Mason's Morning Minute

Trying Not Be Become Irrelevant

“It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change.” Charles Darwin

Our music positioning isn’t working as well as it used to be. Something’s changed, and it’s hard to put your finger on it. So how do we know what’s going on? Why is it changing, and what does that mean?

For an answer, let’s look to that great radio strategist Frederick Herzberg.

OK, so he doesn’t have anything to do with radio, but we can learn a concept from him that’s new to us but old in management circles. Herzberg was a noted psychologist who became one of the most influential names in business management. His 1968 publication, “One More Time, How Do You Motivate Employees?” is one of the most requested articles from the Harvard Business review.

Herzberg theorized that the factors causing satisfaction are different from those causing dissatisfaction; the two feelings cannot simple be treated as opposites. The opposite of satisfaction is not dissatisfaction, but rather no satisfaction. Think of your medical and health benefits for example. Once upon a time everyone didn’t have them, and it was a real drawing point. Today, almost everyone has health care of some sort, so it’s not as much as a “satisfier” as it used to be, but without it you can be very dissatisfied.

Translating that to radio, it means that at one point, where radio was the center of most things music, and the primary place you found both new music and your favorite music, it was a satisfier. Now, when you can get the music from so many different places, AND create your own playlist on an iPod. So playing the music the listeners want to hear has become a baseline, an expectation or the price of admission rather than a strategic point of attraction. However, if you’re not playing what they want to hear, it is a dissatisfier, and will hurt you. By continuing to treat it as a satisfier, you’re in danger of becoming irrelevant.

In essence, the more something becomes widely available it loses its ability to be a satisfier, and it switches to a dissatisfier. Just think about that a minute. How much of what you’re doing has to do with the satisfiers of yesterday? And, of course, what are the satisfiers of today?

So, what exactly are you promoting these days?

Excuse me, I have to take this call

“I think the one lesson I have learned is that there is no substitute for paying attention.”  Diane Sawyer

As I was driving to work this morning I noticed how many people were on their phones.  I decided to conduct a snap-poll and see how many people were talking on their cell phones while driving, and it turned out to be over half.

I don’t really care about people talking on the phone, although the woman in front of me at the Starbucks drive through was pushing it by driving, talking on the phone, and putting on eye makeup simultaneously.  As long as they don’t run into me I won’t complain too much.

However, and it’s a big however, what does bother me is that they’re on the phone and not listening to the radio.  Whoever they’re talking to, whatever they’re hearing, is more relevant and compelling to them than what is being presented on any radio station.  Or at least they see it that way.  It’s funny, but the iPod isn’t the big threat we thought, it’s looking more and more like it’s the cell phone.  People are downloading music like crazy, and of course talking and texting like crazy.

OK, so what can you and I do about this growing threat.  Probably not a lot, but we certainly can make sure our stations, especially in morning drive, are as compelling as possible.  Not just OK or good, but compelling and relevant.  Targeted to the target.  Focused on the target.  And not a 5th caller giveaway.

I’m just going through a research study where a new talent, who has been at this station only about 90 days, has already passed everyone else on the station in terms of awareness and “likeability.”  Why?  She’s compelling, engaging, and involving.

You need to become a magnet, a place with attraction for your target, not just another source of music or a CD giveaway.  Before it’s too late. 

Excuse me, I have to go, my cell phone is ringing.

The Opposite Of Love Is Not Hate

"When dealing with people, let us remember we are not dealing with creatures of logic. We are dealing with creatures of emotion, creatures bristling with prejudices and motivated by pride and vanity." - Dale Carnegie

This is one case where Newton's Law could be wrong.  You know, "For every action there is an equal but opposite reaction."  Take divorce for example-which at least 50% of the country has.  The majority off divorces come about because love turns to indifference.  This can be confusing, because so many people going through divorce seem angry, but that comes with the lawyers.

This worries me about radio too.  We all read the articles about technology taking a bite out of listening, but I wonder if that's more of a symptom than a cause.  Some of think the iPod was created by Satan instead of Steve Jobs, but all Jobs did was spot, and then create a response to, a trend.

My research would indicate less listener loyalty and less radio listenership is being brought about by the result of indifference - apathy.  All those people with the white earbuds or tuning into Live365 don't hate radio, they're just apathetic about it. We're on a time of great innovation on electronic media, and we, as an industry, have worked hard to become unremarkable.  Now we have radio stations that are technically proficient, locked into what we've been doing for the past 30 years.  We're more efficient, but less effective.

If we're to succeed we need to think of growth, and start pursuing remarkability instead of complaining about change.

Here's the kicker, I'm every crisis there's opportunity.  The Chinese character for crisis translates to "opportunity riding a dangerous wind."  As others fail, some will will grow.  But those who continue to try to improve current best practices, and try to manipulate listener behavior, won't be in the winners circle.

So the real question about it all is what choice you'll make.

Attention Deficit Disorder Rules!

“Everyday American’s lead extremely busy lives.” – Robert Rodriguez, brand officer, Dunkin’ Donuts

No kidding!  And it’s not going to get any better either.  While the Internet and all it’s offshoots, like email, have made some things much easier, saving time isn’t one of them.  As Mark Ramsey pointed out at the NAB, your listeners may be hearing you, but they may not be listening.  We’ve gone way beyond multi-tasking to what Microsoft VP Linda Stone calls “Continuous Partial Attention.”  There’s no much going on in our lives that we aren’t able to give full attention to anything but the most important issues.  Personally, I doubt radio is one of them.

What does this mean?

Several things.  First of all, we’re going to need to push our talent to engage the listeners instead of talk at them.  True relatability is going to become a valued talent.  Next, we’re going to have to listen to our stations very critically, and try to eliminate every nuance that makes us sound like someone else.  Third, we’re going to have to take Jerry Lee’s advice, and make sure our commercials aren’t something that sends them into inattention for 12 minutes of the hour.  We’re going to have to work harder on radio creative, testing them like Jerry Lee suggested.  Finally, we’re going to have to learn what being a brand is all about, and start crafting one that will also engage the listener, and go beyond the typical radio hype.

Sorta makes the 7th caller contests look silly, doesn’t it?

That’s just a small peek into our future.  I hope you were paying attention.

Is Content King At Your House?

"We don't like their sound, and guitar music is on the way out." --Decca Recording Co. rejecting the Beatles, 1962

Spike TV is doing something interesting in the TIVO world; they’re trying to get people to keep tuned-into the cable channel with creativity. Gasp! Where’s the shareholder value in that?

What they’re doing is developing two 30-second clips, called “Spike Men Of Action,” into 30-second comedies. One will show two people trying to diffuse a bomb while eating a meal from Dairy Queen. The other will show the same two guys fighting martial-arts style, as one recommends an athletes foot remedy. If they work as expected, we could see more of these spread across cable, and finally to the networks.

They seem to understand the “Content is King” mantra. I see a lot of radio people who like to chant that mantra, but what they produce as content is more of the same, done “better.” But “better,” which is so obvious to us, is transparent to the listener. “Better” has to be so revolutionarily better that it’s obvious to the listeners. “Better” to us often has to do with where in the hour we put the power song.

I applaud the Spike TV for understanding that “better” is new, something you create, and not something you incrementally improve on. Are you looking at what creative, compelling content your station can produce, or are you applying for that Decca Recording Company job?

A Soldier's Story

“Stories are the creative conversion of life itself into a more powerful, clearer, more meaningful experience. They are the currency of human contact.” Robert McKee, creative writing instructor

Stories are one of the most powerful techniques you can use to create pictures in someone’s mind. In radio you can paint pictures with words, and bring something at the station to life.

Think of Memorial Day coming up Monday. How would you explain Memorial Day to someone without a story? It’s more than a holiday, it’s an experience, and only a story can share that experience. Consider this story, from my friend Reid Holsen of Northwestern College Radio:

“We flew a fallen soldier from some conflict arena (I am not sure where) home on our plane today from Nashville to the Minneapolis airport. The military escort sat in front of me in first class. She was petite and dark haired, and wore the insignia of the 101st Airborne.

The pilot announced that we were all to stay seated until she left the plane. Surprisingly everyone did. Airplanes are usually very self-centered places especially at arrival time.

As I got off the plane I watched her salute as the white cardboard crate with the letters 'handle with extreme care' emblazoned on the side was offloaded the Northwest DC9. The rectangular crate holding someone's child was slid gently from the plane to a cart with two American flags waving at its corners. The escort stood ramrod straight on the tarmac until the remains were secured on the cart.

Such respect shown by the escort, but it seemed somehow surreal to me that it was handled by the Northwest ground crew. I wondered if its no big deal for them anymore.

One other gentleman and myself were the only ones watching from the window from the terminal at gate F8. The rest of passengers rushed by with something else on their minds.

I just felt I had to stop and at least whisper my gratitude and say a prayer. It didn't seem enough. Not near enough. Some family is sadly waiting for the casket to arrive home and for the final shock to hit them.

Please pray for the family. Pray for the families of those serving that start, spend and end each day wondering and worrying. Pray for the soldiers that wonder 'is this the day?' Pray for those that are wounded and fighting to recover. Pray for our leaders that send them. “

To me, that’s how you explain Memorial Day. So don’t just teach your talent how to take the first exit and what to talk about, teach them about stories, and the powerful emotional connection they can make between your station and your listeners.

Thanks, Reid, that’s a story worth repeating.

The Cry For Creativity

"There are one-storey intellects, two-storey intellects and three storey intellects with skylights. All fact-collectors who have no aim beyond their facts are one-storey men. Two-storey men compare, reason, generalize, using the labour of the fact-collectors as their own. Three storey men idealize, imagine, predict–their best illumination comes from the above through the skylight." — Oliver Wendell Holmes, author and physician

I was watching American Idol last night, and listening to some of the comments from the judges about this level of the competition needing more “Wow” and spectacular performances, instead of the good performances that had gotten to contestants to this point.

It struck me that we face the same issue in radio. Competition from other stations, iPods, WiFi, radio on the mobile phone, Internet radio, and things yet discovered have ratcheted up the need for something beyond the typical. But I’m not sure we hear that message.

Recently I mentioned in a Minute that radio stations are all playing by the same rules so much that we’re starting to sound like each other. The traditional rules of gaining ownership of a body of music, and then building on that with a morning show that does all the typical morning show things, and then developing a slogan we say over and over aren’t working as well as they used to. When you compound that with the effect automation and voice tracking have had on shows, and you can get some pretty seriously predictable and unexciting radio. Who hasn’t noticed the “formula” or Clear Channel brand sounding the same market-to-market? And I’m not picking on Clear Channel either, because you can hear it in many large radio companies.

This all goes back to my crusade for creativity. Are you spending enough time thinking, and more importantly brainstorming with your team, in order to put more “Wow!” in the station. I’ve long said that most radio stations aren’t defeated, they defeat themselves by accepting “good enough.”

Creativity doesn’t mean developing some format that no one wants to listen to either. It means understanding your listener enough to create something bold and different that becomes magnetic to the listeners. If you’ve got a station in trouble it’s not an incremental fix, it’s a revolutionary fix. Just working harder on those traditional radio rules isn’t going to make a difference to the listener. You need to start looking through that skylight.

Learning From American Idol

It is a pretty recognizable brand name. Originally it was "Jerry's Guide to the World Wide Web" but we settled on "Yahoo". - Jerry Yang, co-founder Yahoo

Want to have some fun and do something interesting? Next time you’re watching American Idol, count the number of times they say “American Idol” or “idol” from the very start of the show to the end.

OK, now listen to your radio station for a half hour. How many times do you hear your stations name and address in 30 minutes?

Which one did it more, American Idol or your station?

It’s unfortunate but American Idol often gives their “name and address” more frequently than a radio station. Why does that matter? Because Arbitron, which most of us have some passing interest in, is a recall based methodology. It’s sometimes not a measure of what you listen to as much as it is a measure of what you remember listening to.

OK, you say, but the PPM is coming and we won’t need it any more, right? Wrong. Giving the name and address of your station is an important factor in branding a radio station – or any other product.

Besides, if American Idol understands the value of name repetition, why don’t we?

6 April 2007

Coaching Through The Eyes Of The Player

“The newest computer can merely compound, at speed, the oldest problem in the relations between human beings, and in the end the communicator will be confronted with the old problem, of what to say and how to say it.” – Edward R. Murrow

Recently I've been spending more time than usual working with PD's on a collaborative, positive way to coach talent.  It's one of the most important programming priorities of today, as we rush toward that time when what's between the songs that will make the biggest difference.

An important part of that is a "social style" analysis, a great tool to help define the on-air persona, and a way the PD can understand the best way to communicate with the individual across the desk from them. 

One reason most people, PD'S and talent both, aren't in love with the process of going over a tape is that they communicate in their own style, not the style of the other.  Interesting, since the important part is that the other person understand and comprehend.

As you sit down to talk to someone you're responsible for, give some thought to the best way to communicate with them.  Don't wind up saying things your way, and than wonder why there's a confused look on the other persons face, and he or she didn't seem to hear you at all, and you don't see or hear the improvement you're looking for.  Look at what you’re saying through the eyes of the talent, and you’ll have much more success at improving performance.

Connecting With Listeners

It is insight into human nature that is the key to the communicator's skill. For whereas the writer is concerned with what he puts into his writing, the communicator is concerned with what the reader gets out of it. - William Bernbach, advertising executive

Have you ever noticed the top rated stations are often the least polished and slick?  They tend to be more “folksy” and real.  It has to do with communication.

The slick stations that all we radio people tend to admire for their technical prowess just don’t connect with people.  Most of us don’t speak perfectly, stumble from time-to-time, and know we make mistakes.  It’s hard to be an imperfect person and relate to a perfect radio station.

This isn’t to say we need to program mistakes into the clock.  It’s just that our focus is on not making mistakes, and being as perfect as we can, and that may not lead to the kind of emotional connection you’re going to need to solidify loyalty.  In other words, we’re spending time concentrating on what we’re saying, instead of what the listener is hearing.

A great new years resolution would be to become more “connective” with your listeners, so, as much as possible you become more than a supplier of music.  We’re already into the beginning of an era where music will be available from so many sources that it’s become a commodity.  Successful stations will be thinking enough about what the listener is hearing that they build loyalty to the station, and not just the music.

Giving Voice To Your Listeners

"Blogs enable you to have a relationship with your public, whatever that public is." —Jeff Jarvis, author, Buzz Machine

Which do you think is best for your, to have a radio station people listen to, or a radio station they are engaged with?  Do you want them to remain passive listeners, or do you think it would be better to build a relationship with them?

Blogging is growing like crazy for many reasons, but partly because it gives voice to people.  They can express their opinions openly and honestly.

Many of the radio people I talk with are afraid of building a listener-driven blog.  They’ve got enough to do already, without maintaining a blog.  It means turning over control of the blog to your listeners, where they may say something bad as well as something good.  Authenticity can be very scary.

What they don’t realize is that their listeners are in control of what they think of you already.  They’re saying what they think about you whether you participate in it or not. The only question is whether you want to be involved in the process or not.  There are many ways to remain authentic and still have some amount of control over what’s said. 

Not convinced yet?  Here’s another reason to consider.  If I’m competing with you I’m apt to create a blog around your position or slogan, and then work very hard to use it to affect your image to my benefit.  Wonder if I’ve created a Wikipedia entry for your station?  “KXXX is a radio station that used to be very popular in Smallville, but recently it has been losing audience because it repeats the same songs over and over, and plays too many commercials.”

You don’t want me having more control over your image than you do.

Engaging Your Listeners

"We need a huge shift from 'make and sell' to creating powerful experiences." —Lewis Carbone, CEO, Experience Engineering

I don’t know about you, but when I think of “engagement,” I think of something that happens before two people get married.  But it has a new, quite interesting meaning in the marketing world.  They measure “engagement” with products, to see if they are engaging the consumers mind.  The more engaged a consumer is, the more loyal they’ll be.

That’s pretty important for those of us in radio too!  I continue to see a false sense of comfort in many radio stations across the country, as they hear what they think are fans say “I love your music.”  But these are fans of the music, not of the station, and they’re not loyal to a station as much as they are to the music.  That’s cool when you’re the only one playing a type of music, but very perilous if there’s musical competition.

When you engage someone, you activate his or her mind.  That makes a specific imprint on the mind.  Hearing a song on the radio doesn’t always do that.

So how do you engage the listeners?  Through your talent, promotions, and imaging.  If your station all about the music, and little else, then it’s probably not engaging the listeners.  They may be hearing the station, as Arbitron puts it, but are they really listening?

When I heard about an interesting phenomenon in Houston, where the people meter is deployed, it brought this even more to mind.  It turns out that 58% of people who are listening to you most (P1) are listening most to another station the following week.  So maybe “P1” is a state of behavior much more than a state of mind!

Want more loyal listeners?  Then maybe you should look at your station through their eyes, and see what’s engaging them, and what’s not.

I Hate Consultants

What would we solve if we weren't breaking down barriers?" - Reverend Richard Cizik, cofounder, Evangelical Climate Initiative

OK, actually I don’t hate consultants, I hate the term “consultants.”  Fred Jacobs, for example, is doing an amazing job of preparing his clients for what’s on the horizon.  It’s the consultants who come through town with the one-size-fits-all, everyone-should-be-doing-this attitude, and a Xerox copy of a playlist from somewhere else that drive me crazy.

I’ve been pretty rough on some of the mega-companies the last few weeks; as if they were the sole reason radio is in the shape it’s in.  But they certainly aren’t alone, and I put a good portion of the blame on some of the so-called “consultants” as well.  You can hear the same meaningless slogans, the same benchmarks, and the same promotions all over the country.  This small band of radio gypsies have taken a good portion of the “remarkableness” and creativity out of radio.  Copying what you did somewhere else isn’t creativity, it’s copying.

That’s why I’ve decided to change my title to “Change Agent.”

The primary challenge at most stations isn’t that their not educated enough, or don’t know enough to play the right songs, it’s that they haven’t kept up with change.  Some have been downright resistant to change.  We live in a continual-Beta world, where as soon as you get an understanding of one part of radio, another part changes.  And let’s face it, when you’ve achieved your success by being good at something, why would you want to change it?

The answer is simple: We’re not in charge anymore.  The pace and level of change is dictated by your listeners now, not by you.  So what once made you powerful can become the spark of your demise in a very short period of time.  You don’t have to dislike change – it doesn’t matter – change is going to happen anyway.

So I think the primary need isn’t to have someone explain to you “how it should be done,” but instead to help you understand, and adapt to change.  What’s coming down the pike that will be meaningful to your radio station, and what can you do about it?  Just as importantly, what’s coming down the pike that won’t mean a thing?  It was just last year that some were touting a wireless transfer of music between cars on the freeway as a huge item, while ignoring the trend toward consumer-generated content.

This may seem like a blatant self-promotion minute, but that’s not really the intent.  Maybe you already understand which songs to play and which songs not to play.  Maybe you’ve already heard about the promotion in Peoria.  Maybe you don’t need a consultant at all.  Maybe you just need to learn to become less resistant to change, and to understand how coming trends will affect you.    Maybe we all just need to understand that what the wise sages of radio were saying in the 70’s, that the only constant is change.  Instead of a problem, maybe we need to look at change as an obvious, but not always welcome part of the business.  Sorta like Arbitron, but with a greater liability of you don’t do well.

So the real question is, how often do you get together with your staff and talk about the coming changes, and how you will (a) deal with them, and (b) profit from them?  Or are you too busy working on today’s challenges to deal with tomorrow?

Hope you enjoy the consultant joke below:

On Giving Something Up

"Unless you are prepared to give up something valuable you will never be able to truly change at all, because you'll be forever in the control of things you can't give up." — Andy Law, Creative Company

We’ve looked at some important issues recently, like the demise of Wall Street Radio, so let’s continue in that vein and look at one of the most critical questions.

Which is the best version of Louie, Louie, the one by the Kingsmen or the one by Paul Revere and The Raiders?

You answer to that will depend largely on your age.  Each of us has certain songs that popped up in our high school years, or the first two years after high school.  We take ownership of those songs, and while we will like others, the ones we take ownership of are the ones we feel directly attached to.  That’s why some form of “oldies” radio will always exist.

That’s why the billboard I saw driving into the Minneapolis airport last week seems all the more ridiculous.  Maybe they were trying to put me on, but it actually did say that they were playing “the best of the 60’s, 70’s, 80’s, 90’s and 00’s.”  Which is, of course, an oxymoron when teamed up with the term “classic rock.”   There is no classic rock from the “00’s.”

Once again it seems we’re putting the emphasis on our needs instead of the listeners needs.  I hear a growing amount of concern about listeners defecting to alternative media like Internet radio, but when I see billboards like that I have to wonder if they’re being drawn to the alternatives, or if we’re pushing them to the alternatives.  A musical format that spans almost 50 years of music has much more to do with what we want than what the listeners want.

This radio station is very successful too, which is why I wonder if they aren’t spoofing what we see AC’s doing all over the country, with their best mix of several generations of music.  If so, I hope the listeners are hip enough to catch on to the spoof.  Or, is it like it is in every other industry, where the demise begins quietly and slowly, and builds until it’s too late?

Tommy Can You Hear Me?

"Bore, n.: A person who talks when you wish him to listen." —  Ambrose Bierce

Among the things our friends at Arbitron have let us know recently is a redefinition of “listening” to radio to include satellite and Internet.  That has implications of it’s own, but I’d like to point you to some wording that’s been in the instructions for some time.

Arbitron instructs people that "Listening” is any time you can hear a radio station – whether you choose the station or not. You may be listening to a radio on AM, FM, Internet or satellite. Be sure to include all your listening.”

Take a look a minute at the words “any time you can hear a radio station.”  This used to read any time you listen to a radio station, but Arbitron seems to have noticed something many programmers haven’t, that there’s a difference between hearing a radio station and listening to a radio station.

A person can have the radio station on, hearing it, but not be listening to it at all.  That happens a lot when the typical DJ is on the air.  The listeners tune the DJ in our out depending on how relevant the content is.  Remember the Peanuts cartoon where they’re in class, and the teacher is up front talking?  The sound coming out of her mouth is a “Wha wha wha” trumpet like sound.  We’re supposed to understand that she’s talking, but Charlie Brown and his friends aren’t listening.

Because of this psychological tune-out, coaching and training the on-air staff to connect with listeners instead of announce at them, is a critical skill for programmers.  It’s a radical change from where we’ve been, because outside of mornings we frequently have DJ’s who are talking about things they think the listener will find interesting, while never wondering if it’s relevant.  The simplest fact about communication is that if its not relevant, they’re not listening.

Ever been to a party or social gathering where you ran into someone who wanted to talk to you about something you could care less about?  You wanted to get away from them as soon as possible, right?  Conversely, when you run into someone interested in what you are you can happily converse for hours.

Here’s the starting point that we explain to our clients: In order to be relevant you’ve got to start with something that’s already on the mind of the listener.  You’ve got to understand the target well enough to be able to understand what they are already thinking about.  Yes, there are morning shows where the talent is so unique and creative they can go outside those boundaries, but unfortunately they are rare, so programmers and talent often use them as an excuse to operate by the exception rather than the rule.

What’s already on your target listeners’ minds?  Does your on-air talent understand that’s the new starting point for show prep?  In other words, are you causing your listeners to only hear your radio station, or are you relating to what they’re interested in, so that they’re actually hearing your station?