Inside Music MediaJerry Del Colliano

Radio is facing a second significant round of consolidation as witnessed by the recent Entercom/CBS merger and the expected merger of Cumulus at some point thereafter which will present challenges to smaller local broadcasters.

Independent operators will feel the pressure directly but are best positioned to compete in an industry with increasingly fewer owners, wrong-headed top down management and more debt that creates bad decision making.

If local operators are going to sit still while the big get bigger, consolidators will eat them alive by dumbing down programming and sales in their markets.

Katz, the iHeart monopoly rep, is already getting to the ad money first for its parent company before the rest of its clients get any of the buys.  iHeart gets the lion’s share.  You gets less.  (That’s what they must have meant by less is more).

And now with consolidator-inspired programmatic buying being pushed to reduce or replace relationship buying, local broadcaster’s may survive but programmatic has proven to drive down rates and that affects everyone.

All of this is why I try to put together the challenges and opportunities that will affect local radio in the next 12 months.

It’s why we do our Independent Radio Conference.

And today, I am happy to share with you the program I am so proud of with shout outs to the experts who are volunteering their expertise to help local operators get a leg up on the deleterious effects of consolidation -- Round Two.

I invite you to see the final selection of topics for this meeting gleaned from surveys of radio executives.  I hope you like it and better yet that you will take a day to invest in this useful resource.

Program Agenda

8 am              Registration/Complimentary Breakfast
9 am              Changing the Way Radio Engages Audiences
10:30 am       Break/Complimentary Snacks and Refreshments
10:45             The Morning Show of the Future / Repurposing 7pm-5am

12 Noon        Complimentary Lunch

1 pm             Growing On-Air Revenue / Making Money From Digital
2:30 pm         Break/Complimentary Snacks and Refreshments
2:45 pm        Getting Millennials To Listen
4 pm              Conference Concludes

Changing the Way Radio Engages Audiences

• How to Retrain Air Talent to Sound Like Today’s Audiences
• How Gender Fluidity Will Affect the Way Your Program To 18-34’s
• How to Talk to Baby Boomers AND Millennials (There Are 75 Million of Each)
• The Kind of Air-Personalities In-Demo Today’s Radio Listeners Now Want
• What Millennials Want in a Radio Personality compared to Gen Xers and Baby Boomers
• How to Change the Way We Talk to Today’s Listeners
• The Contest Prize Listeners Crave Most (Not Money, Not Trips)
• Why Music Sweeps Are Backfiring on Hit Music Stations (and How to Fix It)
• How to Finally Improve TSL Which Has Been Declining for 2 Decades
• How to Handle Too Many Commercials
• How to Add Music Discovery to a Tight Hits Format

The Morning Show of the Future / Repurposing 7pm-5am

• Updating the Morning Show
• The One Morning Show Feature That Every Station Should Have
• New Evidence That the Morning “Man” of the Future Should Be a Woman
• Eliminating Outdated Morning Shows (Making Them Cool Again)
• New Ways to Repurpose 7pm to 5am
• How to Handle Traffic On-Air Now That Listeners Widely Access It Online
• How to Rebuild Eroding Audiences After PM Drive
• The One Type Commercial Even Millennials Will Stick Around For

Growing On-Air Revenue / Making Money From Digital

(with a presentation for MoreFM Chairman Jerry Lee on ad churn and a video from programmer & Podcasting expert Steven Goldstein on podcasting)

• Competing Against Rate Droppers
• Reducing Advertiser Turnover to Virtually Nothing
• The Best Company to Pretest Advertiser Copy for Success
• The Optimum Number of Voices That Make Radio Ads More Effective
• The Perfect Radio Solution for Podcasting
• New Competition From User-generated Content like YouTube
• Finding New Digital Revenue Streams
• Master Short Form Video
• New Revenue From Product Placement & Subscription Fees
• Radio as a “Preview Channel” for Digital
• How to Create Binge Listening Content for Radio
• The Potential of Alexa For Radio, the Powerful Voice of Amazon’s Echo

Getting Millennials To Listen

(With a special presentation from Morley Winograd, author of Millennial Makeover and generational expert)

• How to Program to Shorter Attention Spans
• Promotions That Will Guarantee Millennial Listeners
• Focusing on Fans Not Listeners
• Eliminating the Hot Clock as Millennials Like No Rules
• Positioning Radio Against Pandora, Spotify & Streaming Music
• Why Creating 2 or More Formats on One Station Now Makes Total Sense
• Why Millennials Like More Eclectic Music in Their Hits Station (and How to Give It to Them) Local Radio Vs. More Consolidation
• Why Creating 2 or More Formats on One Station Now Makes Total Sense
• Why Radio Must Get Back to Contesting for 18-34 Millennial Gamers
• The 5 Things Millennials Want From Radio (Millennial Values)
• How to Remove Hype From Millennial Targeted Stations
• The Significance the Hottest New Social Medium, SnapChat, to Radio

Led by Jerry Del Colliano whose background includes on-air and management roles in major market radio and television, publishing and digital as well as Professor of Music Industry at The University of Southern California.

This event will not be available by stream or video – only live and in-person April 5^th in Philadelphia.

Please join us for this transformative experience.

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