Posted by Walt on June 14, 2006 at 08:01:24:
In Reply to: The Dumbing Down Of Radio posted by Allan Sniffen on June 13, 2006 at 21:51:12:
>>If you don't know what a good radio personality can bring to a format then you've never heard music radio done well. It's not really your fault.<<
AMEN! And as long as the industry relies on audience surveys and focus groups to try to determine what people want, nothing will change. As they say in the financial world, "past performance is not an indicator of future results. Focus groups are nothing more than a trailing indicator because respondents can only react to what they know. There's no room for imagination.
Regardless of the music format, the key for radio to compete against iPods and other forms of delivery has to be letting human beings program and present the music. Again, surveys and focus groups aren't good at predicting how a song will play in a particular market, or in the context of the songs surrounding it, or even on a particular day. Only talented, involved human beings are capable of making those kinds of gut decisions. As presenters they can "spin" songs in ways that make them fit! Mark Simone's execution of SNO is a perfect example. If you took all the songs he's played in the last 6 months and put them on shuffle, it wouldn't work. He makes it work, and that's what makes it "appointment radio" instead of a background HD2 stream.
>>Eventually someone, somewhere is going to come up with a brilliant idea. He or she is going to decide to add real personality to a music format in order to make it *better* than the competition's format. This genius will realize that you can make more money with a better product then you can by making a mediocre product worse.<<
I hope you're right and I hope this revelation takes place before it's too late. Terrestrial radio still has the advantage of huge audiences compared to "new media" and is therefore in the best position to spend whatever it takes to hire the talent to make it happen.
Here's a question: can anyone quantify the cost of staffing a NYC station with talent like Bill Lee, Bob Shannon, and others of their stature relative to the overall cost of running a station? I can't believe it's insurmountable in the scheme of things. And how many ratings points would it take to cover the cost?
Boards of Directors of big companies like to point out that huge executive salaries are a drop in the bucket and "worth it" as long as the executives get results. In many cases they're right. The value of talent can be "priceless."