24 Hours In Charlotte
by Bill Figenshu
The leaders of radio companies are looking very tired. Seven years of creating no value for their stockholders and investors is taking the toll. Other than Dan Mason (the darling of the convention) radio companies need to put operators in charge again. It will be a hard decision for current CEO’s to give up some power, but until creative people start to run radio companies again, with a vision beyond sales and revenue, there will be more of the same. Revenue is important, but we are being challenged creativity, and have not responded effectively.
Radio is good at serving its communities every day. Radio is bad at positioning itself. Radio people are great at positioning their stations, bad at positioning themselves.
The press (including Inside Radio) has created stars out of financial operators. We have made company leaders personalities, who now believe they can operate radio from the budget line, not the content line. Senior executives with creative content ideas, on-air and online will be the trend in 2008. Not bankers.
Less is more, and remnant inventory schemes are all a result of the value of content. The content must get better. The answer?
2008 must be the year of bold, creative, operational acumen. Companies will need to be run by smart content oriented people with ideas, vision, and balls!
The days of 50+% margins are quickly going away. Radio operators must invest in online content fulltime! Not as part of the current management responsibility.
The successful company in 2008 will recognize that local online, HD and broadband delivery of radio content should be operated as a separate. Not a part time job of the overworked manager. Creating online and HD revenue is a fulltime job. Not part of the current AM/FM sales manager responsibility.
The concept of national sales needs an extreme makeover. We cannot sell it the same way we did in 2001. Yet, we are.
Local radio sales must change to providing more specific solutions, not just ratings and the cost per point.
HD radios will sell when there is content worth buying a radio for. Give the band to the young. Not the overworked programmer down the hall. Same with online.
Radio must start paying attention to trends of young people. On line and on air, they are telling us about song repetition, format diversity, and lack of local content. We talk about it, but we don’t go far enough.
And last but not least, the creative control of radio stations must go back to the local stations, not corporate. Local management cannot effectively run more than two radio stations well. Management and programming personnel are spread too thin. The same number of people that ran one or two stations ten years ago are now running five to eight stations plus online! Not possible to do it well. Quality is suffering.
Running one full signal major market radio station is a full time job for the general manager, program director, marketing department, and sales manager. HD, online and on-air for a single station is a 40 to 80 hour work week. WBEB, Philadelphia owner Jerry Lee and most local NPR stations have not had a problem growing. They are not running more than one or two stations.
In 2008 it will be about quality – not quantity. No more radio by the pound.
--Bill Figenshu is president of broadcast operations and station development for Peak Broadcasting. The views expressed are his own.
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