We Have Met The Enemy And He Is Us

“There are no secrets to success. It’s the result of preparation, hard work, and learning from failure.” Colin Powell

Are we learning anything here? I opened up my Radio Ink email this morning, like I do every morning, and immediately spit my coffee all over my desk. In describing sagging radio revenue, one radio executive was quoted as saying. “The situation is being driven by the overall slowing of the economy, loss of liquidity in the financial services industry and the related slump in the housing market."

No doubt those factors have an effect on radio revenue just like they’re having on everyone else. However, the Wall Street Journal, in an article on March 5th, noted, “...radio advertising revenue dropped 2.6% from 2006, and more importantly, radio hasn't seen any big gains since the Internet began to take off in the late 1990's.  One analyst in the story mentioned the last time radio fell in multiple years was in the 1950's when it was challenged by TV....and projections are that it will fall 3% this year..one bright note in the story is the mention that non traditional revenue for radio, including the Internet rose 10% to $1.68 billion.”

In the same Radio Ink email is Farid Suleman saying, “If the revenue growth isn’t there, we have to reevaluate how we do business. You can’t continue to invest in programming and sales if you can’t get the revenue.” Did anyone else just have a chill run up their spine? Why does it seem to me those “radio executives” are blaming everyone else but themselves? When you turn radio into a commodity, and show the advertising community you don’t value your own inventory by constantly dropping rates, what would you expect? I’m hard pressed to figure out where the consolidation of the 90’s has really benefitted us. I suppose we’re more “efficient” now that we used to be. But part of that alleged “efficiency” has made us less effective.

We’re all in big trouble, but just like the alcoholic views their drink, the execs at the top of the food chain are refusing to see they themselves are the problem. It’s our version of “pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.” The WSJ sees the problem, and sees it as big as the challenge of the 1950’s. I wasn’t there for those, but it meant radio had to seriously reinvent itself and almost start over again. Fortunately there were change agents like Todd Storz and Gordon McClendon operating radio, and they weren’t afraid to take a chance.

As the cartoon character Pogo said many years ago, “We have met the enemy and he is us.”