DAN O’DAY TALKS ABOUT RADIO

It’s Thanksgiving in the U.S., and between the turkey and the football not many people will visit this blog today.

If I write about radio, six people will read this.

And I don’t want to write one of those “I’m thankful for…” essays.

But somehow it seems natural to share with you two powerful musical performances. There’s a good chance you’ve seen one or both of them, along with millions of others on YouTube.

Still….

I thought John Cale had the definitive version of this Leonard Cohen song until I witnessed kd Lang’s performance.

Not saying one is better. Just different.

Cale’s is mournful. Lang’s is anguished.

I will say, though, that I had a better understanding of what the song’s about after hearing Lang.

Anyway…Happy Thanksgiving, my radio brethren around the world.

LEAP OF FAITH RADIO PRODUCTION with Bobby Ocean

Suddenly gone from the web are The Bay Area Radio Hall Of Fame, along with the online version of our classic San Francisco Radio station, KYA. All those talented performers, that fabulous, colorful history with no place in the computer connected world? Many broadcasters and audiophiles scratch their heads and wonder.

Blogged questions included:

“If you had a business, would you ever consider advertising
on the museum or hall of fame websites?

“Who EVEN looks at the HOF or museum websites?”

Fair questions. And there ARE legit answers:

Q:  “…consider advertising?”
Answer – Absolutely, advertising is a great  choice on the right web address. Next question.

Q:  “…who visits them?
Answer: You, the very person asking looks in regularly. I do, too, along with so many others AND the possibilities of many more.

Go get a sharp knife and a magnifying glass. We’re gonna go CSI on these lazy bloggers.

Slice!

Immediately we see that a more appropriate question might have been: HOW can those who want to enjoy and honor radio programs and personalities put up a sustaining website, even one that turns a profit? That’s a query worthy of the pursuit.

Slice!

And just look. The answers, unseasoned and raw, are right there in the questions:

How many different ways can we express the beauty of the original idea?

What kind of skin do you put on this to make it something appetizing?

How about hybrids for texture and dimension.

How can you control this new media venture?

Is it easy and fun?

Is there something irresistable for all the senses?

Could it be better? – How?

How can we express the changes that have evolved alongside, around and through it as it grows?

Look again. Any answers in there?

It’s so obvious now. In the Radio Hall Of Fame example, a museum motif wasn’t powerful enough by itself, the user interfaces not inviting enough, the displays are not shown in their most inviting light. And that online radio station? In spite of excellent talent, it was unable to thrive because people were largely unaware of it and it wasn’t quite “fun” enough to pull people to the site and keep them there.

We now know they needed a more appealing lure (probably several). Websites that need a regular audience need to be involved WITH that audience and it has to be immediately apparent on the website. The site must be constantly maintained, freshly written and focused for that audience. Visitors can and should be made to increase — by the site’s values. The values needed to achieve this must be identified, procured, extrapolated and utilized.

As we have learned, answers by themselves are insufficient, so we keep in mind: it is giving the data DIMENSION that draws the crowds.

The amount of visitors, and length of their stay, act in much the same way that ratings do for broadcast facilities; the more hits, the better. So — we have learned to ask better questions. Like, how to make our shop more compelling? How to keep it fresh and make audience grow?

People in radio broadcasting have been asking themselves these very same questions for decades, and they kept coming up with winning ideas. Today – identical problems, different media, larger, more diverse landscape, entirely newer population involved in the question asking: “How can we get more people?” “How can we make them stay longer, come back tomorrow?” “How can we make money?”

The answers by themselves are not going to be enough. But that’s where we can shine. FLESHING OUT the answers to your questions, then giving them character as well as identity, is WHERE THE MONEY IS.

Maybe this is a way for broadcast survivors to bring home the groceries for the next few months – act as consultants to online entrepreneurs.

Stuck? Ask a radio pro. Not a cluster employee, they’re doing nine jobs at once. Ask someone with a little time on her hands.

A Loyal Reader writes:

“PRIZE PIGS! Every radio station has ’em. But what’s the best way to handle ’em?

“We’ve got a solid core and I’m keen to put some rules in place, but I’m wary of souring someone’s winning experience with a bunch of rules banning them from the airwaves for however long. I’m looking for more subtle answers.”

First, I applaud your concern for protecting your listener’s winning experience.

Second, stop thinking of them as “prize pigs” (as do most radio people) and start thinking of them as “highly responsive listeners.” Radio is the only industry I know that routinely denigrates its best customers.

For example: I fly a lot. I’ve flown 1.5 million miles on United Airlines. To United, I’m a “1K” flyer; that’s their designation for a passenger who flies at least 100,000 miles per year with them. And they give me special perks that aren’t available to less frequent flyers, including:

* I earn double mileage on all flights. I’ve got more than a million air miles “in the bank.” I dip into them to fly my mother First Class when she visits from Connecticut. A few years ago I cashed in 400,000 miles to take my family First Class to Sweden.

* There’s a special 1K reservation number.

* Special 1K lines at most United ticket counters. I’m embarrassed to admit to a certain smug satisfaction when I bypass a line of 200 United passengers and enter a line of two or three 1K flyers.

* Special 1K TSA security lines at some airports.

* Early boarding of flights.

* I can upgrade (using miles I’ve accrued, certificates I can buy for a nominal amount, or certificates United routinely sends me every time I log another 10,000 flight miles) from any published fare.

That means flying First Class in the U.S. for a few hundred dollars…or Business Class to Europe, roundtrip, for as little as $800. (Or First Class internationally for the price of a Business Class ticket.)

* Special treatment when flights are cancelled or delayed. For example, I’ve found myself on a flight that arrived too late for me to make the connecting flight I had been booked on…and when I checked in at the airport I learned they already had booked me on the next flight out.

* They’re more willing to bend the rules for me when necessary — waiving penalty charges, freeing up a seat for me when the computer says it’s not yet available, etc. (Those lovely new charges for checking baggage? Not for us proud, exhausted 1K flyers.)

But if radio people ran United Airlines, instead of “1K flyer” I’d probably be called a “flight pig.”

Third: Understand that you should have only two concerns regarding “prize pigs”:

1.  That they don’t deprive other listeners of a fair chance of winning.

2. That they don’t damage your station’s image by winning so often that other  listeners feel they are at a disadvantage.

I think the typical rule of thumb of “no more than once every 30 days” prevents both of those problems from occurring.

Your situation may vary, of course. If you’ve got a small market, night-time music show in which you give away small (probably meaningless) “sales promotion” prizes each evening, your phone traffic might be light enough to justify a mere one-week embargo on repeat winners.

On the other hand, the station in my market (Los Angeles) that limits its winners to “no more than once in 90 days” is just plain foolish. They want people to listen every day but prohibit them from winning even small prizes four times per year?

Time for another look at award winning radio commercials — spotlighting the good and the bad.

This one was a finalist in the 2009 Radio Mercury Awards.

The big message is “High speed Internet with PowerBoost.”

Everything the listener pictures represents something a high speed Internet connection delivers. Not as “features” but as parts of your life life.

If this is part of a mass media campaign that allows them to deliver a more specific message and Call To Action elsewhere, I like it.

(As a standalone campaign, it doesn’t give a specific Call To Action, nor does it give a reason to act. But I doubt this was a standalone campaign.)