WSOU Collects Hundreds of Pounds of Food

11-26-14

The New Jersey student-run radio station at Seton Hall University completed a food drive for donations of nonperishable food for the Community FoodBank of New Jersey. Spearheaded by station manager Erica Szczepaniak, hundreds of pounds of food and money was collected. The donations came primarily from students. Szczepaniak said, ?We wanted to engage the campus community in a different way. Remotes in the University Center are great, but with food insecurity continuing to be a major societal  issue, we felt it was important to use the power of radio to get people involved in helping others.? 

Szczepaniak noted that Feeding America?s Hunger in America 2014 national report found that 900,000 people in the New Jersey rely on food banks and that the demand for support from organizations like the Community FoodBank of New Jersey remains high despite an improving economy.  ?Children and adults in New Jersey who go hungry will continue to be an issue in the years ahead.  That is why WSOU will expand its efforts in 2015 to bring greater awareness to problem of food insecurity in the garden state,? Szczepaniak added. 

WSOU began broadcasting in 1948 and was the first college FM radio station in New Jersey.  Celebrated for its loud rock format and coverage of Seton Hall athletics, WSOU?s signal reaches all five boroughs of New York City and much of northern and central New Jersey and is available on iHeartRadio.   More information about the station can be found online at http://www.wsou.net/ and www.facebook.com/WSOUFM.

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Pandora CEO Pounds Radio's Weak Spot - Massive Spotloads

2-14-2013

Pandora CEO Joe Kennedy was interviewed by Goldman Sach's Internet analyst Heath Terry Wednesday morning where he continued his attack on traditional radio and his plan to chip away at radio's $15 billion in annual ad revenue. He said, "We see this year enabling us to accelerate our penetration of the traditional radio market." Kennedy also used Wednesday's appearance as an opportunity to take a swipe at radio's huge spot loads. An area he certainly makes a very good point as the radio industry has never seriously addressed its massive hourly spot loads.

Kennedy said the ad load on traditional radio is crushing at 13 minutes an hour, adding, in radio's model, the more you bury an advertiser in a stopset the more they want to do something goofy to get attention. "Pandora is closer to 1 minute. Traditional radio uses more 60 second ads and Pandora mostly 15 and 30 second spots." And although Kennedy was not specific with how many commercials Pandora will go to, he says the ad load three years ago was zero. "We gradually raised that to 1-2 ads per ads. We'll continue to raise the ad load but it will be much lower compared to where traditional radio is.

Kennedy said in 2013, Pandora will have salespeople selling in radio's top 25 markets, up from top 10. He says those salespeople will not be going after local restaurants and local spa's. "We're going after the bigger advertisers. These are large and medium sized businesses in the local markets. We are in earliest stages to disrupt traditional market of radio advertising.

On content cost, Kennedy said Pandora content cost Pandora pays is unfairly high and we're working to try to get that to a more fair level. At the same time we are so good at monetizing at what we do that we can build and make a good business model with costs where they are (40% of revenue). That, he admits, will come from adding more spots every hour.

EDITOR'S NOTE: I listen to Pandora every day during my workouts. Mostly because Kennedy is correct about stopsets on radio stations. They are way too long and most creative is very bad. So I use Pandora because it's too time consuming to flip through apps or TuneIn to find music when working out. However, it's just as annoying when constantly hit with a pop-up ad from Pandora on my phone. Most of those ads have zero relevance to me. Analysts have never asked Pandora about those.

Ed Ryan
Editor
Radio Ink

(2/15/2013 2:10:05 AM)
Joe, keep terrestrial radio bent over! LMFAO!!!
(2/14/2013 9:55:22 PM)
I've worked radio for 37 years, mostly smaller markets and I don't ever apologize for my spotload. Competition forces me to keep my rates low, so I'm forced to do what all radio announcers should know how to do...keep an audience interested so they listen to the commercial break. If I'm not able to do that, I've failed as an announcer. The lions share of broadcasters think playing music is their job which is a misguided belief. It's a business, treat it as such.
(2/14/2013 9:52:01 PM)
What we're talkin' here are apples and arseholes. (I'll leave it to others to determine which is which.)

We are our own worst enemies. Pandora is just another big streamer. Time to tend to our own knitting - exclusively.

(2/14/2013 6:03:03 PM)
When I read some of these comments about the alleged strength of local radio and the supposed weakness of Pandora, I recall Shakespeare's line, "Methinks thou doest protest too much!"
(2/14/2013 2:31:55 PM)
I think Joe makes Pandora sound extremely vulnerable. If radio lowered the spot count tomorrow, he may be seriously in trouble. So why not drop all the barter, all the remnant stuff, and drive rates for our increased demand?
Win win for us. Lose lose for them.

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Clear Channel's Castronovo Drops 100 Pounds

Paul Castronovo has been hanging out behind a radio microphone for over 30 years. That's three decades in a job that's mostly sedentary. Castronovo and partner Ron Brewer are now doing mornings in South Florida for Clear Channel. The duo has been together since 1991. We spoke to Castronovo about his spectacular weight loss success and what prompted him to make changes to his lifestyle.

How much weight did you lose and how long did it take you?
Typical radio guy with bad habits here. Up at 4 a.m., run out the door, eat crap from clients, or starve until the show's over. Eat a bad, heavy lunch, take a nap, eat dinner, pass out. Do it again the next day. Finally, around two years ago, the Miami Dolphins challenged me to do a 30-mile bike ride for cancer, and since my wife is a breast cancer survivor, I couldn't say no. I started out slowly, 10 miles a few days a week, until I worked myself up to do the big ride. Now, I'm down 100 pounds, and would consider myself an avid cyclist.

How do you feel after losing all that weight, compared to having it all on you?
I tell you what feels good, all the hot babes that are throwing themselves at me, it's getting ridiculous, it's a curse really. No, the truth is, I am a different guy now and tend to be a lot more active.

What's your plan to keep it off?
I've got a personal trainer that I train with three days a week at the gym. (I'm paying him, so you know I'm not gonna blow it off!). The other days, I'll ride the bike. Listen, I love to eat and drink, hell, I own a vineyard in Italy (www.castronovovineyards.com) so, I eat healthy Monday to Friday and I go out to dinner on the weekends. It's a pretty simple plan, but it works for me.

Radio isn't exactly a strenuous line of work?
Hey, I have to walk all the way to the bathroom! I've all but banned the free food that the restaurants and clients want to throw at us every damn morning. It's so easy to slide into that. I eat every three hours, but I am eating healthy stuff. There's a company down here that delivers healthy, quality, fresh foods to my house.

Have you become a fitness preacher now?
Oh yeah, I'm annoying the hell out of my radio partner, Ron, but I don't throw it in my listeners' faces. There's nothing worse than being "that guy."

What advice can you give other radio people about how to try to stay fit and healthy at a job that's mostly sedentary?
Seriously, get the food right and make exercise a priority. It's just what I do Monday to Friday. They say 90 percent of it is diet, and I believe that. Pay for a trainer and have them help you get your metabolism going.

Congratulate Castronovo on his weight loss success HERE 

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