Radio Nightmare

Last night I dreamed I was back at WJMA, a station I worked for back in the 1980's. It was more of a nightmare than a dream. I was filling in for the regular Saturday afternoon host Even though the format was country (which it is for the station in real life),  I had been asked to play classical music, since that's what I do at WTJU.

There were some nightmarish elements fellow broadcasters could appreciate. There wasn't a log, so I didn't know when things were supposed to happen, like the news feed at the top of the hour. I didn't know what commercials to run, or even where they were in the studio or on the board (had I chosen to run any). Ditto with public service announcements. The studio clock wasn't working, so I was relying on my wristwatch for time checks.

Worse yet, the studio also doubled as the lobby, with a door opening onto the street, so people were constantly coming and going -- and of course talking the whole time, whether the mic was open or not. In fact, the News Director was there, criticizing everything I did, but only while I was trying to talk on air. When I asked him to stop, he replied that if I was doing what I was supposed to, he wouldn't have anything to say. (BTW - I worked with this person at the station, and he's still there. He's a true professional and would never do any such thing in real life).

Apparently I had done this shift the previous Saturday, and he was there with some programming suggestions. The classical music I played before was too hard to listen to. It was too long, and too complex for their country music listeners. So no vocal music, nothing over four minutes in length, and the more familiar the better.

I replied that I only had about four tracks by Bach, another four by Handel, and three by Vivaldi that fit his criteria. "That's fine," he said, "just keep repeating threm." I expressed doubts that running the same eleven tracks in rotation from 1 to 4PM was a good idea. That's when he informed me that I would be on until 5, or possible 6PM when the owner's plane landed.

I woke up.

Yes, it was all a dream -- except for one part. As I've documented in my Classical Challenge, there are quite a few music directors who labor under some of the restraints I was lucky enough to escape when I awoke.  I wonder if they consider their jobs a nightmare, or a dream?

The Shadow of the radio

Last week I wrote about Walter B. Gibson, the man who virtually created the Shadow back in 1931. But the character and the mythos he carefully built up over his 280+ novels in Street and Smith's "Shadow Detective Magazine" were largely ignored by the Shadow's radio program.

When most people are asked about the Shadow, they can usually remember the quote "The Shadow Knows," if nothing else. For the most part, it's the radio version of the Shadow that people remember. And that quote is part of the show's opening:

"The weed of crime bears bitter fruit. The Shadow knows!"

The origin and premise are kept pretty simple, as befitting a half hour program. The Shadow is the alter-ego of Lamont Cranston, a wealthy man-about-town, and his power is simply one of hypnosis. He can "cloud men's minds" so that he seems invisible. His only assistant is Margo Lane, who serves as a somewhat love interest/person to rescue.

While the Shadow of the pulps is presented as a serious, somber and mysterious character, the radio's version seems anything but. Listen to this scene where Lamont and Margo discuss the chess club that Lamont's a member of.

The Chess Club Murders, scene 1

The carefree manner of Cranston and the easy banter suggest a crimefighter closer to the Saint than to single-minded avenger of justice.

There's a significant change occurs when Cranston becomes the Shadow (and starts speaking through a tube to distort his voice). Here's a pivotal scene where he confronts one of the suspects in the chess club murders.

The Chess Club Murders, scene 2

The change in tone give the radio drama an interesting dynamic, and overall the Shadow's radio program presented a solid half-hour of entertainment.

When the Shadow started out in 1930, he was the host of "The Detective Story Hour," an anthology radio program that dramatized stories published in Street and Smith pulps. In 1932, the Shadow had his own show (but still just as a narrator), and the Shadow Detective Magazine was gaining readership at a tremendous pace. Finally, in 1937, the Shadow became the hero of the radio program.

Walter B. Gibson co-wrote many of the scripts, and a young Orson Welles voiced the Shadow, along with Agnes Moorehead (later to play Endora on "Bewitched") as Margo Lane. Through cast changes and a World War, the Shadow radio show remained popular. Eventually, like many other radio programs, it fell victim to the new technology television, ending its 21-year run in late 1954.

And while I still prefer the Shadow of the pulps, there's something about the radio Shadow that I like very much. What exactly is that quality?

The Shadow knows.

- Ralph

Day 143 of the WJMA Web Watch.

563,445 Missed Opportunities

Actually, I don't know exactly how many missed opportunities we're talking about -- but it's a significant amount. Our favorite radio station test case, WJMA here in beautiful Orange, Virginia, pulled their website offline three months ago.

Officially, it was to make way for a new, improved website -- but that was three months ago.

Now here's the interesting thing. According to Alexa.com, which measures web traffic, WJMA's ranking has actually risen 563,445 positions (as of today). The volume of traffic has increased 42%. Of course, page views have dropped -- but then there's only one page to view.

(click on the image to enlarge)

So why is traffic up? Well, a number of sites link to WJMA, including this one. In fact, I've been including a link to WJMA in every post for the past three months.

And all of that increased traffic found.... nothing. There's not even an email address on the placeholder! It's like a steady stream of potential customers make their way to your store, only to find the doors chained and locked. Is that any way to run a business?

As Ken Dardis of Audiographics (and others) continually point out, it's past time for radio stations to move from just being over-the-air broadcasters and become media content providers.
For a business not to have a website these days is like a brick-and-mortar store that only takes cash. It severely limits the business' ability to function.

If nothing else, the past three months have shown the importance of interconnectivity. I don't know how many people went to WJMA because of this blog, how many from the WJMA radio history site, or how many from the various other sites. But every link helped drive traffic to WJMA's site.

Now imagine if Piedmont Communications had launched their updated website three months ago and been able to take advantage of all that traffic.

Then, I think, we'd have a different post.

- Ralph

Day 94 of the WJMA Web Watch. Yes, I'll keep linking. Why not? We'll check the stats again in another three months.

The Whispering Shadow

Sometimes there are small pleasures to be found in the most modest of productions. "The Whispering Shadow" is one of them. This 1930’s serial starring Bela Lugosi certainly isn’t on par with the Republic or Universal serials of the day, but it's not without a certain charm. And that’s the point of this post – getting enjoyment out of the commonplace.

"The Whispering Shadow" is a typical chapter serial. Such films were meant to be viewed in installments, and an overly complicated plot is just the thing to keep things moving -- especially when each chapter's end is punctuated by the seeming demise of the hero.

In this case, the mysterious masked figure known as the Whispering Shadow is after a MacGuffin and killing and/or attacking people in the process through radio waves. Radio was the hot technology back then, a character working in a radio lab served the same function as a computer geek in a modern film.

The MacGuffin's a crate hidden in the warehouse of an international shipping company. A shipping company with their very own radio research laboratory on the top floor (!) of the building. I found the infatuation with the latest technology charming in a retro fashion. The bad guys use an autogyro (precursor to the helicopter), and the special effects with models are laughable –- but in a fun way, as this first clip shows.



There’s a lot of action, though. And it's truly exciting to watch. In 1935, there was no CGI. The stunts were real.

Look at this scene involving a foiled hijacking. Sure, the acting's laughable. Malcolm McGregor barked all his lines in a manner most often seen in community theater.

But the stunts more than makeup for the wooden declamations. Check out the chase with the stuntman hanging on to the top of the truck, or the leap onto the car. Most of that would involve some CGI and green screen these days -- but they are, charging down a dusty road and clinging on for dear life.



And then there’s the following scene. Viva Tattersall walks towards a car she thinks she sees her father in. Rather than be discovered, the man floors it and drives away. Look at the shot carefully. Sure, it’s a stunt woman, but look how close the car comes to her! Only her skill prevented a serious injury.



I won’t give the plot away (it would take another entire post just to explain it), but the denouement is so over the top it almost seems like a parody. Almost all the surviving cast members reveal they’re Not Who They Seem To Be. Only the hero doesn't have a secret identity!

This was second tier stuff even back when it was released. Mascot wasn't a big studio, and they shot the whole thing -- very economically -- in just 18 days. Nevertheless, "The Whispering Shadow" provided me with plenty of viewing pleasure, if not always in ways intended by the studio. And because it's out of copyright and available for free from Archive.org, I more than got my money's worth.

- Ralph

Day 73 of the WJMA Web Watch.

The Public Radio Puzzle

I'm here in hot, hazy and humid Orlando, Florida for the annual Public Radio Development and Marketing conference. So why should anybody outside of the public radio system care? Because at the core of this conference, these professionals deal with one of the fundamental problems of Internet businesses -- especially content providers.

Problem: How do you get people to pay for something they can get for free?

Anyone can tune their radio to the low end of the dial and listen to a public radio station for free. They can also watch a public television show for free, too. But these media need the financial support of their audiences to survive. So how do you get people to pay for something they get for free?

While this conference will really go into the nuts and bolts of various specialized fundraising techniques, the overall concepts apply to just about any Internet content provider.

1) Deliver quality content. If it's presented as having no value, it's tough to ask people to pay for it. Public broadcasting makes a point of delivering (and telling their audiences they deliver) quality programming.

Look at the music industry. The public "knows" that the price (and therefore the value) of a song is only 99 cents. That's what it is on iTunes, and that's what it is most everyplace else. Sure, it's a different price at Amazon -- it's lower. So when someone shares or illegally downloading a song, they figure the record company's at most only out a buck. Music isn't valuable, so taking it shouldn't be a big deal. See the problem?

2) Be specific about what you want the audience to do. People will generally cooperate if they understand what's expected of them. For public radio, it's explaining why they need the money, and how the listener can help.

For a website trying to build traffic, it's making sure the navigation is clear and intuitive -- and that the user doesn't have to jump through hoops to get to the content.

3) Develop more than one source of income. Public broadcasters get a small amount from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (they're not entirely funded by the government as some like to think). Pubcasters also bring in money through underwriting (sort the equivalent to advertising). And even listener support takes many different forms -- one-time donations, monthly contributions, thank-you gifts for certain pledge amounts, trips, prizes, special exclusive events, estate planning, and more.

The goal of any business with a web component should be to maximize the opportunities. It's a recurring theme in our WJMA website case study. A radio station that thinks its sole source of income is selling ads for its over-the-air broadcasts is living in the last century. Some income streams will be stronger than others. But which is worse: to have your primary source of income dry up, or to have your sole source of income disappear?

And that's why a lot of folks are here in Orlando. To share ideas and figure out how to persuade people to voluntarily pay for what they can get for free, and to broaden the revenue streams as much as possible for the rocky economy looming ahead. And who among us isn't thinking of that as well?

- Ralph

Day 32 of the WJMA Web Watch.

WJMA and the RSS Morning Shows, Part 2

Friday I shared some thoughts on Jerry Del Colliano's idea of a station serving niche audiences with RSS morning shows (or podcasts, if you will). Over the weekend I spent some more time thinking about the idea, and how the average station with limited resources could produce such programming.

The great thing about podcasts is that they can be anything you want them to be. And because they're not live, a podcast morning show has many more options than a live show. For example:

Topical programming -- just because its canned doesn't mean it has to be stale. A local issues/news podcast could work very well. Just produce it in the afternoon working off of the morning news. Listeners could call or text with their comments (calls going to a dedicated voice mail box). Mix commentary with call playbacks, and/or text commentary. Naturally, all the text messages would be shown on the show's website page.

Music programming -- there's more to indie music than shoe-gazers and sullen post-punkers. There artists making great music in all genres from jazz, folk, country and bluegrass to rap, heavy metal and electronica -- and everything inbetween. Pick the genre you want the music morning show to be in, and go to it. Many indie artists make their music readily available for podcasts. And all of the earmarks of a music show -- artist interviews, listener requests, battle of of the bands, even in-studio performances -- could all be part of the mix.

Themed programming -- just mix the appropriate elements from all of the above. If, for example, a station decided to produce a local morning show for females 25-34, then it could be a mix of news, features and music all of interest to that audience. Work with a local hospital to provide an expert for women's health issues, for example, answering text and voice mail questions. Feature the music of Alice Peacock, Gum, and other appropriate indie artists (with interviews, etc.). Talk with organizers of the Breast Cancer Walk and highlight other local events and issues that would be of interest to that audience.

And remember -- it's not live. The expert for the women's health segement could come in once a week (or perhaps every other week) and record all of her segments in one sitting. The same is true for interview subjects. Have a day scheduled for back-to-back interviews. And take those finished interviews and spread them over a couple of shows (if appropriate).

Most indie bands do their own recording, so if you can't get them on the phone, send them an MP3 of your questions, and let them record their answers. Then mix it down for a seamless interview.

And here's another advantage of this kind of format -- segments can be stretched. Here's an example from the Chris Moyle's Show podcast from BBC Radio 1. Now this is a weekly "best of" podcast, but the concept still applies.

The Moyle's Show team brought a male massusse into the studio to work on Chris' back. Live, this would have been just one long segment. But in the podcast, it's broken up into smaller chunks, which do two things. It maintains interest with its brevity, and because the segement ends unresolved, it compells the listener to keep going to hear the next part.

In the excerpt, we hear part 1 of the massage, followed by something different, then we get part 2. And two other members of the Moyles team get massages as well, interspersed with other bits from the show.

This is a golden opportunity for stations to unlease their creative talent. And if they already haven't fired them all, now would be a good time to start.

- Ralph

Day 12 of the WJMA Web Watch.

Old Radio/New Laughs

This week I've been talking about the old-time radio programs I now receive as podcasts from Radio Time Zone. I subscribe to their comedy channel, which sends me a selection of different programs. I've heard episodes of "You Bet Your Life" with Groucho Marx, "Life of Riley" with William Bendix, "Our Miss Brooks" with Eve Arden, and many more.

To folks who've only known the offerings of current radio, it's easy to equate audio comedy with shock jocks. After all, there hasn't really been anything else for some time. People in my parent's generation were often quick to point out that radio humor in "the good old days" was clean and, therefore, better.

I don't totally agree with that. I'm not so concerned with clean vs. dirty as I am with the quality of the humor. Wordplay, comedic timing, delivery of lines -- those are some of the elements that make for humor that can be revisited again and again, even after the punchline's well-known.

Here's a good example from the "Jack Benny Program." Over the years, Jack Benny carefully constructed a public persona as a cheap, vain and somewhat shallow individual who often found himself put upon by others. Jack Benny's show wasn't a sitcom per se, it was about Jack Benny and his cast putting on the "Jack Benny Program." Of course, a real studio wouldn't have an outside line that could ring in at any time, nor an unattended door that anyone could knock on -- but these few simple sound effects allowed many different characters to be injected into the conversation.

In this broadcast from 1945, the cast is entertaining the troops at Mitchell Field. Jack Benny, Mary Livingston (his sometime girlfriend on the radio; his wife in real life), and bandmaster Phil Harris (best know today as voice of Baloo from Disney's "Jungle Book") talk their plans for after the show with guest star Ann Sheridan, a popular actress who starred with Benny in "George Washington Slept Here."

Scene from the "Jack Benny Program"

Notice the rapid-fire byplay of the dialogue, and how jokes are built one upon the other to provide even more humor. The description of Benny's girlfriend is funny in itself, but when it's referred to by Elmer towards the end, it seems even more so.

So can something over a half-century old still be funny? After listening to more than a few of these programs, I have to say "yes." Is Jack Benny, et al. better than the current crop of comics? Not necessarily. It's a different kind of humor, and it works on a different level.

All I know is that when I listen to this podcast I laugh all the way down the road.

- Ralph

BTW - you can hear the complete episode here.

Old Radio/New Insight

Yesterday I talked a little about the old radio programs I now receive as podcasts. One of the feeds I subscribe to from Radio Time Zone is their mystery/crime/horror channel. It's an interesting mix of well-known radio programs, such as "Dragnet" with more obscure efforts, such as Vincent Price starring as "The Saint."

But I learned something new when I listened to "Rocky Fortune." I found out Frank Sinatra had his own radio program -- and he was darned good in it.

"Rocky Fortune" was little more than a vehicle for Sinatra, and only ran for one season back in 1953. Radio dramas had just about run their course by then, but it was an easy gig for Sinatra. The programs were pre-recorded (or "transcribed" as they said on the air), and it was just a matter of coming in, reading the script, and going home again.

Sinatra basically plays himself. Rocky Fortune's a casual happy-go-lucky guy, who happens to get in a lot of scrapes. He doesn't start out to solve the crime he stumbles across, but he usually has to because he's in the thick of it (and more often than not, being used as the patsy).

The program's narrated by the title character, which gives Sinatra a lion's share of the voice work. But that's OK because -- well because it's Frank. And that's an asset the writers worked with.

Listen to this scene from "Rocky Fortune," and perhaps compare it to the example from the "Lone Ranger" I posted yesterday. In "A Hepcat Kills a Canary," Rocky's helping out a friend who's a band leader by filling in on bass. The regular bass player's on a drunk, and can't make the gig. Rocky doesn't have an instrument, so the band leader sends him up to the bassist's room to borrow his.

Scene from "Rocky Fortune"

Like the "Lone Ranger" scene, there's a lot going on with a lot of people. But listen to how it's handled differently here. Fortune sets the stage and then enters the scene. We don't get a lot of description, but at least, in my mind's eye, I see it all. I can picture the small, shabby hotel room with Johnny stretched out on the bed (with perhaps a blinking neon sign intermittently shining through the window). I can picture the tilt of the eyebrow on Dolores' face and a brief smile flashing across Rocky's as they banter back and forth.

How can I picture all that without a lot of sound effects and other audio clues? Easy. I just picture a very laconic Frank Sinatra, and the rest just falls into place. Because Sinatra was such a well-known personality, a certain amount of detail is filled in just by who's acting the part.

There weren't that many episodes of "Rocky Fortune," and perhaps it's just as well. Being placed at the center of a murder by accident is a premise that wears thin very quickly (after a while I thought of Jessica Fletcher as the angel of death).

Nevertheless, it's a breezy 25-minute drama that doesn't take itself too seriously. I didn't know Frank Sinatra had a radio program. I'm glad I found out.

- Ralph

BTW - you can listen to the original episode here.

New Tech/Old Radio

Podcasting is the new technology. "Lone Ranger" broadcasts from the 1930's are the old radio. Sending out old time radio shows as podcasts is a great idea -- for those not familiar with the genre, it's sort of like getting books on MP3.

From the 1930's through the 1950's music was but one of the programming formats heard on the radio. In the era before television, there were variety shows, situation comedies, soap operas, crime dramas, mysteries, horror and suspense anthologies, and more.

I recently subscribed to the "Lone Ranger" podcast and started enjoying tales from "those thrilling days of yesteryear" as I made my daily commute.

Some folks wonder how I could possibly listen to a story without any kind of visuals, or even what the appeal would be. Well, it's quite simple. I just appreciate the art for what it is -- not what it isn't.

A radio drama has to communicate all the action with either words or sound effects. And there's decidedly an art to it. The sound effects have to sound natural, yet unambiguous. A narrator can set the stage, but if they're used too much they become intrusive. Dialogue can help communicate action, but again, if not smoothly integrated it can actually interrupt the story.

Listen to this excerpt from the "Lone Ranger" episode, "Confederate Money," first aired May 20, 1938. In this extended sequence, the Lone Ranger's helping two down-and-out Confederate veterans. They've been hired to collect taxes from ranchers who've killed off their predecessors rather than pay.

The Lone Ranger, knowing that Bolivar Bates and Hacksaw Hastings are but minutes behind him, enters the rancher's home posing as a robber. He then pretends to be interrupted by the arrival of the two men and hides behind a door. The Lone Ranger deliberately leaves the rancher with but one choice: give the money to the tax collectors, or refuse them and have it stolen (OK, some with modern sensibilities might say its the same thing).

Scene from "Confederate Money"

Did you hear it? Lee's voice changed to indicate when the Lone Ranger was outside the door, and when he came in. Also, notice that none of the actor's voices share exactly the same range -- it's easy to tell them apart. They also call each other by name more than they would in normal conversation (or in a film), but just enough to help guide the listener.

And how about the characters of Bolivar and Hacksaw? Their voices are distinctive enough to help the listener conjure up their appearance.

Is the Lone Ranger great art? No, but it's solid entertainment. And because I have to imagine the action, it uses a different set of mental muscles than watching TV does. I'm happy to return to those thrilling days of yesteryear (and yes, this was way before I was born). And I'm glad a very modern technology (podcasting) makes it easy to do so.

- Ralph

BTW - you can listen to the entire episode here.

WJMA, WVTF, and the weakest link

While it seems obvious to most readers of this blog (being the Internet-savvy lot that you are), the basic concepts of the web still elude many. I've written often about the website of our local radio station, WJMA. I do so primarily because it's a real-world example of the kind of mistakes businesses can make when the decision-makers don't really understand what this new medium is all about.

And what it's about are two basic things: quality content and connectivity. To make money from website traffic (either through ads or just raising brand awareness) you need something to bring the eyeballs to your site. And you need easy ways for folks to access the content once they arrive.

It's not that different from traditional retail: keep the shelves stocked with attractive merchandise, and lay out the store to encourage shopping. Yet many don't make the connection (as anyone who's tried to get any kind of online innovation approved by higher-ups baffled by e-mail can attest).

Let's take my recent flurry of posts that linked to the news pages of two radio station websites: WJMA and WVTF. Now a case can be made that this could be an unfair comparison: WJMA's a commercial station, and WVTF's public radio. WJMA has a single news reporter, and WVTF has a staff of them. Yet in both cases one news reporter was responsible for the creation and posting of the content I linked to. So let's see what happened to the folks I sent their way -- and the impact on the stations.

WJMA news site (I've also taken a screen shot of the page).
Is there anything here that invites us to stay? The local headlines still do little more than tease for stories that aren't there.

"A retired D-C police detective is running for the Culpeper Town Council."

Really? Who? What's his background? No details -- and no links. We have nowhere to go to get additional information about this cryptic piece of information. And notice the D.C. abbreviation. That's the spelling used for on-air reading to ensure the initials are pronounced correctly. Whoever posted this didn't even bother to change it to the correct form for written text.

Well, the news page is a dead end. How about the home page? From there, we can either go to the Weather Underground, or the Virginia Department of Health, but that's about it (and I'm not really sure why that's on the radio station's homepage anyway). I'm posting this in April and the scrolling banner at the top of the page is still advising me to click on Closings for the latest winter closing and cancellations.

Any traffic I send to this website is basically wasted. A visitor coming from CE Conversations sees neither quality content or relevant links, and the station derives no benefit from the visit. If the news page was a store, it would be an ill-lit dingy one with a few dusty items on mostly-empty shelves.

WVTF Captive Audio (I've taken a screen shot of this page as well)
Once again, we have a headline -- "Catching up with a member of Ol' Virginia Soul." It's just as cryptic as WJMA's, but this time there's additional information.

The stories behind the story of the Arcania record label continue. Arcania founder Brent Hosier put out a series of compact discs focusing on soul, psychedelic and garage bands that recorded around Virginia in the 1960s. WVTF's Connie Stevens has the story of Junious Bugs Hughes, featured on the Ol' Virginia Soul collection.

So now we know what Ol' Virginia Soul is, we know who's being interviewed, and we know the background of the series. Oh -- and we also know who did the story and when. Notice that the WJMA posting is anonymous (I don't think I'd want to put my name to it either), and the only clue we have about the date is a 2006 copyright notice!

Connie Stevens also provides us with a picture of Mr. Hughes, and a link so we can listen to the story. This is valuable content, with intuitive connectivity. Even though I didn't hear the segment when it was broadcast, I can still listen to it now.

The visitor who followed my link gets some useful information. And the station derives some benefit as well. The page has plenty of links to WVTF's other locally produced programs, as well as their national feeds. It also has a link so the visitor can listen online. And just reading the links gives the visitor a good overview of the station and its services (and of course ways to contribute).

Folks who click through to WJMA reach a dead end. Those who follow the links to WVTF have an entirely different experience.

And here's the other part of the equation. By linking to WVTF's Captive Audio page, we've benefited ourselves. I'm linking to this page because we're selling the CDs that are the focus of the Captive Audio series. And the Arcania International segments on WVTF started airing, sales of the discs have risen dramatically over the past month (and causing us to quickly re-press two titles). And some of those sales have come from outside WVTF's coverage area, which suggests online listening via their website.

When it's done right, the connectivity of the web can help both the linker and the object of the link. Obvious to some, but many are oblivious to it all.

- Ralph

Uncircling the Wagons

In a response to my post about citizen fact-checkers, Samuel Brainsample of the "Lots O' Thoughts" blog made very good point.

Cass Sunstein... wrote a book recently about how there is a tendency to surround yourself with like-minds online, and potentially use sorting tools (like StumbleUpon) to filter out news you might not like to hear.

And he's quite right. It's certainly not a new phenomenon. When people in major metropolitan areas had two or more newspapers available to them, the paper one subscribed to often served as an indication of their political preference. Even as newspapers consolidated, that remained true.

I grew up in the Washington area, and it made a difference if one read the Washington Post (Democrat) or the Evening Star (Republican). And after the Star's demise, the Washington Times took over the role as the conservative paper.

And of course the same holds true for TV news. Conservative friends of mine are quite content to watch Fox News and only Fox News because they like the world view it presents. The same is true of radio. Public radio is seen as a liberal news outlet, and Rush Limbaugh et al provide news and opinions for conservatives.

So it's always been easy to build an informational echo chamber that continually reflects back the same views on the same stories -- the Internet just makes the process more efficient. I've talked before about what I call the digital subdivision, and how one be online a good amount of time and only be minimally aware of what's going on.

So how do I use the Internet to keep my world view as wide as possible? Here's what I do:

1. Rely on reputable news sources that provide a good deal of the basic information many others redistribute.
2. Never ever listen to talking heads of any persuasion. I prefer the "Oh yeah? Says who?" approach. That is, examining the source materials and forming my own opinion.
3. Maintain an element of randomness, so that I'm exposed to information I wouldn't otherwise see.

I accomplish this through a mix of websites, podcasts, and newspapers. Here's the ones that make up part of my morning routine:

The Internet

• BBC International Edition -- A good overview of what's happening in the world. Anna Nichole Smith's death never rated a top headline here.
• Physics.org -- This keeps me up with the latest science news; accurate and not watered down for the general public.
• OpenCongress.org -- I don't need my senators and representatives telling me what kind of job they're doing. I can see for myself what bills they're sponsoring, when they're sitting on their hands, and when they're present to vote (and how they vote).
• ArtsJournal.com -- It keeps me current with what's happening in the arts, both from the creative side, and the business/political side.
• BoingBoing.net -- A nice compendium of random strangeness (see point 3 above).
• Digg.com -- This is another of my randomizer sites. Most of the stories are tech-oriented, but sometimes things pop up I'd never see otherwise.

Podcasts

• Deutsche Welle's "Inside Europe" - A weekly "Morning Edition"-style program that covers the important stories in Europe that we often miss over here (except when the consequences come to bite us in the a**).
• This Week in Tech (TWIT) - A weekly program of all things tech. Most of the trends discussed turn up in the mainstream media months after the fact.
• This Week in Media - A little more techy than TWIT, tis weekly program often goes into more detail about media-related issues, production, and developments.

Newspapers

• The Washington Post -- We get the Sunday edition of this liberal newspaper, primarily for the arts and entertainment features (and the best, albeit shrinking, selection of Sunday comics offline).
• The Richmond Times-Dispatch -- We get this conservative newspaper the other six days of the week, primarily for state news (remember, I live in Virginia). Although it does have two full pages of comics.
• The Orange Review -- I live in Orange County, Virginia. This weekly paper is a good way to keep up with what's going on. And sometimes its about the only way.

Putting it down in a list, it seems like a lot, but its not, really. It take me about twenty minutes to read the weekday paper, and another 20 minutes to check the news sites. The podcasts, of course, I listen to throughout the week (primarily in the car).

I like to think I'm getting a broad range of basic information, but I'm sure I have some blind spots. What sites do you recommend?

- Ralph

The Core Costs of Radio

William F. raised a good point commenting on my recent post about the firing of WMAL radio personality Chris Core. He wrote:

I'd still like to know how much Core was paid. I'm sure a great deal of income came from his too many commercials that were constantly on his program.

I'm sure that Chris Core, holding down the morning slot in a major radio market (and delivering a good-sized chunk of that market on a daily basis) received a very large (for radio) salary. We get the barest hints of just how good his salary was in Mark Kaye's interview with Core.

But Core's salary alone didn't account for the high spot rate during his show. As Jerry Del Colliano recently pointed out,

Stations rely on morning shows to produce 40-50% of a stations revenue

So Chris Core was responsible for generating far more than his salary. Actually, the annoying amount of commercials William F. endured demonstrates -- as does Citadel's Bloody Friday -- another way current radio station owners fail to understand how radio functions.

In most business, there's a direct link between customers and products. For commercial radio, the link is indirect.

A store has products for sale; customers come in (either brick-and-morter or web) and buy them. The more the store serves the customers' needs either through selection or location or service, the more customers come in and the more they buy. The money flows from the person served by the store to the store.

For radio, the customer isn't the listener -- it's the advertiser. The listener is the product. The more listeners (products) a station has, the more advertisers it can do business with. Just like a store, bigger quantities (market share), wider selection (demographics) and/or customer service (ways in which stations can make spots more effective) all lead to increased ad revenue.

The trick is this: in a retail store, product is easy to stock. Place an order with the distributer, and if you can pay for it (and its in stock) the product arrives in the quantity you want.

Radio stations can't order audiences. They have to persuade people to listen. That means they have to offer programming and air personalities that people want to listen to. While radio programming can be quantitized to some extent, some of it remains an art. You can train someone how to be an on-air announcer. You can't train someone to be Chris Core.

A radio station's audience is its asset -- the value of that asset determines how successful it will be attracting advertisers (its customers) and how much they can charge for access to that asset (ad rates).

Currently, radio owners seem to have forgotten about the listener. If four ads in a break bring in X, then eight ads should bring in twice as much. By that logic, running commercials 24-7 should be like printing money. But as ad frequency increased, listenership declined.

And firing popular air personalities because they're highly paid simply accelerates audience decline. Imagine a store that scaled back both the quality and selection of its stock -- what direction would you expect their sales to go?

So how much did Chris Core make? We don't know.

A better question might be this.

How much revenue did he generate? When the next ratings come out, we may know the answer to that one.

- Ralph

Three Takes on Citadel's "Bloody Friday"

Yesterday's post I talked about the firing of long-time radio veteran Chris Core from WMAL. In it, I tried to make three points:

1. Long-time successful air talent connects with an audience and builds brand equity.
2. To callously dismiss such talent to improve the bottom line is shortsighted and ultimately damaging.
3. Although the decision for such firings comes from the corporate offices, its the local stations that have to live with the consequences of such bone-headed decisions.

Interestingly enough, it seems I'm not alone in my opinions...

1. "Brands and reputations will matter more than ever. Familiar call letters, program names, personalities and institutions will have countless new ways to leverage their incumbent advantages, and to relate to their listeners and viewers." Do you think recent and pending industry restructuring will promote and foster our content-creation capabilities? - Mark Ramsey
2. [Citadel CEO] Farid's first response to each financial crisis at Citadel is to fire the staff. He shows a total lack of understanding on how to create and market content. That's why he's shown little sensitivity to the fact that Paul Harvey is his biggest star at 90 years old. The bean counter will try to slash that expense when his contract is up soon. Unable to grasp the business he is in -- programming and marketing content -- Farid does the only thing he knows -- playing with his -- numbers. - Jerry Del Colliano
3. WMAL is doing everything possible to let their angry listeners know where the decision came from. In addition to posting a letter from the fired DJ on their site, they also addressed it on the air in the Grandy and Andy morning show. They were much more candid about the process than I suspect corporate would have let them be -- had the suits been within broadcast range to hear.

- Ralph

Arcania International On The Air!

Brent Hosier, owner of the Arcania International record label was featured on WVTF during "Morning Edition" today.

It was a pretty exciting time for all of us. My business partner and I at DCD Records have been working with Brent for some time, trying to get some well-deserved attention to his releases.

Brent's a knowledgeable record collector, and his compilations of 1960's garage band and soul records are pretty remarkable. Brent insists only using tracks that haven't been previously released on CD, which keeps the selections fresh-sounding. Further, he's pretty much limited his compilations to Virginia artists (with a few side trips).

Arcania International has two series running. The four volumes of "Aliens, Psychos and Wild Things" focuses on garage and psych bands of the mid- to late-1960s. "Ol' Virginia Soul" collects soul and R&B tracks from (mostly) the Old Dominion on three CDs.

Some of the discs have fallen out of print, and that's where we've come in. DCD Records has reissued "Aliens, Psychos and Wild Things, Vol. 1" and we're working on the others.

Check out the "Captive Audio" series at WVTF. You can even listen to the segment. And then -- if you're so inclined -- you can toodle on over to DCDRecords.com and buy a CD or two. We'll all be glad you did.

- Ralph

"Radio Nowhere" and Half-Dead Radio

In my post yesterday, I asked a question:

Something that the radio industry trumpets as its savior is significantly absent from John Amos' essay. Do you know what it is?

John Amos, in his essay "Radio Nowhere" talked about the changing (for the worse) face of radio from a listener's perspective.

The subject was commerical radio, but he mentioned many other listening alternatives. Amos talks about:

CDs
National Public Radio
community radio
satellite radio
Internet radio

He talks a lot about content, and about the role local radio played in his life. But there's something missing from Amos' essay.

Have you figured it out?

There's no mention about the importance of sound fidelity, and no mention of HD Radio.

The listener is more concerned about the quality of the content than the amount of static in the signal.

According to the HD Radio Alliance,

It’s the most significant advancement in radio broadcasting since the introduction of FM stereo more than 50 years ago. HD Radio technology enables AM and FM radio stations to broadcast their programs digitally – a tremendous technological leap from the analog broadcasts of the past.

Yet in the cold light of day,

...some hard numbers on HD radio sales: 330,000 sold in 2007, up from 40,000 receivers in 2006.

Spin this any way you like, the reality is that these are low numbers, particularly after hundreds of millions of dollars of radio promotion provided gratis.

Indeed, by this time next year, there will be more HD radios in the U.S. than Ham Radios.

One day the radio industry will awaken to realize that inventing a new channel of distribution in a sea of already popular distribution channels is no pathway to the future.

Particularly not if the consumer has already spoken. - Mark Ramsey

And in John Amos' case, the consumer has spoken -- by not speaking about it at all.

- Ralph

WJMA -- Frozen in Time

After an extensive examination of our local radio station's website (and some concrete suggestions on how to fix it), I promised to keep checking WJMAfm.com from time to time to see if anything changed. Since their headline news seemed frozen on November 9, I've made the ninth day of the month the time to officially revisit the site and report on any changes.

So far, nothing. The DJ profile page is still under construction, they're still looking for someone to "oversee" production, and there's still no news at all.

Mark Ramsey's current posting at Hear 2.0 expresses his frustration at commercial radio's inability to adapt to the new realities of media.

The crisis in our industry, radio, is that we are so ridiculously narrow about our potentialities.
But were we looking the other way when every other form of media exploded into every conceivable distribution channel and dimension (including satellite radio)? Were we looking the other way when we dragged our feet on streaming? Were we looking the other way when we nixed any Internet investments unless they could be liquidated on day one? Were we looking the other way as we celebrated radio's new status as a "reach medium" at exactly the time advertisers are moving away from reach and towards accountability? Were we looking the other way as we chose to consolidate our way out of trouble and fire our way out of red ink?
Why do we keep looking the other way?

Unfortunately, Piedmont Communications proves his point.

We'll see if the WJMA website continues to "blink 12:00" on February 9. Or if they finally looked this way.

- Ralph

How to Make Classical Music Boring

Yes, I know. Many people already consider classical music boring. But public radio has figured out how to make it even more so by borrowing a page from commercial radio.

Audiences continue to drift away from commercial radio, in part because each song is market-tested to within an inch of its life. Only the songs that test well and appeal to the broadest part of the demographic get in -- bland, generic songs tend to do the best, as they offend the least.

The New York Times recently published an article recently about how fewer songs were being played more often.

Tom Owens, the executive vice president of content for Clear Channel Communications, ... said that “Apologize” [the song that's the subject of the article] deserved such heavy airplay because it had received “off the charts” results in listener research testing, and added that the song is devoid of content that might prompt more conservative pop stations to limit its airplay. [emphasis mine]

The article goes on to explain:

Some analysts say that responding to the decline by repeating the big hits even more will set broadcasters on a path to losing listeners.

“What most of these folks do is retreat to a more safe position, and in radio, the safer position is to play fewer songs more often,” said Mike Henry, chief executive of Paragon Media Strategies...

So in November, the Public Radio Program Directors organisation announced the results of their in-depth study of midday classical listener preferences. By rigorously testing focus groups with 30-second excerpts, they were able to determine that

The High Appeal sounds were positive and uplifting, with a soothing or reassuring familiarity, in style and overall texture if not always in terms of the actual melody....

Familiarity was important to both Serious and Casual listeners. There was no evidence of “burn‐out” of often‐played music nor do Serious listeners show a great desire for obscure or challenging music on radio in middays.

In other words, music devoid of content that might prompt more conservative stations to limit its airplay.

And so public radio continues at an ever-increasing pace down the road commercial radio's travelled.

So what's the big deal? Well, first off it's a given that general managers throughout the public radio system will use/misuse this info to make their program and music directors keep middays mellow -- you know, the way they used to on those easy listening stations. Which means fewer pieces in heavier rotation.

So what's wrong with that? Many people consider classical music boring already because they perceive it as a dead artform of little relevance to their lives. And, given the programming on most stations, they're not far wrong. According to the bulk of what's played, classical music apparently started around 1700 with Vivaldi and ended around 1880 with Brahms. And one would think that everyone either wrote for orchestra or solo piano; that no one wrote for other solo instruments (especially the organ), or chamber music, or the solo human voice, or choral music. It would seem that no female ever wrote classical music, and all the men that did died over a century ago.

If public radio stations programmed rock the way they did classical, you'd only hear doo-wop and early sixties pre-British invasion girl groups. If that was your only exposure to rock, would you think it relevant? Would you be surprised to find out that new rock music is being written, performed and recorded today?

Ditto with classical music. There are composers writing exciting well-crafted works right now, being played by young musicians right now, aimed at audiences who are alive right now -- and you will very, very rarely hear a note of it on public radio. And for stations that follow this study's findings and stick to the familiar few works, that chance plummets to zero.

And I have a concern with the methodology. I'm not convinced 30-second sound bites are an accurate way to evaluate classical music. For most genres, sound is pretty consistent throughout the song. In general, once the tempo's established it's set for the rest of the track. The timbre usually remains consistent throughout, and although it might vary in dynamics, in most 3-4 minute songs volume significantly changes perhaps once or twice.

Classical music is all about contrast. Tempos vary greatly between the movements of a work, or even within an individual movement. A full orchestra may consist of 80 members but rarely do they all play at the same time. Orchestral compositions routinely vary the combinations. You might hear a solo instrument one minute, all the strings the next, and then a brass choir after that.

Thirty seconds can give you a good idea of what an average pop song is like, but is it really a fair way to judge the character of a work lasting 10-40 minutes?

Here's a little test. If you were in one of those focus groups, which of the following selections would you like to hear on the radio? Which would you not?

1. Selection 1: Smooth orchestral sounds
2. Selection 2: Winds, brass and percussion ensembles
3. Selection 3: Operatic voices singing in a quartet
4. Selection 4: Full chorus

Of course, it's a trick question -- all four samples come from the same piece -- the final movement of Beethoven's 9th Symphony. So if you said "no" to any of the choices above, you've voted to ban the work from the air -- even if you said "yes" to the other choices!

In most markets, the public radio station is the only source for classical music on the air. Instead of continually narrowing their programming choices, what if those stations took the lead and began actively promoting the music of THIS country and/or THIS century? I'm not talking about contemporary music that sounds like a toolbox descending a staircase. I'm talking about the melodic music of substance that the casual listener, as well as the serious classical music fan, could enjoy.

It's not that hard. I do it every Wednesday morning on WTJU. Classical music really is an exciting, vibrant, living art form -- even if it doesn't test well in focus groups.

- Ralph

Radio Daze

So is ignorance really bliss? Or is it self-destructive?

As I've commented before, the problem with the digital divide is that it's completely insular. The firestorms of controversy and criticism that sweep through the online community are completely unknown to those offline.

Commercial radio thrashes about desperately trying just about anything to hold on to a shrinking (and aging) audience. The frantic pushing of HD Radio shows that commercial broadcasters know that something's wrong -- and their approach shows they have not a clue about what audiences want, or how to provide it.

The answers are online -- and the answer is to move online. But the decision-makers at these stations live offline. And so they never see the solution -- or are even aware it's out there in (virtual) plain view.

Here're three examples of where we are:

1) Audiographics bids adieu
Ken Dardis, a radio professional who's been pushing and prodding the industry for years, has finally given up. In his final post he writes:

...the decision will be either to stop writing altogether (because it doesn't seem that radio is interested in how to step into the future), or to write about these new things I'm learning which are turning the advertising industry on its head (and which have been brought up in this column hundreds of times).

After writing, and documenting and analysing the path radio needs to take, Dardis is through trying to shout across the digital divide. He's moving on. And who could blame him?

2) Hear 2.0 turns up the heat
Mark Ramsey, another radio professional, has continually commented and pointed the way for radio. In a recent post, he took the gloves off (and not for the first time):

It's time for radio to stop imagining that success can be achieved by consolidating and cutting until one day your entire group is run from a PC in a locked room like W.O.P.R. in the 1983 movie Wargames. No need for PD's or air talent in that world. No need for marketing or research or promotion or staff. No need for anything but sales and - if you're lucky - an ever-diminishing number of listeners. It's Dabney Coleman and a big Central Brain that asks millions of listeners at once: "Want to play a game?"
Is that the kind of radio industry you want? Because if you mistake the current down market for a cycle rather than a trend, that's exactly the one you're going to get.

Looks like Ramsey is also getting a little tired of shouting across that divide.

3) At WJMA, nothing's changed
It's been a little while since I offered up an analysis of the ramshackle website of our local radio station WJMA. It's been a while, but the DJ's page is still "under construction," the job page still wants someone for "overseas programming" and the news page is still blank with a date of November 9.

Lots of people read those posts -- even some in the Orange area. And yet, no comment for any of the posts, and no change. Piedmont Communications remain incommunicado -- offline.

It's one thing for an individual to opt out of the online experience. But for a business in decline to steadfastly refuse to consider investigating the most important cultural tool of the 21st century? That kind of ignorance can be fatal.

- Ralph

Radio Websites -- A Modest Proposal

The last post I heavily critiqued WJMA's website, a good example of what happens when radio stations who don't understand the Internet (or how to use it) go online.

Can WJMA's website be saved? Better still -- can it actually generate income? Sure. Management just has to embrace three crucial concepts.

1. Create compelling content
2. Populate pages with appropriate ads
3. Drive traffic to the website

But for things to change, management has to do one of those paradigm-shifty things. One can no longer run a radio station like an automated jukebox and expect to thrive. The selection of tunes -- no matter how broad -- can't possibly match the range on the average person's iPod (or another MP3 player).

And the station can have all the unbroken music sweeps it wants. At some point, it's got to run commercials. An MP3 player never does.

It's also time to stop thinking of a radio station as just a broadcasting medium. Consider it a content provider and invest accordingly. Properly positioned, a station can use its over-the-air signal and a robust website to extend its reach far beyond its actual listening area. Which extends the station's potential client base beyond its immediate market.

The first step is to hire someone specifically to develop, generate, update, organize and be responsible for web content. Many stations foist it off on some overworked shlub who's already on staff. The worker immediately drops it the bottom of his massive to-do list -- right below the note to monitor the HD Radio feed to make sure it's still on the air.

Over the next three posts, I'll outline each concept in detail. And if you have feedback or suggestions, please post. Together we can save WMJA (or any other radio station that's ready to join the century we're living in).

- Ralph

Ted Mack's Original Radio Website

I recently commented on WTYD's confessed inability to monetize their website. The concept's simple enough -- generate content that brings people in (and brings them back), and they place appropriate ads in front of them.

Just to give one example of how it could work for WTYD -- the Tide (WTYD) has a local band network. Why not make link sponsored by, say Guitar Center, and then have a banner ad on the band page? Why not a banner ad from Musician's Friend? Each of their specialized pages could have similar appropriate advertising (either brick-and-mortar or Internet).

The Tide's site has other similar opportunities, such as their concert calendar, lyrics page, and so on.

Of course, you have to have content to go to in order to get the traffic to justify the advertiser's investment.

Which brings us to WJMA's website. As near as I can tell, our local radio station only has a website because someone told them it was all the rage. The Tide could make money on their website. Not so with WJMA.

The home page is clean and uncluttered -- which is good. But things fall apart when you start clicking on links.

Their contest page just basically says "listen to win." So there's no real reason to visit this page. Why not have some clues or even some kind of online-only contest?

Want to meet the staff? Too bad -- that page is still under construction. Which is a real web design no-no? Keep the freakin' page offline until the content's finished. An "under construction" notice is like asking someone if they want a soda, and when they say yes, responding that you don't have any.

Headline news can be an easy way to generate fresh content (and possibly sell some banner ads from local newspapers). WJMA's Local Headline News is blank -- with a date of November 9! C'mon, guys, even this blog has better news coverage (check out our feed from Digg.com in the right column).

Community events can be another way to bring traffic. Post all the public service announcements that come into your station, and announce your website URL frequently ("for more information, visit WJMAFM.com"). Businesses that want to be seen supporting the community could sponsor said page. WJMA's Community Event page is blank. Ouch.

The local government and schools pages link to the various homepages of the area county governments and schools. That's fine, of course, but fairly static and not likely to generate much traffic.

The weather page links to Weather.com, which is fine -- that page should have some kind of ads supporting it, though. Isn't the weather sponsored on the radio? Perhaps a package deal would be in order to get the ball rolling.

The concert page is current, and this would be another page that should be generating traffic and should have some sponsorship.

As the experts have repeatedly pointed out, a station's website can be a valuable tool and revenue stream but too many station managers don't comprehend the role of this new media.

Two more examples of how much Piedmont Communications (the proud owner of WJMA) understands about this Interwebtubie thing. In their "About Us" page, they say

"With the installation of new state of the art IBOC transmitting equipment in 2006, WJMA and WOJL became the first two commercial FM stations of their market size in Virginia to begin broadcasting in full HD high definition, providing listeners with the best possible audio quality available anywhere in the U.S. Piedmont Communications, Inc. will continue to use the latest technological advances and listener responsive programming to deliver the best radio service in Virginia."

First off, the "HD high definition" link is dead. Secondly, HD Radio is misidentified as "HD high definition." So this station that uses "the latest technological advances" apparently doesn't know the name of said advance, nor how to create a link properly.

But my absolute favorite part of the site is the job opportunities. WJMA is looking for an operations manager and program director. The duties include the following:

"Responsible for Supervising all on-air, news, engineering and production staff. Overseas programming on all four PCI stations, and manages facilities and studios."

At first, I thought Piedmont Communications was looking for someone to manage the content they were receiving from Europe. But I soon realized that they had just misspelled "oversees."

'Nuff said.

- Ralph

(And for those under a certain age who are puzzled by the title reference, Ted Mack was a celebrated radio and TV host of an amateur talent show).