Tag Archives: Interview

Seth Godin on radio’s future

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Mark Ramsey has posted audio (and partial transcript) of an interview with marketing maven Seth Godin, on the future of radio. This is an update to an earlier interview. These three nuggets sloshed out of my pan:

“So if you’re an advertiser and you have a choice between reaching a ton of people who couldn’t care less, and so you have to talk really fast, yell, and make obscene promises on the radio to get them to show up at your dealership, or reach a smaller group of people about something that they’re very interested in a very connected way, in the long run advertisers are going to come back to the smaller, more tightly knit group.”

“Everything radio has done has been about leveraging a rare piece of spectrum, and the thing we have to acknowledge is that spectrum isn’t rare anymore. So the one asset you built your whole organization on is going away really fast and instead of putting your head in the sand and complaining about that, take advantage of the momentum so that when it does finally disappear, you have something else.”

“Consider the FCC’s ruling recently about the white space spectrum. What white space spectrum is going to mean is that in five years every car sold is going to have an infinite number of radio stations on it. Not 100 or 1,000 but more radio stations than you could listen to in your lifetime, and if that’s true, tell me again why you’re going to win?”

As I ponder these points, I’m listening to the very eclectic music mix on the Coffee Zone iPod. On the way to work, I’ll be live streaming Pandora from the iPhone.

Microsoft’s Ballmer on future of media?

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“In the next 10 years, the whole world of media, communications and advertising are going to be turned upside down — my opinion. Here are the premises I have. Number one, there will be no media consumption left in 10 years that is not delivered over an IP network. There will be no newspapers, no magazines that are delivered in paper form. Everything gets delivered in an electronic form.”

[from an interview -video/text- at washingtonpost.com]

Jim Lipsey

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Jim Lipsey was one of Learfield’s first employees. He was part of the KLIK gang (Derry Brownfield and Bob Priddy) that helped Clyde Lear get the company up and running.

On Friday we got Clyde, Jim and Bob in a studio to talk about those early days and Jim’s contributions (there were many). Jim will be 87 his next birthday. I want to be him when I grow up. When I joined the company in 1984, Jim showed me the ropes of affiliate relations. It was a privilege to work with him. Here’s 10 minutes from a half-hour chat.

MSTA Podcast: The Pulse

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Todd Fuller and Gail McCrayTodd Fuller and Gail McCray produce and co-host The Pulse, a weekly podcast for the Missouri State Teachers Association. The 25 podcasts they’ve produced since January, 2006, cover a wide variety of topics. When I listened to one of their podcasts last week, I was immediately struck by the quality and professionalism of the production. Not sure why I was surprised, since they’re both communications pros but it drove home one more time that anyone with something to say now has the means to be heard.

Near the end of the 30 minute chat (AUDIO), Todd mentions something I found very interesting. The association endorses political candidates and it’s a big deal (at least to the candidates). Typically those announcements would be made via news release to the big newspapers and media outlets. This year, MSTA plans to make the announcement on their podcast as well as putting the word out via blogs. I think that is brilliant I’ll bet they get a lot of play out of it.

Todd and Gail are making great use of podcasting and I have no doubt other associations will see the impact of what MSTA is doing and jump in the water.

PS: In addition to Todd and Gail, you’ll hear David Brazeal in a couple of places… but we lost him due to my lack of experience with Skype.

Making radio relevant again

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I’ve been reading Douglas Rushkoff’s latest book (Get Back In theBox: Innovation from the Inside Out) and was delighted to come across an interview with Rushkoff at Radio Marketing Nexus. Mark Ramsey talked with Rushkoff about “how to make radio relevant again.” Ruskoff misses the same things about radio that I do. AUDIO

“Because of my book tours I’ve been in a lot of radio stations, and even from 1995 to 2005 the amount of change I’ve seen has been shocking. There used to be this kind of quality to an FM radio station – I hate to be stereotypical, but there was a certain kind of chick who would be the receptionist at an FM radio station. There was a certain kind of guy that worked in the album room organizing the albums. There was a certain kind of geek figuring out the emphasis rack.

But FM stations are not really like that anymore. They feel much more like almost any other office, and if you didn’t see the control room you wouldn’t know you were in a radio station at all. They don’t ooze their culture anymore.

There was a smell and a quality and a texture to everything radio that I think was the fun of the industry. There was something so real about it. In the early days when I was a kid, you had Ron Lundy and Cousin Brucie – you just somehow knew those guys were there even though they were playing top 40 stuff. You knew it was a world of guys with records and personalities. And there’s so little of that on the radio today.

There’s almost nothing in mainstream radio that has that sense of this as a club of people in a cool place having a great time sharing some of their ecstasy with those of us driving to work or sitting in our bedrooms who wanted to have a taste of what it’s like to be an adult who understands music, who reads “Rolling Stone,” who understands why we’re fighting the Gulf War, or whatever it is. And I want to piece of that.

When I turn on the radio now I don’t feel that these folks have a piece of anything that I can’t get a piece of by going into Allstate to work in the morning. It’s just another working stiff with some computer telling them what to play and when to play it and when to read the ads.

I don’t trust the voice behind the music anymore because I don’t know that he’s really an expert or that he really cares. He’s not part of a living, breathing, fertile culture whereas if I go online and look at these Podcasts I know these people have done it not for the money but for the love of it. And radio is going to have to go a long way now to convince me that there’s somebody there who cares about what they’re doing for some reason other than the cash.

Finally, I would say the purpose of radio is to keep people company. And in order to keep people company there’s got to be a human being on the other side of it. The more truly human your radio station is the better it is at keeping people company. And the more computerized and business-like it is the farther outside the box you’ll find yourself.”

So there you have it. The pure, distilled essence of what’s wrong with radio today. And it seems like it would be very easy to fix. To get back in the box. But I fear we don’t even remember where we put the box.

Sheryl Crow Aquatic Center

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Kennett, Missouri hasn’t had a public swimming pool since they demolished the ancient, aboveground monster that people my age grew up with. But thanks to the generosity of hometown-girl-turned-superstar Sheryl Crow (and others), they now have the Sheryl Crow Aquatic Center. The nine-time Grammy winner came to take part in the dedication ceremonies on Saturday and Barb and I were there for the big splash.

I don’t know Sheryl Crow (I don’t know any big stars) but she seems like one very classy, very smart, very down-to-earth lady. She still sees herself as a Kennett girl. That’s home. And she’s concerned that the little town has fallen upon hard times, economically. So she wrote ’em a check for a million bucks to build a municipal swimming pool just off the downtown “square.” Which is slowly dying. Some would say dead.

But Ms. Crow is giving more than her money to help revitalize the town. She’s giving her time and her name and a little of her wonderful talent. She performed a few songs with a local band, The Usual Suspects. Her daddy, Wendell, plays guitar in the band when he’s not lawyer’ing.

I’m terrible at estimating crowds because I avoid them like the plague, but I’d guess there were three or four hundred [The DDD reports 4,000] folks on hand and it was a beautiful morning. I got to see a lot of old friends, many of whom I had not seen in 20 years. I took a bunch of photos while Barb manned the camcorder. We’ll get some video posted as soon as I have time to edit.

Following the performance, Sheryl held a little pool-side news conference [5 min] for the half dozen TV and radio stations on hand.

AUDIO: News conference 5 min MP3

(Rumor: A crew from ABC’s 20/20 was following Sheryl around for some upcoming segment) When no one could come up with a coherent question, Sheryl took over and explained why she got involved in the project. Not sure if you’ll be able to hear it, but I thought the best question came from Barb, who wanted to know Sheryl’s best stroke when she was on the high school swim team (breast stroke).

I don’t know that a new swimming pool will save my old home town but I’m proud of all those folks for trying.

Special thanks to Kennett correspondent Charles Jolliff for link to photos of Kennett’s old municipal pool. UPI Super Photog Bill Greenblatt for the photo above and others. And Jan McElwrath and Randy Morgan with the Kennett Chamber of Commerce for organizing a great a event making us feel so welcome.