Innholdsfortegnelse for February 4, 2019 i Radio Ink Magazine

For over 125 years, General Electric stood as one of the most iconic and revered business names in this country and around the globe. A huge and, as the years progressed, highly diversified company that touched virtually every aspect of life, the Nobel Prize-winning GE brought “good things to life,” from consumer products and industrial machinery to entertainment and financial services. In the process, it inspired awe in the business community, rewarded investors, and drew widespread accolades for what was perceived as an exemplary management style. Or at least that’s what many thought. In the end, the truth turned out to have been a tad different. Although it was renowned for its ability to innovate, some opine that GE became too comfortable with its success, encouraging managers to shut out…

I recently had an a-ha moment when coaching one of our newest team members. We were preparing for a new-business meeting. She did a great job discovering the valid business reason we were meeting, and, with her persistence, it was enough to earn the appointment. I asked for her thoughts on what we would share in the meeting. She replied that she wanted to share how advertising on our radio station can impact the client’s business. This client currently advertises on TV and in print. Busy with deadlines and a growing to-do list, I wanted to give her all the answers to save myself a lot of time. But I stopped and thought, “Slow down and teach.” One of the greatest impacts we have as leaders is to teach others.…

We lost our colleague, friend, and VP of Programming Lisa McKay shortly before last year’s Country Radio Seminar. As we reflect on what the past year has been like without her, we remember the impact she had on her co-workers, our company, and our market in the 15 years we worked together. Lisa was one of the most dynamic, competitive, and caring people I have ever had the opportunity to know and work with. Lisa’s passion for our listeners and making great radio is well known. She put together a team that enabled WQDR/Raleigh to perform at a remarkable level. She was not just determined to be the best station in North Carolina, she wanted to be the best station in America. She led WQDR to CMA Large Market Station…

Have you ever stopped to think about Amazon’s impact on the radio business? Let’s start with retail. How many big box spaces are empty in your town? I met with a commercial real estate mogul recently who indicated that he is selling off commercial properties as fast as possible because Amazon is putting many of his customers out of business. We’ve watched some big national retailers implode recently, and most of the bankruptcies are attributed to online shopping. We might visit a store, find a product we like, and buy it online while standing there. I’ve done it dozens of times, and there are hundreds more times when I haven’t even made the trip. It appears that there will be one predominant big box store remaining in each product category…

Just for kicks, let’s take off our broadcast shoes and try on the shoes of an advertising agency executive. I have always believed we could learn a lot from the agencies about selling and then keeping accounts long-term. How do they do that? Here’s how. Agencies pitch long-term solutions. They aren’t like us, pitching cheap little packages a month at a time. They sell their clients on longer-term media strategies. We should be doing that, too. That’s why I tell clients I’m there to help them develop and implement a five-year marketing and advertising plan, and that we’ll break that plan down into annual increments so we can measure progress. I’ve noticed that when I say that to local decisionmakers, they tend to nod, because seldom do they have their…

Former American Radio Systems CEO Steve Dodge, 74, was killed in Bonita Springs, Florida, in January while riding his bike. ARS was formed in 1993 after Dodge merged the company he founded, Atlantic Radio, with Tom Stoner’s Stoner Broadcasting Systems and David Pearlman’s Multi Market Communications. The company owned 16 radio stations in seven markets at the time. The senior management team consisted of co-COOs David Pearlman, John Gehron, and Don Bouloukos, and CFO Joe Winn. ARS became a leading-edge consolidator and a publicly traded company, and grew to become the country’s fourth-largest radio group. In 1998, ARS was sold to CBS Radio for a then-record enterprise price of $2.6 billion. Dodge was tremendously successful in the cable business before moving over to radio. He was also involved in the…

The average person is afraid of criticism. But the person who has no fear of criticism is more likely to succeed. This lack of fear is what keeps them from being average. The average business owner is afraid their ads will be criticized. Do you want to kill a great radio ad? Just let your client show it to the people they trust. In the words of my partner Mick Torbay: “You need to understand something: the committee is not evil. The committee doesn’t want you to fail. The committee has nothing but good intentions. But the committee can’t innovate. More than anything, the committee wants to look good to the rest of the committee. The committee is afraid of looking stupid ... The committee can only spot problems, downsides,…

First, in the interest of full transparency and disclosure — I am a non-attorney spokesperson, but everything in this article, I have on good authority. Second, the world would be a much simpler place if they just affixed a microchip to our pinky fingernail that contained everything we were allowed to do. Just think; we could eliminate a library full of law books! And now for something far more interesting, as I fall off my soapbox… So your morning man does a great Donald Trump impression. Why can’t you use him for your car dealer spots? He’s even better than Alec Baldwin. Because, while satire is protected speech and public figures are subject to fair comment in the news, these principles of law do not apply to the use of…

A young mother was crying. I asked why, as I conducted a focus group for a Country station. She said that the radio station (my client) had given her family tickets to a famous amusement park. She never would have been able to afford to take her kids there, but the radio station made the experience possible. Her reaction to receiving this prize has stuck with me for 10 years. Sure, we play country music, sell advertising, and try to have some fun doing it amid the chaos that sometimes permeates our business — but what we do for listeners is indeed priceless. A few years ago, a former listener from my on-air days found me on Facebook. He said as a child he had listened to my station with…

For the first time in many years, we experienced significant turnover on our Country PD list. As a result of the Entercom/CBS merger, Shelly Easton, who was number two on our list in 2018, is no longer in the Country format. Bruce Logan, who spent five years at KILT in Houston, left the station. Logan was number five on our list last year. And everyone remembers the sad news of WQDR/Raleigh’s Lisa McKay, who passed away just as our 2018 list was released. McKay was fourth on our 2018 Best Country PD list. This is more than a list of names. In addition to recognizing the best PDs in Country radio, we want to pick their brains so they can “move it forward,” which they have no problem doing. This…