They're Spending How Much to Promote HD?!

I'm not sure whether to laugh or cry. Maybe I'll do both.

I'm still in the shock stage after finding out that the HD Radio Alliance is spending $200 million on a new marketing campaign.

Whoa! Are you OK? Let me help you up. I know! I fell on the floor, too, when I read that.

I can't make a living wage in this business, but the broadcasters who make up the Alliance can cough up 200 mill for this? I thought HD was still mainly in the experimental stage. Does this mean they think HD is ready for prime time?! Mel Karmazin must be laughing his ass off.

The theme of the new campaign is "HD Radio: Discover It!"


I see the word "Discover" in orange and black, and all I can think about is the bankruptcy I had to file to keep Discover Card from garnishing my wages.


Hey HD Alliance! I'm interested in HD Radio, and you're interested in HD Radio...because we're both in radio! Everybody else? Couldn't care less. And given the current HD2 choices, they're still not going to care. "Ooooo. You mean I can hear an all-80's format with this $300 HD receiver? Gosh! You just can't hear that kind of format on Sirius...or XM...or that music service from the cable company...or my iPod.

If the only "HD Only" content is the same stuff you can find elsewhere, then where's the compulsion? To drive people to HD, radio has to offer unique content. Each station must identify the most popular part of the station and then offer more of it on HD2. If a station has the number 1 local morning show in the market, then offer some bonus content, or even rerun the whole show later in the day.

I just can't imagine even early adopters let alone average consumers buying into this when the same thing is available from other sources. Granted, the content is free once you pay through the nose for the receiver. But anybody who has $300 to spend on a new HD radio, probably wouldn't balk at paying $13 a month for satellite.

The Alliance should be spending $200 million on figuring out what to put on the side channels.

A Classic TV Spot for a Classic Radio Station

Since I mentioned Howard Stern in an earlier post, I thought I'd show you this 1984 TV spot for WNBC-AM in New York. If you've ever seen Private Parts then you know that Stern and Don Imus worked togethe at WNBC. Imus was already an established star when Stern arrived in 1982 to do PM drive. Two years later, the station ran this pretty good TV spot, which I believe was accompanied by a billboard campaign.



Howard was fired from WNBC less than two years later.

This Week with...Arbitron?

Arbitron this week announced the availability of Houston ratings on a weekly basis! Weekly! Ratings! This is all part of Arbitron's testing of the Personal People Meter (PPM), which is their new electronic method of gathering ratings data.

According to Arbitron's news release,

“Instead of waiting as long as a month for a ratings report that only reflects the average audience for the previous three months, radio station executives will now have a single week of reliable audience ratings to see how a programming strategy is working,” said Gary Marince, vice president, Programming Services and Development, Arbitron Inc.

Fascinating stuff. Stations will, for the first time ever, find out in detail if certain long held beliefs are true. Big concert coming to town? A week-long ticket blow out should be great for TSL, right? Weekly ratings should be able to tell us. Do listeners change their habits when their favorite jock is on vacation? Well, let's look at the weekly ratings. Hell, let's shuffle our lineup for a couple of weeks and see what happens. Oh, and we were thinking about broadening our playlist. Let's try it for a week and go from there.

We knew that the PPM was going to shake things up, but the inclusion of weekly ratings is going to cause an earthquake.

A New Age of Star-Studded Radio Shows

A few years back the major TV networks decided that they would strike ratings gold if they built shows around movie stars. Bette Midler and Geena Davis got their own sitcoms (Davis publicized the latter by wearing a see-through dress to the Emmys). Gabriel Byrne had a drama built around him. Gina Gershon (Bound, Showgirls) starred in a drama called Snoops. James Cameron (a star behind the camera) created Dark Angel which lasted two seasons.

The idea was that viewers would recognize the big names and tune in. It was a quick fix strategy that failed, by and large. ABC even gave Geena Davis another show last year (Commander in Chief), only to cancel it after one season.

Radio has, for the most part, shied away from this strategy. Most of the ratings powerhouses have risen through the ranks. Yeah, there have been shows hosted by non-radio celebrities. Hell, I still remember the Soupy Sales Show on WNBC that aired between Imus and Howard Stern back in the early 80s. Joan Rivers had a show on WOR.

Speaking of Howard Stern, his departure from terrestrial radio sparked a fire under some asses in the radio industry. Suddenly, there was a lot of audience up for grabs in some big markets for the first time in 10, 15 and even 20 years.

The quick fix solution? Hire celebrities to do morning shows! Howard's former employer, CBS Radio installed David Lee Roth and Penn Jillette, among others, for some of their own stations. Well, David Lee Roth went through a rather well publicized flame out, after only one ratings book. Howard's other direct replacements aren't doing well either.

Clear Channel has given Whoopi Goldberg her own show. Whoopi freakin' Goldberg! She isn't meant to be a direct competitor for Howard's old audience, just someone trying fill the ratings void. In fact, her show will target women listeners.

When was the last time she was successful at something? She's one of those celebrities that gets handed opportunity after opportunity, even though she continues to fail. And I expect the same for her radio show. But, maybe I shouldn't be passing judgement without having heard the show.

Why weren't radio programmers prepared for this moment? Howard was threatening retirement for years before he finally left. NBC knew that Johnny Carson wasn't going to be around forever. So, they had Letterman and Leno waiting in the wings. Instead of cultivating talent that could have one day stepped into Howard's shoes, the big radio companies cleaned house during the aftermath of Janet Jackson's wardrobe malfunction.

So, what's next? More celebrity shows? If Whoopi's initial ratings are impressive enough, then yeah. But, in the long run, the ratings won't be there. Doing a daily morning show is a lot of work, and the Whoopis of the world are going to start to wonder if it's worth it. Maybe then we'll see a return to developing strong radio talent.

But, then again, I hear Geena Davis is available for a morning show.

Happy Birthday!

Spooky. I was going to launch this blog today anyway. Yesterday, I settled on the title. Today, I realized that it's the birthday of Richard Sanders, best known for playing Les Nessman on WKRP in Cincinnati! Weird, huh?

So happy 66th birthday, Mr. Sanders! And thanks for inspiring my first post!

You know what would be a nice birthday present? WKRP on DVD. The original episodes featured copyrighted music for which the producers received permission to use it for the network run of the show only. The license didn't include any provisions that would allow the songs to appear on a DVD, for example. When a handful of episodes were released on VHS, viewers heard generic music in place of the songs that were originally used. Clearly, a DVD set in this form would be received poorly, and therein lies the holdup. Whoever pays to license the music (again) would have to be sure they'd get enough of a return on their investment to make it worthwhile. I'm not holding my breath.