Monthly Archives: September 2021

Friday, October 1, 2021

Unrest at Audacy Over Talent Fees

INSIDE …

  • Talk about cheap – Audacy’s reported new talent fee arrangement is one for the books.
  • Sources describe a “near rebellion” in some markets – what’s eating them.
  • Audacy’s likely next moves after cutting talent fees.
  • Fear surrounding a potential revision of the sales compensation plan.

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Thursday, September 30, 2021

Radio Left with Only 25% of Ad Dollars by 2025

INSIDE …

  • And the winner is – yes, one radio group saw this sea change coming. 
  • For everyone else, sample these cutbacks that are even more draconian than previously.
  • What the radio wind down will look like between now and 2025. 
  • There is a model to survive – you’re not going to like it – but here’s what the radio groups with the most to lose are thinking about implementing.

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Free samples of our work here.

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Wednesday, September 29, 2021

Growing Disdain for Radio at Client Level

INSIDE …

  • The worst offenders called out by agencies, buyers and planners privately. 
  • How to fix the needless loss of national ad revenue – three steps right out of the client, buyer and planners mouths. 
  • Radio has it all wrong – how TV is the gold standard among national clients. 
  • How clients (not agencies) laugh at radio’s give me the whole buy and I will drop prices to the floor mentality – what’s better than a low price?

Read the full article here

Free samples of our work here.

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Scroll through a complete list of previous stories here

Tuesday, September 28, 2021

18-24’s Share What It Would Take to Get Them Listening

INSIDE …

  • I hypothetically offered every student in my NYU Music Business class a free radio station in their hometown – 75% said they would give it back, no thanks but 25% came up with some genius ideas.
  • The length, makeup and content of shows for younger audiences.
  • Different type music stations and spoken word ideas that no one in radio has ever tried.
  • Their eye-opening list of do’s and don’ts.

Read the full article here

Free samples of our work here.

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Scroll through a complete list of previous stories here

Monday, September 27, 2021

Radio Needs to Stop Relying on Music

  • How did the record labels go from the brink of ruin at the turn of the century to record revenue ($1.58 billion ahead of last year’s first-half).
  • How can radio get some of that -- It has to do with disrupting its relationship with the music business.
  • The podcasting model sucks as a revenue generator and that’s a good thing for radio – yet there is a format that everyone is missing that would be explosive.
  • If the labels could blow up vinyl and CDs, there is one bold move that radio can do to thrive.

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Free samples of our work here.

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Scroll through a complete list of previous stories here

Friday, September 24, 2021

Apollo’s New Plans for Cox Radio

INSIDE …

  • At least 13 people fired cross-platform yesterday alone – how bad things will get.
  • Managing so short-staffed even in their largest market – the new model?
  • Why Audacy’s David Field may already be dancing on Cox Media’s grave
  • What happened to that rumored Cox Radio sale – is it coming?

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Free samples of our work here.

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Scroll through a complete list of previous stories here

Thursday, September 23, 2021

iHeart’s Sucker Punch on Ownership Caps

INSIDE …

  • Despite their public rhetoric, you won’t believe what iHeart wants new ownership rules to be.
  • And the hypocritical wishes of “digital first” Townsquare about rolling back limits.
  • One of these two outcomes is likely to happen. 
  • What about investment banks and hedge funds – their position on funding another round of acquisitions.

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Wednesday, September 22, 2021

Allegations of the NAB Gouging Show Exhibitors

INSIDE …

  • The ugly NAB rift with some exhibitors, their major source of revenue.
  • Angry exhibitors (quoted here) kicking around a class action suit.
  • Two take-it-or-leave-it options -- We got ahold of their contract – would you sign this thing?
  • The NAB’s current financial health.

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Scroll through a complete list of previous stories here

Tuesday, September 21, 2021

What Younger Listeners Want

INSIDE …

  • The first significant change in attitude by young people about radio. 
  • The four turnoffs that drive younger demos away and how to address them. 
  • How many youths can relate to 80-year-old Bernie Sanders more than the radio dj trying to be cool – why?
  • Four key things that radio stations no longer do that are killing it.

Read the full article here

Free samples of our work here.

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Scroll through a complete list of previous stories here

Monday, September 20, 2021

Mixed Messages from Audacy to Managers

  • The Audacy market manager really pissing off staff by using COVID as a sales motivator.
  • The sneaky way some employees are getting around COVID inspired back to office mandates – yes, they’re really doing it.
  • Rebelling against the removal of popular remote working allowances.
  • How some Audacy execs have different vaccination rules than regular employees.

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Scroll through a complete list of previous stories here

Friday, September 17, 2021

iHeart Playing the Long Game on Selling Out

INSIDE …

  • Why did iHeart ask for regulatory approval to sell 100% of their company to a foreign investor who could then control it?
  • And why did they fight UK-based Global Media when they tried to buy 49.9% of iHeart when it became legal to do so.
  • Is it an accident or strategy that each major investor owns 10% or less of iHeart with the current owners owning the rest.
  • What about John Malone’s Liberty Media (they own 10%) on record as saying they’d like to buy controlling interest in iHeart or Apple reportedly after 25%.
  • Here’s the deal iHeart is really angling to do.

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Scroll through a complete list of previous stories here

Thursday, September 16, 2021

Audacy & Cumulus Joining Forces

INSIDE …

  • What you’re going to get when two financially ailing radio groups are planning to work together. Crazier than you know. 
  • How iHeart is losing the most money yet playing their competitors for suckers – that’s you Audacy and Cumulus.
  • The one thing that Audacy and Cumulus could do (together or alone) that would save the day – and here’s their boneheaded plan instead. 
  • Dunkin’ is opening a store in Boston with no employees – now, I just got Mary Berner and David Field to click for the details.

Read the full article here

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Scroll through a complete list of previous stories here

Wednesday, September 15, 2021

Dropping Like Flies at Audacy Midwest

INSIDE …

  • How could this be? Hardly anyone in radio is quitting except at Audacy.
  • The new issues that have contributed to yet another mass exodus of employees.
  • The toll in the last 30 days alone.
  • The next hotspot market for employee churn at Audacy.

Read the full article here

Free samples of our work here.

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Scroll through a complete list of previous stories here

Tuesday, September 14, 2021

Rough Times Ahead for Stations Using Ratings

INSIDE …

  • Nielsen is on the ropes after delisting non-subscribers from all-important ad agency visibility. 
  • The latest trick that Nielsen is reportedly using against subscribers who switch to Eastlan. 
  • The 2 new options that financially-pressed radio owners will soon have as alternatives to high priced ratings.
  • Disruption alert: what we’re watching unfold in markets 1 through 50.

Read the full article here

Free samples of our work here.

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Scroll through a complete list of previous stories here

Monday, September 13, 2021

Cumulus Escalates Management by Fear

INSIDE …

  • Internal Cumulus memo shaming high performance market managers with non-compliance. 
  • The “list” of bad girls and boys.
  • Try as many times as you want, but you will not believe who is running this shame game (hint: not Walker, not Milner, not Berner) – give up? 
  • Fear of employees: How Cumulus reportedly weaponizes employees who trash a market manager in one of her many Survey Monkeys.

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Friday, September 10, 2021

Race to the Bottom on Ad Rates

INSIDE …

  • It just happened again scorched earth selling which is why I’m writing about it – a predator group screws competitors out of a huge buy, drives unit rates down by pulling this trick. 
  • The one thing that is forcing consolidated radio groups to go balls on against competitors many of which have a better ad story and they still lose the buy. 
  • There will soon be no need for local ad revenue – what makes big radio groups really believe this stuff.
  • Oh, and the major markets are all that will matter – here’s the proof.

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Thursday, September 9, 2021

DIY Streaming DJs Threaten Radio

INSIDE …

  • Radio wants to be audio but now big tech wants to be radio – their plans are breathtaking.
  • How broadcast radio is vulnerable to the big money of Amazon, Spotify – the attack they are mounting. 
  • The industry’s fatal move away from “radio” letting big tech competitors in. 
  • “The opportunity for disruption in live radio is paramount” – which consumer (not radio) publication said that and why.

Read the full article here

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Scroll through a complete list of previous stories here

Wednesday, September 8, 2021

Owners Rethinking the Viability of Conservative Talk

INSIDE …

  • How radio’s obsession with podcaster Joe Rogan may be the end of right wing talk radio.
  • The first major group likely to blink. 
  • Audacy is sucking wind on revenue but making a killing off the coronavirus – I’ll explain it here. 
  • Mary Berner’s Harvard Business School case study on how to ace COVID – ok, I’m kidding but you can still learn from her latest blunder.

Read the full article here

Free samples of our work here.

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Scroll through a complete list of previous stories here

Tuesday, September 7, 2021

Cox Employees Leaving for Audacy

INSIDE …

  • Cox Radio people are beating it out of Dodge for a company that is experiencing the biggest employee exodus in radio.
  • Is it the rumors about Apollo and Cox or something else?
  • HOUSTON – keep a close eye on it for answers. 
  • SUSAN LARKIN – What she is thinking by recruiting Cox employees even with what she knows.

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Thursday, September 2, 2021

iHeart Accelerates Merging Clusters

INSIDE …

  • Here’s what these new superclusters will look like.
  • The thing that is increasingly important to debt-burdened consolidators like iHeart, Audacy and Cumulus – dare I say it is the new “R&R” but it no longer stands for radio and records.
  • Other cutbacks now on the drawing board that could start showing up late this year, early next.

Read the full article here

Free samples of our work here.

Report Newstips confidentially in our Witness Protection Program here.

Talk to Jerry privately here.

Scroll through a complete list of previous stories here