boomers, target them or discover what the two disparate groups have in common.
3. Music Radio TSL Losses -- Prevent music radio listening declines due to streaming music services such as Pandora, Spotify and even YouTube, the biggest source of new music for young people by changing the way playlists are put together.
4. Eliminating the 3 Biggest Listener Objections To Radio – Too many lousy commercials, outdated morning shows and playing the same repetitive music. Focus on three new features to replace traffic, time checks and weather.
5. Music That Is Too Repetitive – Two new strategies. One adds more new music without watering down the hits. The better approach is to rip up the traditional playlist and present the music differently.
6. How To Get Listeners To Listen Longer – TSL has been down every year since the early 90’s. Under-30’s don’t even listen to any song all the way through even though music radio is built on the assumption that if you play the right songs, the audience will stay tuned in. Now, there is a way to keep listeners from straying and it isn’t longer music sweeps.
7. Selling Against Competitors Who Cut Their Rates – Most of the major groups have given in on rates making it hard for independent competitors to hold the line. But there is an easy way and better yet the big competitors won’t do it.
8. Turn-Ons & Turn-Offs. Change the way you speak to audiences, dangerous sweepers, surprising words that turn off young audiences when used on the air, etc.
9. How To Attract Millennials To Radio – Demographers have discovered 5 things that Millennials crave. Do these 5 things every hour of every day and radio becomes more relevant to the 95 million members of this age group.
10. What To Do About the Digital Dashboard – What folks are missing is that the only thing that has changed is more competitors for fewer pre-sets.  Consider ways to win a place on the pre-sets rather than take on the issue of digital dashboards.
11. The Decline of News & Talk – Two staple radio formats are seeing audiences erode or attracting unsellable aging demographics. It’s not likely owners will be launching new news stations and less likely that traditional radio talk formats will be successfully launched on the old model. But don’t miss this glimmer of hope – a spoken word format that young money demos actually want.
12. The Demise of AM Radio – By the time the FCC gets around to helping AM owners it will be too late. Is it even possible for anyone under 60 to locate or listen to an AM station?  I’ll answer that. No. But AM could do to FM what radio did to it.

Digital Media Solutions …

1. Storytelling Instead of Podcasting
2. Start a Short-Form Video Revenue Stream
3. What’s in the Social Media Pipeline After Facebook and Twitter
4. Create Bingeing Audio Opportunities
5. Replace the Money-Losing Station Websites with this Digital Opportunity

Independent broadcasters and digital entrepreneurs are invited to the 6^th annual Media Solutions Seminar at the Hub Conference Center March 18^th in Philadelphia, walking distance from Amtrak’s 30^th Street Station and 20 minutes from Philadelphia International Airport.

Buffet breakfast, lunch and all breaks prepared by James Beard award-winning chef Jean-Marie Lacroix, former executive chef at The Four Seasons included.

Register Now

Contact Jerry about the conference and group rates here.