Not an app.

Not another radio station competitor.

Not Pandora, Spotify, Apple or any streaming music service.

Not podcasting for damn sure.

Certainly not a pure play stream.

Not social media.

Not even YouTube.

Radio’s potent new competitor is heating up under the radar with 95 million Millennials and yet while we’re off running stations the old way with sweepers, no commercials, too many commercials and everything in between, this new documented competitor is more dangerous than anything we have seen before.

So here is how to get ahead of it …

• How to not just guard against this killer competitor but how to turn it around in your favor.
• Creating the first Millennial radio station guaranteed to beat the hell out of recycled and tired music and talk formats.
• How to keep this new threat away from media ad budgets because radio doesn’t need to have its share of the revenue pie shared with a hot new competitor.
• What if I showed you a way to get Millennials to do exactly what they did when they took an app called Trivia Crack to 130 million users without the help of the owners? That’s what I am about to do.
• Getting Millennials to tell you how to handle huge commercial loads and how to deal with music sweeps.

Access this story now …

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You don’t have to look far to see why the radio industry is missing the future.

Often, media companies are not engaged with the issues that really matter going forward satisfied instead with yesterday’s strategic thinking.

Tomorrow, I am going to present for the sixth year in a row the blueprint for what content providers need to do to be relevant, successful and appreciated by audiences on-air and online in the 12 months ahead.

If you haven’t already registered for my Media Solutions Conference, you can do it today.

Here’s tomorrow’s program:

Wednesday, March 18, 2015

REGISTRATION / COMPLMENTARY BREAKFAST

8:00 am         Registration / Complimentary Breakfast

9:00 am         Current State of the Radio Industry
                      Short Attention Spans & Radio
                      Solutions to Commercial Clutter
                      Listen Longer Strategies
                      Eliminating Radio’s 3 Biggest Objections
                      Selling Against Competitors Who Cut Rates

10:30 am       Break

10:45 am      Ways To Compete with Online Content
                      What Millennials Want From Radio
                      8 Millennial Mistakes You Don’t Want To Make
                      Available Radio Listeners

12 Noon        Complimentary Lunch

1:00 pm        How To Attract Millions To Your Website (Laurie Cantillo interview)

2:15 pm         Break

2:30 pm         Innovative Sources of New Radio Revenue
                      Telling Stories – the New Spoken Word
                      Why You Should Pass On Podcasting
                      Radio’s Potent New Competitor
                      Listener Engagement More Than Ratings

3:30 pm        Audience Q & A

4:00 pm        Conference Concludes

And here are the 13 critical areas we will cover:

1. Attracting More Website Visits. WTOP in DC does 2 million every month and 31.8 million page views. So we’re bringing former PD Laurie Cantillo in to sit with us and discuss. We can question here together.
2. Solutions to Commercial Clutter. Look, running 8-minutes of unlistenable commercials every hour is a suicide wish.  I know, they pay the bills.  I’m going to present you with 11 ways to make this problem get better.
3. How Much Radio, How Much Digital. I can tell you right now I am going to show you the digital initiatives that have no payoff. But you’ll be impressed by the few that do and you’re going to want to jump on them. One costs under $1,000 and is pretty impressive.
4. Listen Longer Strategies. Radio TSL has been dropping every year since the early 1990s. This calls for disrupting the way we build our hot clocks. I’m going to show you how to throw that hourly clock out and replace it with something better.
5. Eliminating 2015’s 3 Biggest Listener Objections. Outdated morning shows, too many commercials and repetitious music. Do even one thing on these three listener objections and you’re ahead of the market.
6. Effective Ways To Compete With On-Demand Content. I am going to play dirty with Millennials developing content they cannot possibly resist about employment, college loans, themselves. We can do this – as you will see.
7. What Millennials Want From Radio. This list has seven things on it and I can tell you I live by this list every day whether I am talking to Millennials or not.
8. Selling Against Programmatic Buying. This is essentially bidding down rates so it's time to have an action plan to combat it. How to walk from a deal that media buyers ruined by bidding down the rate on a competitor. The secret to getting longer term contracts. A few very smart stations are way ahead of the industry on this.
9. Start Your Own Short-Form Video Business. Digital shouldn’t be an add-on to what you do on the air.  Do the best on-air radio you can possibly do and a separate stream of revenue from the hottest digital project ever. Let me play some short-form videos for you that are being done by young people who are making more money than most stations do from all their digital initiatives.
10. Beyond Clicks – Listener Engagement. Social media is changing rapidly from mass audience to small groups of participants. Radio must rethink using social media to promote what’s on the air.   It’s a waste. Let’s talk about what your listeners who “like” you really want. Which social media site is ascending at the pace of YouTube?
11. Telling Stories – the New Spoken Word Radio. You don’t have to run a talk station to cash in on storytelling.  And it is highly saleable.
12. Why You Should Take a Pass On Podcasting. Podcasting is another form of talk radio. It may appeal to Gen Xers and Baby Boomers but it sure hasn’t made any real money. Ask me about storytelling and how it could find its way onto your station – even a music station. Especially, a music station.
13. 8 Millennial Mistakes You Don’t Want To Make. There are 95 million Millennials out there – the largest generation ever, even larger than the Baby Boom generation. Here are the 7 things Millennials want most from radio.

Reserve a seat.

Inquire about group rates here.

Look through the conference brochure here.

Thank you for letting me tell you about my annual media conference over the past few months. I’ve tried to make these promos instructional for those of you who cannot attend. You’re the best and I appreciate it.

This year the theme is the importance of catering to engaged listeners not just numbers or phantom drive-by PPM statistics. The kind of relationship in which advertisers have proven they will pay a premium.

That radio needs to undo its digital – we’ve made a mess of it.

The average station does less than $200,000 a year in digital billing – far less and remember that’s just an average. And stations get to decide what digital revenue is and it’s different in every company. They make up the reporting rules.

A mess.

We will need to reimagine what’s happening over our airwaves to an increasingly older and lesser audience.

And to create content for the appreciably younger target audience radio desires; not just pick a format flavor for a year or two and then play musical chairs again.

Quick question: Can you tell me your target audience other than their age group?

Knowing this then helps us make better decisions about what to do with our radio stations on-the-air and digital products.

Who is your target audience? What do they look like? What do they want? What do they need? What do they think of your station compared to other sources on the air and online?

How would they describe your station in a phrase (you can bet it isn’t the way you’re describing it in sweepers)?

We’re going to find that the reason our on-air product is less than what we are capable of being and why radio digital efforts are almost laughable is because we’re doing it all ass backwards.

But we can fix this – we can. I’m going to share the good news in this one-day teaching seminar, my sixth year in a row. It’s for independent minded content providers who don’t take Kool-Aid with their view of the future.

Another important theme is recognizing radio’s most devastating new competitor.

Most people have no idea what I am about to reveal.

Of course, it’s not satellite radio.

It’s not even digital.

Certainly not the screwed up connected dashboard.

And no, it’s not television or print or even streaming music services.

It’s user-generated content.

I’m going to present some compelling evidence that content being created by users – even people in your audience on YouTube and many other places – is the most potent threat to radio.

Believe it or don’t believe it at your peril. The die is cast.

True, the radio industry doesn’t want to change.

We are in deep denial.

But I see signs of hope.

Let me just be blunt – either we become content creators who also use our airwaves in new ways or we’re going down with the ship. So this conference is about doing the best radio possible for audiences that have changed and operating a separate revenue stream of digital content – I’m going to recommend short-form video.

There are cheaper radio conferences for sure. Ones that will rehash the same old blame game for radio’s problems (i.e., it’s under-valued, under-measured, unfairly being kept off cellphones and other things that don’t lead to a positive outcome).

And then there is our 6^th annual Media Solutions Conference which is described by attendees as remarkably positive and inspiring with one last chance to see the future everyone else is missing and get a head start on the new growth opportunities.

Please join us Wednesday in Philadelphia if you possibly can.

Reserve a seat.

Inquire about group rates here.

Look through the online program brochure here.

Here’s the final and full Program:

Wednesday, March 18, 2015

REGISTRATION / COMPLMENTARY BREAKFAST

8:00 am         Registration / Complimentary Breakfast

9:00 am         Current State of the Radio Industry
                      Short Attention Spans & Radio
                      Solutions to Commercial Clutter
                      Listen Longer Strategies
                      Eliminating Radio’s 3 Biggest Objections
                      Selling Against Competitors Who Cut Rates

10:30 am       Break

10:45 am      Ways To Compete with Online Content
                      What Millennials Want From Radio
                       8 Millennial Mistakes You Don’t Want To Make
                      Available Radio Listeners

12 Noon        Complimentary Lunch

1:00 pm        How To Attract Millions To Your Website (Laurie Cantillo interview)

2:15 pm         Break

2:30 pm         Innovative Sources of New Radio Revenue
                      Telling Stories – the New Spoken Word
                      Why You Should Pass On Podcasting
                      Radio’s Potent New Competitor
                      Listener Engagement More Than Ratings

3:30 pm        Audience Q & A

4:00 pm        Conference Concludes

And here are program details:

1. Attracting More Website Visits. WTOP in DC does 2 million every month and 31.8 million page views. So we’re bringing PD Laurie Cantillo in to sit with us and discuss. We can question here together.
2. Solutions to Commercial Clutter. Look, running 8-minutes of unlistenable commercials every hour is a suicide wish.  I know, they pay the bills.  I’m going to present you with 11 ways to make this problem get better.
3. How Much Radio, How Much Digital. I can tell you right now I am going to show you the digital initiatives that have no payoff. But you’ll be impressed by the few that do and you’re going to want to jump on them. One costs under $1,000 and is pretty impressive.
4. Listen Longer Strategies. Radio TSL has been dropping every year since the early 1990s. This calls for disrupting the way we build our hot clocks. I’m going to show you how to throw that hourly clock out and replace it with something better.
5. Eliminating 2015’s 3 Biggest Listener Objections. Outdated morning shows, too many commercials and repetitious music. Do even one thing on these three listener objections and you’re ahead of the market.
6. Effective Ways To Compete With On-Demand Content. I am going to play dirty with Millennials developing content they cannot possibly resist about employment, college loans, themselves. We can do this – as you will see.
7. What Millennials Want From Radio. This list has seven things on it and I can tell you I live by this list every day whether I am talking to Millennials or not.
8. Selling Against Programmatic Buying. This is essentially bidding down rates so its time to have an action plan to combat it. How to walk from a deal that media buyers ruined by bidding down the rate on a competitor. The secret to getting longer term contracts. A few very smart stations are way ahead of the industry on this.
9. Start Your Own Short-Form Video Business. Digital shouldn’t be an add-on to what you do on the air.  Do the best on-air radio you can possibly do and a separate stream of revenue from the hottest digital project ever. Let me play some short-form videos for you that are being done by young people who are making more money than most stations do from all their digital initiatives.
10. Beyond Clicks – Listener Engagement. Social media is changing rapidly from mass audience to small groups of participants. Radio must rethink using social media to promote what’s on the air.   It’s a waste. Let’s talk about what your listeners who “like” you really want.  Which social media site is ascending at the pace of YouTube?
11. Telling Stories – the New Spoken Word Radio. You don’t have to run a talk station to cash in on storytelling.  And it is highly saleable.
12. Why You Should Take a Pass On Podcasting. Podcasting is another form of talk radio. It may appeal to Gen Xers and Baby Boomers but it sure hasn’t made any real money. Ask me about storytelling and how it could find its way onto your station – even a music station. Especially, a music station.
13. 8 Millennial Mistakes You Don’t Want To Make. There are 95 million Millennials out there – the largest generation ever, even larger than the Baby Boom generation. Here are the 7 things Millennials want most from radio.

Reserve a seat.

Inquire about group rates here.

Look through the online program brochure here.

The radio industry has been hanging on to the hope that it will still dominate the digital entertainment center of the future in cars.

It was always a stretch.

The old car radio has just a finite number of radio stations available on it with a finite number of satellite radio stations if the owner wanted the extra expense.

That’s why the radio industry characterized an automobile as “a radio with four wheels”.

The connected dashboard is a mirage.

Every station in a market will all be fighting for one of only 6 pre-sets.

Then it’s everybody for themselves.

The new iWatch due out this month is reportedly going to allow drivers to start their engines with a wave of their wrist.

You can only image what their new CarPlay feature is going to allow along with seamlessly syncing with your car to allow phones calls, dictate test messages and emails and play music while driving.

Siri will be your constant companion up front.

Siri will control the app and other third party apps including Spotify, iHeartRadio, Pandora and other sources of entertainment. And CarPlay will have its own dedicated button on the steering wheel of cars from Mercedes Benz and Ferrari to GM, Ford, Toyota among others.

If you study the habits of listeners 33-years-old or under, you already know that the smartphone is all they need to live, communicate and enjoy.

A radio is no longer necessary as phones seamlessly connect in cars.

One thing is certain.

Get Plan B ready because Plan A is changing.

I want to get to this at my Philly conference in less than 1 week.

Just how should a radio station deal with losing its number one source of listening in the dashboard of every car?

Plan B is a two-pronged approach to radio and digital.

Disrupt the way we do radio on our own right now before someone else does it.

Then start a separate revenue stream from digital projects that are easily accessible through features such as CarPlay. Google is developing one of their own for automakers, too.

If the average radio station is doing less than $200,000 in digital billing (and keep in mind the station gets to define what digital is when they report such numbers) then that’s not a business worth being in.

We’re going to put all this together with digital, audio, video at my March 18^th conference.

This one-day seminar is not available on tape or stream.

Just in person March 18^th at the Hub Conference Center in Philly less than one week from today.

Examine the modules that make up the curriculum here.

Reserve a seat.

Inquire about group rates here.

Here’s the Agenda:

Wednesday, March 18, 2015

REGISTRATION / COMPLMENTARY BREAKFAST

8:00 am         Registration / Complimentary Breakfast

9:00 am         Current State of the Radio Industry
                      Short Attention Spans & Radio
                      Solutions to Commercial Clutter
                      Listen Longer Strategies
                      Eliminating Radio’s 3 Biggest Objections
                      Selling Against Competitors Who Cut Rates

10:30 am       Break

10:45 am      Ways To Compete with Online Content
                      What Millennials Want From Radio
                      8 Millennial Mistakes You Don’t Want To Make
                      Available Radio Listeners

12 Noon        Complimentary Lunch

1:00 pm        How To Attract Millions To Your Website (Laurie Cantillo interview)

2:15 pm         Break

2:30 pm         Innovative Sources of New Radio Revenue
                      Telling Stories – the New Spoken Word
                      Why You Should Pass On Podcasting
                       Radio’s Potent New Competitor
                       Listener Engagement More Than Ratings

3:30 pm        Audience Q & A

4:00 pm        Conference Concludes

Here are program details:

1. Attracting More Website Visits. WTOP in DC does 2 million every month and 31.8 million page views. So we’re bringing PD Laurie Cantillo in to sit with us and discuss. We can question here together.
2. Solutions to Commercial Clutter. Look, running 8-minutes of unlistenable commercials every hour is a suicide wish.  I know, they pay the bills.  I’m going to present you with 11 ways to make this problem get better.
3. How Much Radio, How Much Digital. I can tell you right now I am going to show you the digital initiatives that have no payoff. But you’ll be impressed by the few that do and you’re going to want to jump on them. One costs under $1,000 and is pretty impressive.
4. Listen Longer Strategies. Radio TSL has been dropping every year since the early 1990s. This calls for disrupting the way we build our hot clocks. I’m going to show you how to throw that hourly clock out and replace it with something better.
5. Eliminating 2015’s 3 Biggest Listener Objections. Outdated morning shows, too many commercials and repetitious music. Do even one thing on these three listener objections and you’re ahead of the market.
6. Effective Ways To Compete With On-Demand Content. I am going to play dirty with Millennials developing content they cannot possibly resist about employment, college loans, themselves. We can do this – as you will see.
7. What Millennials Want From Radio. This list has seven things on it and I can tell you I live by this list every day whether I am talking to Millennials or not.
8. Selling Against Programmatic Buying. This is essentially bidding down rates so its time to have an action plan to combat it. How to walk from a deal that media buyers ruined by bidding down the rate on a competitor. The secret to getting longer term contracts. A few very smart stations are way ahead of the industry on this.
9. Start Your Own Short-Form Video Business. Digital shouldn’t be an add-on to what you do on the air.  Do the best on-air radio you can possibly do and a separate stream of revenue from the hottest digital project ever. Let me play some short-form videos for you that are being done by young people who are making more money than most stations do from all their digital initiatives.
10. Beyond Clicks – Listener Engagement. Social media is changing rapidly from mass audience to small groups of participants. Radio must rethink using social media to promote what’s on the air.   It’s a waste. Let’s talk about what your listeners who “like” you really want.  Which social media site is ascending at the pace of YouTube?
11. Telling Stories – the New Spoken Word Radio. You don’t have to run a talk station to cash in on storytelling.  And it is highly saleable.
12. Why You Should Take a Pass On Podcasting. Podcasting is another form of talk radio. It may appeal to Gen Xers and Baby Boomers but it sure hasn’t made any real money. Ask me about storytelling and how it could find its way onto your station – even a music station. Especially, a music station.
13. 8 Millennial Mistakes You Don’t Want To Make. There are 95 million Millennials out there – the largest generation ever, even larger than the Baby Boom generation. Here are the 7 things Millennials want most from radio.

Reserve a seat.

Inquire about group rates here.

Look through the online program brochure here.

I’m not buying that the radio business has to post a 1% or more decline again when 2015 is finished.

Maybe for Cumulus, iHeart and their followers, but not for good broadcasters caught in the middle of some of their desperate tactics.

What if we put together a handful of things that actually work to increase revenue by 4% for stations that are passionately pursuing positive revenue gains this year?

• Separate digital from on-air sales – The evidence is that digital is killing spot rates because buyers (and worse yet desperate stations) are using digital bonuses and give backs to get their rates down. That’s the wrong direction. There is a simple adjustment you’re going to like.
• More Things To Sell At Premium Prices – What if I told you I had a list of 6 innovative sources of new revenue that no radio station has figured out yet.  You can be the first because I’m going to explain each one of them.
• A New Morning Show Feature That Will Start a Bidding War -- I’m going to suggest you stop selling the same lame morning show features that listeners can get quicker on their smartphones and start a bidding war over one that you’re not going to want a competitor to beat you to.
• Selling Radio More Effectively To a Local TV Station – Who knew?  Right across the street is a TV station that needs radio’s help and is willing to pay a premium for this genius idea already at work in a major market. You’ll hear an actual case study that worked so well late last year that the TV station renewed it again this past February – at premium prices.
• Start a Second Revenue Stream For Short-Form Video – This has nothing to do with what’s on your air but everything to do with your skills as a local content creator. All you need is an iPhone 6 and a plan to sell product placements and it is likely you will net more additional revenue than you currently earn from digital.
• Tempt Your 10 Biggest Advertisers – They have more money to spend and already like your station and radio. The lure to get them to increase their spend is something you can start doing right now.

You can’t do these things without having your annual revenue increase and it doesn’t matter what your competitors do or whether media buyers are earmarking a certain percentage of their radio budgets to digital – you automatically come out ahead. I say, at least 4% ahead of last year.

This one-day seminar is not available on tape or stream.

Just in person March 18^th at the Hub Conference Center in Philly in less than one week from today.

Examine the 13 modules that make up the curriculum here.

Reserve a seat.

Inquire about group rates here.

Here’s the Agenda:

Wednesday, March 18, 2015

REGISTRATION / COMPLMENTARY BREAKFAST

8:00 am         Registration / Complimentary Breakfast

9:00 am         Current State of the Radio Industry
                      Short Attention Spans & Radio
                      Solutions to Commercial Clutter
                      Listen Longer Strategies
                      Eliminating Radio’s 3 Biggest Objections
                      Selling Against Competitors Who Cut Rates

10:30 am       Break

10:45 am      Ways To Compete with Online Content
                      What Millennials Want From Radio
                      8 Millennial Mistakes You Don’t Want To Make
                      Available Radio Listeners

12 Noon        Complimentary Lunch

1:00 pm        How To Attract Millions To Your Website (Laurie Cantillo interview)

2:15 pm         Break

2:30 pm         Innovative Sources of New Radio Revenue
                      Telling Stories – the New Spoken Word
                      Why You Should Pass On Podcasting
                      Radio’s Potent New Competitor
                      Listener Engagement More Than Ratings

3:30 pm        Audience Q & A

4:00 pm       Conference Concludes

Here are program details:

1. Attracting More Website Visits. WTOP in DC does 2 million every month and 31.8 million page views. So we’re bringing PD Laurie Cantillo in to sit with us and discuss. We can question here together.
2. Solutions to Commercial Clutter. Look, running 8-minutes of unlistenable commercials every hour is a suicide wish.  I know, they pay the bills.  I’m going to present you with 11 ways to make this problem get better.
3. How Much Radio, How Much Digital. I can tell you right now I am going to show you the digital initiatives that have no payoff. But you’ll be impressed by the few that do and you’re going to want to jump on them. One costs under $1,000 and is pretty impressive.
4. Listen Longer Strategies. Radio TSL has been dropping every year since the early 1990s. This calls for disrupting the way we build our hot clocks. I’m going to show you how to throw that hourly clock out and replace it with something better.
5. Eliminating 2015’s 3 Biggest Listener Objections. Outdated morning shows, too many commercials and repetitious music. Do even one thing on these three listener objections and you’re ahead of the market.
6. Effective Ways To Compete With On-Demand Content. I am going to play dirty with Millennials developing content they cannot possibly resist about employment, college loans, themselves. We can do this – as you will see.
7. What Millennials Want From Radio. This list has seven things on it and I can tell you I live by this list every day whether I am talking to Millennials or not.
8. Selling Against Programmatic Buying. This is essentially bidding down rates so it’s time to have an action plan to combat it. How to walk from a deal that media buyers ruined by bidding down the rate on a competitor. The secret to getting longer term contracts. A few very smart stations are way ahead of the industry on this.
9. Start Your Own Short-Form Video Business. Digital shouldn’t be an add-on to what you do on the air.  Do the best on-air radio you can possibly do and a separate stream of revenue from the hottest digital project ever. Let me play some short-form videos for you that are being done by young people who are making more money than most stations do from all their digital initiatives.
10. Beyond Clicks – Listener Engagement. Social media is changing rapidly from mass audience to small groups of participants. Radio must rethink using social media to promote what’s on the air.   It’s a waste. Let’s talk about what your listeners who “like” you really want.  Which social media site is ascending at the pace of YouTube?
11. Telling Stories – the New Spoken Word Radio. You don’t have to run a talk station to cash in on storytelling.  And it is highly saleable.
12. Why You Should Take a Pass On Podcasting. Podcasting is another form of talk radio. It may appeal to Gen Xers and Baby Boomers but it sure hasn’t made any real money. Ask me about storytelling and how it could find its way onto your station – even a music station. Especially, a music station.
13. 8 Millennial Mistakes You Don’t Want To Make. There are 95 million Millennials out there – the largest generation ever, even larger than the Baby Boom generation. Here are the 7 things Millennials want most from radio.

Reserve a seat.

Inquire about group rates here.

Look through the online program brochure here.

Last year many media buyers were instructed by their clients to spend one-third of their radio budgets on digital – whatever that is.

You see, radio puts out the “Mission Accomplished” banner when as an industry it hired about 1,000 new digital people (or transferred them) according to recent research. (Why don’t I believe these reports?)

That’s not going to get it done.

No radio group today spends even 1% of its operating budget on digital initiatives and that’s letting them do the counting and reporting.

But the question is still real – where should a radio station look to secure its future?

More radio or more digital?

My view is that radio should focus on two things and do both well:

• The best on-air radio it can do (most stations are not doing that)
• A separate revenue stream from digital projects and at the top of that list would be short-form video. Not as an add-on to radio but an entire new business.

But the most important thing is to do the best on-air radio possible and because of tough times, consolidation and competition from digital that is confusing many radio execs, we should focus on tools for making what’s on-air better.

CHANGE THE WAY WE TALK TO LISTENERS

Even great radio stations sound like they are talking at, or down to listeners. Radio doesn’t sound like an on-air representation of the target audience.

But that can be done with a few strategic steps that must morph over the entire radio station day and night.

I’m going to start this discussion at my Philly conference in one week.

MAKE RADIO SOUND LIKE FUN

Most stations sound like the dj is about to get fired, lose hours or have to pay more of their health care.  As if Lew Dickey or Bob Pittman was standing over them with the mike open.

And almost all stations have picked up this “May Day” type on-air sound.

Best way to change is to focus on the things today’s listeners want most from radio and I’ve got a list of them for you to consider. Then you can ask how these things can practically get integrated on-air.

I have evidence I will share that young men especially think it important to be seen as fun to be with. Don’t discount it.

But radio has some adjusting to do because radio stations are the ones who want to sound like they are having the fun – when they actually try.

This is a nuance that is very important and it can mean the world to your station.

FIX THE COMMERCIAL PROBLEM

You can’t win with 16 minutes of commercials an hour in this digital, attention deficit age. But steps can be taken. Change the scheduling and presentation of commercial breaks and then start cutting.

CHANGE THE WAY YOU DO MUSIC

Most good PDs know you play the hits and play as few as possible over and over again. That’s what brought me ratings success as a PD. But, things have changed and program directors die hard on this issue.

I will identify a group of stations that absolutely have it right – the right mix of repetitive hits and music discovery and how to do it.

Listeners today deserve the great radio experience Baby Boomers and Gen Xers once had. Not changing is not an option so if you’re open to new strategies, you’re going to like this session.

Here’s the revised agenda as of yesterday:

Wednesday, March 18, 2015

REGISTRATION / COMPLMENTARY BREAKFAST

8:00 am         Registration / Complimentary Breakfast

9:00 am         Current State of the Radio Industry
                      Short Attention Spans & Radio
                      Solutions to Commercial Clutter
                      Listen Longer Strategies
                      Eliminating Radio’s 3 Biggest Objections
                      Selling Against Competitors Who Cut Rates

10:45 am      Ways To Compete with Online Content
                      What Millennials Want From Radio
                      8 Millennial Mistakes You Don’t Want To Make
                      Available Radio Listeners

12 Noon        Complimentary Lunch

1:00 pm        How To Attract Millions To Your Website (Laurie Cantillo interview)

2:15 pm         Break

2:30 pm         Innovative Sources of New Radio Revenue
                      Telling Stories – the New Spoken Word
                      Why You Should Pass On Podcasting
                      Radio’s Potent New Competitor
                      Listener Engagement More Than Ratings

3:30 pm        Audience Q & A

4:00 pm       Conference Concludes

Here’s the rest of the program content:

1. Attracting More Website Visits. WTOP in DC does 2 million every month and 31.8 million page views. So we’re bringing PD Laurie Cantillo in to sit with us and discuss. We can question here together.
2. Solutions to Commercial Clutter. Look, running 8-minutes of unlistenable commercials every hour is a suicide wish.  I know, they pay the bills. I’m going to present you with 11 ways to make this problem get better.
3. How Much Radio, How Much Digital. I can tell you right now I am going to show you the digital initiatives that have no payoff. But you’ll be impressed by the few that do and you’re going to want to jump on them. One costs under $1,000 and is pretty impressive.
4. Listen Longer Strategies. Radio TSL has been dropping every year since the early 1990s. This calls for disrupting the way we build our hot clocks. I’m going to show you how to throw that hourly clock out and replace it with something better.
5. Eliminating 2015’s 3 Biggest Listener Objections. Outdated morning shows, too many commercials and repetitious music. Do even one thing on these three listener objections and you’re ahead of the market.
6. Effective Ways To Compete With On-Demand Content. I am going to play dirty with Millennials developing content they cannot possibly resist about employment, college loans, themselves. We can do this – as you will see.
7. What Millennials Want From Radio. This list has seven things on it and I can tell you I live by this list every day whether I am talking to Millennials or not.
8. Selling Against Programmatic Buying. This is essentially bidding down rates so its time to have an action plan to combat it. How to walk from a deal that media buyers ruined by bidding down the rate on a competitor. The secret to getting longer term contracts. A few very smart stations are way ahead of the industry on this.
9. Start Your Own Short-Form Video Business. Digital shouldn’t be an add-on to what you do on the air. Do the best on-air radio you can possibly do and a separate stream of revenue from the hottest digital project ever. Let me play some short-form videos for you that are being done by young people who are making more money than most stations do from all their digital initiatives.
10. Beyond Clicks – Listener Engagement. Social media is changing rapidly from mass audience to small groups of participants. Radio must rethink using social media to promote what’s on the air.   It’s a waste. Let’s talk about what your listeners who “like” you really want.  Which social media site is ascending at the pace of YouTube?
11. Telling Stories – the New Spoken Word Radio. You don’t have to run a talk station to cash in on storytelling.  And it is highly saleable.
12. Why You Should Take a Pass On Podcasting. Podcasting is another form of talk radio. It may appeal to Gen Xers and Baby Boomers but it sure hasn’t made any real money. Ask me about storytelling and how it could find its way onto your station – even a music station. Especially, a music station.
13. 8 Millennial Mistakes You Don’t Want To Make. There are 95 million Millennials out there – the largest generation ever, even larger than the Baby Boom generation. Here are the 7 things Millennials want most from radio.

This is a collaborative environment in an atmosphere of approval and acceptance. We work together, learn together and explore.

I’ll play video, give you resources, come up with a plan of attack to get out ahead of the most critical issues affecting the radio industry in the year ahead.

March 18^th – a day of information and inspiration where we work together. I’m putting lots of time aside for your questions.

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

Just one week until conference day.

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.

Reserve a seat.

Inquire about group rates here.

Look through the online program brochure here.

The last Baby Boomer turned 50 two months ago.

There are 75 million Baby Boomers still available to listen to the radio and they have money to spend on products advertisers sell.

So do you get younger and blow off the things Boomers love about radio for the very different things that appeal to 95 million Millennials, the largest generation ever born?

There is a way to engage younger audiences and simultaneously serve older audiences who have been the staple of the radio industry.

Ironically, radio’s big mistake is to program to Baby Boomers at the expense of Millennials.

When creating content in the digital age, it is always preferable to create content for the changemakers who are in fact the younger audience – in this case, Millennials.

That’s what Steve Jobs did.

He designed his popular Apple products for very young consumers but every one of their devices turned out to also be a hit and a financial success with older consumers.

The secret: Aim young first, but do the right things – that’s so very important. Older generations adopt later.

I’ve isolated 7 strategies that can easily be implemented by any radio station, any format in any market and I’m going to get into this at my Philly conference 1 week from now.

The problem well-meaning radio stations have been having with maintaining their money demos and acquiring new listeners is that they are afraid to alienate older listeners.

As you will see, these concepts – the ones Millennials value most – will never alienate Baby Boomers although oddly enough some of the things Baby Boomers still want from radio will drive Millennials away.

One of the 7 requirements to meet the needs of the next generation is to be authentic. Almost nothing a radio station says or does is authentic. Radio is full of hype, commercials, promos, and noise.

That can be fixed.

The other 6 things that younger demos now require are just as important and we’ll go through them one by one. This is so vital that I use all 7 in the work I do.

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

No one can make me believe that radio cannot span wider generational needs and interests because the research you’ll learn proves otherwise.

Here are the other important issues at the March 18^th meeting:

1. Attracting More Website Visits. WTOP in DC does 2 million every month and 31.8 million page views. So we’re bringing PD Laurie Cantillo in to sit with us and discuss. We can question here together.
2. Solutions to Commercial Clutter. Look, running 8-minutes of unlistenable commercials every hour is a suicide wish.  I know, they pay the bills. I’m going to present you with 11 ways to make this problem get better.
3. How Much Radio, How Much Digital. I can tell you right now I am going to show you the digital initiatives that have no payoff. But you’ll be impressed by the few that do and you’re going to want to jump on them. One costs under $1,000 and is pretty impressive.
4. Listen Longer Strategies. Radio TSL has been dropping every year since the early 1990s. This calls for disrupting the way we build our hot clocks. I’m going to show you how to throw that hourly clock out and replace it with something better.
5. Eliminating 2015’s 3 Biggest Listener Objections. Outdated morning shows, too many commercials and repetitious music. Do even one thing on these three listener objections and you’re ahead of the market.
6. Effective Ways To Compete With On-Demand Content. I am going to play dirty with Millennials developing content they cannot possibly resist about employment, college loans, themselves. We can do this – as you will see.
7. What Millennials Want From Radio. This list has seven things on it and I can tell you I live by this list every day whether I am talking to Millennials or not.
8. Selling Against Programmatic Buying. This is essentially bidding down rates so its time to have an action plan to combat it. How to walk from a deal that media buyers ruined by bidding down the rate on a competitor. The secret to getting longer term contracts. A few very smart stations are way ahead of the industry on this.
9. Start Your Own Short-Form Video Business. Digital shouldn’t be an add-on to what you do on the air. Do the best on-air radio you can possibly do and a separate stream of revenue from the hottest digital project ever. Let me play some short-form videos for you that are being done by young people who are making more money than most stations do from all their digital initiatives.
10. Beyond Clicks – Listener Engagement. Social media is changing rapidly from mass audience to small groups of participants. Radio must rethink using social media to promote what’s on the air.   It’s a waste. Let’s talk about what your listeners who “like” you really want.  Which social media site is ascending at the pace of YouTube?
11. Telling Stories – the New Spoken Word Radio. You don’t have to run a talk station to cash in on storytelling.  And it is highly saleable.
12. Why You Should Take a Pass On Podcasting. Podcasting is another form of talk radio. It may appeal to Gen Xers and Baby Boomers but it sure hasn’t made any real money. Ask me about storytelling and how it could find its way onto your station – even a music station. Especially, a music station.
13. 8 Millennial Mistakes You Don’t Want To Make. There are 95 million Millennials out there – the largest generation ever, even larger than the Baby Boom generation. Here are the 7 things Millennials want most from radio.

This is a collaborative environment in an atmosphere of approval and acceptance. We work together, learn together and explore.

I’ll play video, give you resources, come up with a plan of attack to get out ahead of the most critical issues affecting the radio industry in the year ahead.

March 18^th – a day of information and inspiration where we work together. I’m putting lots of time aside for your questions.

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

Less than 2 weeks until conference day.

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.

Reserve a seat.

Inquire about group rates here.

Look through the online program brochure here.

Here’s the Agenda:

Wednesday, March 18, 2015

REGISTRATION / COMPLMENTARY BREAKFAST

8:00 am         Registration / Complimentary Breakfast

9:00 am         Solutions to Commercial Clutter
                      How Much Radio / How Much Digital?
                      Listen Longer Strategies
                      Eliminating Radio’s 3 Biggest Objections

10:45 am      Ways To Compete with Online Content
                     What Millennials Want From Radio
                      8 Millennial Mistakes You Don’t Want To Make

12 Noon        Complimentary Lunch

1:00 pm        How To Attract Millions To Your Website (Laurie Cantillo interview)

2:15 pm         Break

2:30 pm         Selling Against Competitors Who Drop Rates
                      Innovative Sources of New Radio Revenue
                      Telling Stories – the New Spoken Word
                      Why You Should Pass On Podcasting

3:30 pm        Audience Q & A

4:00 pm       Conference Concludes

This one-day seminar is not available on tape, digitally or by stream.

Reserve a seat.

Inquire about group rates here.

Here is a sample of some of the take home pay you can expect from my March 18^th Media Solutions Conference in Philadelphia:

1. The changes you need to make to attract several million visitors to your station website each month – and best of all, how to start developing followers who currently don’t listen to your on-air programming.
2. The best way to do commercial stop sets – the maximum sweet spot for length and where to slot them.
3. The one type of radio commercial Millennials don’t just like, they love. This gives you extra, added ammunition if you are pitching advertisers aiming for the younger money demo.
4. Ways to get audiences to buck the downward time spent listening trend since the early 90’s and listen longer.
5. What works better than non-stop music sweeps for keeping listeners tuned in.
6. A better replacement for tired morning show staples (that are easier to get on smartphones) – traffic, transit and weather. And you can sell them.
7. How to play hardball with Millennials who have tuned you out by targeting their three favorite interests – employment, college loans and themselves.
8. The one contest that will even get a Millennial to stay riveted to a commercial radio station in 2015.  Believe it or not, it’s not cash.
9. Why building a YouTube studio in your radio station is a shrewd way to attract younger listeners to radio – oh, and it can be a profit center.
10. How to stem tune-out by 30% & simultaneously increase billing by 15%.
11. The thing you can put in the middle of commercial stop sets that will force listening to continue.
12. Why experts now say more frequent stop sets are actually an advantage for today’s attention-deficit audiences.
13. 2 things you can do that will increase the effectiveness of commercials.
14. The results of actual station experiments when they made drastic reductions in commercial units aired per hour.
15. The word you must never say on the air because it makes listeners go bye-bye.
16. You’ll learn the right mix of how much radio, how much digital.
17. How to program a music station when today’s typical listener does not even listen to one song all the way through – a result of shorter attention spans at work.
18. How to contemporize outdated morning shows and the four features listeners can get better on a smartphone.
19. The best way for radio to compete with digital devices.
20. The 7 things that Millennials want from their radio station (most stations are giving them none currently).
21. Strategies for selling against competitors who drop their rates putting you in the previously unwinnable position of having to drop yours, too.
22. If you had to pick one – and only one digital initiative to focus on for a handsome revenue return – make it this one.
23. Avoid using social media in an outdated way as Millennials get more private with their social media preferences.
24. When podcasting will work for radio stations and when storytelling will – they are not the same thing.
25. Radio djs are perceived by today’s audiences as talking down to them and talking like phonies not real people. How to talk to listeners differently.
26. Why you should take bingeing seriously even if you’re a radio station and not Netflix. As you’ll see it’s a hot sociological trend that radio can also feed.
27. The one thing a radio station should never do on social media in 2015 and what works better.
28. Why it’s best not to promote your station as a brand to younger audiences and what is much more effective and costs nothing.

Here’s the Agenda:

Wednesday, March 18, 2015

REGISTRATION / COMPLMENTARY BREAKFAST

8:00 am         Registration / Complimentary Breakfast

9:00 am         Solutions to Commercial Clutter
                      How Much Radio / How Much Digital?
                      Listen Longer Strategies
                      Eliminating Radio’s 3 Biggest Objections

10:45 am      Ways To Compete with Online Content
                      What Millennials Want From Radio
                      8 Millennial Mistakes You Don’t Want To Make

12 Noon        Complimentary Lunch

1:00 pm        How To Attract Millions To Your Website (Laurie Cantillo interview)

2:15 pm         Break

2:30 pm         Selling Against Competitors Who Drop Rates
                       Innovative Sources of New Radio Revenue
                      Telling Stories – the New Spoken Word
                      Why You Should Pass On Podcasting

3:30 pm        Audience Q & A

4:00 pm        Conference Concludes

This one-day seminar is not available on tape, digitally or by stream.

Reserve a seat.

Inquire about group rates here.

Here are program details:

1. Attracting More Website Visits. WTOP in DC does 2 million every month and 31.8 million page views. So we’re bringing PD Laurie Cantillo in to sit with us and discuss. We can question here together.
2. Solutions to Commercial Clutter. Look, running 8-minutes of unlistenable commercials every hour is a suicide wish.  I know, they pay the bills.  I’m going to present you with 11 ways to make this problem get better.
3. How Much Radio, How Much Digital. I can tell you right now I am going to show you the digital initiatives that have no payoff. But you’ll be impressed by the few that do and you’re going to want to jump on them. One costs under $1,000 and is pretty impressive.
4. Listen Longer Strategies. Radio TSL has been dropping every year since the early 1990s. This calls for disrupting the way we build our hot clocks. I’m going to show you how to throw that hourly clock out and replace it with something better.
5. Eliminating 2015’s 3 Biggest Listener Objections. Outdated morning shows, too many commercials and repetitious music. Do even one thing on these three listener objections and you’re ahead of the market.
6. Effective Ways To Compete With On-Demand Content. I am going to play dirty with Millennials developing content they cannot possibly resist about employment, college loans, themselves. We can do this – as you will see.
7. What Millennials Want From Radio. This list has seven things on it and I can tell you I live by this list every day whether I am talking to Millennials or not.
8. Selling Against Programmatic Buying. This is essentially bidding down rates so its time to have an action plan to combat it. How to walk from a deal that media buyers ruined by bidding down the rate on a competitor. The secret to getting longer term contracts. A few very smart stations are way ahead of the industry on this.
9. Start Your Own Short-Form Video Business. Digital shouldn’t be an add-on to what you do on the air.  Do the best on-air radio you can possibly do and a separate stream of revenue from the hottest digital project ever. Let me play some short-form videos for you that are being done by young people who are making more money than most stations do from all their digital initiatives.
10. Beyond Clicks – Listener Engagement. Social media is changing rapidly from mass audience to small groups of participants. Radio must rethink using social media to promote what’s on the air.   It’s a waste. Let’s talk about what your listeners who “like” you really want.  Which social media site is ascending at the pace of YouTube?
11. Telling Stories – the New Spoken Word Radio. You don’t have to run a talk station to cash in on storytelling.  And it is highly saleable.
12. Why You Should Take a Pass On Podcasting. Podcasting is another form of talk radio. It may appeal to Gen Xers and Baby Boomers but it sure hasn’t made any real money. Ask me about storytelling and how it could find its way onto your station – even a music station. Especially, a music station.
13. 8 Millennial Mistakes You Don’t Want To Make. There are 95 million Millennials out there – the largest generation ever, even larger than the Baby Boom generation. Here are the 7 things Millennials want most from radio.

Reserve a seat.

Inquire about group rates here.

Look through the online program brochure here.

RAB says radio revenue was down 1% in 2014 – and they are the cockeyed optimists of the radio industry.

Other financial services – some of whom predicted large positive showings for radio revenue – reported losses in the 3-6% range.

One thing is for sure – pick your poison, radio revenue was down.

So what to do about it?

Not cutting rates, selling cheap short ads, failing to employ a digital strategy, firing salespeople or dumbing down the on-air product. That’s what the consolidators are doing and look where it’s gotten them.

Meanwhile, digital is supposed to be the future, but the average radio station does less than $200,000 a year in digital keeping in mind that the station gets to make up what it considers digital revenue and what is not.

So who knows what these stations are really doing in digital.

But there are ways to guarantee a positive finish for 2015 up as much as 4% in radio revenue.

• Focus on increasing the spend of your ten biggest advertisers by increasing the effectiveness of their ads. The increase in effectiveness can be 30% for advertisers if you test copy, employ the use of two or more voices on commercials and other strategies we will discuss at my Philly conference coming up in a little more than a week. Let’s talk about the stations that are actually doing it.
• Target the biggest local TV advertiser and then sit down and develop a plan to raid some of that buy. It really can’t and shouldn’t be done by just selling radio ads. This technique requires approaching the big local TV advertiser with a plan only after you get them to define what a successful campaign would be.
• Then, add this new digital revenue stream with guaranteed big income. This should be video. I will show you some short-form video examples that are bringing in $3 million and more for amateurs – at least they are amateurs compared to us.  Just following this footprint and having a modest success nets an additional income stream toward your plus 4% finish for 2015.
• Video may seem like kid stuff, but you’ll see how teenagers are earning millions by attracting large YouTube audiences and then going to advertisers like Macys and Target to name just two to sign product placement deals. Local advertisers will also love this.
• Great sellers are usually not great detailers, so remove “make work” from the lives of account execs, raise their commissions if they go above and beyond what they sold last year.  It’s worth it and you get to keep the other 85%. Also, ask me about how to inspire sellers in a way you’ve never seen before.  It works.  Just remind me about the power of asking questions.

This one-day seminar is not available on tape or stream.

Just in person March 18^th at the Hub Conference Center in Philly 1½ weeks from today.

Examine the 13 modules that make up the curriculum here.

Reserve a seat.

Inquire about group rates here.

Here’s the Agenda:

Wednesday, March 18, 2015

REGISTRATION / COMPLMENTARY BREAKFAST

8:00 am         Registration / Complimentary Breakfast

9:00 am         Solutions to Commercial Clutter
                      How Much Radio / How Much Digital?
                      Listen Longer Strategies
                      Eliminating Radio’s 3 Biggest Objections

10:30 am       BREAK

10:45 am      Ways To Compete with Online Content
                      What Millennials Want From Radio
                      8 Millennial Mistakes You Don’t Want To Make

12 Noon        COMPLIMENTARY LUNCH

1:00 pm        How To Attract Millions To Your Website (Laurie Cantillo interview)

2:15 pm         BREAK

2:30 pm         Selling Against Competitors Who Drop Rates
                      Innovative Sources of New Radio Revenue
                      Telling Stories – the New Spoken Word
                      Why You Should Pass On Podcasting

3:30 pm        Audience Q & A

4:00 pm        CONFERENCE CONCLUDES

Here are program details:

1. Attracting More Website Visits. WTOP in DC does 2 million every month and 31.8 million page views. So we’re bringing PD Laurie Cantillo in to sit with us and discuss. We can question here together.
2. Solutions to Commercial Clutter. Look, running 8-minutes of unlistenable commercials every hour is a suicide wish.  I know, they pay the bills.  I’m going to present you with 11 ways to make this problem get better.
3. How Much Radio, How Much Digital. I can tell you right now I am going to show you the digital initiatives that have no payoff. But you’ll be impressed by the few that do and you’re going to want to jump on them. One costs under $1,000 and is pretty impressive.
4. Listen Longer Strategies. Radio TSL has been dropping every year since the early 1990s. This calls for disrupting the way we build our hot clocks. I’m going to show you how to throw that hourly clock out and replace it with something better.
5. Eliminating 2015’s 3 Biggest Listener Objections. Outdated morning shows, too many commercials and repetitious music. Do even one thing on these three listener objections and you’re ahead of the market.
6. Effective Ways To Compete With On-Demand Content. I am going to play dirty with Millennials developing content they cannot possibly resist about employment, college loans, themselves. We can do this – as you will see.
7. What Millennials Want From Radio. This list has seven things on it and I can tell you I live by this list every day whether I am talking to Millennials or not.
8. Selling Against Programmatic Buying. This is essentially bidding down rates so its time to have an action plan to combat it. How to walk from a deal that media buyers ruined by bidding down the rate on a competitor. The secret to getting longer term contracts. A few very smart stations are way ahead of the industry on this.
9. Start Your Own Short-Form Video Business. Digital shouldn’t be an add-on to what you do on the air.  Do the best on-air radio you can possibly do and a separate stream of revenue from the hottest digital project ever. Let me play some short-form videos for you that are being done by young people who are making more money than most stations do from all their digital initiatives.
10. Beyond Clicks – Listener Engagement. Social media is changing rapidly from mass audience to small groups of participants. Radio must rethink using social media to promote what’s on the air.   It’s a waste. Let’s talk about what your listeners who “like” you really want.  Which social media site is ascending at the pace of YouTube?
11. Telling Stories – the New Spoken Word Radio. You don’t have to run a talk station to cash in on storytelling.  And it is highly saleable.
12. Why You Should Take a Pass On Podcasting. Podcasting is another form of talk radio. It may appeal to Gen Xers and Baby Boomers but it sure hasn’t made any real money. Ask me about storytelling and how it could find its way onto your station – even a music station. Especially, a music station.
13. 8 Millennial Mistakes You Don’t Want To Make. There are 95 million Millennials out there – the largest generation ever, even larger than the Baby Boom generation. Here are the 7 things Millennials want most from radio.

Reserve a seat.

Inquire about group rates here.

Look through the online program brochure here.

The question I am most frequently asked is, knowing what you know about the various generations, how would you program a radio station for these audiences today?

Here’s the answer for a music station:

1. Yes, I would still play the 22-25 biggest hits, but I would not play them all the way through. No listener under 33 listens to any tune all the way though today. Each song would play for a different length of time.  Any good PD knows that would create a very quick turnaround of hits.
2. I would also add new music. I’d create a rotating board of people in my target demographic to hunt for music they have discovered. Also focus heavily on YouTube hits because YouTube is everything to music loving generations. The new music would not be played all the way through, either. Varying lengths of play. Radio is playing the music the labels hand them when they should be playing what the audience is discovering.
3. No pre-recorded sweepers – ever, ever. They sound so unauthentic and that turns off younger demos.
4. Hire live jocks who do not do time, temperature or even weather and traffic. Instead, I would show them a formula for talking about what is happening in social media for their area of interest(s) in between songs.  Listening to this station would be better than listening to a streaming service because the music would be on target and the talk would aggregate what the target audience cares about on social media. Think how Twitter is the best news aggregator of all and you’ll get it.
5. No jock talk would be longer than a tweet and would be just as creative as the most memorable ones. After all, why have a live jock, right?
6. I’d give away contest prizes using contests that were developed by my rotating board of target listeners. The prizes would be the three I will share when we’re together in 2 weeks. These are the sweet spots.
7. My station would not be branded – young listeners don’t believe the hype that comes from radio. No name. Just good.
8. I would not have the jocks identifying the radio station after every song. We must disrupt. Let PPM do something good – record drive-by listening automatically on their meters while we entertain. Young listeners tell us they hate that radio stations identify themselves so much.
9. I would do news but it would go on when it happened or got updated not scheduled at points in the format hour.  Again, think an audio Twitter.
10. I can tell you exactly what the on-air talent should sound like – in fact, I’ll tell you the person’s name so you can study them. Best delivery I have heard for winning over younger money demos.
11. Limit commercials to 8 per hour. They would all be priced the same – 60 is the same as a 10. This is the tough part. Discourage the commercials that drive listeners away (that’s 99.9% of what radio plays). Back in the 60’s Jim Schulke, the father of the beautiful music syndication, heavy-handedly forbade certain types of commercials that disrupted the station’s mood. He was right. Let’s talk where to slot them.
12. I’d start a “commercial lab” to help my best clients to produce commercials that work. This is the best way to increase spends and not have to rely on how low competitors will let their rates go.
13. The hot clock would be a short-attention span hot clock (you will like it).   No one-hour hot clocks for my station. Movable parts – items that rotate so you can’t predict where they will occur.
14. Special events – maybe as long as 3 minutes.  That’s right, I said 3 minutes.       We’re dealing with short attention spans but I can show you a way to do killer 3-minute content that flows right along with the music.
15. I would not stream the station – either hear it on-air or you miss it so the content has to be good.
16. My digital revenue stream would be all short-form video (which we will also cover). And it will likely have nothing to do with what my station sounds like but everything to do with the varied interests of my target audience.
17. Ask me why I would eliminate sponsorships and sponsored features and this station would still rake in the dough.

We’ll finish this list in Philly.

Obviously, I couldn’t hold a job in today’s radio industry.

Can you imagine a major group owner allowing these 17 things for starters!

Wait until they hear the one where I find a cutting edge and willing advertiser ready to admit something that they offer is not as great as the thing they are selling – young people respond to that kind of believability.

But what the radio industry is doing right now is losing audience every month, month after month, year after year.

The Media Solutions Conference is about solutions for independent minded broadcasters who are not afraid to be bold.

One day. March 18^th. Not available on audio or video.

See the other 13 critical areas where we’ll be finding solutions here.

Reserve a seat.

Inquire about group rates here.

This is a shocker because traditional radio thinking for over two decades is that focusing on music and its presentation is the path to increasing a station’s time spent listening (TSL).

But not one year since Arbitron / Nielsen started keeping these figures has radio’s TSL increased.

And in recent years competition from iPods, personal downloaded music and streaming music services like Pandora and Spotify have all but made it impossible for radio to gain listening time from audiences through music.

Now, the focus is on new listen longer strategies.

FORCED LISTENING

Dubious?

Try offering to pay next month’s college loan payment and see how fast listeners will stay glued to the radio. But making it sound like an old throwback radio contest won’t work.

And there are two other irresistible ways to force listening – you should master all of them.

MONEY CAN’T BUY YOU TSL

Even straight cash can no longer force radio listening. Before state and national lotteries and casinos just about everywhere, money was a big lure. As silly as it sounds money ain’t what it used to be when it comes to TSL at least.

But you might, say, Jerry – didn’t you just say to pay down a listeners college loan? Isn’t that money?

Believe it or not, no.

INVENT MILLENNIAL CONTESTS

This is the gaming generation – what a bad time for radio to stop doing contests.

But the contests that will work are things most radio people cannot think up. Brainstorm with actual people in your station’s target audience. They are wired differently.

The new app Trivia Crack is wildly profitable for its owner and so popular with players that it has been downloaded over 130 million times – it is indeed addicting.

The secret is that Trivia Crack is user-generated content where the users make up the questions and test them. It’s bottom up not top down like radio contests.

DISMANTLE LONG MUSIC SWEEPS

Radio people think long music sweeps are to die for which is why they jam all their commercials into two unfortunate quarter hours each hour.

But today’s audiences have attention deficit – all age groups. And they like interruptions which mean the station that interrupts the music and programming elements the most has a better chance of keeping listeners tuned in.

It’s right there in front of us but few stations see it – what is even better than long uninterrupted music sweeps.

MORE LIVE-READ (AUTHENTIC) COMMERCIALS

From my work as a USC professor: Millennials prefer live-read radio commercials that are authentic – that’s the hard part. What advertiser wants you to say, the appetizer at a restaurant client sucks but the chili is a killer. I’d like to find one – they’re out there. How to find this type of advertiser and get them to up their spend.

It would be another element in radio’s hour that listeners would be hard put to tune-out.

And who would have thought a commercial could have this impact.

ROTATE COMMERCIAL STOP SETS

Making stop sets occur in the same quarter hours all day and night is killing TSL.

Rotate where you place commercials and the better strategy is to – and I don’t believe I’m actually saying this – schedule more, very short stop sets.

Actually, the Drake radio format of the 60’s which contained 4 short stop sets every half hour (at most) would be a hit with short attention span listeners.

And you’ll see, the evidence now shows that PDs are making two major mistakes in trying to expand TSL. Long commercials breaks placed in the same quadrant and long music sweeps that today’s audiences tune out as they would a commercial.

There are reasons for this and we’ll discuss one which is the effect their iPods and streaming music services have had on audience expectations when it comes to music radio formats.

MUSIC DISCOVERY

Radio PDs want to play the hits – it’s in our DNA.

Today’s audiences want to find new music, genres, artists that are off the mainstream making it tough to be a consensus radio station playing a few hits.

I’ll show you a typical hour a radio station can put together that would keep young listeners riveted to radio – we’re not doing anywhere near this now. But you will be tempted, I promise.

I’m not buying that radio cannot grow its TSL – not with presently accepted strategies but the new techniques you are about to discover.

Here’s the rest of the program content:

1. Attracting More Website Visits. WTOP in DC does 2 million every month and 31.8 million page views. So we’re bringing PD Laurie Cantillo in to sit with us and discuss. We can question her together.
2. Solutions to Commercial Clutter. Look, running 8-minutes of unlistenable commercials every hour is a suicide wish.  I know, they pay the bills. I’m going to present you with 11 ways to make this problem get better.
3. How Much Radio, How Much Digital. I can tell you right now I am going to show you the digital initiatives that have no payoff. But you’ll be impressed by the few that do and you’re going to want to jump on them. One costs under $1,000 and is pretty impressive.
4. Listen Longer Strategies. Radio TSL has been dropping every year since the early 1990s. This calls for disrupting the way we build our hot clocks. I’m going to show you how to throw that hourly clock out and replace it with something better.
5. Eliminating 2015’s 3 Biggest Listener Objections. Outdated morning shows, too many commercials and repetitious music. Do even one thing on these three listener objections and you’re ahead of the market.
6. Effective Ways To Compete With On-Demand Content. I am going to play dirty with Millennials developing content they cannot possibly resist about employment, college loans, themselves. We can do this – as you will see.
7. What Millennials Want From Radio. This list has seven things on it and I can tell you I live by this list every day whether I am talking to Millennials or not.
8. Selling Against Programmatic Buying. This is essentially bidding down rates so it’s time to have an action plan to combat it. How to walk from a deal that media buyers ruined by bidding down the rate on a competitor. The secret to getting longer term contracts. A few very smart stations are way ahead of the industry on this.
9. Start Your Own Short-Form Video Business. Digital shouldn’t be an add-on to what you do on the air. Do the best on-air radio you can possibly do and a separate stream of revenue from the hottest digital project ever. Let me play some short-form videos for you that are being done by young people who are making more money than most stations do from all their digital initiatives.
10. Beyond Clicks – Listener Engagement. Social media is changing rapidly from mass audience to small groups of participants. Radio must rethink using social media to promote what’s on the air. It’s a waste. Let’s talk about what your listeners who “like” you really want.  Which social media site is ascending at the pace of YouTube?
11. Telling Stories – the New Spoken Word Radio. You don’t have to run a talk station to cash in on storytelling.  And it is highly saleable.
12. Why You Should Take a Pass On Podcasting. Podcasting is another form of talk radio. It may appeal to Gen Xers and Baby Boomers but it sure hasn’t made any real money. Ask me about storytelling and how it could find its way onto your station – even a music station. Especially, a music station.
13. 8 Millennial Mistakes You Don’t Want To Make. There are 95 million Millennials out there – the largest generation ever, even larger than the Baby Boom generation. Here are the 7 things Millennials want most from radio.

This is a collaborative environment in an atmosphere of approval and acceptance. We work together, learn together and explore.

I’ll play video, give you resources, come up with a plan of attack to get out ahead of the most critical issues affecting the radio industry in the year ahead.

March 18^th – a day of information and inspiration where we work together. I’m putting lots of time aside for your questions.

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

Just 2 weeks until conference day.

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.

Reserve a seat.

Inquire about group rates here.

Look through the online program brochure here.

SHORT-FORM VIDEO

Teenagers are making hundred of thousands of dollars out of their bedrooms with informal, short videos.

They are attracting millions and millions of views with almost no effort.

I’m going to play one for you that has already exceeded 7 million views.

What do these teens know about video that accomplished media people are missing?

What topics are winners?

How are they producing these videos on no budget and finding fans.

Another video you will see is of a self-styled female singer who cannot sing and note, looks very ordinary, recorded her song in her apartment with an ironing board leaning against a wall but sold out Nokia Theatre for two nights in Los Angeles – and that’s without the help of radio airplay.

PRODUCT PLACEMENT

We radio people have ad sales in our DNA, but the next generation of content creators thinks about product placement first and it is a very lucrative option.

One short-form video star I will play for you has deals with Macys and Target among others for product placement. No ads. No one selling ads. No commercials that turn off Millennials. But she’s raking it in.

SUBCRIPTION FEES

The Internet of tomorrow is changing today.

The Internet will be free, but the stuff people want – the good stuff – will require a subscription fee. (You’re paying one now to read Inside Music Media and a few years ago they said it couldn’t be done – no one pays for Internet content).

Interesting to note that most apps that people download regardless of their age are never used – even the ones they pay for. The willingness to pay is there. The challenge for us is to know how to attack this new area and deliver content that is worth a subscription.

Keep an eye on short-form video audio series or spoken word and music formats.

VIDEO DRIVEN EVENT REVENUE

Say you have isolated a topic you have earned the right to produce short-form video for – you give it away free, build huge numbers of followers and then drive a small percentage of P-1’s (if you will) to buy a seminar, training, course or other enhanced package for an additional fee.

I’ll have examples of entrepreneurs who make millions a year from video driven event revenue.

Don’t let anyone tell you radio stations can’t feed a second lucrative stream of revenue in short-form video.

Here’s the program content:

1. Attracting More Website Visits. WTOP in DC does 2 million every month and 31.8 million page views. So we’re bringing PD Laurie Cantillo in to sit with us and discuss. We can question here together.
2. Solutions to Commercial Clutter. Look, running 8-minutes of unlistenable commercials every hour is a suicide wish.  I know, they pay the bills. I’m going to present you with 11 ways to make this problem get better.
3. How Much Radio, How Much Digital. I can tell you right now I am going to show you the digital initiatives that have no payoff. But you’ll be impressed by the few that do and you’re going to want to jump on them. One costs under $1,000 and is pretty impressive.
4. Listen Longer Strategies. Radio TSL has been dropping every year since the early 1990s. This calls for disrupting the way we build our hot clocks. I’m going to show you how to throw that hourly clock out and replace it with something better.
5. Eliminating 2015’s 3 Biggest Listener Objections. Outdated morning shows, too many commercials and repetitious music. Do even one thing on these three listener objections and you’re ahead of the market.
6. Effective Ways To Compete With On-Demand Content. I am going to play dirty with Millennials developing content they cannot possibly resist about employment, college loans, themselves. We can do this – as you will see.
7. What Millennials Want From Radio. This list has seven things on it and I can tell you I live by this list every day whether I am talking to Millennials or not.
8. Selling Against Programmatic Buying. This is essentially bidding down rates so its time to have an action plan to combat it. How to walk from a deal that media buyers ruined by bidding down the rate on a competitor. The secret to getting longer term contracts. A few very smart stations are way ahead of the industry on this.
9. Start Your Own Short-Form Video Business. Digital shouldn’t be an add-on to what you do on the air. Do the best on-air radio you can possibly do and a separate stream of revenue from the hottest digital project ever. Let me play some short-form videos for you that are being done by young people who are making more money than most stations do from all their digital initiatives.
10. Beyond Clicks – Listener Engagement. Social media is changing rapidly from mass audience to small groups of participants. Radio must rethink using social media to promote what’s on the air.   It’s a waste. Let’s talk about what your listeners who “like” you really want.  Which social media site is ascending at the pace of YouTube?
11. Telling Stories – the New Spoken Word Radio. You don’t have to run a talk station to cash in on storytelling.  And it is highly saleable.
12. Why You Should Take a Pass On Podcasting. Podcasting is another form of talk radio. It may appeal to Gen Xers and Baby Boomers but it sure hasn’t made any real money. Ask me about storytelling and how it could find its way onto your station – even a music station. Especially, a music station.
13. 8 Millennial Mistakes You Don’t Want To Make. There are 95 million Millennials out there – the largest generation ever, even larger than the Baby Boom generation. Here are the 7 things Millennials want most from radio.

This is a collaborative environment in an atmosphere of approval and acceptance. We work together, learn together and explore.

I’ll play video, give you resources, come up with a plan of attack to get out ahead of the most critical issues affecting the radio industry in the year ahead.

March 18^th – a day of information and inspiration where we work together. I’m putting lots of time aside for your questions.

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

Just 2 weeks until conference day.

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.

Reserve a seat.

Inquire about group rates here.

Look through the online program brochure here.