WJMA -- Past and Future

There's an interesting correlation between the "golden age" of Radio Orange (WJMA-FM), and the current direction radio needs to move in.

Here's the past:

In the late 1970's, WJMA had a virtual lock on local news. They had two reporters, one who worked primarily in the mornings, the other mainly at night, with an overlap during the day. Between them, they could cover any local government or other important community activity that happened during the week.

They also had five stringers, who phoned in reports from the five surrounding counties. Each stringer gave a weekly report. Each report ran on a certain weekday, so listeners knew, for example, that the Culpeper Report ran on Mondays, the Greene Country Report ran on Tuesdays, and so on.

Arch Harrison, the station owner, offered his own op-ed segment, "Postscript to the News," which ranged far and wide over a variety of topics, of local and national interest. There was a sports director who interviewed the high school coaches of the five counties -- each coach's report airing on a certain day of the week. Sports fans knew that Monday was Orange's Coach K., Tuesday was Madison's coach Eddie Dean and so on.

There was also a public affairs program, "Monday at One," where guests of interest to the community were interviewed -- local politicians, charity heads, visiting dignitaries, event organizers, and others.

Was all that news necessary? You bet. Folks within the listening area of Radio Orange knew that if they passed an accident during the day, they could tune into the next news cast and find out what happened.

Was it worth it for the station? Yes, in many ways. Every single segment -- the county reports, the coaches' corners, the newscast, Monday at One -- all of it was sponsored and generated money for the station. And it built and sustained audiences.

Folks interested in local sports listened to Radio Orange. People wanting to keep up with their community listened to Radio Orange. People wanting to get news before it showed up in the weekly paper listened to Radio Orange.

Here's the future:

All of that valuable content that the old Radio Orange created on a daily basis would be solid gold on a station website.

First off, all of those special segments could live as downloadable audio files on the website -- and they could all be sponsored. They could also be repurposed as podcasts. I would love to subscribe to a "Postscript to the News" daily podcast. And those, too, could be sponsored.

Imagine the "Coaches Corner" as a video podcast (and as a video posted to the website).

Now the old Radio Orange main newscasts went on for a while -- no surprise given all they had to broadcast. A shorter form of the interviews and stories could run over the air, with the tagline for each story being the same: "to hear more, go to our website, WJMA.com/news."

The "Monday at One" segments could also be made  available as downloadable audio -- and if the studio setup was relatively static, a camera or two could be permanently positioned to record the interviews. Not only would video make for much more compelling content (read: more downloads, more traffic, more ad revenue), but there might an opportunity to sell the footage to other news outlets, such as the regional TV stations.

I like to think that if the creative, innovative staff that served the station so well during its golden age was currently producing the same quality content, all of this would have already happened.

So what's happening on the website of the current owners of WJMA? Well, we've been staring at a placeholder with no links for 100 days now.

Sometimes the good old days really are.

- Ralph

Day 100 of the WJMA Web Watch.

A Civilized Discussion -- on YouTube!

Many folks I know don't think much of YouTube. In their minds, it's all skateboarding dogs and painful pratfalls. And the comments that accompany them are even worse -- The Onion's recent article "Local Idiot to Post Comment On The Internet" is more truth than fiction.

But YouTube videos encompasses the entire range of human experience, from the lows to the highs.

I recently ran across a video of Anton Webern's "Symphony, Op. 21." For those not familiar with Webern's work, he was part of the Second Viennese School of composition. Following the lead of Arnold Schoenberg and Alban Berg, Webern sought to move from a tonal-based system of composition to one where all twelve of the notes in the scale are of equal weight (the dodecaphonic system).

At the same time, Webern continually distilled his music down to its essence. His symphony lasts less than ten minutes and often has just one instrument playing at a time. But every note is absolutely critical, often serving several different musical functions simultaneously.

Webern's music doesn't sound like anybody else's. And though it was written over sixty years ago it still challenges many.

Now someone's made a video of Webern's symphony.



What I find most interesting are the comments that follow the video. They're literate, polite, and often informative. Instead of comments like "Haha wtf?" and "yall haters is salitiee," we get this:

"I feel Boulez is hugely underrated not only as a conductor, but as a composer also."

"Recall that Beethoven, one of the most original of composers, went to Vienna "to follow in the footsteps of Mozart". He did not self-consciously try for originality: he was original because he had an original mind and personality. Setting out to be original on purpose is death to genuine creativity."

Thanks to poldi24 for creating the video and sharing it. Looks like you've prompted some good discussion. And on YouTube, no less!

- Ralph

Day 60 of the WJMA Web Watch.

Call Back Congress? I'll take Paris!

This past week we saw two politically-motivated Internet initiatives. One's calling itself a viral movement -- the other just is.

CallBackCongress.com is Rep. Eric Cantor's attempt to start a grassroots revolution to have Speaker Pelosi reconvene Congress so that the Republicans can bring their energy bills to the floor. I've posted about this before. As of today, a little over 30,000 people have signed up since the site was launched a week ago. While the decidedly conservative part of the blogosphere's been talking about this viral campaign, it's garnered almost no interest elsewhere.

On the other hand, there's the video created in response to John McCain's first "Celebrity" campaign ad. Here's the original, for those who came in late.



Interestingly enough, the most effective response didn't come from the Obama camp -- it came from Paris Hilton herself. Here's her reply.

In its first two days, the video was viewed over 6 million times, with no end in sight. It's created enough of a buzz to make it into mainstream media (MSM) reports and commentary.

Now some may say that Hilton's celebrity status account for a large number of views, but if you poke around YouTube, you'll see plenty of Hilton videos (both amateur and professional) that have only a fraction of the views. So it's not just who's in the video.

It's that magic combination of content, plus execution, plus timing. The video parallels the McCain original, and Paris plays her public persona perfectly. But if the video had been released next week, instead of almost immediately, that critical mass would have been missing, and it would not have achieved the success it has.

And while many people toss the term "viral" around, few really seem to understand it. Like a virus, a video, or Internet meme spreads through contact. Each viewer shares it with many more people, each of which shares with multiple people and so on.

In the case of the Cantor petition, most of the 30,000 came in within the first day, and a decreasing number of signers each day after. Hilton's video has been growing exponentially since day one -- and with it making the jump to MSM, it should continue to gain viewers.

30,000 and slowing vs. 6.2 million and growing. One's viral, the other wishes it was.

- Ralph

Day 55 of the WJMA Web Watch.

The Anthropology of YouTube

If you think YouTube is just goofy videos of skateboarding dogs and silly but painful pratfalls, then you've missed something significant about this site. Michael Wesch, professor of anthropology at Kansas University, has been studying the Internet -- and specifically YouTube -- for some time.

His video, "Web 2.0... The Machine is Us/ing Us" should be required viewing for anyone trying to do anything online (in my opinion).

Wesch recently posted his Library of Congress address, "An Anthropological Introduction to YouTube."

So why should you care what some egghead has to say about videos with kittens playing the piano? Well first, what he talks about is more fundamental than that -- he gets at the underlying social forces that drive the YouTube phenomenon. Second, Wesch is an academic with real-world experience in his field, so his observations and conclusions have been documented and tested. And any business with an online presence -- even if it doesn't post YouTube videos -- needs to understand the core concepts Wesch presents.



His concept of context collapse is probably the thing most traditional businesses stumble upon. Basically (if you haven't watched the video yet), the idea is this: once something's made available on the Internet, other people can take it and use all or parts of it for their own self-expression -- and the original creator has no control over its use.

Now this is the kind of thing that keeps RIAA and MPAA lawyers busy round-the-clock issuing take-down orders and filing lawsuits in a vain attempt to hold back the tsunami with an umbrella.

But it's also the kind of thing that made Jonathan Coulton a star. While Prince goes after a mom for the background music heard in a video of her child dancing, Coulton encouraged people to use his music to create their own videos -- and they have. Each one raises Coulton's profile, and each one represents another way for his music to reach potential fans.

Coulton's embrace of YouTube culture has helped him monetize his music while the major labels continue to spend huge sums of money to wage war on their artists' biggest fans.

Which is the smarter marketing strategy? Which one does your business embrace?

Invest an hour. Watch the video.

- Ralph

Day 52 of the WJMA Web Watch.

One more from the Beeb

Yesterday I talked about how the BBC is using YouTube as an effective marketing tool by incorporating videos of their radio personalities into their new media mix of blogs, text messaging, podcasts, and website pages. Yes, the BBC has resources far and beyond most radio stations in this country. But their tactics can be used by just about anyone -- because most of these new media resources are free.

The Chris Moyles Show, on BBC Radio 1, generates a goodly amount of videos. And so they've taken the next logical step, which is to create their own YouTube channel. Now there's a single destination where listeners and fans can go to get all of the Moyles' show videos.

Again, this is something just about anyone can do -- but you have to do it right. Take a critical look at the page. It's effectively branded, and as you can see from the ratings, traffic is brisk.

For any station (or any other business, for that matter) that generates more than five videos, having a dedicated channel can be a great way to further focus the message.

You don't need to have a lot of money to survive in this changing media landscape -- just the imagination to take advantage of the opportunities that present themselves. Like the BBC.

- Ralph

Day 47 of the WJMA Web Watch.

A few tips from the Beeb -- with numbers

On one of my radio listserves, the subject of YouTube videos came up (after a radio announcer posted some videos). My contribution to the discussion, how a station can use YouTube as a marketing tool, was the basis of my post "Radio for video websites -- the easy way."

In the listserve discussion, I cited the BBC Radio 1's "Chris Moyles Show" as an example of how to integrate the various media. I linked to one of their videos involving the staff trying to talk while eating Pop Rocks, and explained how the show used this one skit on the radio, on video, as a text message topic, and a blog post.

Response from the listserve? "Eating Pop Rocks is dumb. What's the point?"

The point wasn't the content itself, but how it was being used to reach a wider audience through different media (as I further explained in another post).

Recently the Chris Moyles show did another video stunt worth paying attention to -- not necessarily because of the content, but because of what they did with it -- and the results.

The show's newsreader, Dominic Byrne, set out to make the world's most boring YouTube video. And the Moyles team set out to get that video as many views as possible. A silly stunt, sure, but let's look carefully at the execution -- and the results.



Listen carefully to the original segment. Although Moyles and his team are talking about a video (and a deliberately boring one at that), they use a wide range of audio tricks to make it interesting and fun on radio. When the segment starts, they note that the video has around 10,000 views -- by the end it's 100,000. Over 400 text messages come in during the segment, and the energy level of the segment is high throughout.

Now that broadcast has come and gone, but there's more to the story. I don't listen to the BBC live, but I did hear about this on the Chris Moyles Show podcast. And it pursuaded me to watch the video. I could have also read about it on the Chris Moyles Show blog. And played the Flash animation game. And watched the trailer.

As of this writing, the video has over 350,000 views -- which represents about 5% of the show's audience.

This video is silly, but what if these same tactics were used to drive traffic to a different kind of radio station video? What if it was a video designed to strengthen the brand of the station? What if it had an advertiser's message incorporated into it? Now you've got something that's working for the station in a medium outside of over-the-air broadcast. And what if listeners were directed to a page on the station's website to view the content? A page with additional advertising opportunities.

While 5% of an audience may not seem like much, consider this: a realtor shared a success story on our listserve. She was excited because advertising an open house on our local radio station resulted in 24 people showing up to the event. How much happier would she have been with ten times that turnout (closer to the 5% mark) -- or more?

- Ralph

Day 46 of the WJMA Web Watch.

Video for radio websites -- the easy way

I've talked before about how radio stations can use videos to add valuable content to their websites (and thereby increase traffic). Recently, I was reminded that this video doesn't necessarily have to be generated by the business itself.

JD Slade is the morning DJ at WJMA-FM in Orange, Virginia -- the station we're using as a case study to see what works (or doesn't) online. JD's posted some videos on YouTube. They're not official WJMA videos, just clips shot by private individuals. While not great art, they're the kind of fun, casual videos many people post.

However -- even though these are personal videos, they can be potentially valuable content for WJMA's website.

Here's one of JD Slade having fun in the studio while a song plays.



So what's the takeaway?

1. JD Slades's a person who knows how to have fun.
2. JD Slade's full of energy.
3. If you look carefully, you can see that he's not just flailing his arms -- JD really knows how to play the guitar. He's a musician.

Now if this video was embedded in the station's website with info about JD Slade's morning show, the augmented takeaway could be:

1. WJMA's morning show is fun.
2. WJMA's morning man, JD Slade, is full of energy.
3. WJMA's staff (at least one of them) is a musician. They must really know a lot about the music they play.

Here's another one of JD Slade dancing at a local event.



The immediate takeaway?

1. JD Slade is man who knows how to enjoy himself.
2. JD Slade is a good dancer (decidedly better than me, that's for sure).
3. This looks like a fun event.

Now suppose that video was taken at a WJMA remote, and posted to WJMA's website (with accompanying info identifying JD Slade as the WJMA morning DJ). Now the takeaway's changed slightly.

1. JD is a man who knows how to enjoy himself. His morning show must be fun to listen to.
2. JD is a good dancer. He sure has a lot of energy. I bet his morning show does, too.
3. Looks like this is a fun WJMA event. The next time they're going to be out broadcasting somewhere, I'm going to stop by. They know how to have a blast.

Of course, the more videos of this nature the station has on its site, the larger the cumulative effect. By also placing them on YouTube (yes, I know that's where these originated), the station makes the videos available to other folks as well. And every time someone links to it or embeds it in their own blog/email/Facebook page/etc., it just serves as another free plug for, and another link back to the station. And in the realm of social networking, that's the most effective kind of branding there is.

So the simplest (and cheapest) way to generate unique content for a website? Let the staff do their thing with camcorders -- and post the videos that work.

- Ralph


Day 27 of the WJMA Web Watch.

Fire Over England

While most people seem uninterested in movies released before 1995, I've often found entertainment in older film -- and sometimes they contain concepts that give me pause. That's what happened recently when I watched Fire Over England.

Produced in 1937, this British historical drama set in Tudor England had a deliberate subtext. The film makers used the invasion by the Spanish Armada as an allegory to contemporary England's threat of invasion by Nazi Germany. Philip II is portrayed as a coldly cruel tyrant who rules his subjects in a fashion similar to that of Hitler (as seen through British eyes).

Here's Philip II (Raymond Massey) delivering his philosophy on how to rule a country.

Only by fear can the people be made to do their duty -- and not always then.

Not relevant today? How many laws, policies and practices contrary to the Constitution have been enacted since 9/11? And how many, until recently, have gone unchallenged through fear?

Consider this scene, where Don Pedro (Robert Newton) gently chides his wife (Tamara Desni) for wanting to help an Englishman who's a family friend.

You see, Elana, the whole trouble comes from treating your enemies like human beings. Don’t you see, my dear, that when you do that they cease to be enemies? Think what that leads to. It’s the end of patriotism. It’s the end of war. It’s the end of – everything.

Now there's a chilling thought. When written, those lines were meant to characterize the fascist outlook -- so why do they ring true today? There are many Americans who share Don Pedro's view -- and you don't have to search very hard to find them.

For me, Fire Over England worked on many levels, and it was a rollicking good film to boot. Vivian Leigh, Raymond Massey, Laurence Olivier, James Mason and Flora Robeson -- a great cast turning in performances that few could equal today. Check out this interplay between Queen Elisabeth (Flora Robeson) and the Spanish ambassador (Henry Oscar). There's no question who the bad guy is, but his barely concealed arrogance hits just the right note. And Robeson delivers her lines with subtlety and wit, while never letting there be any doubt about the fire of her resolve.



All this, and a great score by Richard Addinsell proving the perfect sonic backdrop.

Fine acting, a good story, and plenty to think about after the movie ends. Now that's entertainment!

- Ralph

A Worthy Supporting Actor

Ken's post reminded me of another outstanding African-American actor, Mantan Moreland. Beginning in 1933, Moreland's career stretched over 100 films and several TV appearances before his death in 1973. Considered a major star –- or as much of one as an actor of color could be at the time –- his sophisticated, deceptively simple humor made him popular among both black and white audiences (although probably for different reasons). In the 1940's it was not unusual for him to receive top billing immediately beneath the white leads.

I’ve written before about what the uncurious miss –- and without the continual exposure to new things I receive from podcasts, I would have missed Mantan Moreland. One of the ClashTV.com’s podcast episodes was “King of the Zombies.” a 1941 “B” picture. It was competently filmed and acted and without Moreland would have been another pleasant but forgettable movie to watch.

Moreland’s running commentary on the action and witty asides made his performance practically leap off the screen -- raising the entire film several notches in my option. The highpoint of the picture were his scenes with Marguerite Whitten, an actress who also pushed the limits of what African-Americans were allowed to portray in film.

Click here for a sample of their by-play.

I’ll continue exploring Moreland’s work, now that I’m aware of him. Just another example of what’s out there -– if you’re curious.

- Ralph