Dave Ramsey
Sean Hannity
Category: Analysis
Suddenly, Your Blackberry is a Radio
By Holland Cooke
MCVAY/COOK & ASSOCIATES
News/Talk Specialist
LAS VEGAS –– They hadn’t even cut the ribbon to open CES2012 when the biggest radio story broke. Research In Motion admitted to something Apple won’t: There’s a sleeper chip in phones already in use –– RIM’s Blackberry Curve 9360 and 9380. Just download an app, and you activate the FM receiver you didn’t know you were walking around with.
Why this is big:
• Suddenly, there are millions of new radios. Researchers presenting at CES told us that half of all Americans now tote a smartphone.
• Radio is back in the pocket, for the first time since the 1960s.
• You can hear local stations’ over-the-air signals, which don’t consume your wireless data ration the way streaming does.
• Blackberry’s move should nudge Apple to respond.
Why this is a win-win-win-win-win:
Making the Most of ALL
Your Transmitters
Holland Cooke
McVay/Cook & Associates
News/Talk Specialist
Baltimore – Plan now for December, 2012: Arbitron’s annual Client Conference, formerly The Consultant Fly-In, now conjoined with The Jacobs Media Summit. Can you get toBaltimorefor one, two, or three days, and budget $99 (not a misprint) + travel? You will, as I do each year, come home savvier about what moves the ratings needle…and more…
“Social Media is NOT ‘broadcasting,’ it’s ‘engagement.’”
Co-presenting “Let’s Get Engaged,” Arbitron’s Digital Media Manager Jacquelyn Bullerman and DMR’s Trip Eldredge summarized a study of how 45 stations employ Social Media, and demonstrated some important do’s and don’ts.
The most-common, most-fundamental mistake stations make? Using a tool like Facebook as another one-to-many transmitter. “Social media is NOT about the station. It’s about ‘them’ [listeners who Friend you].”
And “listeners are using Facebook as Customer Service.” It’s “a very public, very transparent consumer dialogue;” and those who take the time to post are likely P1s (so-called “First Preference” listeners, those who listen to your station most), mathematically the most-valuable listeners a station can have.
Common Facebook faux pas:
“Stop what you’re doing
and pay attention to me.”
TALKERS coverage of Blogworld New Media Expo
By Holland Cooke
MCVAY/COOK & ASSOCIATES
News/Talk Specialist
LOS ANGELES – Radio’s ongoing bloodbath compels me to write this in a different, more-urgent manner than the style in which I typically cover conventions for TALKERS.
Every…single…day, we read of new job cuts. Iconic, conspicuously successful PDs are summarily fired. Half the GMs get canned, while the other half – already managing more stations than they can tend to – get even more stations and markets to “oversee.” Or is that “overlook?”
Local host? It’s becoming an oxymoron. Unless a deejay’s hours are top-rated, he/she is replaced by programming piped in from the mother ship. Disembodied DJs’ call-letter-free banter actually seeks to be unobtrusive (“Billy Joel says his daughter inspired this song”). Many, possibly most, local talk hosts will also get canned.
This is happening for three reasons:
2011 NAB/RAB Radio Show: Mojo Rising
By Holland Cooke
MCVAY/COOK & ASSOCIATES
News/Talk Specialist
CHICAGO –– This year’s National Association of Broadcasters/Radio Advertising Bureau Radio Show crowd was 24% bigger than last year’s. And it was good to see attendance “go deep,” with some stations –– even in small markets –– sending several people.
WSOY, Decatur, Illinois morning host Brian Byers thought the Radio Show was “outstanding,” and told me “the Small Market Idea Exchange was particularly helpful,” and that he “took away several ideas for our stations and better yet, ways to monetize them.”
The State of Talk Media
By Holland Cooke
MCVAY/COOK & ASSOCIATES
News/Talk Specialist
CHICAGO –– Last year, and the year before, and the year before that, Michael Harrison’s annual presentation gave Radio Show attendees a plainspoken whack-on-the-side-of-the-head. Last month, here in TALKERS, you read his column “The Ticking of the Clock.” If you didn’t, find it, pronto, at Talkers.com…before change finds you. And you won’t think I’m overstating the importance of what Harrison has to say after you’ve read it.
I’m flattered each year when Michael asks me to introduce him in this session; and this year he asked that –– rather than simply recount his “10 Things You Need To Know About ‘Good Old-Fashioned AM/FM Talk Radio’” –– I instead use this space to react to it. So here goes.
Talk radio and podcasting: A great combo
Analysis of the Blogworld New Media Expo
By Holland Cooke
MCVAY/COOK & ASSOCIATES
News/Talk Specialist
NEW YORK –– Not a misprint: Pandora beats radio in the top 10 markets.
Recently released Edison Research data, funded by Pandora, examined how many listeners “tuned into” Pandora, how long each person listened, and then converted that data into Average Quarter Hour metrics “using industry-accepted methodology.” Translation: In order to qualify as a listener, a person had to listen for at least five minutes within a quarter hour period, the same way Arbitron credits over-the-air listening.
By Edison’s side-by-side comparison –– grab the arm rest –– Pandora would have the NUMBER ONE Rating P18-34 in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago and San Francisco; and #2 or tied for second in the other top 10 markets; except Boston where it would be #3.
This is Internet audio! And it gets worse: These numbers don’t even include Pandora’s most-committed users, because it doesn’t include ad-free Pandora One.
A lesson from the NJ101.5 case
By Matthew B. Harrison
Senior Partner, Harrison Strategies
SPRINGFIELD, Mass. –– When choosing to use non-original materials as a portion of programming, it is important to make sure that such usage falls squarely within the accepted affirmative defense of fair use.
A New Jersey federal appeals court recently reinstated a copyright and defamation lawsuit against New Jersey talk radio station, New Jersey 101.5 (WKXW-FM) and its former PM drive team “Carton & Rossi.” Craig Carton currently co-hosts the WFAN, New York morning drive show “Boomer & Carton.” Ray Rossi hosts an evening show on New Jersey 101.5.
The case was simple. New Jersey Monthly (NJM) hired a photographer to take a photo of Carton & Rossi to accompany an article to be published. An unknown employee of WKXW-FM then scanned in the image from NJM and posted it to the WKXW-FM website, among others. The image, as scanned and posted, cut off reference to NJM’s story title, and eliminated the gutter credit identifying the photographer. The station invited visitors to alter the image and submit resulting versions. In all, the station posted 26 of these submissions. At no time did the station or the hosts ask the photographer for permission, and as a result –– the photographer sued.
NAB/RAIN: Sound Bites from Las Vegas
By Holland Cooke
MCVAY MEDIA
News/Talk Specialist
LAS VEGAS –– 90,000+ attended the 2011 NAB convention, up from 88,044 last year, and in a upbeat mood, after several challenging years. Concurrently there in Las Vegas –– The RAIN Summit West –– which alone was worth the trip.
Here’s some of what I heard, and what it means to you:
“In politics, we always say you can’t beat something with nothing,” said NAB president and CEO (and former U.S. Senator) Gordon Smith in his NAB Show keynote regarding the looming prospect that radio stations will be required to pay music royalties. Unlike his combative predecessor, he winks that, “We’re still at the table, and we hope the other side comes back.” As only an ex-legislator could, Smith managed to postpone the inevitable by politicking the process so deftly. Record labels didn’t bite when the NAB tried to enlist them in the effort to require wireless phone manufacturers to build in FM chips. Stay tuned…
Are Talk Radio Hosts Libel Proof?
by Steven J.J. Weisman
Legal Editor
BOSTON –– The recent dismissal in California of soccer star, celebrity David Beckham’s libel lawsuit against In Touch magazine has brought attention to the nuances of American libel law. Beckham sued the magazine for an article that asserted that Beckham cheated on his wife with a prostitute in New York in 2007. Beckham provided affidavits to the court that indicated that on two specific instances stated in the In Touch article, he was not at the hotel she claimed. In one instance he was visiting his father in England.
But Judge Manuel Real was unmoved by Beckham’s arguments because to Judge Real, it was irrelevant whether or not the story was true or not. The only issue was whether or not the magazine had printed the story maliciously.
