The People Speak (Again)

"If you could tell the people who run radio one thing, what would it be?"

That's one question I asked my Impromptu Focus Group at that social network project on which I'm working, the one I told you about a few weeks back in this column. I'm going to use this week's column to pass some of the answers along. Here's a reminder of who these folks are: roughly 20s and 30s, creative or tech types, generally pop culture savvy. There you go, and here they are:

GET WITH THE TIMES: "The same thing I would say to TV broadcasters- I don't find the schedule that they offer convenient." "Diversify your playlist, make your station more interactive, and incorporate new technology (i.e. Facebook, Twitter, etc.) in order to generate interest." "Create more things that deal with online interaction -- webcams that can be seen online or do some live tweeting." "Make (or continue to make) podcasts of all of the shows, because then people who are interested can listen to the whole show, on their time. With websites like Pandora, Last.FM as well as Google Music trying to shove onto the scene, I don't see the point of fumbling around AM/FM trying to find something that isn't an advertisement."

MORE GET WITH THE TIMES: "Stop wasting your money on big bilboard ads around major cities -- invest in local events, go out, meet and listen to your current/potential listeners, see what they are doing so that your programs are more in touch with the people who are your target audience." "Learn from the lessons of the newspapaer industry. I'm not sure what those lessons exactly are, but I find it harder to listen to the radio when everything I want is available online via podcasts or music channels I create. more and more people are learning to get their information and entertainment personalized to their tastes, when they want it. I'm not sure how radio can compete with this in the long run."

STILL MORE GET WITH THE TIMES: "I don't think radio will ever be what it was in its prime. Accept that fact and try to adapt -- like every other medium -- to the changes in the market, technology, and audience.... Top 40, talk, etc. are only going to appeal to specific demographics and the audience will only shrink if you don't try to appeal to a broader audience. Perhaps you could expand the playlist, create interactive websites, and use social networking sites as a way of catching up to today's tech savvy listeners. Did I mention that you need to expand your playlists?"

ENOUGH WITH THE YELLING AND THE POLARIZING AND THE FLAVIN AND THE OYVIN: "I want our radio executives, particularly those in talk, to understand that there's more to life than screaming about politics. The art of the radio interview is dying. I want real thoughts and real questions not trying to jam everyone into Evil or Good, Right or Wrong. Be interested and you will be interesting." "I'm tired of people parroting talking points. Critically analyse topics, and quit trying to tell me that the world is going to end."

FIX THE MUSIC: "I notice that a classic-rock station in Portland is essentially the same as a classic-rock station in San Diego. There seems to be a playlist of about 300 songs on shuffle (maybe even less)." "Play a lot of different music." "Get a longer playlist! No band should EVER play twice within the same 5 hour period. Play more obscure artists, even for just an hour a day in a specialty show. If it fits the genre of the station, why not play a few lesser known artists?" "More variety in music, not just the same old crap. Especially on classic rock stations."

I SAID, FIX THE MUSIC ALREADY!: "If I could say one thing to those who run radio stations, it would be to diversify their playlists. I've lost count of how many times I've cycled through radio stations and heard the same song playing on at least two stations." "There is so much amazing music radio is completely ignoring. Instead it repackages the same song/sound, done by different people ad nauseum until the entire playlist is a bland, homogeneous musical wasteland only broken up by faux-edgy DJs and poorly produced commercials."

ADS! AARGH!: "I don't see the point of fumbling around AM/FM trying to find something that isn't an advertisement." "You need to sell ads in order to stay profitable, but the instant-gratification world we now live in makes listening to a five-minute block of ads intolerable and unneccesary." "Enough already with the screaming used car ads...I know you need to sell ad space but I change the station every single time one of those commercials comes on." "Less advertising please... I hear more ads than actual content when I DO tune it, and it's making me turn more and more to my iPod."

COMMUNITY: "The best radio is local radio. Bring it back." "What happened to local music or even local DJs?" "Corporate consolidation has turned most of the airwaves into lifeless dead zones. When I travel it is disheartening to hear the same basic stations in each region with different commercials."

A POX ON ALL YOUR STATIONS: "I don't have anything to say to the people who run radio." "Do all morning radio shows have to be host by the most ignorant dipsh-ts on the planet? I don't think I've ever heard a good one." "I don't know if radio can be saved in its current form." "Let real people who have real passion for the music or the topics discussed have some real meaningful input. Corporate agendas are apparent to savvy media consumers even if you try to paint your DJ as the one with the opinion." "I'm entirely uninterested in you, except when Rushbo causes harm to the world outside radio." "I don't even attempt to listen to the radio anymore. It's all ads, radical political ranting, or music I would never subject myself to (unless I was asked to pick my own method of self-torment by Lucifer himself)."

ONE THING ON WHICH WE CAN ALL AGREE: "Auto-tune is the worst thing that has ever happened to music."

So, what do we make of this? The first thing to note is that, for the most part, these people care. Funny, I keep hearing that people in younger demographics don't even use radio; While some of these respondents aren't happy with what radio's offering, they seem willing to give it a chance if it comes around, and they have ideas about everything from programming to marketing to social media.

Another thing is that there's a segment of the potential audience that's turned off by the extremes of talk radio. It's the noise factor, and to them, talk radio makes too much noise. That may mean that public radio is where they'll find what they're looking for, or it might represent an opportunity for commercial radio that isn't partisan. A caveat, though, of which you're undoubtedly aware: What's balanced to one person is biased to another. The perceptions are skewed by to what extent you agree with the host, but you knew that already.

The third is that some things people don't like about radio are incurable -- commercial radio can't become noncommercial, and unfamiliar music tends to be toxic in the ratings, especially in the PPM world -- but some aren't. Your station CAN be more attuned to podcasting, CAN do better with online offerings, CAN adjust stop-sets to break up longish interruptions. You CAN be more local. And, as I've mentioned here before for talk radio, you CAN be, if not totally customizable, at least more responsive to listener desires by using social media to shape your content.

All of this is to say that even the harsher criticisms offer opportunity. If perceptions are that radio is old, corporate, rigid, and/or over-commercialized, there's still an appetite for good content, and radio can provide that. It'll just have to do it via podcasts and streaming as well as over the air, but the opportunity is there. And, better, you can use those other delivery methods ot offer specifically targeted programming that you can't do on the main terrestrial channel. You can provide that way what you can't on the air. See? Opportunity.

Just don't use auto-tune when you do it.

I'll have more from My Own Private Focus Group in the future, but if YOU want to tell the rest of radio what YOU think, feel free to send me your thoughts and maybe I'll open the forum to you guys, too. Anonymity assured. And you can also suggest questions I can ask the group, too. The e-mail is psimon@allaccess.com.

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Next week, maybe something cheery for the holidays. Or the usual sour ill-tempered grumbling. The odds favor the latter.

Perry Michael Simon
Editor
All Access News-Talk-Sports
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