One of the most talked about sessions at this year’s NAB Radio Show was a presentation on listener’s reactions to long stopsets. The presentation included video of the listener’s real time reactions to an 11-minute commercial break.

Now, I’m sincerely not trying to be sarcastic… but is the state of our industry so absurd that we actually NEED such a study to tell us that an eleven minute stopset is a BAD idea? I jokingly posted about this on Facebook, saying “what’s next? a study on the impact of dead air?”

In this era of disruption, you have two choices: 1) disrupt ourselves and create the next generation of whatever radio will become, or 2) keep doing more of the same things we’ve always done. Sadly, most of the industry has already chosen #2…. how’s that working for you?

So, I’ve decided to share a few thoughts on the things that I believe can actually be done to save radio. This is by no means a comprehensive list, but just a few simple thoughts that have been on my mind for a long time now.

SCRAP HD RADIO AND DEVELOP A REAL BREAKTHROUGH TECHNOLOGY: Why did we waste our time on HD Radio? This technology never solved a problem for a listener. There most certainly is a place for digital broadcasting, but HD isn’t it. Instead, how about the radio industry pool our resources and take existing technologies to the next level. What about addressable radios where two people can be listening to the same radio station at the same time, but hear two different sets of commercials that are specifically targeted toward THEM and THEIR interests? And what if we married this to cellular technology so the radio becomes a two-way device? Imagine if we could sell McDonalds an ad campaign where only people within a few blocks of one of their locations hear the commercial “two for one cheeseburgers now at the McDonalds on Main street, one block ahead on your right… press the button on your radio and the food will be ready when you arrive.” The technology to do this already exists, we just need to put it together. A two-way system also will solve much of our attribution problems, so advertisers can have their precious “dashboards” that they covet from digital advertising. And think about how many different units you could sell in one hour – by narrow-casting the messages. Yet the end user only hears a few… and those will be geared toward them so the content will be more engaging.

OUR OWN RATINGS SYSTEM: In my humble opinion, radio has accepted small samples and low panel churn from Nielsen for far too long. PPM has devastated radio’s pricing power substantially in most big markets, and some of the data is outright laughable. I remember seeing AM gospel stations that were #1 in the P 12-24 demographic… c’mon, seriously, how many 12-24 year olds even KNOW what an AM radio is? Much less listen to gospel music on it? Odd anomalies like this have literally ruined careers when companies make bad programming decisions from this data because such outliers can remain in the panel for such a long time. And they charge us more and more for this “data” every year. And they keep developing products that we buy mostly to track those anomalies so we can at least explain what’s going on to our managers.

How about we form a consortium of radio companies to create our own ratings service? Perhaps a non-profit organization? Then we can build larger samples in a more cost-effective way. We might also have a chance to develop some other ratings measurement technologies that actually BENEFIT the radio industry… perhaps something real time based on cell technology? The possibilities are endless, but the only way we can break this chain of insanity is to finally say enough is enough!

GET EXPERIMENTAL AGAIN: If you’ve ever read anything that I’ve written, or any interview that I’ve done, you know that I’m an advocate for creativity and experimental programming concepts. Radio needs to become less risk-adverse and take chances again. In many ways, this is like going back to the future… similar to the days when AM ruled and the FM stations were more creative endeavors than real money makers. But through that creative experimentation came AOR radio – which later also became a commercial success. I’ve written elsewhere about the colorful characters that radio used to embrace and how the canvass was blank. Think about how many struggling stations there are – why not take one of them and just throw caution to wind…. try something new and experimental just to see if it works. You might be amazed at the results.

FOCUS ON TALENT DEVELOPMENT AND EXCLUSIVE CONTENT: How much of what we do is exclusive and unique anymore? Outside of a few massive morning shows (mostly well-established shows that are heritage in their markets), we rarely offer personality in other dayparts. And we wonder how radio became so homogenized…. because I contend that we are over-managing talent and over-programming stations. There, I said it. There is simply too much structure at most radio stations that even people who could actually do more are saddled with formatics to the point where they are simply carnival barkers always selling a contest, event, or something online. Rarely do we actually talk to listeners anymore on the radio. How does this happen? Here’s a real example that I recently heard about: An excellent PD in a big market is having success with a personality-based PMD show…. a corporate PD came into town and commented about how good the ratings are in spite of direct competition…. and then suggested that the ratings would be even higher if the PMD talent would talk LESS. Huh? Where does this logic come from? The PD politely suggested that the reason the ratings are so high is specifically BECAUSE the PMD talent talks about interesting things rather than just playing the same music as the competitor. Even when something personality-driven is working, our industry kills it. It’s simply not logical, yet this scenario plays out in market after market.

These are just a few thought starters… I have many more thoughts on this topic and will outline them in future posts. But it all starts with innovation… and in order to have innovation, we need to embrace the INNOVATORS. Let’s make radio a place where innovators are welcomed and celebrated… this is the only way we’ll ever achieve a breakthrough.