The radio industry will undergo a complete financial restructuring in the next 12 to 24 months. It has already begun. A massive amount of debt will be converted to equity and/or written off. Yet there will be winners and losers. A lot is at stake for radio’s employees, lenders, investors and suppliers.
Much like the early 1990s, “workout” is now a prominent term in the broadcasting industry vernacular. A workout refers to a non-performing loan that has been moved into a lender’s “workout” department for collection.
The process is usually resolved in …

When your an air talent the thing to do is reinvent yourself, become someone most people generally like. You know, Brad Pitt, Tom Cruise, George Clooney, Clint Eastwood, those kinds of people. Why be yourself if you can become even more special and precious.
I think talent needs to be greedier, if you want more you become more. That’s why it is really important to chase what you want not what you need.
Everything is in a state of destruction. Creativity is the only thing I know of, that is the opposite …

With the Money Comes Expectation of Revenue; Microblogging Service Seems in No Rush Turn on Spigot
NEW YORK (AdAge.com) — The question about Twitter used to be, “Is it a business?” Now, the question becomes “How big can it be?”
And the answer is: It better be big. CEO Evan Williams confirmed last week that the microblogging service had finalized its new funding, reported to be $100 million, giving Twitter — which now has no monetization program in place — a whopping $1 billion valuation. Prior investors Spark Capital, Benchmark Capital and …

Prior to getting into today’s discussion I need to ask one question: Will anyone at the Radio Advertising Bureau who knows what they are doing online please raise your hand? Didn’t think I’d see any arms go up. OK, let’s proceed.
Last week I found a press release from the RAB in my in box. The email’s opening paragraph hailed the launch of “a new website dedicated to providing professionals from advertising agencies, Radio stations and production houses with tools and resources to improve their creative execution.” This being something I’ve …

In our last chapter, we talked about Arbitron’s new initiative to begin measuring the audience loyalty of a Radio station.
This is a great idea! It will give sales departments a better and more believable story to tell, especially for direct sales. After all, any business owner understands the value of loyalty to a brand, but not necessarily cume and quarter hour measurements.
Just selling “numbers” is a fatal error because in today’s world advertisers are able to place their dollars where they can measure the results far easier than …

Don’t lose more ad revenue waiting to make a decision
There’s a belief in radio today that things are beginning to change. Our industry prospects are looking up. Others believe that the industry now faces the challenge to increase pricing to counteract our recent pricing strategies of the past year. I don’t know anyone who thinks it is going to be easy to increase pricing to existing clients that have experienced radio’s recent desperation.
There’s a solution to this pricing issue. There needs to be an aggressive push …

5 things you need to know about this effective–and underused–medium.

Along with print and TV, radio is one of the most popular forms of conventional, “offline” advertising. It can also be one of the most effective. This is partially because radio is oriented around formats, which gives business owners a big advantage in targeting audiences vs. print or TV.
What’s a format? Think “classic rock” on the FM band and “talk radio” on the AM stations. Odds are your target market is predominantly tuned into one or two specific stations in your …

That’s Arbitron’s latest project. They’re trying to figure out a way to show advertisers how loyal a particular Radio station’s audience is to them.
It’s the first really good idea they’ve had.
Don’t get me wrong. I like the Meter. We just need more of them in a market with Houston as the model for their distribution. Of course that won’t happen unless Radio spends a lot more money on a rating service.
Radio stations of all formats can and should be programmed to develop a loyal …

If the President’s proposed health plan isn’t good enough for all the people in Congress to be covered by, then it sure as hell is not good enough for me either.
In the year 2000 The Beatles were offered one hundred million dollars to reunite for one concert at Dodger Stadium in LA with potential of earning up to five hundred million with pay per view etc. thrown in.
They turned it down because they didn’t think they could live up to what the fans would expect of them and they didn’t …

“Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men?” This question will be familiar to fans of what has been called the “golden age of radio.”
As a boy in the 1930s and ‘40s, I certainly remember being scared by hearing the questioner’s sinister voice at nightfall. Nor did I feel reassured by the answer: “The Shadow knows.”
A Brookline resident, Van Christo, serves as the ranking authority on this era in radio history. Thanks to his generosity, Boston University now holds his complete collection of broadcasts, some 4,000 in all.
Thus, …