Getting Sirius about Howard Stern’s Next Step 8 Sep 2010, 7:51 pm

From Inside Radio:

Analysts: Sirius XM “would be fine” without Stern. The satcaster’s high penetration in automobiles and partnerships with carmakers will keep its subscriber rolls strong for years to come, according to analysts. “The company’s in a pretty good position and their operations would be fine and continue even if they lost subscribers because of Stern,” BGB Securities analyst Murray Arenson tells Reuters. Despite the “Where you go Howard, we go” mindset of many of Stern’s fans, Barrington Research analyst James Goss says the listeners who followed Stern to Sirius XM may not be ready to leave with him. “People who took the product then might have found other things they liked about satellite radio, and at this stage, they wouldn’t necessarily leave,” Goss tells Reuters. Stern has floated the idea of striking out on his own with a mobile app that would give subscribers access to his show and archives. That’s an idea whose time has come, according to Jennifer Lane, who writes Audio4Cast, a daily blog about internet radio and digital audio. “Imagine Howard Stern apps, streams, in- studio videos, side channel audio and video programming, all wrapped into one online platform,” she writes.

It’s easy to suggest that Sirius XM will be just fine without Howard Stern based purely on subscription and car sales metrics.  But that is an analysis so extraordinarily short-sighted, I’m surprised it’s coming from a professional analyst.

Ponder, for example, the consequences of Howard’s potential departure from Satellite as a news item.  This would be the worst publicity debacle for satellite radio in its short history. It would also be the biggest news item about satellite radio since the announcement that Howard would land there in the first place.

Indeed, a quick look at Google Trends for “Sirius” indicates the biggest spike by far was timed with Howard’s appearance on Satellite.

To suggest that such bad publicity is anything but bad for Sirius XM as a brand is naive.  Would you want to unleash the harsh negativity of a disgruntled Stern audience on your brand?  I didn’t think so.

At the same time, it’s easy to wax rhapsodic about the potential opportunities for Howard Stern in the digital space, because indeed there’s great potential there. But Team Howard retains all their own digital rights.  To a degree all the whiz-bang digital doo-dads are available to Howard under his existing contract.  And so far (for various reasons) they remain in the future.

The digerati, of course, think Stern is crazy to do anything but leave “old media.”

But these arguments miss the larger picture.  Old media is still big media, and it generates big headlines. It’s not just about subscribers and money.  It’s about being on the tip of the spear that captures the world’s attention. And the Howard Stern digital-only empire would be no attention-grabber.  Certainly not the way satellite radio was thought to be on the day that Howard announced he’d be joining it.

Howard Stern is a star and a star is in show-business.  And show-business favors the biggest and broadest possible stage.  And isn’t that where a star belongs?

So Howard can be the A-list star of a blockbuster on radio or even on satellite radio.  And he can be this while also flexing his digital muscles.

But what about a digital-only Howard?  On the Internet, he could make beaucoup bucks for sure.  But without big media support, he’d be the auteur of his own independent film.

And even with a lot of butts in the metaphorical seats, it’s still an Indie.

Ask yourself:

Would Oprah do that?

Yes, I Can Prove Radio Works for Advertisers 8 Sep 2010, 12:55 am

The norm in radio is to pitch 30′s or 60′s at faceless listeners with largely unmeasurable results.

“Did it work?” is rarely the question since most radio sales operations don’t care to know (and neither do many agencies).

But “most” certainly does not mean “all.”

And in this age of rampant accountability – an era when return-on-investment is a readily available metric as close as a Google Adword, some broadcasters are offering up something to advertisers that they’re not accustomed to seeing from radio:

Proof.

Proof that their radio buy works.

Lurking in the sales pit at Clear Channel Los Angeles is a skunk-works team organized by Dan Granger.

Dan is an account exec who has taken the responsibility for radio’s advertising success into his own hands.  And in so doing, he is transforming the relationship his direct clients have with radio.

The toolbox Dan is using is not necessarily new, and his approach is not necessarily novel.  But it remains all too rare in the radio industry today.

So far.

So listen to this conversation with Dan and discover what Dan does and why his clients swear by it.

This is must-listening for the radio sellers and their managers and leaders in my audience.

All credit to Clear Channel for making Dan’s work possible.

And share your own stories of how you have demonstrated “results” for your clients.

Listen to our entire interview here – or subscribe to all the Mark Ramsey Media podcasts at iTunes.

(audio/mpeg; 12.3 MB)

A Facebook Promotion that’s actually about Ratings 5 Sep 2010, 2:00 pm

From one of Dial Global’s “Simply About Music” (SAM) affiliates, courtesy of Beau Phillips:

There’s a SAM affiliate in Illinois that’s been with Dial Global for a couple years.  Over the last year, the station had flattened out in the ratings. Earlier this year, we developed a plan to get some street buzz for the station. Like most stations they had no money for promotions. On Fridays instead of calling the station SAM, we rename it after a “facebook fan” that we select….its called FACEBOOK FAN FRIDAYS. We re-do new imaging for the station every Friday, calling it stuff like “Tina Smith-FM”. We run promos saying what we’re doing.  We play up the fact that “all this great music is thanks to Tina”…and “if you see Tina today, thank her.” Turns out people like to hear their name on the radio ALL DAY, and end up telling their friends.  The station’s Facebook friends have gone from a few hundred to a few thousand.  And for whatever reasons, the ratings doubled in the last book. I’ve given this idea to other SAM’s, along with producing generic Facebook fan imaging for them.

Interesting tactic that’s less about gathering Facebook fans and more about generating some excitement and word-of-mouth out in audience-land.

Now if the station has a mechanism to “can” that word-of-mouth and make the whole process easier to share and communicate to friends (exactly the purpose of social media), you have a great opportunity to power the ability of an audience to share themselves with each other in your presence.

That, my friends, is called “branding.”

Will this branding yield ratings like it seemed to do in this case?

Try it and find out.

Here’s one of D-G’s sample promos:

Subscribe to all the Mark Ramsey Media podcasts at iTunes.

(audio/mpeg; 0.8 MB)

It’s not a Digital-or-Radio either-or thing. It’s Both. 4 Sep 2010, 2:00 pm

Don’t take my word for it.  Take the word of Gary Vaynerchuk, a guy who would not exist in the public spotlight were it not for all things digital.

Gary, who is now a speaker and mega-entrepreneur and Sirius/XM host and author and former interview subject right here in this blog – in addition to being one of America’s best-known wine merchants, makes some important points in this video:

It’s not the platform, it’s the message.

And you have to fish where the fish are.

And guess what?  Radio provides a very spacious aquarium.

Your Brand Must Create a Lasting Impression 3 Sep 2010, 2:00 pm

It’s really the essence of branding.

Creating an impression which lasts.

This is forgotten when we obsess on legendary call letters even when the legend is only in our minds, not the audience’s.

It’s forgotten when we focus on today and don’t bother to build for audiences yet to come.

A great brand is like a PIXAR movie (and most PIXAR movies are, indeed, great brands) – it’s always fresh and worth enjoying again for reasons anew.

I was having a conversation with a big-time radio producer and programmer, recently, and I asked “where is the up-and-coming young radio talent?”

His answer:  ”On YouTube.”  And he corrals talent for a living, folks.

Lasting impressions require a frontier which extends beyond the current fiscal quarter and beyond the conventional jock-hunt.  It requires a readiness and willingness to create entertainment (and information) across platforms.  Exactly where the audiences are.

To do otherwise is to take my fossil metaphor a bit too literally and become locked into the past forever.

If you prefer the audio version, click here:

(You can subscribe to all the MRM video and audio via iTunes and get the goodies before everybody else.)

(audio/mpeg)