Money shouldn’t be the goal – money is the reward you get for ACHIEVEMENT OF the goal.<\/p>\n
When you stop to think about how many successful companies understand this – big brands like Apple, \u00a0Google, Jet Blue, etc, you also quickly recognize how few radio companies understand this principle. \u00a0It’s a rare owner that will tell you that their goal is to do great radio, create an environment where creative people can create, positively impact the community that they are licensed to serve, and profit from doing so. Most owners simply want to skip all of that and just get to the money.<\/p>\n
And therein lies the problem.<\/p>\n
From everything that I can tell based on the books and the movie, Steve Jobs liked money… but he also liked great design even more. It was his insistence on quality design and innovation that \u00a0drove Apple’s success. Just good enough was never good enough. Sure they could have shaved a few dollars off the cost of production by using cheaper materials and less aesthetically pleasing designs, but he made the decision to go with better quality, better design, and charge a premium for it.<\/p>\n
Radio has lost its pricing power in most of the big markets because it has become a commodity. Station A gets the same music as station B. Someone does 95 minutes commercial free, while the other station does 98 minutes commercial free. If you’re just a utility offering the same experience as another utility, people will always go with the cheapest option. I like the BP gas station up the road, but occasionally the Marathon station across the street is a few cents cheaper, so I’ll go there. It’s just a utility to me – the experience is the same.<\/p>\n
But a great radio station breaks beyond utility status. A great radio station can charge more for “Mojo in the Morning” because it’s a great morning show that you can’t get anywhere else. Great radio stations think like Apple – charge a premium for great design and better quality.<\/p>\n
It’s the difference between a brand and a commodity. If a commodity goes away, people replace it with another commodity. If a brand goes away, people protest its absence.<\/p>\n
So which one are you? A brand? Or a commodity?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Money shouldn’t be the goal – money is the reward you get for ACHIEVEMENT OF the goal. When you stop to think about how many successful companies understand this – big brands like Apple, \u00a0Google, Jet Blue, etc, you also quickly recognize how few radio companies understand this principle. \u00a0It’s a rare owner that will […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5i4nE-f","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":80,"url":"https:\/\/www.domtheodore.com\/?p=80","url_meta":{"origin":15,"position":0},"title":"Beautiful Lobby… Empty Studios","author":"admin","date":"July 16, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"I'll never forget the day that I first walked into 4002 Gandy in Tampa. This was the home of Jacor Broadcasting at the time, and my first thought was how dated and cheap the lobby appeared to be. You could tell that there had been almost no investment into the\u2026","rel":"","context":"With 10 comments","block_context":{"text":"With 10 comments","link":"https:\/\/www.domtheodore.com\/?p=80#comments"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":18,"url":"https:\/\/www.domtheodore.com\/?p=18","url_meta":{"origin":15,"position":1},"title":"Budget Season","author":"admin","date":"November 4, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"I used to dread budget season when I was a RVP of Programming at one of the big companies... mostly because it never made sense to me. The process would usually start with corporate sending out a spreadsheet asking me to outline the on-air lineup station-by-station, and whether or not\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":123,"url":"https:\/\/www.domtheodore.com\/?p=123","url_meta":{"origin":15,"position":2},"title":"Real Solutions for Radio","author":"admin","date":"October 28, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"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\u2026","rel":"","context":"With 3 comments","block_context":{"text":"With 3 comments","link":"https:\/\/www.domtheodore.com\/?p=123#comments"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":137,"url":"https:\/\/www.domtheodore.com\/?p=137","url_meta":{"origin":15,"position":3},"title":"Radio’s Greatest Era, or the Last Chapter?","author":"admin","date":"August 28, 2024","format":false,"excerpt":"Not a day goes by lately without more bad news for the radio industry. From major layoffs, more voice-tracking, eliminated positions, major heritage brands disappearing, to wild ratings swings, and bad quarterly revenue reports, it feels like the end of our industry is inevitable. Many of those who still have\u2026","rel":"","context":"With 1 comment","block_context":{"text":"With 1 comment","link":"https:\/\/www.domtheodore.com\/?p=137#comments"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.domtheodore.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/DomTheodore-e1725206995694.jpg?fit=619%2C625&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.domtheodore.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/DomTheodore-e1725206995694.jpg?fit=619%2C625&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.domtheodore.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/DomTheodore-e1725206995694.jpg?fit=619%2C625&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":44,"url":"https:\/\/www.domtheodore.com\/?p=44","url_meta":{"origin":15,"position":4},"title":"Hot and Cold Radio Stations","author":"admin","date":"November 16, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"There's nothing worse than a \"cold\" radio station. You know the kind I'm talking about. Sure, the imaging is super-clean. The music may be good. The jocks are probably tight and do a great job promoting the upcoming contest. The promos are well produced and slick. But the station has\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"disrupt\"","block_context":{"text":"disrupt","link":"https:\/\/www.domtheodore.com\/?tag=disrupt"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":39,"url":"https:\/\/www.domtheodore.com\/?p=39","url_meta":{"origin":15,"position":5},"title":"Finding Radio’s “Why?”","author":"admin","date":"November 10, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"I'm a huge fan of Simon Sinek. In his book \"Start With Why,\" Sinek proposes that the best and most innovative companies and leaders have a strong sense of purpose, or \"why\". And much of the success of the most innovative companies is due to their leaders abilities to inspire\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.domtheodore.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.domtheodore.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.domtheodore.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.domtheodore.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.domtheodore.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=15"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.domtheodore.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16,"href":"https:\/\/www.domtheodore.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15\/revisions\/16"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.domtheodore.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.domtheodore.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.domtheodore.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}