What To Expect With Our Anniversary
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This could very well be the last time I write about the radio industry. The reason, it's dull. Radio has lost the ability to excite, innovate, or lead. Its chieftains are scrambling in ways even they don't understand, and the audience continues to turn elsewhere for audio entertainment.
This generation of radio "leaders" has done nothing except damage. Today's radio execs have sucked life out of the industry with cutbacks, flawed programming tactics, and a dearth of local content. They failed to react to obvious competition, even with warnings of upcoming problems by former programmers - the ones blown out by consolidation.
Add to the above a continued cheerleading from radio industry trade publications that does nothing more than echo the Radio Advertising Bureau's positive spin on everything, and you have a media that believes its own hype to the exclusion of all evidence.
Everyone who is in control in radio wears rose-colored glasses. Insiders actually believed that respect for radio would stand firm as the public was pelted with eight-minute commercial breaks, the same music over and over, and cluster jocks. Well, it has not.
The Smulyans, Dickeys, Mays, and Hogans have (with early help from the Michaels and Karmazins) dismantled a once magic medium, and there's no indication they know how to put it back together. Look at their track record in everything but the bottom line if you need proof. (Hell, the bottom line is pretty dismal too!)
I could go through pages of problems that have cropped up and have been ignored. A few of the standout mistakes are cutting newsrooms, increasing spotloads, killing the talent farm system, and ignoring youth. All, mind you, were accompanied with warnings that they would lead to a drop in audience loyalty and listening hours if allowed. Nothing was done, and you can see/hear the results.
Radio offers little to write about today because its basis is inaction, which is why this may be the last time the industry is written about here.
This web site starts its 10th year Saturday. Over these years radio has been scolded, praised, and guided by AudioGraphics.com content. There's not much in the way of "new" to discuss; radio is not offering new formats, commercials, sponsorships, or ways it selects music. (If I've missed something that is not a regurgitation of another media's presentation, like online music videos or podcasts, please let me know.)
Radio is trailing in electronic invoicing, audience measurement, and the integration of new media into the sales process (or the internet into sales packages). Radio's new morning show image is a washed up rocker who's never sat behind a broadcast microphone. Radio commercials are not showing the renewed creative flair that was promised a year ago, either.
Yes, the industry is hiring a public relations firm for HD Radio. Kind of late in the game, though, isn't it? Same pattern is shown for designing the HD Radio station selector grid, layered or expanded? Kind of late to be deciding something this vital to keeping the industry alive.
There's little to rally behind in what radio is doing today and, as stated, writing about the negatives is equally boring. So, what this web site delivers to your screen next week may not be about radio.
Ten years is long enough to be talking about one industry.
It may be time to expand.
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