Deane’s List
By Fred Deane
Fred Deane
Deane’s List honorees for this month’s DMS+ issue are Alex Tear, Matt Johnson, Rick Vaughn, and Mike O’Donnell. An outstanding group of programmers all of whom have accomplished much in their respective careers and continue along their respective growth curves.
There’s a diverse collection of issues presented this month, hopefully providing incentive for further discussion among all those who care about the future of our business.
Alex Tear
Alex Tear, VP Pop Programming SiriusXM + Pandora
Since advertising/revenue generation is the name of the game, why are there so many BAD ineffective and unimaginative commercials?
The issue at hand is the endemic dilemma that’s been plaguing radio for a few years now. Staffing shortages including creative/production types who used to be the imaginative heartbeat of every radio station.
We’ve known for decades that ad spots are not tune-in factors for any form of media, even when the content is very compelling. The trick has always been to craft spots that are (in a sense) tune-in factors, or at the very least, not detractors from the core product. That’s why shrewd radio programmers and GMs in the past would search for very-creative-to-super-creative types to limit the tune out factor. And the best radio stations typically had the cream of the crop.
For the longest time, the production/imaging director was a major contributor to the overall content of your station and helped create stationality that would not only mitigate the tune out factor, but also establish an image and theater-of-the-mind dynamitic that great radio stations over the decades always had.
Live reads by on-air talent have been in vogue for some time now but they only work if the talent can make the pitch in ways that stimulate and hold a listener’s interest. Howard Stern was great at this when he was performing on terrestrial radio. Part of his enormous appeal and success is you never knew what to expect from Howard during his content sessions and that suspense and trust translated to his live-reads for the very same reason.
Yes, that’s an extraordinary exception, but there’s something conceptually there that is greatly missing today (and has been for years). Very creative types paid well and given the latitude to perform their audio magic and turn those unimaginative/generic commercials into imaginative ones, are missing in radio’s playbook these days.
It’s a circuitous route with many of radio’s problematic issues that continually lead back to shoestring budgets and slim local radio operations. Commercial homogenization can sink you at the times you need the meters the most. If the status quo in this area remains standard practice, a crucial cog in the radio wheel is in danger.
That said, it’s imperative for radio execs to mine the many creative avenues that digi-options offer via their various platforms, BUT the cume is the ultimate attraction for advertisers and on-air still reigns supreme for premium impact for ad clients. Stock up on those creatives!
Rick Vaughn
Rick Vaughn, Operations Manager, Program Director, Cumulus Radio Station Group, Salt Lake City
In your opinion, what is the narrow age demo for CHR traditional callout research?
That is the big mystery these days, isn’t it? I would like to poll CHR programmers and draw my conclusions from that poll. As far as recommendations, I would skew as younger end as possible and top out at 30 years old.
Programmers and radio operators alike need to realize the shift in Pop cultural tendencies with the younger end. The assumption here is that CHR can still be considered Pop radio. Well, the first step is defining the consumer trendsetters of Pop culture. In any era, most of the time you will start at the youngest “desirable” age. The demo game will always be fashionable for any medium’s outreach to the consumer market. It’s what defines the core purpose of the product you are selling. Know your target demo, and, if you’re a Pop station, make sure your product is geared Pop culture enthusiasts.
Today’s Pop culture environment calls for a wide approach to researching your core demo. You must go beyond mere callout which has been around for at least 30 years. There aren’t too many other products or forms of market research that are still viable to many businesses these days, yet radio still heavily relies on callout.
Change the whole system if you ask me. How about introducing more relevant focused methods of measuring your audiences’ likes and dislikes (anyone for Rotten Tomatoes?) and get some tangible feedback that’s not going to tell you to keep playing the same dozen songs over and over again for long periods of time. You’re missing some Pop culture hits.
Mike O’Donnell
Mike O’Donnell, Operations Manager & Program Director, NE PA Audacy
What is going to be the best remedy to find new vibrant, engaging talent when there is no talent pool?
Radio must create the new talent pool. Like MLB farm clubs, radio needs a farm system of its own (per company) and must incentivize, attract, and enlist new talent into its programs. I would work with some of the best communications universities in the country and utilize them as a talent pool start to ignite careers.
There will be students who are attracted to any entertainment medium as a career option and if radio can further diversify its platform strategy beyond where it is today, students will find these digital areas attractive as career paths as well as radio itself.
There are far too many college students who are not aggressive enough about their career choices while in school. Make these programs very career path oriented. Get to these students in their freshman and sophomore years and offer internships at local radio stations, or simply have them participate in virtual programs that will concurrently connect them with your product and our industry.
Don’t give up on this future workforce. Provide them with support and encouragement to help advance their careers and lives that will give their college years meaning beyond the classroom, especially in those formative college semesters.
Investment in this area would be prudent for radio groups, the sooner the better.
I would have millennials and Gen-Zers help run these programs internally as they could more easily relate to the students’ needs and concerns relative to a future with a multi-platform radio company.
If you have employees already inside your company from these demo groups, they’ve already invested their time and energy in the medium so they would provide strong advocacy for the industry and real-life examples of advancement into the working world.
This one’s a no-brainer!
Matt Johnson
Matt Johnson, Program Director WPLW/The Pulse, Raleigh
Has it been a wise move for radio to bow to streaming platforms’ ability to make songs hits, and is their value (if even possible) in attempting to recapture this hill?
I’m not too sure that radio had any say in the matter as the natural process of music listening preferences flowed closer and closer to streaming platforms over the past several years. Streaming has made it much easier to personalize decisions regarding the listening habits of all music lovers. Pop radio has lost its central role in the music-discovery process to DSPs, as much of radio’s music decisions are being made by streaming metrics these days. So is the hill still there to be reclaimed?
There’s both good and bad in this cycle. The benefit is radio is capturing many of these hits from crossover platforms earlier than they might have in the past. After all, if the steaming numbers are impressive enough, you essentially have a “pre-test” focus group to help guide those early decisions. The downside is reflected in the “Every streaming hit is not necessarily a radio hit” mentality. While that has a degree of accuracy, the music discovery component in the equation is lost for radio when you don’t at least give the listeners the opportunity they have on other audio and visual streaming services to make discovery preferences themselves.
Realistically you can’t play EVERY streaming hit. But you can install creative audio/digital content features designed to enhance your music position in general that also address this concept allowing the listener to at least sample active songs they’re observing on other platforms.
Consider a “trending music” image piece, beyond the obvious hits, designed to enhance listener engagement to your brand on all your platforms that include trending streaming songs and artists yet to make the playlist. Easy to produce, easy to cross-promote across all platforms, and will go a long way to co-op the audio component by association alone. If the listeners are hearing and seeing these high streaming songs and artists regularly on their various platforms, it’s a win.
There are several creative programmers in our business. I’m sure if given the time and even limited staffing requirements, their teams can creatively tackle this issue with the same rationale I previously addressed in Alex Tear’s question.
There’s no need to “recapture the hill,” just share the space with the other platforms who have already secured their places.
Fred Deane is the Founder & CEO of Deane Media Solutions, a firm designed as a medium and pathway of productive and meaningful idea interactions among the multi-media and music industries. Deane has been serving our industry for over four decades, dedicating his career to challenging himself as well as associates, and being a devoted advocate for the radio medium. His academic background includes law, economics, and musicology. He has also served as an Adjunct Professor for several Philadelphia area universities, instructing at the undergraduate and graduate levels.
