There's no getting around it- the Manchester Grand Hyatt in San Diego stinks. Literally. I'm not kidding. There are parts of the building that have the distinct redolence of Eau de Portapotty. Nobody seems to mind. Maybe because they're all radio people, and that ship's been taking on water so long they're used to the pong of stagnancy.
THe NAB's Eddie Fritts gave his annual opening remarks this morning, and he was pretty upbeat for a guy whose organization is, to put it charitably, getting its clock cleaned on a regular basis.
I don't know about you, but I get the sense that there is a terrific buzz surrounding this convention.
I don't know about you, but that buzz is the air conditioning. And the sound of thousands of radio personalities calling their agents desperate for a job at Sirius.
For example, we have thus far been successful in protecting against additional interference from low power FM radio.
I'll get back to this one in a little bit. Don't go away.
We've helped establish a stable regulatory framework that protects your licenses and allows you to better serve listeners.
I have no idea what this means.
Local radio has its pulse on the community, most graphically demonstrated by the onslaught of hurricanes that recently ravaged Florida and neighboring states.
We received countless reports of continuous coverage stations undertook under horrendous circumstances.
Station employees rarely had time to consider their own personal circumstances - and in some instances saw their own homes destroyed.
But they stayed on the air, and listeners attributed broadcasters' efforts to saving lives.
Even now, these stations are raising funds for victims, spearheading food drives, and continuing service to their communities.
That's what local radio is all about.
This is what the radio industry is all about- congratulating itself for DOING ITS JOB. Radio stations in Florida provided hurricane coverage and raised relief funds? That's what they're EXPECTED to do. It's when they DON'T that it's remarkable. That's like a plumber fishing for special compliments for fixing the leak in your toilet for $65. an hour.
So where does radio stand in 2004 - with the combined explosion in technology and competition?
As we look at new challenges, our answer is to compete technically and with compelling content. Radio is combining the new digital technology of HD Radio with its bedrock of localism - to do what satellite services, iPods, and other MP3s cannot do.
I think the time is now for HD Radio.
There you go. Radio's losing audience, it's perceived as uncool, it's driving talent like the most famous, successful personality in its history, Howard Stern, to satellite radio, and the solution is to switch the same crap programming to digital delivery. EGBOK, everyone, everything's gonna be OK.
This industry has always been a business filled with risk-takers.
There are risk takers, but the vast majority of managers in radio are risk-averse. You get one risk taker and, if the risk pays off, a hundred copycats grateful that they didn't put their own asses on the line and can still reap the reward (and take credit).
But in my view, the real risk is for those unwilling to embrace the promise of HD Radio.
Yes, it DOESN'T MATTER WHAT CRAP YOU PUT ON THE AIR, AS LONG AS IT'S DIGITAL CRAP.
Today, because of e-mail, anyone can easily file comments or complaints at the FCC. Interest groups are routinely generating thousands of comments at the Commission.
And this is an FCC that is paying close attention to those comments. There are currently numerous FCC proceedings under consideration.
One of those is the so-called localism inquiry, wherein the FCC is asking whether or not stations are adequately serving their communities.
"So-called"? It's a localism inquiry. What else would you call it?
The activist groups are seizing this opportunity to change the rules and set new standards by which we are judged at renewal time.
It is vital that every broadcaster take this opportunity to tell your community service story by filing comments at the FCC.
The deadline is November 1.
Here's the best part: you don't need an expensive DC lawyer to file on your behalf. NAB is making it easy for you to submit your own thoughts right on our NAB Web site - www.nab.org - which will be automatically submitted to the FCC.
Here's what I'd like to see- there are two stations licensed to the South Bay area of Los Angeles County where I live, KZAB in Redondo Beach and KFOX in Torrance. I'd love to see them tell the FCC what service they provided to the South Bay. You know what? I'll help: none. KFOX is all-Korean aimed at Los Angeles. KZAB spent most of the last few years simulcasting a Spanish music format aimed at Los Angeles and is now hip-hop aimed at Los Angeles. The South Bay is not Los Angeles. The radio industry abandoned the South Bay.
And it abandoned Orange County, too. But hold on, we'll get to that.
It's your business we're talking about here, and this is serious business. Citizen activism is alive and well across America, and at the FCC.
Oh, NO! Citizens are active! We must stop this before they start demanding things like public service!
Those automatic renewals no matter whether you lived up to your license obligations? Endangered.
So I walked out of there and I thought, geez, did he really blow off the whole localism issue? I've been hot and heavy on that one, because, living in an area with no local radio, I'm a little sensitive to the issue. The very first edition of this column talked about a station that was doing the kind of local-yokel radio I remember from my youth, the kind that REALLY serves the public- high school football, remotes from the diner on Main Street, school lunch menus. And that went away not because people didn't want it but because any station with a rimshot signal to a larger market is automatically going to abandon Main Street and try to serve the bigger town, getting higher ad rates and getting valued at a higher dollar figure.
And that thought was still rattling in my head when I sat in on what the NAB optimistically called the "Group Heads Supersession." I had the heads of Clear Channel, Citadel, Greater Media (my former employer!), Access.1, and Entercom right there in front of me. And these are the kinds of companies who took advantage of deregulation to take stations that served their communities and moved them to serve other communities, leaving places like my hometown without any place to hear local news, without any station for the mom-and-pop stores to advertise.
So I listened as they congratulated themselves on hurricane coverage, listened as they blew off the loss of Howard Stern- why, Infinity and Joel Hollander are smart, they'll find someone even MORE compelling than Stern, Stern's had his day- and I got more irritated. How are they gonna find a more compelling talent than Stern and keep him or her in the business if they put a zero-tolerance, violate-a-rule-we-can't-explain-to-you-and-you're-unemployable-for-life condition on that "more compelling" person? And as they moved on quickly to congratulate themselves on reducing ad inventory- ignore how we ripped you advertisers off for decades, we're better now- I thought, geez, the head of the NAB was only able to cite one achievement for the year and it was to thwart local competition, he blew off the whole localism thing, and these people are congratulating themselves on being "local"? I gotta SAY something.
So for the third time at this conference, I did. I got up and asked a longwinded question that boils down to this:
1. Whole areas near big cities used to have local radio with news and stuff, and now they don't.
2. Companies like yours did that, abandoning those areas and abdicating the local responsibility.
3. Nobody can reverse that because the cost of entry requires service to the bigger city.
4. The NAB thwarted the only proposal for restoring local radio in those areas by fighting the questionable interference the low power FMs might cause.
5. So... would you, out of a sense of public service, accept limited interference to allow for additional radio service to those areas? And if the answer is no...
6. What do you tell people who can't get local radio because you won't let them have it?
The answer: Huh?
Then Clear Channel's Mark Mays said he'd tell the people to go buy a TV station. He later said it was intended as a joke. Let 'em eat cake! Ha ha, only kidding!
Then Greater Media's Peter Smyth said he owns stations in New Brunswick that really serve New Jersey, which is true except that it's because the signals don't reach New York.
Then David Field of Entercom said no way would they accept interference.
Then they stammered and changed the subject back to their wonderful new plan to cut ad clutter.
Localism? They're all for it, until it's time to actually implement it.
They all say that satellite won't hurt them because satellite can't be local. Then they do everything in their power to prevent anyone from actually being super-local. And then they congratulate themselves for doing something they shouldn't need to be congratulated for doing.
Can I go home yet? Please?
Share