Category Archives: Radio

Chicago Radio Digital “Ratings” September 2011

Facebook matters. Twitter matters. Today these numbers are more real than ever. Even more important are your website’s google analytics, your email database’s total subscribers, and ultimately your “open rate”.

These are the ratings of tomorrow. Actually, they are the ratings of TODAY, but everyone would rather focus on the VOODOO numbers published and paid for.

Like any ratings or statistics, these aren’t the end all be all. These are simply versions of VARIOUS available measuring sticks. These stats are an indicator of your stickiness…or lack of stickiness. These numbers are an indicator of the level of involvement your audience (or customers) have with your business/brand.

Enter the Chicago Radio Digital “Ratings” for September 2011 (We’ll post these monthly). I am considering including Steve Dahl’s stats in the next period. If you think there is someone else like Steve or a web entity that’s Chicago centric I should include, please suggest it in the comments below.

Chicago Radio’s Facebook Ratings September 2011:

Chicago Radio’s Twitter Ratings September 2011:

Rules to live by if you ever get interviewed…

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Seth Godin writes about how to be interviewed. If you run a business, you may be interviewed at some point. Even if you don’t run a business, you may be interviewed.

Here’s how to rock it. You want to rock the interview…

Otherwise, your non-rocking of the interview may live on the web forever. That’s a long time.

Seth has a way of breaking things down that makes a lot of sense.

http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2011/05/how-to-be-interviewed.html

Chicago Morning Team Reunites For Syndication

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Chicago Morning Team Reunites For Syndication

Chicago, Illinois- Chicago radio veterans Wendy Snyder and Bill Leff are reuniting this week to host the nationally syndicated “The Kevin Trudeau Show.” The duo previously enjoyed a loyal following as the night talkers at WLUP-FM/Chicago and later as morning stars on WKQX/Chicago (Q101).

“Some men came to my home in the middle of the night,” joked Bill Leff. “I was blindfolded and taken to an undisclosed location. I was put in a small room where a tall man with an under bite asked me a lot of questions about badminton. Then [he] forced me into a studio where I did shows with Wendy. Overall, a VERY pleasant experience.”

Snyder said the reunion with Leff is a long time coming and she looks forward to more opportunities to work with her long-time collaborator.

“We appreciate Kevin [Trudeau] leaving the studio door unlocked while he’s on vacation,” said Wendy Snyder. “He won’t make that mistake again.”

Snyder is heard weekdays in Chicago alongside WLS-AM’s morning hosts “Don Wade and Roma” and she formerly starred with the likes of Steve Dahl, Garry Meier, and Kevin Matthews. Leff is a regular on WGN-AM’s weekend lineup and was a fixture on Roe Conn’s WLS-AM afternoon show for several years.

The re-pairing of Snyder and Leff is the brainchild of Matt Dubiel, General Manager of Trudeau’s network of more than 50 stations nationwide. Dubiel began his career as an intern for “Wendy and Bill” in the early 1990’s.

“When I started out in this business, Bill used to make me fetch his ham-on-ryes, find mandolin strings at 2 a.m., and pluck the pimentos out of his olives,” said Matt Dubiel. “It’s a pleasure to be able to do that again 17 years later. Fanning him with palm fronds is a little bit much, but it’s only for a week. I can take it.”

A list of radio affiliates carrying “Wendy & Bill” can be found at KTRadioNetwork.com, along with on demand audio and video of the shows.

Fans can reconnect with Snyder and Leff at SnydeRemarksRadio.net and BillLeff.com.

About “The Kevin Trudeau Show” and The KT Radio Network (KTRN)

“The Kevin Trudeau Show” originates from Trudeau’s world headquarters, heard on more than 50 radio stations weekly in markets such as New York City, LA, Chicago, Dallas, and Boston. Starting June 6^th KTRN moves to weekdays on KLAA/Los Angeles from 10p-1a PDT. The radio show promises 3 hours of the information “they” don’t want you to know about health and wellness, wealth building, financial independence, and the truth about the government, corporate America, and the media. For more info please see KTRadioNetwork.com and KevinOnAir.com

About Kevin Trudeau

Kevin Trudeau is one of the most-read authors and most-viewed television personalities in history. His #1 New York Times Best Sellers include Natural Cures They Don’t Want You To Know About, More Natural Cures Revealed, and The Weight Loss Cure. Trudeau’s books combined have sold more than 13 million copies. In addition to hosting his own nationally syndicated radio show, Trudeau also works with several other companies, including a subscription-based online community, www.NaturalCures.com, which boasts an active membership of more than 150,000 members.

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It’s official, Podcasting is DEAD…

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Take it from the guy who INVENTED podcasting (not Matt Dubiel, it’s Adam Curry), PODCASTING IS DEAD.

Technology is fashion. Delivery methods come and go. Content is king. Your content is not defined by the mechanism by which you deliver it!

8 track, mp3, album, LP, itunes, newspapers and other dying forms of technology

See you in 2015!

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So what does Gary (who consults with MAJOR brands on their marketing and branding) tell the folks who are stuck on old agency rules and antiquated business principles? Watch this quick video…

Why are Facebook, Twitter & Groupon the axis of Evil for Radio and business?

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Are Facebook, Twitter & Groupin the Axis of Evil?

Rick Kaempfer has been nice enough to interview me on his Chicago Radio Spotlight. This is one of the questions that ended up on the cutting room floor, along with my response. I thought I’d share it here…

Question #8: You have an interesting take on the impact that social media is having on radio. It’s definitely not the conventional wisdom in the industry. Tell us why you believe that Facebook, Twitter, and GroupOn are the axis of evil for radio.

The Radio Industry has been scampering around like Chicken Little for the last 5 years or so, bemoaning the Ipod, Internet Radio and Satellite Radio. We blocked XM spots on network avails to protect ourselves. Meanwhile, Radio gave the REAL wolves the keys to the hen house.

Radio, Mainstreet, and Madison Avenue built Google, Facebook, Twitter, and Groupon virtually gratis.

I remember being a doe eyed intern at Q101 in the mid 90s and everyone was all a flutter about the NEW Q101 section being developed for America Online! Q101 didn’t have a website back then, instead they were building out their AOL section. Lots of meetings…and hull-a-baloo. This was back when AOL was mailing out CD-roms by the millions trying to protect the inevitable…the discovery of the World Wide Web! I was baffled by the notion that Q101 wasn’t working on what seemed obvious to me was the next step, a website. But what did I know.

Nearly a decade and a half later, here we are and major media companies, retailers, and food chains are spending millions in media to promote Facbebook or to tell people who aren’t even on Twitter, to “follow us on twitter”.

My philosophy on all these applications is simple:
Use them, don’t let them use you.

Recently, a station in town ran a promotion titled “Rush To Facebook”. Men 25-54 were told to go to Facebook, change their profile picture to the station logo, and then they might win Rush tickets. Now if Facebook paid the station for this promotion I say kudos. But if Facebook did not pay for this, my question is why in the world would you drive your listeners to Facebook for free?

By all means, have a promotions person log into Facebook to engage and connect with the Loop audience that’s already on Facebook. But to give Facebook that sort of Call To Action and frequency with no compensation is an insult to all the paying sponsors.

The way to use Facebook is to run ads ON FACEBOOK and drive your target demo to YOU. I’ve run campaigns on Facebook at $.14 CPM and as low as $.07 CPC. Another approach would be to work with advertisers and help them reach their target demo with the Station as a brand ambassador on Facebook. Mainstreet businesses need help with Google Ads and Facebook Ads. They need the power of radio behind those ads. But when radio stations don’t understand how to use these tools for their own marketing, they telegraph to retailers that they aren’t really marketing experts who can help their business. Send a radio sales person to call on retail and you’ll get a lot of “Nos”. Send a local retail marketing expert who will help me make more money and show me how radio makes it even better and the answer will always be YES.

Now the folks at the Station will say “but we increased our “likes” from 8,000 to 13,000”. I say GREAT! Now what? How much did that cost? If you spent over $100,000 in promotional inventory to get 5,000 new Facebook fans. That’s $20 per fan to build up Facebook’s web traffic.

If you want to capitalize on the power of Facebook you can integrate their APIs into your website. If you want to work on “likes”, work on them INSIDE Facebook, and help your clients do so. Facebook “fans” report spending $71 a year more than non-fans. Each Facebook Fan is worth an estimated $3.60 annually. This is something that benefits your clients, if you know how to help them with Facebook, and show them how to use it with radio. If you don’t they’re going to think they don’t need radio and will be waiting by the phone for Groupon to call them.

Incidentally, 30% of businesses who have worked with Groupon will not work with them again.

The other dirty little secret is, you don’t need to run promos on your radio station to get 10,000 likes on Facebook. If you want to get 10,000 fans on Facebook you need to customize the landing page visitors arrive at so they don’t just see a bunch of comments from random people when they stop by your fan page. For an example of this, go to http://www.Facebook.com/TacoBell

Taco Bell serves tacos, but on Facebook they are teasing a preview of the new Panic At The Disco music video if you click LIKE. When you click like, it appears auto-magically. Taco Bell is serving up Rock music…go figure. 6 Million “likes” can’t be wrong though.

Subway recently ran a media blitz to tell everyone they could interrupt that $5 Footlongs were back. Thankfully for radio, they spend a lot. Unfortunately for Subway, all they had to do was give everyone who bought $5 footlongs last time the option to get SMS or Email alerts when $5 footlongs were back. Subway doesn’t need to reach 1 million cume or 50,000 AQH. They just need to reach people who want $5 footlongs. As soon as they figure that out, and master it, radio is in deep trouble. So instead of building Groupon, Google, Facebook, Twitter, and the next flavor of the year….Radio needs to build big lists, made up of smaller lists. Then radio will own the keys to the castle.

I told Radio Ink last month we’ve worked out a system to make money on the web, powered by radio and with one 3 hour weekend show we’re grossing over $60k a month in revenue. That’s a fact. I can show stations how to do it and I’d be delighted to. If you want to learn more and sit in on a free webinar just go to http://www.MattDubiel.com and join my email list. We’re doing it in May.

If we get enough interest, I will share the scariest thing about Facebook no one is considering, and how it will kill your business and your brand if you do not protect against it right away. This is a lesson we garnered from the SaveTheLoop.com experience. Another reason we knew it was worth trying….you keep learning. Failure courts Success.

That MO FO Brandmeier

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When I was the PD of Nine FM we had a morning show issue. We had to get rid of a morning show that didn’t fit the direction we were taking the station in but my GM wouldn’t allow me to cut bait until we had a solution.

Serving Chicagoland from the suburbs, we had the hurdle of being suburban stations which were held to Chicago standards.

I pitched an idea I thought would work brilliantly, especially since our variety format was geared toward gold pop-rock hits from the 70s, 80s, 90s, and 2000s.

I told Harvey Wells (the GM) I wanted to reach out to Jonathon Brandmeier’s “people”. He laughed. He didn’t laugh because Johnny was a bad idea, but because he and I both knew we didn’t have $2million a year to pay Johnny B.

At the time, Brandmeier was on the air in LA and just doing ok. In fact as I continued to pester Harvey (I don’t give up easily) things changed and Brandmeier was off in LA and rumors were swirling about his return to Chicago to be near family. I argued Brandmeier would be back. If LA didn’t work, Chicago was going to work AND I’ve long felt that the rise of Eric & Kathy in mornings was directly related to Johnny B’s absence in morning drive in Chicago during E&K’s rise.

None of that mattered. I didn’t want Brandmeier to do a live morning show. I wanted his “best of” shows. I wanted to play his best of shows in between the Cars songs and other pop-rock 70s & 80s songs we focused on. These were the songs that were popular when Johnny was at his height. I wanted to hire a team of interns and producers to cut up these “Bits of Brandmeier” so we could fit them in between songs in morning drive and eventually afternoon drive.

The Portable People Meters were on their way and I believed (and I still do) that stations with star talent should build their stations around those stars. Music stations have nothing unique. Anyone can play Boulevard of Broken Dreams by Greenday, and EVERYONE did. Top 40, Hot AC, Modern Rock, Rock, AAA, Alternative, AC and Variety WERE ALL PLAYING THE SONG. The only formats that weren’t were Urban or Country!

So my plan was to convince Brandmeier’s “people” to license his “best of” shows to 9 FM so we could boast BRANDMEIER MORNINGS. Then when the PPMs came I would also run BRANDMEIER in Afternoons. Needless to say, Harvey didn’t buy into it. While a smart radio station in Chicago did bring Brandmeier back….they failed to build a station around him and the audience he brings.

The result was, The Loop didn’t fit Brandmeier, and Brandmeier didn’t fit The Loop. You would think the folks at Emmis would have know this since they watched this same movie play out with Mancow. Your morning star has to be the star of the station, not just the star of mornings.

This all centers around my theory that if TV Land played re-runs of Johnny Carson’s tonight show opposite Leno and Letterman, TV Land would show huge numbers. Upon further reflection though I’ve changed my tune and I believe Carson would have to air earlier on TV Land.

So if there was one PD willing to run the “best of” a top tier morning show that once was….is there one more? Perhaps not.

The bigger question is: Steve Dahl, Mancow Muller, Kevin Matthews, Danny Bonduce, Wendy & Bill, Eddie & Jobo, Drex, Eric & Kathy; Where is your 24/7 stream of your “best of” shows? Where is your flashback podcast? I’d listen to commercials on a podcast to hear Steve & Garry from the 80s.

Heck, I’d even pay $5.95 a month. I bet others would too.

P.S. We ended up hiring Steve Fisher and pairing him up with Joey Fortman for mornings and they worked very well together.

What The Hell Does Robert Feder Know?

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Randy Michaels (Tribune CEO) put out a list to his company chronicling 100 words that “shall not be named”. It’s my understanding this list was intended for Tribune writers, WGN TV presenters, and WGN radio hosts.

“The real goal here is to avoid using words that make you sound like you’re reading, instead of talking — that shatter the image you’re speaking knowledgeably to one person. By not using ‘newsspeak,’ you enhance your reputation as a communicator.”

Robert Feder wrote a scathing review of this memo and Randy’s practices at WGN. Once you get on Mr. Feder’s bad side you’re doomed. That’s not to say Rob (not Bob) isn’t objective. But the bigger issue (as Feder’s pointed out in his column) with this regime and others (Ahern’s CBS 2) is the fundamental culture schism.

The new bosses at Tribune came in and pissed all over everything THEN tried to establish themselves as credible and respect worthy management. Now, they’re looked at as the bulls in a China shop when all they really want is to fix a company mired in “we’ve always done it this way” which is killing newspaper across the US.

I had lunch with a friend and fellow radio programmer yesterday and we laughed because the “list” of words not to mention is not too far off base. Million dollar TV and Radio hosts have gotten lazy. Their management has been reluctant to shape and mold them, or perhaps incapable because the managers didn’t have the chops or command the respect to do so. Either way, it’s time to catapult Tribune into the 21st Century for sure. There’s no doubt about that.

Anyone who says YOU ALL or YOU GUYS is NOT relating to an audience of ONE, which is what your audience ALWAYS is. But tell that to Oprah. Sometimes, she even calls the audience……AUDIENCE!

I think Mr. Feder recognizes these things even though he admittedly has not programmed a radio or TV station. He get’s it. He also gets how the Tribune Company will rot from the inside out if this stuff continues the way it’s being done.

Mr. Michaels is indeed attacking the messenger. That’s what his staff is doing as well, because of the way he executed this initiative. Memos like this are meant for telling all staff the parking lot is going to be painted on Monday and please park in lot B. Phone calls, one on one development meetings and good old conversations are the way to motivate and inspire real change on the scale they need at the Trib.

Randy, you need to get those people walking with you NOT 20 steps behind you in fear. I recall the signs all over the inside of WGN Radio which boldly stated: “YOU own this place now” referring to employee ownership. If the employees own the place, why aren’t they being treated with as much or MORE respect than you’d offer to Sam Zell? The employees actually have SKIN IN THE GAME.

Also noted by Feder is how Michaels bagged on bloggers. Funny. Bloggers are good enough to anchor ChicagoNow.com AND take up precious airtime on WGN CHICAGO! So what does Robert Feder know? I think he’s seen enough over his 30 years covering Chicago media to know when something’s off. He’s also smart enough to know the web is the future for all writers and darn near everything…..but then again, What the hell does Matt DuBiel know….?

(In full disclosure, I reached out to ChicagoNow about blogging for them a while back. I began “blogging” in 1997, and then started podcasting in 2004. Admittedly, it wasn’t a weekly effort on my part. Either way, I pitched ChicagoNow on a blog concept coming from the perspective of a 30 something dad in the suburbs. I got a response. I was told to lay out some examples, which I did, and I then never heard back. The more I thought about it afterward, the more I questioned why anyone would blog for ChicagoNow or anywhere else UNLESS they are getting paid. Blogs are cheap and easy to set up and when you control your blog you control your message, your brand and your relationships. Anyone blogging for ChicagoNow for free should blog on their own website and let ChicagoNow refeed it. Don’t just blog for ChicagoNow or any other site for free.)

Just Ask Toyota

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Advertising works. Just ask Toyota. Advertising giveth to Toyota….and then advertising taketh away.

Just because they didn’t pay for it, doesn’t mean it wasn’t advertising. But given the chance, wouldn’t you rather control the message as much as possible? The truth is while advertising is your only shot of controlling the message. You still have to be great. And even if you are great, and the message you pay for is right, the people can change the message. You’re never in complete control.

I think the answer is to be great at what you do, tell the world and engage with your customers. If you miss any one of those 3 elements though, the others won’t work. Try advertising a crappy service and you’re going to get a lot of interest from people you’re going to let down….and you wont want to engage with THEM.

Toyota’s having a rough patch and they’re advertising now on the radio more than I’ve heard in a while. Here’s another interesting thing to note though, they didn’t just run screaming car ads for the last 10 years. They built their business on customer satisfaction. I understand they’re having recall issues now and it’s easy to speculate all of a sudden that Toyota was never so good all along, but the FACT of the matter is Toyota’s have rocked for years. They’ve won more than they’ve lost. They got sloppy and now they’re fixing it and telling their story to the masses via the radio.

(As a matter of full disclosure I’ve always wanted a Toyota truck, raised with big tires like the one Marty McFly dreamed of in Back 2 The Future but that doesn’t color my opinion.)

Save $10 @ Jiffy Lube

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I got my oil changed at Jiffy Lube. My 2004 Town & Country (what a pimp right) was screaming for some TLC. So as I am waiting to pay I over hear a woman on the phone with her husband. He needed batteries and she told him to get them from her camcorder. She almost begged him to use these batteries instead of buying new ones. In fact, at one point she said, “please use the batteries in the camcorder it will save us $10″.

My oil change was $39. I know from experience I can change it myself and it costs me about $14 WITH SYNTHETIC OIL. You could change your own oil, buy batteries for $10 and still have $15 left over! That’s 3 rentals at BLOCKBUSTER HA! It’s 3 foot longs are Subway, or MONEY IN THE BANK.

The truth is, I believe we need to be spending money in this economy. I think we need to tip better. But we just need to be smart about how we spend the money.

When times are tight, advertising is one of the first things businesses cut back on. Does that make ANY SENSE? Not to me. Now is THE time to advertise. Everyone else is cutting back. Everyone else is recoiling and panicking. And if they’re not….they’re doing crazy things like raising their prices! Remember the scene in It’s A Wonderful Life where everyone FREAKS about their money. George Bailey and Mr. Potter are the only ones who kept their heads. After it passed, and these things always do, they were the two big dogs left.

Now is the time to advertise the right way. If you’re selling advertising on the radio or anywhere else and business owners start telling you they have no money….think about the woman at Jiffy Lube. She didn’t have any money for batteries but she had money to get her oil changed. Good advertising should be FREE, because it pays for itself if it’s done right.

P.S. I realize not everyone knows how to change their own oil. You may also be wondering why I wasn’t changing my own oil. I sometimes change my oil myself, and enjoy it when I do. Today I chose to have it done while I got my hair got across the street. Multitasking, sort of. Either way, the example made sense for the purposes of this post…I hope!