From the Corner Office

Hello Everyone,

As we approach the upcoming fourth quarter, it's time for all of us to head "back to school." 

Radio continues to strive in difficult times. I believe that it's important for us to shake off emotions, put our egos in check, and focus on becoming premiere solution providers for our listeners and advertisers. I have been challenging the men and women of Greater Media to think "outside the box" and pursue new avenues of revenue opportunity,  rather than focusing solely on traditional business. 

I make this challenge not only because it is a needed step for our business, but also because this learning mindset will be mandatory for each and every person who wishes to have a career future in our business.  It is time to learn and grow, or face a future of declining income or job obsolescence.

It's time for each of us to hit the books and do something we don't often make time for: think about the very nature of our business.   The force of events and economics is pushing us forward at a pace we have not seen before.  As a result, we face a stark choice:  redefine our business and how we do it, or have it done for us by others.

Radio's sheltered competition within the regulated world of FCC-licensed entities was structured, orderly, and understandable.  Within  local markets,  a broadcaster would target an underserved audience; get a rating book; and sell to advertisers through agencies at both the local and national level.  This generated itself into neatly ordered :60s and :30s and invoices went out according to rate card.  We staffed our radio stations, created job descriptions and hired staff based upon that rather straightforward model.

As creatures of habit and experience, we continue to attempt to apply those rules to a brave new universe, in which we find ourselves competing for marketing dollars with almost anyone and everyone, from Google, mobile, and internet-only music services, to podcasts, video, audio and social networks.   Every one of these new players offer their wares to local advertisers as alternatives to our traditional solutions to their marketing problems and needs.

The first new lesson to be learned is to redefine our business in contemporary terms.  No longer are we one of the 3 or 4 "mass media"; we are rapidly evolving to the new definition that I favor:  we are the provider of locally-based, interactive entertainment and marketing solutions. 

As such, we have to educate the local advertising marketplace about the enhanced capabilities that we have built for ourselves over the past 10 years.  We have to forcefully communicate that we are more than the tall tower on the hill outside town; that we have a robust online presence of websites, databases, audio and video, and the ability to combine them in new and compelling ways with broadcast audio, including our secondary HD channels. We can create custom solutions for marketing problems that are affordable, effective and measurable. 

But in order to be able to back up this vision, we have to do some hard homework within our organization.  Here are our assignments:

* We must look at every aspect of our organization and determine who is responsible for implementing this vision and who is responsible for conveying the message to the marketplace.   We literally have to sit down and rewrite employee job descriptions.   If everyone is generally accountable, no one is actually accountable and the job will not get done.

* We have to take a hard look at the overall workload of individual employees and make tough decisions about new priorities when we focus on revenue.  As national business continues to decline, it is up to us to rethink our approach to the way we run our organizations; the current model is not working. For example,  the role of the Director of Sales five years ago is not what it is today. Managing transactional business from local and national agencies will not produce the desired results.   Today's DOS needs to be an evangelist for the enhanced capabilities we bring to advertisers.   He or she needs to be informed, innovative, passionate and persuasive.  We need to redefine the existing responsibilities and structure of the current management and staff of our station operations and partner the right people with the right career opportunities. 

* We must educate our employees about the fundamental changes that are happening so quickly in our marketplace, and teach them to recognize opportunities that exist outside the confines of the ad agency on the sales side, and Arbitron ratings on the product side of our business.   We must spend time creating systems and departments within the station operation to handle this new work professionally and in a timely fashion.   And we need to move beyond one-time experiments to a production environment in which advertisers can confidently invest dollars with us and we can stand accountable for the return on their investment.

* We must reach out and communicate with our audiences, explaining to them that we offer new and innovative ways to extend their involvement with our brands.  We must make our online interaction with them as entertaining and informative as their listening to our signal.  We have to recognize that our relationship is no longer a one-way street where we push out information and entertainment that our listeners passively absorb; we must provide engagement that moves our radio brands into a new level of personalized, digital interaction with them.  This will require thinking deeply and carefully about the nature of each one of our brands, and finding new ways of reinvigorating that brand and making sure it connects with our listeners. 

Please feel free to e-mail me by clicking on the "Ask Peter" icon posted below. I would love to hear your feedback or answer any questions you may have.