I’ve just come back from CES, and one of the overwhelming impressions I’ve had is that screen displays get better and better every year. There are many devices with beautiful UI – but radio within them is a bit of a boring, 97.3-like affair.

Radio has to compete with visually-rich media on the same device if it isn’t to look old-fashioned and boring. But there again, we need to ensure that we get these visuals right – nothing worse than, as I see in many European countries, a few TV cameras shoved into a radio studio, so we can watch the breakfast producer picking his nose.

The BBC is trialling, this week, a visualised radio player which is allowing us to experiment with the content on these platforms. It has a number of different ‘modes’, from the inevitable live video stream to other interesting ways of dealing with listener feedback.

I’ll help myself to another super-strong coffee, and try and stave off the jet lag – while my Creative Director, Yasser Rashid, takes up the story on the BBC Radio Labs blog if you’d like to discover more.

On the agenda were the challenges of the current economic climate, the opportunities arising from new media and new technology and creativity. Topics that are very relevant to the readers of this blog too….

The general perspective is that the overall economic climate will remain bad for some time to come. This will have a severe impact on the advertising income, traditional the main source of income for radio-stations. Advertising will move more and more to digital and on-line media, as those are relatively cheap and have very good accountability.

On the other hand for music radio stations, these new media and distribution challenges have some serious issues that comes with those:

• The recession will put pressure on advertising income in the ‘core’ business…
• New media and on-line distribution rights for music are still in the infancy phase and the music industry and rights organisations are developing the models as those happen. This creates a challenge for commercial radio station owners as it is difficult to plan the business around uncertainty…
• Advertisers and media agencies are not that familiar yet with new media and tend to stick with traditional mass media and the advertising models around those…
• New media and on-line distribution adds additional cost to a radio station and the limited revenue that comes from those is not immediately covering these cost…

In my upcoming posts I will share more on these individual challenges and how those impact the business and what might be ways around those issues.

The advantage of a recession sometimes is that you will have to think smarter and smarter to make your business work and innovation and creativity are key…

Over the past 6 months or so, I’ve been involved in a research project with the BBC. We’ve been looking at what listeners and fans do online. The project investigated notions of interactivity; it looked at the ways in which fans of specific presenters express their fandom online; it examined the things that fans of radio soap The Archers do in order to connect and discuss their favourite show; and my bit, with Professor Tim Wall, was about specialist music online.

Specifically, we looked at three things:

1) What do specialist music fans do online?
2) What does the BBC do for specialist music fans?
3) How do BBC staff think about specialist music provision?

The findings, I think, are quite interesting – and a summary of the project is being published on the BBC Radio Labs blog.

But one of the things I found most interesting was the notion of ‘orientations’ that we noticed among BBC staffers. There were clearly people who thought about the online world as a central part of what they did, and others for whom the broadcast was the thing – and anything that the radio station did online was simply there to extend and reinforce the brand.

Now, these orientations are not polar opposites, and lots of people had a mix of both orientations, but people were predominantly facing one way or another. And in fact, we considered both of those to represent missed opportunities.

Now, of course, what the BBC does for specialist music, it does so for reasons of public service, and we go into some detail on that in our report. But it got me thinking about radio personnel in general, and the ways in which they think about the online environment.

If you’re the kind of music radio person with a broadcast orientation, all the internet is to you is a bigger transmitter. Or it’s a kind of a trap that you lay out there in the world, and when people stumble into it, you can grab them and pull them in to your broadcast programming.

If you have more of an online orientation, you may consider the medium on its own terms, but may not be making the most of the music programming which, if your station is doing anything right, is where all the real action is.

The trick is to step outside both of those frames and consider your station as a media organisation in a broader sense.

You are particularly good at media that uses sound – music, speech and effects – but a holistic view of your organisation as ‘media in general’ encapsulates both the online experience and the broadcast one, so that these can work together with a common goal in mind.

In the case of the BBC, it’s specialist music for public service. In your case, it might be music and entertainment for commercial purposes. Or information and debate for community purposes. Either way, the cognitive step outside the two orientations into a wider media perspective allows you to think about broadcasting and the internet, radio and new media, as part of one coherent thing.

And when you begin to do that, a lot of the problems facing radio in the 21st century begin to melt away, and a lot of really interesting opportunities emerge. I’ll be talking more about that idea here on New Radio Strategies in the coming months.

I remember the good old days of the radio survey. The airwaves were suddenly flooded with juicy prizes, jocks did prep for a change and promotional street teams were stunned by the arrival of half decent giveaways. At the heart of this unnatural flurry of activity was the mythical “diary”. You know the one. An ancient system requiring householders to conscientiously tick boxes on a paper spreadsheet – thereby capturing an accurate record their listening habits.

Hmmm… Nice idea. But it was more often a frenzy of last minute ticking as the diary-keeper saw the research collector walking up the garden path. Of course, the main problem with this kind of research is that instead of providing actual listening patterns – favorite stations are often recalled from memory alone. So although joe-public might be tuned into one particular radio station – they actually record a more recognisable brand (with a bigger advertising budget). Which reminds me of a radio network I once worked for that offered cash incentives for tip-off’s about the streets where research companies had distributed the precious diaries. This top secret information would result in station vehicles cruising ominously up and down the lucky neighbourhoods, “building awareness”.

Traditional diary surveys require a lengthy process and are inaccurate at best. Quarter hour listening figures are usually over-reported and new research has shown that people who fill out diaries often listen to twice as many stations as they actually write down. However, for most radio markets around the world it’s still the best and only system we’ve got.

This uncertainty is embarrassing in an age when every on-line click can be recorded – and precise viewing figures dictate billions in advertising revenue. It’s therefore important for radio to keep up with our high-tech media cousins by providing accurate listening figures – rather than making do with perceived behaviour. Radio advertisers have always been rightly suspicious of surveys and deserve more certainty before committing their cash. This, of course, is where “PPM” steps into the spotlight. (Portable People Meters).

Many “New Radio Strategies” readers will already be familiar with this technology – but it represents such an important step in radio’s evolution that I think it’s worth a few more paragraphs. Especially for those outside the States where PPM has yet to really emerge.
Put simply, PPM uses technology to take the guesswork out of ratings. Survey participants carry around a small electronic device that automatically keeps track of the radio station playing in the background. This ingenious system uses inaudible codes hidden within a broadcast and the PPM unit decodes these signals to identify which station is listened to and for how long. The technique not only works with analogue broadcasting – but is apparently just as accurate with digital signals and internet radio too. Another smart feature is a built in motion detector that can tell whether the surveyed listener is carrying their personal meter around with them. Clever stuff.

Although several contenders are promoting various forms of this new technology – Arbitron, one of America’s biggest media research companies, are leading the pack by already running PPM surveys in key US markets. Arbitron started developing the concept back in 1992, so they’re obviously keen to promote its many wonders, claiming it heralds a “New Age For Radio”. They may be right. It’s not just the obvious benefits of being able to collect and deliver more audience data in less time. PPM promises new insights into how listeners consume radio too. Results are far more reliable – and initial research has shown that, compared to traditional surveys, a typical radio station reaches twice as many listeners than was previously thought.

It goes without saying; “Electronic Audience Measurement” has great potential for radio advertising. There’s a research product called “Media Monitor” which can synch up to PPM data making it possible to track a listener’s reaction to content in real time. Imagine, for example, being able to tell exactly which commercial causes a listener to switch stations… This kind of information can only help to improve the overall sound of a station, providing a valuable insight into the effectiveness of various creative approaches. These “real time ratings” will also help to track listener peaks relating to certain on-air events – giving programmers the opportunity work closer with sales departments to maximise advertising revenue.

So what’s not to like? Well, it seems there have been a few teething problems and niggles… In August ‘07, a PPM survey in Texas was pretty much ruined when vital data was inexplicably lost. PPM research has shown that quarter hour listening figures for radio are down. Many broadcasters are getting impatient with the time it’s taking to roll out the new technology. Arbitron has also been criticised for charging premium prices for the service (which seems strangely hypocritical given radio does the same thing with breakfast advertising etc.) Others speculate that PPM could eventually impact negatively on future revenue.

FMQB, an American in-house radio publication, featured an item about an assistant programme director from WZOR Wisconsin who called PPM, “The biggest sales farce ever…” Adding succinctly that… “Arbitron is horrible.” But my favourite slam comes from the March 2008 edition of GQ magazine which ran a story about the crisis facing US “shock radio”. The feature, titled “Who Will Shock The Children”, reported on a convention of 200 “Morning-Zoo-Crew-Dudes” in downtown Chicago. Arbitron Vice-President John Snyder had bravely given a presentation to a largely hostile audience and the article picked up on the crowd’s displeasure, recounting the jocks’ opinion that… “PPM was irredeemably flawed and possibly a tool of the devil, and that the guys from Arbitron should seriously consider taking their little people meters and shoving them up their asses”.

But grumpy old shock-jocks aside, it seems the industry is generally in favour of PPM. It has to be said… the old diary system is a leftover relic from the days of carts and splicing and anything that presents a more realistic picture of audience behaviour has to be a good thing. With any luck the technology will get more affordable and eventually become industry standard for all radio research companies. As Doug Abernethy, Market Manager for Radio One in Houston, put it…”Radio needs to look at this as a way to rejuvenate our business for the better. Change is inevitable.”

Yes! I couldn’t agree with him more.

At its essence, radio is about the communication between the listener and the person on the other side of the mike. That person plays the music the listener wants to hear and provides information about the songs and the artists that keeps the listener plugged in. Additionally, that person provides a sense of companionship and community for the listener. Radio is the social network with a voice.

So as I sat there thinking a bit about radio and the definition of radio and of how radio is evolving, I began thinking about satellite radio. I listen to a lot of satellite radio here in the U.S. and I must say that there are many things I either hear for myself, or hear about through cross-promotion, that get me excited about listening. Things that give me the sense that the “true mission” of radio is being fulfilled there. I’ve written a few times before – here, here and here – about my fascination with and fondness for these “micro-channels” that both XM and Sirius do. To me, these channels kind of sum up what the benefits of satellite radio are for the listener, providing a snapshot of the best that satellite radio can offer.

The other day while I was driving home I tuned into one of Sirius’ such channels, the all-Springsteen “E Street Radio” channel. As luck would have it, I stumbled upon the beginning of an hour that featured a guest DJ, something that the channel regularly does. However this hour wasn’t featuring just any guest DJ, it was none other than long time member of the E Street Band, pianist Roy Bittan. I sat there in my car captivated as Bittan not only played songs that featured his playing – songs in Springsteen’s catalog as well as those by other artists – but also as he discussed in depth the particulars about each track and why it was so special to him. It was pretty incredible radio – hearing Bittan introducing “Born To Run” as he spoke about his first ever gig with the E Street Band back in 1974; about how the classic piano-outro on “Backstreets” came about; how the sessions for Meat Loaf’s “Bat Out of Hell” album came to be and his experiences in the making of that classic album; how he came to record with David Bowie and his experiences with recording the “TVC 15″ track; about how the band recorded many of the tracks on “The River” in a live fashion and many others. Now keep in mind that each of the songs he played during the hour I’ve heard a thousand times – but hearing them with the context he provided enabled me to hear each song in a different way. Powerful stuff.

As I was driving along and listening to this incredible hour of radio, I was thinking to myself, “This is exactly why I subscribe to Sirius. I couldn’t hear this type of radio anywhere else.” And yes, it’s just one small example, for I don’t pay $13/month so I can hear Roy Bittan do one hour of radio. The fact of the matter is that the hour of radio I just described above is representative of not only what is happening on the “E Street Radio” channel, but what is happening on many other channels on the Sirius platform not to mention with what’s going on across the XM platform.

NPR calls them “car moments” – radio programming that is so compelling that you sit in your car to keep listening even after you reached your destination. The Roy Bittan guest DJ program provided me with a “car moment” as I sat in my driveway to listen Bittan introduce the last of the songs he was to play for the hour. And truth be told, I would have sat there in the car for another hour if he had kept on going – and that is the true testament to the power of great radio.

That makes Pandora’s new app the third most successful in the iPhoneverse. Pandora can sadly not now be received in the UK because of our obscenely restrictive copyright restrictions, and I truly regret not being able to listen to them any more. They are, for me, the best webstreamers by far. The iPhone hookup got them 180,000 new users in three days. They claim a new user every two seconds. This is BIG stuff.

So what do we take from this? I think we are finally seeing another conjunction of new technology, audience, demographics and circumstance. You need ease of use; you need attractive programming; you need affordability; and you need someone to spot the gap and fill it. This is uncannily similar to events in the 50s when Rock and Roll and Top 40 Radio came together.

This may be a huge step forward. I hope so; Pandora deserve it. I still won’t call it radio, though. In my luddite book, radio still involves someone communicating with you. I’m sure Pandora have an adorable detailed and fantastically well-connected database, the fruit of their very savvy staff. I’d kill to be able to play around with it. But I can’t relate to databases. I still want to hear from real people. But if I was living permanently in the US, Pandora’s app would be enough to make me get an iPhone.

I’ve written about these satellite radio micro-channels before here and here and I hate to sound like a broken record, but I will.

Investing in creative, compelling programming pays off.

Sirius just announced that Coldplay will take over one of their channels (Alt Nation) for ten days beginning Friday, June 13th. The launch of the channel, Coldplay Nation, coincides (shockingly!) with the release of the band’s “Viva La Vida” album which will be during the channel’s 10-day run. As is stated on the Sirius website, Coldplay Nation “celebrates the June 17 release of Coldplay’s new Viva La Vida with Chris Martin and the band’s personal introductions to songs from the new album. You’ll also hear music from throughout their career, artists who influenced the Coldplay sound and current favorites.”

This cuts to the heart of what radio has to do to succeed – create programming that is unique, compelling and exclusive. If listeners are given a compelling reason, they will listen and become fans of a radio station or in the case of the satellite radio providers, subscribe to their service.

Coldplay is one of the biggest bands today with one of the most anticipated new releases on the horizon. If you’re a Coldplay fan, the channel is great news for you because you get to listen to a channel that is running what you consider compelling content. Those who aren’t Coldplay fans may not listen, but they will hear about it (thanks to cross-promotion) and they will get the message. The message being that one of the globe’s biggest artists is doing something big and something exclusive for the service that they subscribe to. Sure, it may not be an artist that they’re particularly interested in, but nonetheless they are once again reminded of the fact that “cool things are always happening here” thus subtly giving them additional justification for subscribing to Sirius – which is critical during this time where every cent of discretionary household spending is analyzed for potential reductions.

With Viva La Vida being their 4th studio album, Coldplay doesn’t have the catalog to support a channel for an extended period of time like Sirius’ other micro-channels, such as Springsteen’s E Street Radio, Jimmy Buffett’s Radio Margariville, Elvis Radio, Siriusly Sinatra or The Grateful Dead channel, but that’s hardly the point. With the announcement and imminent launch of Coldplay Nation, Sirius has scored a coup and like George Bush can proudly say “Mission Accomplished,” although without the irony. They’ve sent the message to fans of Coldplay, to non-fans of Coldplay, to subscribers of Sirius and to potential subscribers of Sirius.

This is nothing earth shattering, in fact it’s extraordinarily simple. But then again, most things are. Invest in programming. Be creative in the programming. Offer something compelling and unique and people will respond, even in this day and age of changing consumer habits, declining radio listenership and of serious questions regarding the relevance of radio to people’s lives.

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But the new bosses appear to be – bloggers? Not only that – but bosses that give presentations at the Skype offices and then upload them to Slideshare. Don’t they realise they’re running an old media firm and that they’re not supposed to understand – let alone be ahead of the curve on – this whole interweb thing?

Still stranger, these are not just bosses posing as bloggers for the sake of appearing hip. They actually say things to their staff like:

We know some of you write blogs – we enjoy reading them… We want to reassure you all that you can speak your minds about what’s going on. We’re serious when we say we want your input, and you don’t have anything to fear about expressing doubts or concerns

And what is One Golden Square anyway? Just a blog? A street address (my London geography knowledge is near nil, other than the odd round of Mornington Crescent)? A hint at the new name for the radio station?

The team: Donnach (silent ‘ch’), Clive and Adrian are Absolute Radio – essentially a consultancy firm who have been given the reins of one of the UK’s leading commercial radio brands. And their mission, as they see it, is to remind people how much they’ve always loved it.

The weird thing (for me, anyway) is the chatty, approachable, ‘call me Donna’ feel to the blog. It’s immensely encouraging and great to see this sort of open, communicative, new-era thinking applied to station management.

Commercial radio will no doubt find it very confusing. And, for the moment, so do I. But regardless of what will end up coming out of the speakers, I think I like this new station.

I’m Just Sayin’….

I’ve written before about why I think satellite radio is great – here and here. Basically it boils down to the fact that the satellite services can take advantage of the fact that they have the Power of the Platform.

And while that’s all still true, I want to take a brief break from discussing radio “strategery” or any other serious, well thought out concepts or points about what makes radio (especially satellite radio) tick. I just want to talk about the experience of listening to radio as a listener.

Here in the States, we are just coming off the three-day Memorial Day holiday weekend. It’s the weekend that officially celebrates the men and women who have given their life in service of our country while also serving as the unofficial kick-off of the summer season. Over this weekend, radio stations traditionally do something “special” and this weekend was no exception as stations trotted out their countdowns and what not. But what made me stand up and take notice was something that one of the Sirius channels did – it reinforced to me why I was a Sirius subscriber and why I thought satellite radio is a powerful medium.

For the record, I’m a Bruce Springsteen fan – a big one. I spend a lot of time listening to Sirius’ “E Street Radio” channel – a channel which, as you may have guessed, plays nothing but Springsteen music. The fact is that even though I have all of his music loaded up on my iPod and can play any Bruce song that I want at any time, I still really like listening to the E Street Radio channel. One of the reasons for this is that I enjoy the serendipity of it all. I like hearing ‘random’ songs – songs that I wouldn’t dial up on my iPod, but for some reason I enjoy hearing when the channel plays it. But another reason I like the channel as much as I do is that they play stuff that I don’t have! Since they’re officially sanctioned by the Springsteen camp, they have access to lots of things that I only wish I had.

So over the Memorial Day weekend, E Street Radio featured nothing but live Springsteen shows. Shows from all different time periods and from all different tours. Shows with the E Street Band, without the E Street Band and solo shows without any band; basically everything a Springsteen fanatic would love. And as great as all the live shows played were there was one that stood out in particular. It was a benefit show recorded just over two weeks ago at a small 1,500 seat theatre in New Jersey. In addition to the intimate nature of the show, what set this show apart was that Bruce and the band did something they have never done before – ever. They played two of their classic albums, Born to Run and Darkness on the Edge of Town in their entirety. The songs were played in the exact same order as they appeared on the original albums. People literally paid thousands of dollars to be at this show and a mere two weeks later we were hearing it on the radio. If you’re a Springsteen nut, hearing this was nothing short of incredible.

From a fan’s perspective the whole weekend was awesome. I didn’t change channels once throughout the whole weekend – and I’m a constant channel-changer. And even though gas prices are through the roof, I did some driving around I didn’t really have to do because I didn’t want to miss anything. That’s powerful. And that’s the power of the platform. The fact that Sirius could do this is due to the fact that they have a Springsteen channel to showcase it on. And the only way you can have a whole channel dedicated to one artist is when you have a platform enabling you to provide this kind of variety.

So that’s it. No serious strategy discussion, insight into programming mechanics or anything else like that. Just observations from a listener who spent the weekend listening to something he really liked and was damn glad about it.

I’m just sayin’.

It’s been two months since the U.S. Department of Justice approved the merger of the two U.S. satellite radio companies, XM and Sirius. That was supposed to be the hard part. It was thought that the FCC approval was soon to follow. It was a mere formality. As I’ve written about here and here – the merger of the two satellite radio companies was the right thing to do and in the best interest of the consumers. So I have to ask, what’s the deal?

Actually, that was a rhetorical question. I know the deal. And now that I think about it, deal is exactly the right word, because at this point it’s all about making deals. Deals to get this and get that. Deals to protect special interests. Deals to take advantage of the fact that various groups know the FCC wants to approve this deal and will go out of their way to appease them so there won’t be as much outcry when they do issue approval. So these groups have to strike while the iron is hot. They can overreach in their ask, and know that they will get something. A number of different U.S. Senators and Congressmen have written to the head of the FCC presumably because they’re looking out for what’s best for consumers. Yeah, sure. It wouldn’t have anything to do with looking out for the best interests of the NAB, would it? Nah. The most recent letter came from a couple of Senators two days ago. In the letter they laid out certain conditions for the merger that would ‘protect the consumer by ensuring competition and fairness in the marketplace.’ Really? The conditions they laid out include giving up half of the spectrum the combined entity will have. Please.

Anyway, the point of this post is not to talk about that silliness. The point is that it’s been two months since the DOJ approved the merger and 15 months since it was first proposed by the two companies. That’s a long time. Too long.

What you’re seeing because of this delay is actually what you’re not seeing. You’re not seeing very much advertising for either company. They have disappeared from television completely. Actually I can’t recall the last time I saw an advertisement of any kind from either company.

The reason the two companies proposed to join forces in the first place was so that together they could better combat increased competition. But due to the uncertainty surrounding their partnership, they both have withdrawn somewhat from doing advertising. And that has led to a decrease in awareness of satellite radio in the general marketplace. All the services or technologies that XM and Sirius have articulated as providing this competition are all gaining ground. They haven’t stopped advertising or generating awareness in the marketplace.

Every day that goes by in which the merger isn’t approved is another day that a consumer isn’t hearing about satellite radio. It’s another day they hear about or use another service or technology without thinking about satellite radio.

And yes, of course, it still comes down to content. So theoretically if satellite radio has the ‘best’ and most compelling content they will be able to make up for this lost time and lack of market awareness and will be very successful. The broad range and compelling nature of the content will be able to win the day. However, if satellite radio drops off people’s radar and they develop or further strengthen other habits and don’t even give satellite radio the time of day to sample it, they will never know how good the content is and what they’re missing. Not saying it’s likely, but it’s possible.