Entravision Uses Facebook, Scores Big With Latino Rock Concert in L.A.

11-1-2012

One reason Entravision had a big 3rd quarter (see story below) was one of the company's most successful annual events. Entravision hosts one of the largest Latin music events in the United States. This year was the 14th year the concert was held and the first year the company incorporated Facebook in its strategy to sell tickets, according to Entravision CEO Walter Ulloa. It was also a record year for national sponsorships at the show which featured the most popular Latin Rock bands in the format who played to over 13,000 fans for over 6 hours at the Staples Center in Los Angeles.

Entravision incorporated its Facebook page by asking listeners to "like" them on the Social Media site. Listeners would then receive a pre-sale code for tickets to the show. Entravision sold half its tickets to the Staples Center concert via this Facebook promotion. The event was completely sold out in 6 hours. Major sponsorships were sold to Budweiser, McDonalds, AT&T and Toyota. Ulloa says it was a record year for sponsorships.

This year 12 million Latinos will vote according to Ulloa. That is a 25% increase in the total from 2008. In 2012 Entravision expects to generate $16 million in political advertising (including its Television properties), an increase of 107% from four years ago. Ulloa believes the Latino population may very well decide who sits in the White House when it's all said and done next week. The company has properties in Nevada, Colorado, Florida and Virginia. All are considered very important states in this election.

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FEMA Director: "Listen to Radio."

10-29-2012

As the east coast prepared for Hurricane Sandy on Monday, Federal Emergency Management Agency Director Craig Fugate was interviewed on CBS. Fugate said, "One of the things you don't really think about anymore is having a battery-powered radio or hand-cranked radio to get news from local broadcasters. The Internet may go out, cell phones will be congested, radio is oftentimes the way to get those important messages about what's going on in the local community. 

Thanks to the National Association of Broadcasters for sending us the Fugate interview, which you can listen to in its entirety HERE. NAB President and CEO Gordon Smith said yesterday, "I salute the remarkable work of our radio and TV station colleagues now putting themselves in harm's way to keep millions of people safe and informed on the devastation of this deadly storm. As FEMA Administrator Craig Fugate noted* this weekend, in times of emergency there is no more reliable source of information than that coming from local broadcasters. Our thoughts and prayers go out to all of those in the path of Hurricane Sandy."

(10/30/2012 1:00:19 PM)
Hey Lame!, most THINKING broadcasters want FM in cellphones, not FM-HD. The last thing we want to do is perpetuate the disaster that is HD Radio.
(10/30/2012 2:07:20 AM)
Internet schmerternit... Superstorm Sandy proves that in a time of crisis, RADIO is still where it is at!...With power blackouts and flooding, you cannot count on computers and new technology gimmicks. But you CAN count on a radio, and your local news station. We need to SELL THE VALUE on this, and let clients know that radio is here to stay! ...And during this Superstorm, when TV does NOT work because of power blackouts... imagine the political advertisers that wish they had bought radio!
(10/29/2012 10:42:54 PM)
The NAB iBiquity investors are drooling at the thought of getting a piece of thise iBiquity royalites.
(10/29/2012 10:41:30 PM)
Here we go again! Funny, at a time when the NAB is trying to force FM/FM-HD chipsets into cell phones, all of the attention is being given to terrestrial radio's storm tracking, especially those frauds at WTOP. Thr NAB iBiq

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Need An Idea? Steal One From London

10-30-2012

Radio futurologist and one-time Radio Ink Convergence keynoter James Cridland hosts a radio conference every year in London, called Next Radio. Cridland tells Radio Ink he has just put the last two years' worth of conference presentations online in bite-sized video clips. They are chunks of  excellent radio ideas from across the pond and he's making them available to you at no charge. Cridland says, "Great radio is great radio, wherever it is."

Go HERE to see some of the videos.

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(SOCIAL) Changing With The Facebook Times

10-31-2012

We?ve had a good amount of time now to get used to the idea that there are these social media platforms (led by Facebook) that allow you access to opportunity (if you are willing to give up some of your 20th Century ways) to grab onto new ideas that will help your radio station in the seemingly new ?If it's free, it?s for me? environments like Facebook.

Now the Facebook team has essentially taken all groups and brands and moved them to the back of the connectivity bus (unless you are purchasing advertising on Facebook). Where you could post content to be seen by most or all of the people in your ?group? on Facebook in the recent past, that is now not even close to true. Now only about 10 percent of your ?fans? or ?likes? will see any content from you whatsoever. Those in radio who have not been listening as relevant social media ?types? talk about having a specific real strategy are falling farther and farther behind. Still, it?s not too late to catch up, but you better kick it in the butt because the social media train is leaving the station and it isn?t coming back for old people who don?t get it. The days of depending on Facebook to do your social media for you are gone. In fact, they never really did do it for you if all you were doing was ?phoning it in.?  No game = no benefit.

What can you do to really start winning in social media now? Elevate your game and get off of the old ?post a little bit and forget it? philosophy. Don?t see Facebook as the center lane of your social media strategy for 2013 and going forward. See Facebook as one part of a larger puzzle. Really engage and commit to local relationships that matter to your brand and your listeners. Here are some basics that you must begin working on now unless you want to be left in the past:

1. Seriously develop a social media strategy that involves your goals (what you want to achieve and how you will judge your efforts). Make sure you have a plan that includes why you use Facebook, why you use Twitter, and why you use other social media platforms (and for what). Put real effort into developing the actual ?plan? before executing anything. This plan should deal with individual ?high-profile? personalities on your radio brands and their content in different social media environments, along with very specific content strategy so that you have a balanced approach to creating high-quality social media content that engages the passion of your target listeners (those you most want to attract to your brands). You should have a strategy set where everyone on your team knows what kind of content they are to post by percentage and when they will be responsible to post daily.

2. Challenge your team to engage listeners on their content and encourage them to have back and forth conversations as well as sharing with others they influence. This might seem difficult at first, but it won?t be as difficult if your focus is truly on building actual relationships from social media and bringing listeners to your actual online and on-air world. If the newest changes on Facebook indicate anything, it is that investing in Facebook for the purpose of ?living on Facebook? is the wrong philosophy. Sure, your goals should involve high-engagement on Facebook, but you must include drawing them to your owned-media (online and on-air). Attracting and drawing listeners should be the strategy; not attract and play with listeners on Facebook.

3. A picture says a thousand words. Nope. It?s more like a million in social media and specifically on Facebook. Listeners (Facebook consumers) are drawn to photographs and our lives are filled with them (listeners? lives and the lives of your radio brands). Your station staff not taking photos of events, concerts, and ?happenings"?  Shame on you. Invest in a digital camera. They?re cheap. Think about what your radio station stands for, how listeners you most want to attract use radio and why. Then, give them the visuals on Facebook (and other platforms) that tease and by purpose draw them back to your brand.

4. Have your on-air personalities blog on your website. Talk about those blogs on-air (and sponsor them, please). Give personalities purpose in content. This means make sure your personalities stand for something that reflects well on the on-air brand and draws specific types of listeners to your brand. Work to link these personality blogs with bloggers in your market and entertainment-based sites so that they draft listeners toward on-air content. Encourage them to ?get sticky? and engage listeners to share, participate and educate others about their blog and causes they share with the personality. Your personalities can?t write? That?s so 2008. Today is about engagement; that starts with having something to say that reflects interests of the listeners you most want to attract on-air and off.

5. Use YouTube and other resources to explode sharing. Of course, nothing will happen to any of your content unless it is rich and targeted to the listeners you want to attract. Get creative and share things listeners will want to share with friends, family and others. Do this and your social media influence will explode.

6. Go back to the school of hard knocks. Invest in knowledge and learning new tricks. Great radio always reinvents itself. Learn how to use new knowledge to bring what is fun, hip, cool, valuable, and relevant to your attractable audience every day in social media. And always focus on luring listeners back to the website and on-air that you own because that is the true measure of success in putting social media to work for your brand.

Times are changing. They really are. If you bend, you won?t break. If you are rigid and refuse to adjust with the changing times, you will be run over and left behind.

Now is your time. Embrace the future because it is here today with social media and digital solutions that can be used by radio to grow our future.

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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(SALES) Does Charlie Need The Money?

10-31-2012

At age 71, famed Rolling Stones drummer Charlie Watts has contracted a masseuse to help him deal with his back pain during the Stones? upcoming live performances.

Why do you suppose he puts himself through this back pain at his age? Does he really need the money from more concerts? Of course not.

Being a Rolling Stone is part of who he is, and doing concerts is not a job, it?s what drives him. And noted Rolling Stone guitarist, Keith Richards, after more than fifty years of playing guitar says he?s still learning to play guitar. Wow?still learning after 50 years!

Lately I?ve noticed a disturbing trend is radio sales. In the last two weeks alone, I?ve heard more than a dozen sales managers confidentially referring to their salespeople as "lazy" or as one kinder gentler manager put it ?they?re reluctant to do the work.?

I see and hear about radio salespeople who have "jobs."  They get up and "go to work" because they have to, not because they want to. If you call what we do "work" you?re in the wrong business.

Singer-songwriter Kenny Rogers once said, ?Find something you love doing that people will pay you to do and you?ll never have to work a day in your life.?

Charlie Watts is motivated to endure back pain doing what he loves, and Keith is motivated to keep on learning new licks even though he?s already renowned as one of the best guitar players in the world.

And I don?t believe front man Mick Jagger has to employ all kinds of incentives or motivational tactics to get the team to hit the road. They do it from sheer inner motivation.

Managers who try to motivate salespeople who do not already have an inner motivation are climbing an insurmountable mountain. In fact, managers cannot motivate people to perform. Managers can only create an environment in which self-motivated people tap into their inner motivation and reach for the stars?always learning, always doing what others said couldn?t be done.

If you have people on your team who are "lazy" or "reluctant" to go the extra mile, you have to ask yourself two questions:

1.) Do you have the right people on board? Or should you be offering some of them the opportunity to seek a new career?

2.) If you do have the right people on board, what are you doing to create an environment within which they can tap into their inner motivation?

The Stones don?t tour just for the money, the money is simply a measure of appreciation and recognition. In sales, and in concerts, the big check is not the goal, it?s only the report card. The big check says how much you are appreciated and how much your customers (fans) love you.

Recognition and appreciation, in radio sales and in rock concerts, have to be part of the success formula. Without cheers and applause, there is no jumping enthusiastically into the show.

Poking and prodding the unmotivated, a.k.a "lazy," employee simply creates resistance. Here?s the bottom line: Behaviours which get rewarded and recognized get repeated.

You know what behaviours are required to succeed in this business. When you start to recognize and appreciate small improvements in those behaviours, rather than focusing on what is not being done, you?ll be surprised how "ambitious" your team can become.

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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Money Doesn't Grow On Trees

10-29-2012
U.S. advertising spending grew in 2012 -- but 2012 had the Olympics and an election. Where will the growth in ad spending come from in 2013? How much of it will come to radio? Radio can expand its base in an increasingly sophisticated media world -- but to do that, we'll need to know what top advertisers and agencies are looking for. At Radio Ink's Forecast 2013, a panel of top ad-industry executives will speak candidly about radio and how they really see the medium.

It's a chance to hear their outlook and projections for ad spending, and how they see radio fitting into the mix. What do they say about radio in their own meetings, and to their own top clients? Find out at Forecast 2013, set for November 28, 2012 (the week after Thanksgiving) in New York.

Panel Moderator:
David Verklin is a marketing consultant who has served for the last three years as CEO of Canoe Ventures. Before joining Canoe, he was CEO of Aegis Media Americas, and one of the pioneers of the free-standing media agency business. He brought the Carat Agency to North and South America, and reinvented the agency model with Carat Fusion and Carat USA, integrating on- and offline marketing services. His 2007 book "Watch This, Listen Up, Click Here," about understanding the new media landscape, is still being used as a college textbook. 

On Verklin's Panel will be:
Forecast 2013 co-chair Bill Koenigsberg is founder, President, and CEO of Horizon Media. With billing of nearly $4 billion and 800 employees, Horizon is the largest and fastest-growing independent media agency in the world, with clients including Geico, Capital One, United Airlines, and A&E Networks. Koenigsberg is a frequently cited authority in the ad-industry press, and was Ad Age's Executive of the Year in 2011. He's also the only person to have received the prestigious Advertising Age Media Maven Award twice, in 2011 and 2010. 

Douglas Ray is president of Carat USA, overseeing strategy and operations for the agency during a period of fast agency growth that included more than $2 billion in client wins. As Carat's EVP/Managing Director, he oversaw and directed work on such brands as Proctor & Gamble, Diageo, and the J.M. Smucker Co. Before joining Carat, Ray was a partner at DiMassimo Brand Advertising.

Tim Spengler is worldwide CEO of MagnaGlobal, an Interpublic Group firm responsible for leveraging relationships with global media clients to maximize value for Interpublic clients. Before running MagnaGlobal, Spengler was President/North America for Initiative, one of Interpublic's two worldwide media networks; while under his leadership, Initiative added more than 30 new clients, including MillerCoors and Merck.

Brian Terkelson is CEO of MediaVest USA, guiding leading marketers including Coca-Cola, Kraft, and Microsoft. Before joining MediaVest, he served as Global President of LiquidThread, SMG's digitally led content creation unit; SMG was recently awarded a Gold Cannes Lion in Branded Entertainment. Under Terkelsen's leadership LiquidThread delivered such award-winning programs as Cover Girl's involvement in America's Next Top Model.

See the Forecast agenda HERE
Register HERE

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Radio And Labels Should Back Royalty Bill

by Radio Ink Publisher Eric Rhoads
Reps. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) and Jared Polis (D-Colorad) recently introduced the Internet Radio Fairness Act, designed to change the way Internet streaming royalties are calculated. The lawmakers cited Internet radio's inability to compete because of the disproportionate share of revenues that go to pay for performance rights. The goal, the Congressmen say, is to level the playing field between Internet and terrestrial radio.

The label-backed lobbying group MusicFIRST Coalition opposes the bill; MusicFIRST Exec. Director Ted Kalo called the Internet Radio Fairness Act a "Pandora subsidy bill" that will impose a government-mandated royalties rate and "break the backs of artists, while Pandora executives pad their pockets."

A coalition of radio and Internet broadcasters, including Pandora, Clear Channel, and Salem has formed to support the bill -- but the NAB is keeping its distance this time, and isn?t part of that group.

Everyone is trying to make this about the money. But if you read the bill, it never mentions lowering rates (despite what Rep. Chaffetz said about how much Internet radio is paying). People are assuming that this bill is about rates, but its primary purpose, I believe, is to do away with the "willing buyer, willing seller" standard under which the Copyright Royalty Board sets performance royalties for streaming.

That standard was originally created as part of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act in 1998, and it has been a source of controversy ever since. During the dot-com boom, it looked like everyone was going to get rich on digital -- but that obviously couldn't be further from the truth.

Though Pandora has created a giant market cap based on the promise of success, even Pandora can't survive based on the current rate structure and other onerous DMCA mandates. Their money is coming from stockholders who are -- for now -- still hopeful.

I speak as someone who was an Internet radio pioneer. But tens of millions of investors? dollars were lost because we finally realized the model of being "taxed" for each listener -- streaming royalties, of course, go up with each additional listener -- was not sustainable.

In order to have a sustainable digital radio market that will provide income for everyone concerned -- artists, labels, and radio -- we need a system that is truly to the benefit of all parties. The present system will not and cannot work. And though the labels want to fight the Internet Radio Fairness Act, it?s the best chance we have to create a royalties structure that will work. But, just as we see in any political argument, there?s a partisan opposition that's unwilling to consider anything new. It's the same myopic approach that's led the labels to the troubles they are experiencing today.

Royalties dollars are based on rate times volume. The labels, by way of the CRB, control rates, and radio controls volume. I don't want radio to "win" this battle. But neither should the labels win. Music and radio go together like peanut butter and jelly, and one without the other is not as tasty.

Though the music industry is of the opinion that they can fight this bill and keep everything their own way, they are missing the larger point: If digital radio can't succeed financially and streamers are forced to shut down, their high CRB rates won?t bring them any revenue. In the end, if this cannot be resolved, everyone will lose.

The Internet Radio Fairness Act would end the "willing buyer, willing seller" standard and substitute standards from Section 801(b) of the Copyright Act, which lays out key factors to be considered in determining the rates to be set for a statutory royalty. According to my understanding, these are the only things the bill would change. The factors to be considered in setting rates:

(A) To maximize the availability of creative works to the public.

(B) To afford the copyright owner a fair return for his or her creative work and the copyright user a fair income under existing economic conditions.

(C) To reflect the relative roles of the copyright owner and the copyright user in the product made available to the public with respect to relative creative contribution, technological contribution, capital investment, cost, risk, and contribution to the opening of new markets for creative expression and media for their communication.

(D) To minimize any disruptive impact on the structure of the industries involved and on generally prevailing industry practices.

In contrast, the current "willing buyer, willing seller" standard looks only at one question: ­what a willing buyer and willing seller would agree to in a marketplace transaction. Which approach makes more sense?

This battle has been raging for years, and there has been no end in sight. But a resolution may finally be possible, thanks to this bill. It would be reasonable for all parties concerned to put their anger and die-hard attitudes aside and create a summit for discussion with the lawmakers who introduced the bill, the broadcast companies, and the label heads -- to make an opportunity to truly hear the positions and needs of the other side. This summit should be arranged as soon as possible so all parties have a hand in developing something that works for everyone.

Though this should be a private meeting, without the press, I encourage and invite both sides to hold a reasonable discussion at my Forecast Conference, on November 28 in New York. I?d even provide a room at the Harvard Club for a full extra day if a private meeting could be arranged.

This battle has reached an impasse. It?s time the parties seek a reasonable solution before all opportunity is lost. This bill has a chance of solving an otherwise unmanageable problem and should be considered seriously by everyone involved.

Leave your comments below or send directly to bericrhoads@gmail.com

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