Innholdsfortegnelse for March 8, 2021 i Radio Ink Magazine

I’ve never met Aurora James. In fact, I had not heard of her until she was introduced to me recently in the way so many people and things are these days: featured on a news program to which I was only half-listening that broke through whatever I was doing and made me sit up and pay attention. And I was glad I did. Aurora James is the Canadian-born, New York based-founder and creative director of Brother Vellies, producing luxury fashion accessories made by African artisans. With an impressive background in fashion, journalism, art, music, photography, and horticulture, she started her company in 2013, driven by a desire to save indigenous crafts. Within two years she had won a $300,000 CFDA/ Vogue Fashion Award and in 2019 she was named one…

The question is, what’s more important? A great radio product that delivers great ratings or a great sales department that generates more than its fair share of revenue based on the ratings? That “chicken or egg” question has been heard in the hallways of radio stations for decades. The answer is “sales.” I’ve seen great sales departments generate bigger revenue than a station’s ratings deserved. I’ve seen highly rated radio stations fail because a sales department couldn’t sell advertising. We are in a for-profit business. You cannot succeed if you don’t have more income than expense. That’s a pretty basic formula, and it shouldn’t surprise anyone — yet it does. If I could crawl into a time machine and go back to the early days of my career, I would…

4A’s CEO Marla Kaplowitz and Essence Communications (Group M) global COO Steve Williams worked with me and other minority media leaders on the adoption of the recently announced 4A’s Five Point Plan. Your follow-up on this plan could help drive substantial revenue to your bottom line from local, regional, national, and global media agencies. Here is the text of the 4A’s plan. Five Commitments 1. Anti-racism. We commit to working with agencies against racism. We will use our influence and our resources to eradicate bias of all kinds. We will provide organization-wide bias training, starting with leadership and HR; we will reinforce or create advocacy/ allyship programs; and build platforms and initiatives to create change. Our industry must shift attitudes, behavior, and actions, and drive economic support behind our BIPOC…

2021 is a critical year for the radio industry to show strength, stability, and steadfastness when it comes to revenue growth. It is paramount that every opportunity be maximized when it comes to revenue opportunities and market dominance. No automatic-pilot approach is acceptable. How can sales and programming — two of the most vital departments at any radio property — really execute this year and perform at the highest level? A good beginning approach is to match brand focus on the sales side with brand essence on the programming side. As step one, the program director should define and refine the “elevator pitch” for the radio station. BusinessDictionary.com defines the elevator pitch as “a very concise presentation of an idea covering all of the critical aspects and delivered within a…

Nick Cannon is an entertainment mogul, a superstar in every sense of the word. His two decades of entertaining audiences include stints as a TV host, comedian, actor, producer, rapper, writer, director, philanthropist, children’s book author, and activist. Cannon’s Wild ’N Out comedy show on MTV ran for 15 seasons, and everyone knows he’s the host of the highly rated Masked Singer on Fox. In January of 2020 Cannon added syndicated radio to his daily to-do list when Skyview Networks and Meruelo Media announced they were working with Cannon to develop Nick Cannon Radio for afternoon syndication. Nick Cannon Weekends followed in February. Add those radio duties to Cannon’s morning show gig at Meruelo’s Power 106/ Los Angeles, where he’d been hosting since June of 2019. A career bump in…

If one were to assume that a blank sheet of paper — complete freedom — is the best way to coax maximum creativity from the human mind, one would be wrong. The highest levels of creativity are launched from the tightest constraints. Consider this request made a couple of weeks ago by a student in our monthly webcast. “Hi, Roy, I work with a micro-distillery in our province who recently developed a lower-priced brand of affordable liquor. It is called: lōk(ə)l and they spell it phonetically, with a k and a schwa (ə) “They make vodka, gin, and schnapps packaged in plastic bottles. How can we advertise this on the radio to get people to look for the right product? Not to mention there is some muddiness marketing ‘local’ when…

I hate to break it to you, but just because you’ve launched a podcast doesn’t mean people are going to find you. The space is crowded, with a lot of people doing podcasts of varying degrees of craftsmanship. If you’re doing a podcast that does sound good (to listeners, not just your friends), it can be very frustrating to find that your audience is small and not growing. Here are 10 ways to get your podcast noticed. 1. Know your audience. This is the most important thing, and something that people don’t spend much time researching. It’s not just a matter of knowing who your target demo is, but also knowing what their interests are, what other podcasts they like, and what makes them click on links. 2. Find your…