 Are you reading this from a forwarded email?New readers can receive our RBR Morning Epaper FREE for the next 60 Business days! SIGN UP HERE |
|
 |
 |
| Radio News ® | |
|
Click on the banner to learn more... RBR: This sounds like a very structured edict, more than selected stations in selected markets. Hogan: "Any consumer out there that listens to the radio will tell you that we run too many commercials. Any advertiser that uses radio will tell you the industry runs too many commercials. It's not a Clear Channel issue, it's an industry issue. The industry has drifted over a long period of time to what I think are very dangerous and diluted levels of commercial and promotional content. Part of the problem is there is no consistency in what people count. Some people don't count barter, some don't count network spots, NTR spots, some don't count traffic. To a listener, it's all an interruption. To an advertiser, it's all one more person in front of them in the spot pod. So what we have done is take a very aggressive step to significantly reduce the amount of commercial and promotional inventory on a group-wide basis. We have the systems to ensure this with our traffic system MediaStar, to actually know what we're running." RBR: Can you tell us exactly what the new guidelines are, or is that proprietary? Hogan: "I'll give an example. Our Country radio stations (and this is very similar to every other format) will have a ceiling in morning drive of 12 commercial minutes per hour. No spot break will be longer than four minutes and no break can be longer than six units. What we're saying to the stations is you decide how you want to do it. You can do four spot breaks with three :60s in each break; or two :30s and three :60s, etc. This includes, local, national, network, barter, anything that has revenue attached to it." RBR: Are you going to raise rates to make up for less inventory? Hogan: "We can raise them, but we can't make people pay them. What we have to do is deliver a better product. What we have to do is give people reasons to buy us. We're now going to offer specific positions in-pod. We're going to have a first in-pod, a last in-pod. We're going to incent people with pricing. We think having a much more appealing, effective commercial environment is going to give people lots of motivation to do business with us. The only thing that raises rates is demand. It would be a mistake to think that this won't have some real challenges associated with it, that it won't require almost a revolutionary new approach to how business is transacted. But we're very prepared to do that. We think it's the right thing for the industry and we think it's important to us that we step up and address it head-on." RBR: This move addresses some of Wall Streets' concerns, No? Hogan: "Hopefully it will. We don't program the stations based on what Wall Street says or what an analyst thinks. With all due respect to the ones that are out there, our business is much more complicated than to be explained away in a memo. We got to this position as an industry over a long period of time and there are lots of reasons that we are where we are. It will take the industry doing some things differently, and I believe this is one of the important things that has to happen. We have a series of initiatives that we will be announcing over the coming weeks and months of the details and plans we have that are positive, proactive, preemptive and really about reinventing our business. And this is just the first step." RBR: How are your market managers going to meet budgets with less inventory? Are you going to give them some breaks while this all gets put into place? Hogan: "None of our stations are required to have the commercial ceilings in place before 1/1/05. So we will have a whole new set of budgets when this is really ramped up. And we will be building our budgets based on the new model. We will re-think our compensation models to make sure we are rewarding long-term behavior rather than the quarter-to-quarter behavior that the industry has sort of fallen into." RBR: All of this will necessitate your GMs and PDs to re-assess relationships with some of the vendors out there, right? Hogan: "Absolutely." RBR observation: Both Clear Channel and Infinity need to show the leadership to help fix some of radio's problems-one of them being too much clutter, of course. We've been harping on the issue a bit, especially in our now-infamous "Naples is Calling" Publisher's Perspective in May RBR Solutions Magazine. RBR asked Infinity President Joel Hollander if he was following a similar path, "We don't need to put out a press release for something we've been doing for the last year." Interesting twist: By Hogan now rewarding based on long-term station successes, this will open the door to the next phase of what we hope CC Radio will institute: Opening up to broader formats and new niche formats. We commend him twice. GMs and PDs will be given the time to make something new and daring work. With 1,200 stations, CC Radio has the room for some REAL experimentation. Especially in larger markets where they're more likely to catch on (remember KROQ-FM LA in the 80's?). Take some chances. Classic Rock stations who aren't afraid to play 30 songs from Hendrix and dig into old Classic Underground stuff from Harvey Mandel and Country Joe and the Fish. Keep the same 400 songs, but add a bunch more. Surprise and enlighten the listeners. Long term success. Check out Sirius Ch. 22. Check out 3wk.com's Classic Underground channel, Somafm.com's IndiePopRocks channel...try Reggae. All refreshing new choices with music that's not cookie cutter. In our radio upfront series (currently being written for September and October RBR), buyer after buyer is already telling us they're moving more money into satellite (where spots and product-based promotions are allowed in some programming). Why? Better choices of music (and less clutter) are attracting an ever-growing number of listeners. We can compete better by being more competitive. Now is the time. |
|
 New readers can receive our RBR Morning EpaperFREE for the next 60 Business days!
|
