Archive for the ‘Radio Business’ Category

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Betting on the future

Friday, October 9th, 2009

This is a followup to the “Why Talk is Moving to FM” post about a week ago.

I’m actually going to encourage you right wing nuts (and you know who you are!) to read the Huffington Post, specifically HERE.  Tamara Conniff is a former editor of Billboard Magazine, which means she really knows the music business and is not a light weight.

This article lays out the details behind the Performance Rights Act currently making its way through the U.S. Senate.  She supports the act, but lays out a factual description of what it is and what it could do.

While she supports the idea of the radio stations paying performers to play their music, she also raises the red flag of FM radio turning into a wasteland of right wing talk radio, sports talk and Spanish language programming.

(I tend to think some radio stations and companies would fail, but others would adapt and thrive even paying the “tax”)

Anyhow, put yourself in the shoes of a scared radio company owner.   You’re looking at the possibility that this thing still might pass.  If you wait for the 9th inning, and then decide to switch your music FM station to Talk, by that point the best syndicated shows and sports networks will already be pinned down in your market and you won’t have anything to put on the air (unless you produce it locally)

KKAT-AM in Utah and WNUW-FM in New Jersey (Philly area) have joined the list of recent switches from Music to Talk.

Look at the rate of this “format flips” as a barometer of if the NAB’s members think they are going to lose the fight with the music industry.    If they “flip” now, they can pin down the better shows to secure their future as a talk station.   If the performance rights act doesn’t pass, they can always flip back to computers playing random music in six months or a year (unless of course, they have a surge in ratings when they put on Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh :)).

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Posted in Radio Business, Radio Ownership, Radio and Race, Syndication | No Comments »

College radio revisited

Monday, September 21st, 2009

The first radio blog post I did back in 2006 was speculating about the future of college radio (or impending demise).  I was finding more and more student run stations either running on automation full time, turned over to state run NPR networks or just derelict.

Augustana College’s station KAUR-FM in Sioux Falls, SD is the latest to call it quits.   In this case, it isn’t lack of funding – it’s that there was only 1 student even interested in working on the station.   With radio companies laying off large numbers of people, and college age students having very little interest in listening to radio, this should not be a shocker.

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Posted in Radio Business | 3 Comments »

Between a rock and a hard place

Thursday, September 17th, 2009

Sarah McBride of the WSJ (along with Mike Spector) write in this article about a problem which has taken some of the lenders by surprise, but people who follow this site closely have known about for months.

Citadel Broadcasting (which owns the former ABC radio network and a bunch of small market stations) failed to make an interest payment on August 15th and failed to come up with the money by September 15th, so they are in default for a 3rd time this year.

The problem is that if the lenders take any actions to sieze the company – either by bankruptcy or via a debt for equity swap, they immediately run into the FCC ownership caps.  The same lenders have interests in too many radio stations already, and are not allowed to “own” any more stations.  Some of the lenders are not allowed to own radio stations at all because they are non-US companies.   Most of the existing radio companies that could buy ABC radio stations at a fire sale can’t because they already are at the limits in ther major market ownerships.

So we’re stuck with a handful of “too big to fail” radio owners in limbo – everyone wants to take their losses and move on, but the process is frozen by the limits – and long term relaxing those limits would just reinvite the same problem down the road with even bigger “too big to fail” radio networks. 

Anyone out there with a billion or two to invest want to buy a radio network cheap?

Posted in Radio Business, Radio Ownership | 2 Comments »

iPhone and Streaming

Saturday, September 12th, 2009

If you’re thinking about buying an iPhone to listen to radio stations, you might want to think twice.   The reason is that Apple appears to think it can deprive web users of Flash applications and Windows Media Player streams.   Since most stations at this point are using Flash or WMP, that’s a large problem, and why I won’t be writing an App for now.   This closed architecture forces programming aggregators to create standalone apps like iheartradio to listen to stations.   You have to collect different apps, and then know which App to start to find the station or stream you want to hear.

The big winner of the iPhone is Google.   The tight integration of Google Mail, Google Maps and Google Search makes the iPhone an incredibly powerful tool.   Google has been pushing Android, it’s open cell phone operating system.   If Apple doesn’t open up to programs like Flash and a WMP player, Google will eventaully clean their clock.

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All is becoming clear…

Saturday, September 12th, 2009

The KNEW/Savage development is just one dot along the path.  It’s becoming clearer and clearer where radio is headed.  3G and 4G wireless are going to change all the rules, not just for radio.   Here is what I see in the future:

- Today’s syndicated programming is going to migrate to direct to consumer via wireless streaming and podcasting.   As more and more people catch on to the power of internet streaming over wireless, the attractiveness of programming  “local” radio stations using syndicated programming fades away

- Sirius /XM will drop satellite from their brand.  The niche of Sirius/XM is to be an aggregator of programming with a nationwide audience.  How the signal gets to you is not important.  As the quality and capacity of wireless internet improves, the infrastructure costs and quality problems with satellite delivery will push Sirius/XM more toward non-satellite delivery

- iheartradio is Clear Channel’s attempt to compete with Sirius/XM in the same role as programming aggregator.  Clear Channel has been signaling for some time that they view programming as their business, not running radio stations

- AM is really going to go away this time.   AM may live on as a vehicle for niche audiences like non-English programming and religious programming, but the migration of news/talk to FM is going to pick up speed.   Once you listen to radio on the internet, you won’t tolerate the noisy erratic quality of AM signals, especially at night

- WiMax isn’t necessary.  Even 3G networks have no problem maintaining a stream in a car at highway speeds.   While WiMax may become the world standard, AT&T and Verizon will make LTE the defacto US standard for 4g.  Sprint is missing some of the key things necessary to make Clearwire a success.

- Radio will return to being “local” if it is to have a future at all.  With the nationalization of brands (Office Depot, Wal*Mart, Lowe’s, Friday’s), it’s a question if there is enough local business to generate the revenue to support local radio.   Small operators not burdened by large amounts of debt will be the most successful.

Posted in Opinions, Radio Business | No Comments »

Sirius/XM how to

Sunday, September 6th, 2009

Thinking about maybe getting Sirius/XM?

If you aren’t familiar with Sirius/XM, there is an easy free way to try it out.   First a few of the basics.

Sirius and XM used to be separate companies and had incompatible technologies, so at least for now you have to choose Sirius or XM.  Each service added the “best of” the other side’s programming for an extra charge.

To try it out for free, try out Sirius Internet Only streaming.  They offer a 7 day free trial here.   XM also has an internet streaming offer, but you can only use it if you already own an XM radio.

The Sirius News/Talk shows are already integrated into the SRGuide, and they are similar to radio stations other than you’ll constantly be pestered to enter your account password and type in a 4 character string of random characters to make sure you are a human and not a computer program. [Is that really necessary?]

A few of the channels you can get with a real Sirius/XM radio are not available for streaming – the most significant is the one that Quinn and Rose are on.   You’ll find that many of your familiar hosts area already on Sirius.  The main exception are most of those syndicated by Premiere (Rush, Beck) and Neal Boortz.   There is a Fox News Talk channel that carries Tom Sullivan and John Gibson, as well as Glenn Beck’s TV show (audio) on tape delay and a number of Sirius/XM only hosts like Andrew Wilkow.  A show with 9 minutes of news/commercials feels a lot different than one with 27 minutes.

If you see enough value in what they offer, you can later buy a radio for your car or to carry around.

I’ve long believed that the Beck/Limbaugh crowd are a much bigger market for subscription radio market than the the 30 years old living at home people with drug problems that seem to be the core of the Howard Stern audience.   If 5 or 10 million people signed up for Sirius/XM, that subscription revenue goes a long way to make advertiser boycotts futile.

If you do already have Sirius, tune it to channel 100 next week at 9 AM eastern.  See if Glenn Beck being there was a mistake (or Stern playing a clip of Beck’s show) or if something is “up”.

Posted in Radio Business, Streaming Radio Guide | 1 Comment »

Clear Channel Website Syndrome

Saturday, September 5th, 2009

Okay, maybe this isn’t fair.  Maybe it is me, and not Clear Channel.

But since I (and now some of you) spend so much time looking at Clear Channel web sites, I was beginning to develop a pretty negative opinion about people in general from a constant diet of Clear Channel web sites – especially those for “Rock” music.   The “news” on the web sites is invariably “Obama is great” or some really exploitative celecbrity gossip or people doing really stupid things for attention.  Many of the sites and stations pretty overtly encourage drug use, view women as mindless sex toys, promote body mutilation (tatoos, piercings), etc….

Is it just that I’m not young and really “square”, or is there something here to my feelings about these web sites and what this type of “culture” is doing to screw up the country?

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CBS turning right?

Friday, September 4th, 2009

This could be BIG.

CBS radio tried out “hot talk” with Free FM which was a dismal failure.   If you run down the CBS owned & operated stations, CBS has been allergic to any kind of  ”right wing” talk radio.  KXNT in Vegas is about the only station that carries “hate talk”, and that’s just due to it being a former Infinity station they would probably rather sell off.

Well, down in Charlotte, North Carolina starting on September 14th, CBS is going to challenge WBT by converting a sleepy simulcast station to Conservative News Talk – including Beck, Hannity and Jason Lewis (who used to do local talk on WBT).

CBS crossing that psychic divide to entertain the possibility of giving listeners what they want to hear is a RBG  (really big deal).  I don’t doubt for a second that this lineup will succeed in Charlotte (I used to live there).  Charlotte is home to two of the country’s largest banks and very Conservative (or at least moderate).  

If Conservative Talk works in Charlotte, CBS owns a number of high power AM stations in major markets who might do the same.    KFWB in Los Angeles is changing Monday from All News to News/Talk (Dr Laura, Laura Ingraham, Smerconish).    I could easily see WINS or WCBS in New York flipped to News/Talk.   Citadel/ABC is VERY vulnerable right now to a frontal attack.

Maybe CBS also sees that the GE/NBC/Obama connections and someone remembers the history of radio in the 1920s.

Posted in Programming Updates, Radio Business, Radio Ownership | 3 Comments »

The End of “Radio as we know it”

Thursday, September 3rd, 2009

There is a news item today in Tom Taylor’s daily radio newsletter that is very important and will sooner or later determine if this web site becomes really important or have no purpose.

Since the first days, I’ve had the vision that “Internet Radios” are the future of radio.   They are a device you can buy today (C. Crane offers several versions) that lets you listen to streaming radio without needing a computer and in ways that are more familiar – like being integrated into a bedside unit that behaves like a conventional clock radio.   The radio connects to the internet using your existing wireless WiFi (802.11) router, but I would expect that to evolve into working with 3G and 4G wireless used now for cell phone internet access.  Down the road, your car “radio” will probably work based on this technology too, so you can listen to any radio station in the world on your way to work (including internet-only radio)

The big flaw to Internet Radios is that there is no standard way to tell them how to connect in order to stream (the basic focus of this directory).    The manufacturer of the radio maintains their own proprietary list of “supported” radio stations, usually limited by the technical capability of the radio (is it mp3 only?  WMP?).   Since you are not using a computer, any player that requires you to have Flash or javascript or a web browser won’t work.  And radio stations constantly change the URLS…. and what is the business model for a radio station to stream to a non-computer that can’t show ads?

So today’s news is that a group over in Europe is starting to work on developing a standard for internet radio, so that your radio would not be dependent on a list from the manufacturer and radio stations could publish their connection information so that changes are picked up automatically.

This has definitely got my attention :)

Posted in Opinions, Radio Business, Streaming Radio Guide, Syndication | 2 Comments »

“My” minutes

Tuesday, September 1st, 2009

Within the radio business (of which I’m not), the people owning and running radio have interesting perspectives.  One phrase I read from time to time is when talking about radio syndication the station owners grumble about them “taking away my minutes” – which means in real people language, that in order to get the syndicated programming for free (or at all), the local radio station has to allow the syndicator time to run their commercials during the show to pay for creating the show – 5 minutes per hour is pretty typical.

This notion that the syndicators are “stealing time” from the radio owner has the situation completely backward.   In an environment where there are so many other ways to get music and information, a radio station consuming 25 or more minutes an hour on ads and promotional material is stealing the listener’s time.   Now that we have options, conventional radio no longer has the leverage to steal our time.

I don’t think anyone believes that radio should have no commercials, although there are models for government funded radio, contribution based radio (NPR) and paid subscription (Sirius/XM) – but the obscene amount of my time wasted every day listening to vapid PSAs and semi-fraudulent health products would be driving me away from radio if it wasn’t for this project.

When Radio shifts its idea from the “minutes” are “My Minutes” to “My Listener’s minutes”,  maybe they’ll start to bring back listenership.    Back in World War two, a message beat into people was “Is the trip really necesssary”, to get people to think about not wasting resources during a period of war time shortages.   Imagine a world in which program directors asked themselves “was this really a good use of my listener’s time?”, instead of ‘how can I squeeze in more ads without creating tuneout”…

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