Morris Tells Radio To Think Outside The Box

3-5-15

Chad Morris is the head coach of the SMU football team. His keynote at the Radio Ink Sports Radio Conference focused on his secrets to winning. Morris, who also coached at Clemson, has a motto: "adapt or die." He says it's paramount to adapt to the market and he tells his coaches and players they have to think outside the box and avoid acting in a cookie-cutter environment. The coaching lessons struck home with the radio attendees. Morris says teamwork is just as important on the field as it is in the studio.

Morris drove home the concept that it's more important to discuss with your team what you can do to improve your situation, and to avoid "energy vampires." "Don't just tell me what's bad, tell me what we're going to do to improve the situation. Put a discussion together with your team and figure out what's next." He also stressed how important it is to stay on the cutting edge of whatever your field is. "Your competition is working on what's next. Someone is going to be on the cutting edge, challenge your team to brainstorm what is next, what will work and stay innovative. It's instrumental to look to the future, get it working, and stay on the cutting edge. Sometimes you have to take a gamble, take a chance, think outside the box."

Morris helped the Clemson Tigers to the 2011 ACC Championships, and four bowl berths, including two BCS Orange Bowls. In 2012, Clemson set school records for total offense per game, points per game, and the 2013 offense average 507.7 yards and 40.2 points per game.

(3/7/2015 10:21:53 AM)
All very jolly and certainly a viable, worthy and necessary premise.

However - and I expect little argument - most radio managers have yet to define the box they are already in.

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And What Does the NAB Think About it?

11-15-13
In response to the FCC approving a Declaratory Ruling that would make it easier for broadcasters to attract foreign investors, NAB President and CEO Gordon Smith said, "NAB applauds the FCC for providing flexibility in Commission rules allowing increased foreign investment in broadcast TV and radio stations. We are especially pleased the FCC recognized that local broadcasters routinely provide ?local news, Amber Alerts and public safety information? to serve our communities. The vote provides broadcasters greater access to capital that will allow local stations to continue our indispensable role as the primary purveyor of news, entertainment and lifeline information to the American people."

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Think Of NASH As The ESPN Of Country Music

10-28-13

2014 is expected to be the big national rollout year for Cumulus' NASH Country brand. Part of the reason for waiting another quarter is the expected close of Westwood One. That would allow Cumulus to roll all of its Country network products into the NASH brand, which will include everything from magazines to radio shows to merchandising. And platform buys for advertisers. There will be a lot of experimenting with the NASH brand in 2014, including a subscription model for the magazine which the company hopes to get into Target, Wal-Mart, and other stores across the country.

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What Does Norm Think About the Westwood Name?

8-29-13

Norm Pattiz founded Westwood One. The company provided news, sports, entertainment, talk, and traffic programming. Westwood One owned, managed, or distributed NBC radio networks, CBS News, CNN radio, the Mutual Broadcasting System, NFL Football, NCAA Basketball plus March Madness, the Super Bowl, and the Winter and Summer Olympic Games. Under his stewardship Westwood became a very recognizable brand on radio stations all over America. And when the company was dissolved into Dial Global, all that branding and the name Westwood One were gone. New Dial Global CEO Paul Caine seems to recognize how important the Westwood One name was. Dial Global is expected to go back to the Westwood name any day now. We spoke to the former Westwood CEO about the name change, the big deal about to be announced and the network business. And we asked him the big question. If he were still in charge would he make this deal with Cumulus? LISTEN HERE

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Is Radio as Strong as You Think?

An article in mysanantonia.com says Internet radio is contributing to the decline of traditional radio. "Since the turn of the century, the onslaught of new technology has contributed significantly to the dimming commercial radio's star." The piece credits huge debt for Clear Channel and others as another negative factor and quotes Edison's Larry Rosin saying ?Pandora is clearly stealing time from commercial radio music stations, primarily among people under 35 years old.?

The article also quotes paragon's Larry Johnson about the decline in radio listening. "While the percentage of the population that listens to radio has remained almost constant during the past decade, time spent listening to the radio consistently has declined by about 15 minutes a year for the past 20 years."Johnson said the drop "has been especially pronounced among younger listeners, who usually are among the early adapters of new technology and services ? such as iPods and Pandora. However, he added, there's no clear way to see if those declines have been caused by listeners leaving radio for online streaming services."

A study by the Katz Radio Group provided by Johnson to mysanantonio.com showed that listeners between the ages 18-34 listened to 15.25 hours of broadcast radio every week during spring 2011, while listeners between the ages 35-64 listened to 17.5 hours of radio every week.

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What Do The Big Groups Think Of The Deal?

12-18-2012

Radio group heads we spoke to were in a wait-and-see mode yesterday after the announcement was made that Nielsen would be purchasing Arbitron. Clear Channel Radio CEO John Hogan told Radio Ink, ?We think it?s a step in the right direction that Nielsen recognizes that radio, TV, and digital are the top three critical media to marketers, and that this combination has the potential to offer broader insights and better measurement across multiple platforms." And digital may be the key component to this deal for radio.

Arbitron has consistently stated it's been working on a measurement platform that would give advertisers a true number of radio listeners. That number would include over-the-air and online totals. Everyone agrees that listening is migrating to mobile devices and tablets and without that true combined number that can be easily presented to advertisers in an understandable and reliable presentation, radio pretty much gets robbed of those listeners.

Nielsen CEO David Calhoun spoke a lot about "streaming audio" and the importance of making that measurement platform happen for the radio industry. And Nielson has announced several digital partnerships, including one this week with Twitter, that certainly benefit its TV clients.

Then, of course, there's the Pandora problem. Some on the call yesterday seemed to think the radio industry was giving Arbitron grief about the possibility Arbitron would measure pure-play Internet companies. Radio is Arbitron's Golden Goose and Pandora's stated objective is too take revenue away from radio. Seems quite logical the radio industry would have a little problem with Arbitron providing a service to a direct competitor when it was radio that helped build a company that was ultimately sold for $1.2-plus billion.

Here's what soon-to-be Arbitron CEO Sean Creamer said about the Internet "disrupters." "Arbitron's job is to measure radio no matter how radio is defined. We need to measure pure-plays. We never said we would not measure anyone." Creamer said the marketplace is working out how radio is defined, clearly leaving the door open to measure Pandora and all other Internet radio companies.

At the end of the day, the major issues that the radio industry wants Arbitron to fix are still on the table. They are small sample sizes, wild swings in the data, and cross-platform measurement. Not to mention the cost. If those issues get fixed by Nielsen and the revenue that comes to radio increases, December 18 will have been a good day for radio. If one or two years from now the Arbitron Radio Advisory Council is still concerned about the same issues it seems its been concerned about for years, December 18 will go down in the record books as just another day.

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(SALES MEETING PODCAST) Understand How Agencies Think To Get More of The Buy

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8/15/2012

Like it or not, until radio changes the way it is rated, agencies all across the country are going to set the rules for how much money they spend with us. You can play the CPP and added value game their way or you walk and leave money on the table. To at least be considered for more of a buy it's important to know what these agencies are thinking of us as a medium and you as a rep. What do they expect from you and are you delivering that? Why are we treated differently than TV? How can you really pitch them digital so you are getting additional money and not just bringing a digital order back to the station that you would have gotten with spots anyway.

In this weeks Radio Ink Sales Meeting Podcast, we spoke with Kara Hocking, the owner of Hocking Media in Detroit. Hocking spent over 25 years at an advertising agency in Troy before opening up her own shop in 2008. Her accounts included Blue Cross Blue Shield and Comercia which accounted for over $30 Million annually.

In our interview Hocking says she uses radio to great success for her clients because of radio's ability to engage the consumer. On what radio salespeople need to improve, she doesn't hesitate, "customer service." She believes radio plays too many commercials, it's more difficult to track than Pandora, Clear Channel should sell ads on iHeartradio should sell ads and reps do not understand how to speak the language of digital.

Here is our interview with Kara Hocking of Hocking Media.

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(DIGITAL) Klout: Think You're So Important

Do you obsess over your Klout score as much as you do your PPM numbers?  It?s highly doubtful you do, and I?d be worried if you did.  But for many in the socially-savvy world, this number claiming to represent how much influence you have, how much of a rock star you are in your social circles, has become quite the game, if not an all-out obsession.

If you?re on a mission to figure out just how a Klout score is calculated, good luck.  That?s an ongoing head-scratcher within the social marketing industry and frankly, it?s been one reason this score is taken by many with a far above-average grain of salt.  The conundrum is, if you don?t know what this score is based on, how can you take action steps that will get your Klout number up? 

The best thing we know how to do is to a) focus on quality of fans and followers vs. quantity.  Inactive, spamming or non-engaged fans are going to hurt you, and can be weeded out with a variety of tools such as contaxio and TwerpScan.  b) We also know that if your tweets are retweeted and your posts are shared, your score goes up.  As always, good content is the baseline ingredient for that.  So there?s the ?magic? formula, get a lot of followers who are genuinely into you, and give them content that?s good enough to share.

All well and good, but what does a Klout score really mean?  According to a new report by Brian Solis of The Altimeter Group, not that much.  He says Klout and other tools like it, such as PeerIndex, don?t measure influence.  They only measure the capacity to influence.  Solis defines digital influence as ?causing effect, changing behavior, and driving measurable outcomes.?  He says these scoring tools don?t take into account how complex influence is or the nature of relationships within social networks.

PeerIndex responded to the study saying that?s just a matter of semantics, essentially asserting the capacity to influence IS influence.  Solis says there are 3 pillars of influence, reach, resonance and relevance that determine how a brand or person can affect their social network.  He doesn?t believe Klout scores address the subtleties of these three things.  The danger is that brands will go running down the rabbit hole chasing a Klout score, while at the same time missing the human relationship elements that actually drive one person to influence another person to take specific action?such as listen to your radio station.

So what are your takeaways?  Don?t worry about Klout or PeerIndex scores.  BUT?do worry about the things that make them go up or down.  The quality of a social network fan or follower is more important than the quantity.  This goes against our radio mindset in which a warm body is a warm body, and that?s all we need.  Social is not passive entertainment like radio listening, and your fans should be actively engaged with you.  If none of their friends ever see them interacting with or mentioning your station, they are of little value.  And, in order to get your fans to interact with and mention your station, they have to be getting really, really good content from you.  They?re not going to mention you out of charity. 

When you?ve earned and built a virtual army of deeply devoted fans ready to leap into action whenever you put out the call, that?s when you?ll have influence.

Mike Stiles is a brand content specialist with the social marketing tech platform, Vitrue. Check out his monologue blog, The Stiles Files & follow him @mikestiles

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