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David Field is one of my new heroes!!!! David runs Entercom…
a large, well known company. Entercom has the reputation of
doing things the right way!!! I know 95% of the group heads;
however I have never had the pleasure of meeting David. I
don’t think that I have met his father Joseph M. Field
either. Matter of fact I do not believe my former consulting
company (Burkhart/Abrams) consulted any of their many
stations. So why am I proclaiming that David Field is a new
hero of mine??? I recently read that he would like to see a
maximum of 7 minutes of advertising per hour by 2008. I
recently wrote that eight spots an hour would be a magic
number. But, I like David’s number better.
A lot of companies are reducing their spot load as we know.
And there were a handful of groups that NEVER got involved
in raising their spot load after consolidation. Here is just
a sample of what the spot load looked like in drive time in
March of this year. Entravision 8.1; Entercom 10.1; WEAZ
10.1; and Clear Channel 10.9. Etc. In non drive Radio One
9.1; Cox 9.9; Beasley 10.7. Etc. The FM average for March
was 11.4. (My apology to those who researched the above
spots per hour information…I do not know to whom to give
credit).
As a VERY IMPORTANT reminder to all broadcasters…. in the
50’s radio faced huge competition from television. TV took
ALL of radio’s listeners…and I mean ALL. A few people fixed
radio with a formula of TOP 40 music. Suddenly, radio was
back in business again. And what was the commercial load at
the original TOP 40 station…Storz’ owned KOWH in Omaha? You
should be surprised to know the spot load was 15 spots an
hour (regardless of length); HOWEVER, the spots were
programmed in the following manner to give a MORE MUSIC
ILLUSION. Here was the KOWH hourly formula. FIRST 29 minutes
of the hour 6 spots played regardless of length. For one
minute from :29 to :30 two twenty second spots separated by
a short jingle. The second half hour was about the same; 5
spots regardless of length from :30 to :55; four minutes of
unsponsored news from :55 to :59; then, from :59 to :60 two
20 second spots separated by a short jingle. No double spots
allowed. No segue of music because the announcers were
required to give station ID, the time or temp, and a one
liner (comedy liner, interesting item, or local PSA). You
should remember that the music venue of the day was 45 RPM
TOP 40 hits….average length of a song about 2 minutes and
fifteen seconds. The announcers were very adult sounding,
but the momentum created by the more music illusion was
fast…very fast!!!! (For fun some of today’s programmers have
recreated the above just to hear what it was like back
then).
Many non Storz stations copied the above formula; however,
when Todd died at a young age the Storz stations expanded
their commercial amount per hour. Greed, I guess. Todd would
never have allowed the expansion. Therefore in the mid-60’s
the commercial count went up sharply. These AM TOP 40
stations kept their audience until FM (free music as it was
called then) became a listening factor because they played
FEWER commercials; thus, almost non stop music whatever the
format. The stampede to music FM’s was on by listeners at
that time.. Sound familiar?
So now, traditional radio has other kinds of competitors…not
just TV or cable. They include satellite radio, I-pods,
podcasting, the Internet and more to come. Of course,
traditional radio will have digital broadcasting in the
immediate future to use as additional radio stations.
I would suggest to my fellow broadcasters to listen to the
word of David Field…the word is “7”; furthermore when you
design your digital formats of the future think SIX. As Todd
Storz did in the 50’s and early 60’s think about recruiting
and keeping your audience who has tuned you in for their
favorite kind of music. Obviously, radio will have increased
rate card adjustments as the ratings GROW again. Also, a new
type of a financial plan for those broadcasters buying ratio
clusters will be created so the lenders can be paid back
promptly by us broadcasters. (More on that in a later
column).
In closing, Bob Jordan (a great guy from a previous column…I
WAS there in Houston to interview him months ago) of Media
Audit released some research recently regarding Satellite
Radio. He said “we were surprised at how little market
penetration has been achieved by satellite radio”. In the 87
markets surveyed satellite radio attracted only ten thousand
or more adults in just 20 of the 87 markets surveyed. The
largest number attracted, 76,000 was in New York City which
is a market of more than 14 million adults. Satellite only
pulled one per cent or more of the adults in just six
markets, and in no market did it attract two percent.
According to a recent Forrester Research study satellite
radio will have 20 million listeners by 2010 and Mr. Jordan
says even that number seems disappointing. And Mr. Jordan
goes on to say, “Satellite radio is competing with a product
this is distributed free, and that’s a heck of a price
disadvantage” (for satellite). Satellite radio is not
commercial (for the most part}; no advertisers requiring
ratings; therefore, Satellite Radio does not have to hire a
rating service to determine how many people are listening
and when. But Internet Radio does!!!! Internet radio IS
FREE!!! And the Internet ratings are larger with each
survey. I-Pods are not rated, per se; and neither is
podcasting; however, we know both are popular.
Researcher Rob Balon of Benchmark recently wrote “Listeners
have not recognized reduced spot loads” (to increase
listenership). However, from experience I can tell you if
the spot loads were reduced from….let’s say…. 12 minutes an
hour to 7 (a reduction of five minutes per hour), as David
Field suggests, it WILL be noticed by listeners…particularly
with an appropriate promotion campaign…on and off the air.
And, I don’t have to write anything about LOCAL, LOCAL,
LOCAL. As a broadcaster we have learned the LOCAL lesson….M.I.B….MORE
IS BETTER!!!
I am encouraged!!! We are doing a lot of right NEW
things…which for the most part are OLD and tested!!!!!!
Forward guys!!!! The game is ON!!!!
Go for it David Field!!!!
e-mail Kent
kent@kentburkhart.com
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