Jim Farley Has Left The Building

12-27-13

Jim Farley started his broadcast career while attending Fordham University in 1966. He took a job as a copy boy at 1010 WINS in New York. A long and successful career was highlighted by his 17 years at WTOP where he was heavily involved in turning that station into the juggernaut it is today. Yesterday, Farley officially retired from his position as Vice President of News and Programming at Hubbard Radio's WTOP in Washington DC.

It was very emotional with a lot of hugs, goodbyes and cleaning out his desk. And, in keeping with his routine, even on his last day, Farley ate his lunch -- a sandwich brought from home -- at his desk while writing e-mails. There were a lot of people stopping by Farley's office to say goodbye, including several who came in on their day off. Farley admitted, "Leaving is harder than I thought it would be."

WTOP General Manager Joel Oxley said of Farley, ?Jim is legendary in our business, and deserves to be. His passion, creativity, energy, and intelligence have transformed WTOP from a second-rate product when he came here in 1996 to the best in the country today. He leads and inspires his people to be better every day. His enthusiasm is infectious not only in the newsroom, but throughout our entire operation and company. He is also one hell of a lot of fun to work with. I look forward to seeing him every single day and have for 17 years. I?ll miss him a ton both personally and professionally, but I am thrilled for Jim that he is going out on top. I?m also glad he is going to continue with WTOP as our programming consultant. Simply put, Jim is the best and I wish him nothing but the best!?

Farley spent his last day making sure the staff was compensated for the station's recent ratings. "Everybody participates in the upside here, not just drivetime talent and the PD like most radio stations that still pay bonuses."  Laurie Cantillo will now officially take Farley's position at WTOP, Farley's been training her for months.

Read our 2013 cover story on Jim Farley which ran on May 20.
Contact Jim Farley at jfarley@wtop.com

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Cumulus Nashville Building Toy Field

12-8-13

Tomorrow, along with the Salvation Army, Cumulus Nashville?s 103.3 WKDF, 104-5 The Zone, Super Talk 99.7 WTN, i106, 92Q, and 95.5 FM-WSM will build a toy field for the Salvation Army Forgotten Angel Program. According to the Salvation Army Nashville, several hundreds of those ?angels? will not be adopted. To ensure each child has a special Christmas, the Forgotten Angel shop will provide gifts. It's the 6th year for this community event.

Middle Tennessee listeners and client partners will help fulfill the dreams of many ?forgotten children? as toys are dropped off to LP Field Tuesday between 6:00 a.m. and 7:00 p.m.

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(TRAINING) Building The Perfect Beast

8-5-2013

How would you like your next applicant to walk into your operation with on-air, production, promotion, programming, copywriting, proposal, presentation, and sales skills? Luce Performance Group has been asked to develop such a product in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia to build the talent pool for an existing staff and potential candidates.

After a lengthy screening process that included a Skype presentation, we were notified that our training product was the most comprehensive. Regardless of cultural and language differences, the end result of the school is creating well-rounded broadcasters in a new media world, and that means cross-training.

What set us apart? Asking questions about what was important to them, what the trainee will possess when the training concludes, and having a proven, written curriculum in the major disciplines they were after was critical. Among the resources and training concepts that we developed during the process:

1)  A unique concept. In a perfect world, we would all want well-rounded candidates to walk through the doors of our operation. They would be trained in the skills necessary to step into various positions and work their way up to becoming sustaining resources. If we want employees like that, why not develop a curriculum to deliver the skills?

2)  Profiles. A screening process that helps the trainer train the trainee. Jon Morse administers the Profile XT screenings with Luce Performance Group which allows us to look at the skill set of each student before class begins. It not only measures the skills, it makes specific recommendations for what training focus to use for each individual. If you know a candidate struggles with math, it recommends ways to train the basic skills with the individual.

3)  Networking. Develop a resource base of trusted industry professionals in the various disciplines required. We all know professionals we trust and come highly recommended by their peers, but could you pull together a training program with your network? Do they have a written curriculum that can be translated and adapted to cultural and regional differences?

4)  Vision. Developing a training program for the positions and skill set you want in the future is an ongoing task, but having a realistic, attainable goal in mind when developing the program yields the best outcome. Taking into account the various social and new media alternatives and revenue streams, as well as being able to adapt and add new training elements to meet emerging trends, is critical.

5)  Communication. Our own sales training system uses a CMP (Customer Marketing Profile) and we adapted that process with our client and asked the questions to establish the baselines for the program. Realizing that the process is never-ending, we continue to gather answers and refine the process.

6)  History. Knowing what kind of training the students have received, if any besides on the job, can really help lay the groundwork for what skills need to be reinforced and developed. Understanding the existing equipment and software they are using and what they want to use in the future is just as important. Our client wants cutting-edge technology and has gone through a complete transmitter upgrade a couple of years ago. They understand reliability and streamlining workflow through technology.

7)  Consultation. We have all had to train our clients as we have introduced new programs, platforms, and business solutions and this latest client is no different. They are embracing the changes that forward-thinking training will bring and needed a resource to educate public and private entities. In-market visits to evaluate and modify the process along with scheduled strategic planning sessions and weekly conference calls give them oversight into the program and give us valuable feedback to exceed expectations.

8)  Exit Strategy. The goal of the program is to not only train the students but to also build an interior training staff in the same manner that we train sales managers to execute our program. Developing a commitment to training and consultation for the long-term allows us to work with staff members, educate them, nurture them, and then help them make the transition into trainers. The ongoing consultation will keep the program moving forward and the availability for our staff to update skill sets and introduce new curriculum gives the program fluidity.

Any of you that have been frustrated with your own group or staff training program realize that the key to a program is following a plan that has realistic goals that encompass ?building the perfect beast."

Mark Maier is the Head Western Instructor for the Luce Performance Group and can be reached at Mark@luceperformancegroup.com or www.luceperformancegroup.com.

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Criticism Building Against Minneapolis Host

4-23-13

Bob Davis (left) is one half of the "Davis and Emmer" show on Clear Channel's KTCN-AM in Minneapolis. Something he said about the Newtown families has caused at least one advertiser to cancel according to the Star-Tribune. President Obama has been traveling the country with the families pushing his gun control proposal and Davis does not agree with that approach and he said so on the air.

On April 12th, Davis said, I don?t care if it?s here in Minneapolis or anyplace else: Just because a bad thing happened to you doesn?t mean that you get to put a king in charge of my life. I?m sorry that you suffered a tragedy, but you know what? Deal with it, and don?t force me to lose my liberty, which is a greater tragedy than your loss."

The newspaper says Davis is being offered an all-expenses-paid trip to Newtown to repeat what he said on the air recently in front of the families. During his April 12th rant, Davis also said, ?I?m sick and tired of seeing these victims trotted out, given rides on Air Force One, hauled into the Senate well, and everyone is ? terrified of these victims. I would stand in front of them and tell them, ?Go to hell.???

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Illinois Flood Surrounds Radio Station Building

4-24-13

This is the NextMedia building in Lake County Illinois. GM Karl Wertzler tells Radio Ink, The recent flooding from the storms turned his Waukegan radio stations WLXC-FM and ESPN Deportes into a radio island.  "Throughout the mess, many of the staff members stayed in the building to lend a hand with bailing and sandbagging and the efforts paid off. WXLC remained on the air while Deportes was down for only a brief period of time." 

Wertzler added, the parking lot was just under waist deep at its peak and the floors were saturated inside the building. "I think we have officially made up for the drought conditions on our local level.  While the standing water will remain for several days, we are in pretty good shape overall.  I understand this is the worst flooding we have had since 1986."

WERV-FM General Manager Scott Kosak says his station fared OK but listeners had many more challenges to face in their homes, their neighborhoods, and on their regular routes of travel. "We were regularly announcing road closures and school closures in local areas in the western suburbs.  The same was true for various stations who super serve defined suburban areas in the Northern, North Western, and South Western suburbs of Chicagoland.  It's times like this where, in a major market like Chicago, our hyper-localized suburban based power proves its' value in keeping our listeners as updated as possible in their immediate area."  

Reach out to Karl Wertzler at kwertzler@nextmediachicago.com
Reach out to Scott Kosak at SKosak@NextMediaChicago.com

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(SALES) Building Better For 2013

10-3-2012

 Remember vinyl records? Do you know why the larger records, called LPs, had the small center-holes, and the smaller records, called 45s, had the larger holes?

I discovered the reason when an old record company press room foreman shared the answer to the mystery of the holes with me. He explained that 45s were actually manufactured with the same size holes as LPs, but they were sent to a separate press to punch the holes bigger.

The reason, he said, dated back to the turn of the 20th century. RCA Victor commanded the lion?s share of the phonograph market and decided they could command the lead in the recording industry as well by producing records with larger holes and producing phonographs with larger spindles. RCA had such a commanding lead in phonograph sales, that all of the other record companies had to eventually follow suit, punching the larger holes in their records.

?Every year I recommended deleting the person, the process, and the equipment that punches those larger holes from my operating budget,? said the foreman. ?But every year the union and management saw fit to leave it in. Maybe they had shares in the company that sells those plastic hole reducers,? he mused.

Budgeting mistake #1: Assuming last year was a good benchmark

Many broadcasters who are in the midst of planning and budgeting for their new fiscal year will make that same mistake. Many will instinctively assume the process begins by using previous years as acceptable bench marks. Doing so makes the dangerous assumption that what you did last year was just fine, or that you reached your full potential. Seldom is that the case.

A zero-based planning and budgeting process allows you to think creatively about what could be, rather than compounding the mistakes or shortcomings caused by focusing on what was.

Zero-based budgeting and planning involves starting with a clean slate; not encumbering your thoughts with accounting practices or entitlement mentalities, but building the perfect plan or department from the ground up.

Zero-based planning and budgeting opens a whole new world of possibilities, shaking up processes and targets which may have gone stale or have become complacent over time, like punching bigger holes in 45s.

Budgeting mistake #2: Aiming too low
 
Behold the turtle, for it makes no progress until it sticks its neck out.

There is no doubt, the turtle is more safe when its head is tucked in its protective shell. Many radio managers protect their job security by creating "safe" budgets that keep them in their shells.

And CEOs compound the problem by offering incentives for managers who "over achieve" on their low-balled targets. We actually incentivize them to target low!

Its? like letting politicians vote on their own raises. Duh! Of course they?re going to vote to increase their salaries, or in the case of insecure or bonus-hungry managers, they?ll target low.

Chicago?s visionary architect, Daniel H. Burnham, is quoted as saying ?Make no little plans; they have no magic to stir men?s blood. Make big plans; aim high in hope and work.?

Or, as Henry Ford put it: ?Whether you think you can, or think you can?t, you are right!?

It?s time our industry started to think we can, and to come out of our protective shells.

Wayne Ens is the president of ENS Media Inc. and producer of SoundADvice, the radio e-marketing system and advertiser seminar that is persuading local advertisers across North America to drop their print advertising in favor of a radio-Internet media mix. He can be reached at wayne@wensmedia.com 

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(SALES) Building "Relationships"

7-18-2012

By Wayne Ens

Early in my career as a media sales consultant, I asked my friend and consultant Jim Tazarek, who worked with stations on both sides of the Canada-U.S. border, "What do you see as the difference between the way Canadians sell and the way Americans sell?" "Taz" as he's known, said, "Canadians build strong customer relationships. My American friends only talk about building customer relationships."

Having since helped stations north and south of the Canadian border to increase their local sales, I now understand what Taz meant. And today, being a Canadian myself, I can tell you that many Canadians have also learned the art of paying lip service to being customer-focused while doggedly chasing this month's budget without considering what that pursuit might do for their brand and their customer relationships.

The irony is that solid customer-relationships have never been so important or profitable. With virtually every media, traditional and "new," evolving and fragmenting daily, advertisers have never been so confused.

Never in my 42 years in media sales have I seen local advertisers so desperate to find someone they can trust and rely on to help them make sound advertising decisions amidst all of the hype from new media reps every week.
But for those who want to learn the art of simply talking about being customer-focused, I've developed my Top 10 list of How to Talk It Without Walking It.

1. Center all of your incentives and recognition around this month's sales.
2. Don't conduct customer satisfaction surveys or measure the customer satisfaction indexes for each of your salespeople.
3. Use "relationship" and "friendship" as if they were synonymous terms. Your customers don't want a relationship with an expert who can help them improve their return on advertising investment. They just want to play golf with their media reps.
4. Tell yourself customer loyalty is a thing of the past. Even satisfied customers will always do business with the lowest bidder, with no consideration for results or return on investment.
5. Have no rewards or incentives for account executive's high renewal rates or organic growth.
6. Only recognize and reward "new business." You can take your existing business for granted.
7. Don't train your account executives how to position radio's strategic fit in the new media landscape.
8. You don't need to differentiate yourself and the way you do business. You don't need quality of calls, you need quantity of calls.
9. Tell your salespeople, "Sales is a numbers game." Simply hustle discount or promotional packages door-to-door. Eventually someone will buy.
10. Never let your top salespeople out-earn your sales manager. The guy with the bigger title deserves the biggest paycheck regardless of performance.
11. Pick the low hanging fruit. Only call on advertisers whom you know will use radio. It's way too tough to convert non-radio advertisers to use radio.
12. If you're having a bad month or have lots of inventory, offer a one-time advertiser, or tough negotiator, a better rate than your best 52-week advertiser.
13. Sell spots, rankers, packages, and ratings. Let the customer figure out what to say in her ads. It's not your job to develop a creative campaign or big idea for your clients.
14. Use snappy comebacks and tricky closing techniques like the "assumptive close," the "alternate choice close," or the "sneak up behind them and whack 'em" close. Your customers have never been exposed to those ploys from other reps so they're bound to work for you.
15. Only talk to "the decision-maker." They never invite input from their staff or talk to their suppliers or customers, so you can simply by-pass or be rude to everyone else the decision-maker meets.
16. Measure your own success by quarterly EBITDA or revenues. Customer satisfaction and results don't really matter because there are enough fish in the sea to replace dissatisfied customers.
17. Salespeople should never invest in themselves. They should only use the training and tools that the company pays for. After all the company benefits from their successful use of training and tools too.
18. If you do decide to invest in training, make it sales training. You don't need to know anything about marketing, advertising, or what works and does not work in the new-media environment.
19. Only pursue revenue development programs that produce instant results. "Branding" and long-term results are for your clients, not for you.
20. Never say "no" to a client even if you know the campaign they want to book will not work for them.
21. Rankers and research always win. Your clients will never believe other media's claims to be "number one" but they'll always believe your number one claim. And they'll never buy a medium that isn't number one regardless of the brand or relationship they build.

Sorry, I promised you 10 ways to talk the customer-relationship talk without walking the walk, but I was on a roll and stopped at 21. I'm sure there are more. If you have some to add to this list, I'd appreciate hearing from you at wayne@wensmedia.com       

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(SOCIAL) Building Your Social Media Army

(SOCIAL) Building Social Media Cheerleaders For Your Station

Rush Limbaugh just decided to join Twitter to mobilize his army. For you and your station, the fun really begins when you decide to build an active social media ?army? to boost your brand messages and move listeners from passionate to influencers. Are you ready?

1. Form specific strategy and get it in writing.  Having a plan is the most important part.  If you don?t start with a plan, you will get lost quickly and end up somewhere else. 

2. Tap your team and make sure everyone is on the same page, prepared and responsible for executing the plan you have laid out.  Educate your team on the specifics of your plan.   You will want to lean on the people or person on your team who has shown abilities to influence behavior.  Yes, in radio you might be this person or ?the whole team,? but you can manage this using the right social media strategy.  And the payoff potential is huge.

3. Find the people who already express passion about your brand in social media environments you choose.  Don?t go ?too broad? at first.  Focus your energies on building one platform at a time.  Zero in on people who are already engaging your brand and look for more.  You should also research the top local bloggers, the active people giving advice in forums and those who are really spending time managing on-line activities (especially in your platform of choice as you begin).  These people can be very powerful in both including your brand in messages and creating an entirely next level social media profile for your brand in the coming months and even years.

4. You want to build long-term relationships with the right influencers (see number 3 above).  So, invite these people to a show-off event at the station.   This does not have to be done as one event for everyone.   Invite them in segments to individual events (such as community involvement, format lovers, brand fans).  Make sure your team is there to meet them and treat them special.  Keep things light, but invite them to have influence on the station through sharing ideas about their passion for management to consider.  Talk about what is important to them and seek their help in helping the station match their passion with the goals of the station to be active in the social media platform of your choosing (or their expertise). 

5. Make sure they understand that you seek their involvement in influencing the format locally, influencing a cause locally or other project related to engaging them on the ground of their own passion.  However, make sure you have guidelines that marry well with the audience expectations of the radio station and community standards.  There have to be guidelines for how the station can be referenced and off-limit content.

6. Give them special insider identification.  This is similar to having a street team.  Giving a special badge or symbol that can be used as a part of their signature on your community blog or other vehicle can go a long way in terms of people feeling ownership of their passion associated with your project.

7. Make them a part of what you are doing with special invites to station events from time to time as a VIP.  This goes a long way in also making these influencers feel special and feeds the fire of passion for continuing to be your advocate in social media environments.

Don?t try to do too much at the beginning.  Take baby steps.  Doing this is based on the idea of building strength and participation over time with real world results for your brand.  Decide what kind of advocacy program you want to begin, and begin building your plan.  Then, take each individual step above slowly to make sure you are following the plan and getting actives to become influencers for your brand.

Radio is social.  People will respond to being engaged by you if you build your plan correctly and have specific goals in mind.  And your brand will become more socially active and stronger over time.

Loyd Ford programmed very successful radio brands in markets of all sizes for years, including KRMD AM & FM in Shreveport, WSSL and WMYI in Greenville, WKKT in Charlotte and WBEE in Rochester, NY. Learn more about Loyd here: http://about.me/loydford.
Reach out to Loyd via e-mail HERE
Visit his Facebook radio social media page www.facebook.com/socialnetworking4radio

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SOCIAL)- 6 Keys To Building Listener Relationships

2-9-2012
There's a lot of hype involved with social media, and there are a lot of radio pros that have not yet awakened to the idea that systemic shift can ?get you? if you don?t move now to protect your best relationships. If you are not using social media to expand contact, encourage loyalty with real value-based content and grow listening occasions for your brands, you are setting up future critical failure of your brand. 

Since about 81% of your listeners would be more likely to try friends? suggestions (such as a new station, music or an on-air feature), social media offers an essential way for you to really make a difference in your ratings?.if you do it right.  So, the question remains:  How do you best build a strategy that your limited staff and resources can execute to strengthen your brand for the future?

Here are 6 Key Ingredients To Build Listener Relationships thru Social Media:

1. Dismiss social media apathy.  Don?t just let your competitor take all your listeners and listeners on the fringe because you are not active.  Many radio stations don?t have active real social media strategies.  If your competitor does and you don?t, you are on the road to lower ratings.  Social media is being used

by select radio stations to strengthen relationships and actually grow new ones. 

2. Have a specific social media strategy that very frequently leads listeners back to the broadcast signal.  While radio companies would never allow DJ?s  to show up and play whatever they want, this is often their total social media strategy.  What are the details in your strategy for social media that focus on getting  listeners to spend more of their loyalty with your broadcast brand?  If you can?t think of any, you don?t have a plan.

3. Learn the posting patterns on social media sites.  Some of this is social media science (7 a.m., 5 p.m., 10 a.m.).   Some of this is also basic listener  science.  Look at the drive-time patterns in your market.  Getting in a groove with your listeners and potential listeners is important.

4. Use video and marry it with usable content that is important to the listeners you want to attract.  Have you ever used YouTube to look up ?How To?  do something?  Your listeners have done this a lot.  Try it.  Then, think about ways you can create content based upon local questions or lifestyle-based  opportunities with the listeners you want to attract.

5. Focus your social media on how and why listeners choose your brand and what makes you special.  With an eye on attracting more listeners like the  ones you already have, focus on bringing the message of why and how people connect with you on your social media.

6. Bring your social media into your other forms of contact marketing (such as listener email, website, direct mail and more).  Make it easy for listeners  to make the choice to use your brand. 

If you?re lucky, you have a competitor who doesn?t believe in social media. So, use social media with a real strategy to cut their throat.  Don?t be quick to judge  your social media negatively.  It isn?t advertising (so don?t treat it like advertising).  It?s a relationship building opportunity.  Judge your social media work by  your strategy and stay focused on relationship building based upon what is important to the listeners you want to attract.  Spend your time building the proper  strategy and focus on what you know is right for your radio brand. Over time you will feel real impact based upon your filters (from the strategy) and leave your  competitor puzzled.   

Loyd Ford is the direct marketing, ratings and social media strategist for Americalist and programmed very successful radio brands in markets of all sizes for years, including KRMD AM & FM in Shreveport, WSSL and WMYI in Greenville, WKKT in Charlotte and WBEE in Rochester, NY. Learn more about Loyd here: http://about.me/loydford. Reach out to Loyd via e-mail HERE Visit his Facebook radio social media page HERE

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Beck Building New Studios In Texas

12-16-2011

Glenn Beck's production company Mercury Radio Arts says it will set-up GBTV Studios and an entertainment destination at the Studios at Las Colinas in Irving, Texas. The new facility will include a television and radio studio including room for a live audience of 500 people. Beck said ?I have come to know and respect the people of Texas and could not be more excited about GBTV studios - the future home of GBTV and a multi-platform destination for the fusion of entertainment and enlightenment. We are proud to become part of the Dallas-Fort Worth area and are eager to become good neighbors and members of the local community.?

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Bustos Building Again. Purchases Four in Portland.

With a goal of owning 20 stations within 5 years, Amador Bustos is 1/5 of the way there. Bustos exercised his option to purchase four stations in Portland Oregon that he had been LMAing from Adelante Media Group since October. The stations are; KGDD-AM, a Regional Mexican format, KXET-AM (a simulcast with 93.5 FM), KOOR-AM (Russian Radio 7 ? Religious music and talk) and KRYN-AM (Radio Familiar ?  Spanish Christina).

Bustos had a pretty rough go his last time around the radio block. Back in 2010 Bustos Media had to forfeit its radio and television stations when it went into default. Bustos told Radio Ink last night "Minority broadcasters are an ?endangered species.?  My mission is a conservation effort to not have this species become totally extinct.  I want to establish Bustos Media as a premier small privately owned Spanish language regional broadcast group."

Bustos says the time to get back in is now. "The market place could not be better to grow a broadcast group, but since I want to do it without external private equity, it may take longer to execute.  For that reason,  I may be unable to take advantage of all the opportunities currently available. I would like to have approximately 20 stations in four markets within fairly close geographical proximity." His lesson after losing his stations the first time around; "Take the least possible high-priced private equity or bank debt."

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