Instead of letting potentially good ideas die, let's allow the entrepreneurs who read this space every day to have at some of them.
What you are about to read are true stories. The names have not been changed to protect the guilty.
Trend: Newspapers cut back print editions
The Detroit Media Partnership which publishes the city's two newspapers (Free Press and Detroit News) have decided to cut home delivery to Thursdays, Fridays and Sundays, the most lucrative days for publishing.
What are these guys nuts?
Just cease operating.
Hell, it would be like radio only putting programming on in morning drive and then signing off because it costs too much to broadcast the rest of the day (oops, hope I don't give anyone in radio any ideas, here).
It's nice to know that other industries are capable of foolish strategic decisions. The real problem is that no one reads newspapers (except newspaper lovers and apparently there are not enough of them to pay the bills). That's the problem. It's just what we want -- news on three days because the poor publishers can't afford to deliver it the rest of the week.
Step back -- examine -- and answer this.
So, since 9-11 didn't happen on a publishing day, I guess at-home readers would have to go to the paper's website for coverage.
Or not?
Who needs newspapers when they refuse to act like newspapers (i.e., present addictive and compelling content). Sounds like radio, doesn't it? Bean counters saying -- hey, cut out the least profitable news days and publish on the weekend.
New Opportunity: Go into the digital publishing business
Now, if I'm radio I am hiring some of the best reporters away from these misguided newspapers and getting them to set up a blog franchise (say, like this one) and market it, grow it through social networking and report the income to your ungrateful cluster manager who could never have come up with your great idea anyway.
But wait. There's more.
Radio would just increase news -- maybe.
Another mistake.
If there is an all-news brand in a market where newspapers are wimping out, then don't add coverage on-the-air. No one who reads a newspaper is going to be at a loss without a printed copy. Instead, start a large 200+ topic daily podcast service. Deliver the news to people who can choose what they want. Start with a big name reporter to cover current events, another for business, sports and lifestyles. (Don't tell me it can't be done, I'm doing it with clients now).
In other words, when the newspaper publisher decides to cut back, don't think you're going to pick up their subscribers who are disappointed. Papers are dying. Few will be disappointed. Take this move as an incentive to get in the content business -- deliver it by podcast, monetize it with ancillary forms of income and grow it by social networks.
Of course if you are a music station(s), this wouldn't apply, would it?
Wrong.
Who cares what your terrestrial station is programming? This is about new streams of revenue. You don't have to be a newspaper publisher to expand your revenue into podcasting and it doesn't matter if you are a music station to develop a non-music income source.
Trend: Radio sales are down 10-20%
Analysts say that the radio industry is likely to be off 10-11% by the end of the 2008 fiscal year in December. Some markets are down currently 20 or 30 percent. What's more troubling is that the hard hit retail business is also hurting local radio in what used to be the great fourth quarter of the year. The first quarter of 2009 will also be bleak.
What's a consolidator to do?
Cut back.
Run Don Imus all day the way Sirius runs Howard Stern and fire whatever moves and talks.
Appoint one manager to run ten stations. One program director per genre (don't laugh, that one's coming).
But will cuts be enough?
They haven't been up until now so here's another approach.
New Opportunity: Sell something not on the radio
There is no law that says radio stations can't sell things other than commercials and if commercials aren't selling.
I'll tell you if I were running a cluster for Clear Channel (before they found out and fired me), I would schedule a series of one-hour seminars around my marketing area. I'd look to a credible source to lead them and I'd use topics such as "WXXX Dollar Stretcher Meeting". I'll sue you if you use that name -- just kidding. Go ahead, use it.
Get a reasonably priced hotel conference room (believe me, there will be a lot of these available for rent after January 1). Go to local sponsors and get them to buy into it. They need help like this. Real customers in a meeting room.
Think of it? Car dealers with special $1,000 off coupons for use within the next 30 days after attending one of your meetings.
You can do seminars every night of the week around the listening area. Yes, you can use your airtime to promote it but you could also use social networking sites, email lists you own, etc. After each meeting you'll get word of mouth advertising for free.
The next series might cover -- stretching the food dollar or paying for college in tough times or how to manage mortgage payments. Make these branded "help meetings". See where I am going with this? Then, before John Hogan figures I am working for his company, I report all this revenue to my cluster manager who then proceeds to take credit for it after I did all the work.
Hey, you can't say that I'm not being realistic here.
Seriously, if you're off 10-20% in radio advertising, make it up with special events every night of the week. Give your salespeople something extra to sell when spot radio is slumping.
Okay, Mr. Hogan, you can't fire me. I quit.
Trend: People want to be buried with their mobile devices
Now I'll bet you think I've gone too far.
It's one thing to call Farid Suleman -- Fagreed -- because he does a reverse Robin Hood on his Citadel employees but it is quite another thing to state that people increasingly want to be buried with a cell phone, iPod, Blackberry or Game Boy.
Well, it's true -- even if the report comes from Hollywood. Where else? One of my readers told me about this report that actually came via Philadelphia which is about as far away from a sister city to Hollywood as it could be.
I know of Flyers fans who want to be buried with their Mike Richards or Jeff Carter jerseys on but putting a cell phone in a casket so the family can talk to the departed (while batteries last) is the pinnacle of media loyalty. One pundit commented that it would be useful just in case anyone was buried alive -- accidentally, of course. The only way you could get buried alive in South Philly, r-i-g-h-t?
New Opportunity: Develop compelling content that could raise the dead
All kidding aside, when was the last time (or first time) you ever heard someone say they wanted to be buried with a radio?
Radio has become like toothpaste. You use it and don't even think about it. Radio optimists point out that listening has increased again -- 234 million up from 232 million compared to September, 2007 the last time RADAR did this PR research for the establishment. (I'm wondering that if this is such good news, why are radio executives being kept away from windows in tall buildings?).
Fact is -- radio stopped making compelling content over twenty years ago. We're noticing it more today because radio has become a vacuous entertainment medium that values business over show and thinks it can get away with stuffing cheap commercials into five-minute clusters.
That alone is insane from a content point of view not to mention a marketing maneuver.
The article about going to the great beyond with a cell phone nearby may be a stretch -- even by my beloved California standards -- but it gives serious radio operators a good litmus test for creating content in the challenging year ahead.
Is what you're creating on the radio addictive?
Can you not live (or die) without it?
Do we in this business breed loyalty within our audience?
If we took a hint from these Hollywood funeral directors and used all our waking hours to create radio to die for, then perhaps radio wouldn't be a dying industry.
Just a thought.
At times when we watch bonehead moves in the media business, we have to wonder how did these people ever get to run a company?
There are plenty of trends out there -- and even more opportunities. I've thrown down a couple, right here.
Imagine if Farid, Hogan, David Field, Lew Dickey and a few other radio execs were not the only ones doing all the thinking.
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