Robby Bridges
by Robby Bridges
Fourteen years ago this March I began my career in commercial radio, and recently got to thinking about how drastically different the landscape of the industry was only a decade and a half ago. We were using an analogue console and running all but some music off carts; phone calls were played back on reel-to-reel tape (demos and agency spots were sent in on them too). There was a live staff 24/7, and we were a stand alone FM without any other stations in our building. Most notably there was no Internet and we thought we were pretty spiffy asking at-work listeners to “fax in to win.” The focus of everyone in the building from our GM to our jocks to our engineer was product. I recall a staff meeting when the team was reminded the most important thing to all of us at all times “must be what’s coming through the speakers, nothing matters more”.
Only in the past three or four years has the advent of Internet music stores, digital media players, satellite and DVR made me really begin to worry about music radio’s future. One thing is clear: the landscape of available media and technology is drastically different than it was in 1993. Listeners of every format (or music genre) have the ability to get any song they want, on demand, any time they want. Further, if they desire commercial free programming of thinly sliced musical niches they can find it. And too, they can now bring media players with them or listen to them in their cars.
Terrestrial music radio is a mass appeal medium. Even within specified formats, stations are always looking to build cume (the overall number of people tuning into a station per week) and then increase the number of occasions said people listen. Further, stations seek to extend the amount of time people listen when they do tune in (AQH and TSL). To accomplish this, music radio has to play music that will appeal to the highest common denominator, meaning we are the exact opposite of what the new media platforms offer. Our gold libraries are typically not very deep; our repetition is high and chances taken on new music or music outside of defined accessible formats is low. FM music radio is anything but on demand as far as music; it would seem clear we can’t be if we’re going to appeal to and maintain the largest number of samplers while attracting the broadest base of clients and advertisers possible. But we’ve been here before, which brings me to the title of this article.
In the wake of the payola hearings of 1959-60, Rock and Pop music announcers suddenly had zero freedom to experiment with music they felt would appeal to their audience, and few were granted unlimited freedom to play requests. Unable to rope in an audience solely with music content, appealing to the masses and building a steady sustainable audience fell to personalities who developed shtick and unique on-air styles. Outlandish contests, promotional activities outside of the station, personalities of the ’60s and ’70s made their time on air memorable based on their content. If there was going to be limited excitement generated by tight playlists which then, like today, could not serve any one individual listener’s tastes, the content of what went on between the records and stopsets was going to have to be what roped the listener in.
Radio has the ability to create content by allowing personalities to be funny, irreverent, emotional, topical, warm and friendly, engaged in the format lifestyle and, of course, local. Radio is a one-on-one “reach out and touch you” medium. It might not be viable for FM music radio to match the on demand options of new media, but we can deliver content around the best researched playlists possible. On this front, new media can’t compete. The new media options can’t create emotional bonds, greet a local little league team, or make Kevin Federline jokes over song intros. Nor can an mp3 player or Web jukebox give an excited soccer mom $1K on a grey Tuesday afternoon while she’s stuck in a traffic jam. Terrestrial music radio can, but we have to allow our personalities to really be personalities again.
Look no farther than New York’s WPLJ (arguable America’s finest contemporary hits station). Scott and Todd in the Morning pack topical discussion, local listener interaction, show biz gossip, bits, and parodies into quarter hours. Additionally, it is a show that doesn’t take itself too seriously. While I could download Rob Thomas and Christina Aguilera songs myself and play them on my computer all I like, Scott and Todd can play them along with a phone scam, Broadway ticket giveaway and of course NYC news, weather and traffic, all in a 20-minute span. This is true of PLJ in all dayparts. All of their personalities create an atmosphere of fun and operate within the station identity to create engaging content coupled with the music. Log onto PLJ.com and read their banner scroll: New York Radio Entertainment. The same can be said of LA’s KIIS-FM, with Ryan Seacrest and Ellen K. defining the broadcast day, which is jammed packed with content and promotions. Also, both KIIS and PLJ effectively embrace new media as an extension of their personalities’ shows and stationality from Podcasts to Web streaming.
I could also cite examples of many great personalities from morning hosts, nighttime rhymers to masters of the phone bit. But instead, let’s remember the Dan Ingram show, formerly afternoons on WABC-AM and later 92-KTU. The WABC formatics were notoriously rigid and the playlist remarkably tight, yet Dan was a talent who could create content by relating the way he saw the world his listeners lived in to the music he was playing. He accomplished this using benchmark features, impeccable wit and intelligent vocabulary. A lot of Dan’s warmth and charm came from the way he could make a listener feel he respected them, sharing a joke or factoid with just them “second person singular.” Dan did all of this seamlessly in and out of those same Top 20 tested songs day-after-day.
Notably too is the revisit WABC-AM does to its musical past on Saturday nights, incorporating chatter, guests, bits, trivia, callers and music. I offer that this concept may not be far from the kind of content driven music radio FM needs to be providing consumers to survive and remain relevant in the years to come. Mass appeal music offered with lots of engaging content and direct continual listener participation may be a viable answer to slipping TSL and flat annual sales growth nationally.
Terrestrial music radio will remain relevant if it deeply refocuses on investing in its product. Yes, this means getting the music right, but equally, if not more importantly, it means creating an on-air, promotional and new media identity that reinforces what the product is, and allows personalities to create and package this content to sell that product.
I’ll end with another analogy from my first PD 14 years ago: “Radio is like a restaurant,” he said. I was taught listeners were like customers who would come for the food (music) but stay, return, tell friends of the ambience (promotions, jingles) and the waiter (personality). I suggest today, consumers have many more kinds of restaurants to choose from; in fact they can now create dishes at home they used to have to go out for. So if we restaurants (stations) work harder to get them to return to us, we better give them not only fine food and ambience but a friendly wait staff and a free interactive dinner show.
Robby Bridges hosts afternoon drive and is part of the programming team/AMD at Providence’s number one radio station Cat Country 98.1 WCTK, arriving in 2003. He is also President of BBOR Productions, developing and marketing syndication, music and production pieces nationally. Previously Bridges has worked in various capacities at Z100/New York, Q102/Philadelphia, WODS and Mix 98.5/Boston, and elsewhere in New England. Robby can be reached at 401-467-4366 or bridges@bborproductions.com.
