The Infinite Dial

One of the advantages of working in Somerville, N.J., is that you have plenty of over-the-air radio to listen to. No matter what the Infinite Dial may offer at the desk, there's New York, Philadelphia, Trenton, N.J., Allentown, Pa., and Monmouth/Ocean County, N.J., waiting in the car.

Unless you're in one of those places in Southern New England where you can pick up about six markets at once, Somerville is the best place for multiple choices in most genres. You could have at least five CHR buttons, depending on how you count. When pre-Beatles Oldies were briefly sweeping the AM band, I had four to listen to. At home, 30 miles away, I have no Country station except for WKTU-HD-2. Here I have two, and sometimes three.

And sometimes you have multiple buttons for the same thing. Scott Shannon's True Oldies Channel comes in here on three AM frequencies (although they're all traveling a ways to get here). Ryan Seacrest is available from at New York, Philadelphia, and Allentown, and listening is not the same experience on three of them. Rush Limbaugh, whose ubiquity is well documented, is heard on at least three.

So I'm curious. What programming is available on the most over-the-air stations in your market?

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We’ve all been there. You hear a song and long after it is finished, it is still replaying in your head…again, again and again. Believe it or not, there is an actual term for this madness: an "earworm." According to Wikipedia, “earworm is a term for a portion of a song or other musical material that repeats compulsively within one's mind, known colloquially as music being stuck in one's head.“

There have been studies done on earworms by James Kellaris which show that some people are more susceptible than others to earworms, but that just about everyone will experience this phenomenon at some point. So now that we know we are normal, why does this happen?

While the true cause for earworms is still unknown, we do know that some are stickier than others, even if the song itself isn’t one of your favorites. This stickiness is often what makes a song a hit and what gives it life for use in commercials and movie trailers and in our overall pop culture. Think “All Star” by Smash Mouth, “Tubthumping” by Chumbawamba and even “Tom’s Diner” by Suzanne Vega. Each of these has the ability to haunt you for days at a time.

Although earworms, described by Kellaris as a “cognitive itch,” can trigger a pop culture craze like “Mambo No. 5,” they can also send it crashing down after overexposure. After a certain point, the "burn" factor takes over and the song becomes so negative that it can’t be tolerated. There can be a fine line between stickiness and crispiness--songs can disappear from the airwaves for weeks, months or even years in some cases until the dust has settled and it is thought to be safe again. But more than likely, you’ll remember the hook long after that song has vanished.

What earworms have plagued you over the years? Let us know in the comments!

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There was a funny article in the BBC News Magazine this week about a 13-year old boy who swapped his iPod for an old-school Sony (cassette) Walkman for one week. Scott Campbell learned all about what we used to call "shuffle" (randomly pressing and releasing the FF button,) that cassettes actually had to be flipped over, and, of course, the difference between what Sony called "portable" then and what we expect today.

My favorite quote:

My friends couldn't imagine their parents using this monstrous box, but there was interest in what the thing was and how it worked. In some classes in school they let me listen to music and one teacher recognised it and got nostalgic.

I had one of these exact models, and I fondly remember attaching it to my gym shorts (Jams!) while I mowed the lawn, and, much to the amusement of my neighbors, struggling to keep my shorts pulled up with a 5-lb weight clipped to the elastic. We look back on the Walkman as a chapter in history--clearly, now, it seems silly (as the 8-track did to me as a child). What interests me about technological change, though, is exactly when the tipping point on a particular technology actually happens, and what the signs are. When, exactly, did we realize carrying this brick around was absurd? For most, it was when something newer and smaller came out; for others, it was the change in format to CD. I still own and use three minidisc players for various reasons, so I can be as stubborn a Luddite as anyone. But there comes a point when it is obvious to all that a technology, format or device has passed its sell-by date. The key is being able to recognize the symptoms before this occurs, and shaping the change instead of being shaped by it.

All of which brings me to the wonderful, long list of comments to Larry's provocative post last week on phasing out AM and putting the best content on FM. It was certainly positive to see such a spirited defense of AM--a little passion in a time like this, to quote one of my favorite Raymond Carver stories, is a small, good thing. However, can you imagine a time when the scratchy, mono hiss of AM radio becomes a memory? To the engineers out there, AM is an essential technology for coverage, DX listening, etc., but IP is the new AM, and its coverage is limitless. When a brutal thunderstorm hits, a revolution happens in Iran, or a King of Pop dies, we are learning of these things from device-independent services like Twitter, which with its mobile phone accessibility already has a potential 85% reach.

If you think AM will be around forever, well--I respectfully disagree. But if you think it will one day join the telegraph, shortwave, Satellite Radio and HD as anachronisms, when do you think that will happen? And will you recognize the signs? How many of these signs are already around you?

Getting ahead of the change may take work, but the path is clear. Own as much of your content as you can, make that content great, and get that content on as many devices/services/formats as you can--let the listener choose how they want to consume your content. I've been a big believer and proponent of podcasting in this space for the past five years (here are a few articles to get you started) and am bullish on the creation of box-independent programming as the future of radio. Ownership of content is required to embrace downloadable and on-demand media, which means every station that simply turns their programming over to satellite, or a hard drive at corporate HQ, sells their future in this space to make this quarter's budget. This is already happening with once-exclusive properties like Major League Baseball, and other audio content isn't far behind.

One day, we'll see the next Scott Campbell holding up his father's clunky AM radio in this picture. Whether you see that day as the near future or a distant tomorrow says a lot about how ready you are to face that day.

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I love how all the blogs about radio add to the vitality of discussion of our industry. I love how this blog allows we researchers at Edison Research to add to the conversation. But it's time to stop, or attempt to stop, one of the most useless assertions that are endlessly made on these blogs: "We should be more like Apple."

Now don't get me wrong. No one has more admiration for the genius of Apple and Steve Jobs than I. The innovation, insights, and design advancements they have brought to the world will be rightfully discussed and noted for centuries. And everyone should be inspired by what they have done.

However, it's just too easy, and essentially useless, to point to their latest advancement and say: "See Radio? This is what YOU should be doing."

First of all, Apple is a hardware company. The blog posters are scolding the 'software' providers -- radio programming companies. And while radio is more consolidated than it once was, it still can't provide the same solution, (like an iPod or iPhone) in every market and throughout the world.

And another thing. In America radio is being listened to by more than 90% of all people -- Apple with all their distribution and all their power is 'owned' by maybe 30% of the public (adding together their computers, iPods, phones and anything else). Apple can make billions serving its fraction of the public. Radio can't.

So yes, Radio, admire Apple. Be inspired by them. But no, it's not going to be easy for us to "be like Apple."

Nor can we 'Be like Google,' 'Be like Amazon,' or 'Be like Sun Tzu' or 'Be like the US Military' or 'Be Like Starbucks' or 'Be Like WalMart' or 'Be like Any Other Company Or Entity That is Succeeding Right Now.'

And frankly, attempting to model our solutions on other businesses and other industries doesn't have the best track record for radio. Using McDonalds and IBM as models led both to consolidation (which doesn't seem to have saved the industry) and to some of the other ways radio has struggled.

So, while I know we don't have all the solutions here either, we promise not to just point to successful entities and say: "Be like them."

Except Barack Obama. That's who radio should be like. We should "Be Like Barack Obama!"

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While most radio stations eventually snapped to attention and acknowledged the death of Michael Jackson for the major event it was last night, some got it faster than others. (And a few were voice-tracking and never got it.) You definitely get the impression that some stations were thinking about the eccentric and embattled Michael of the last 15 years with only a handful of songs that still tested. They weren't thinking of the Michael Jackson who, in 1983-84 left as indeliable an impression as any artist for those of us between 35-and-50. The comparisons were to the death of Elvis Presley, but in his peak years, Michael was like the Beatles in his ubiquity -- particularly in his ability to make a hit out of any song to which he contributed even a backing vocal.

In New York, I heard WBLS do a great job. Within an hour of the announcement of Jackson's death, there was an interview from 1979 (identifiable as such because "Shake Your Body [Down To The Ground]" is still a current.) Former WBLS jocks, including Ken "Spider" Webb, returned to the air to comment. And all of this with a fill-in afternoon host, April Woodard of "Inside Edition," sitting in for Wendy Williams. Meanwhile, crosstown WKTU will be going all Michael this weekend.

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As consolidated radio runs more and more from remote hard drives, it's worth noting that today's social web is running in exactly the opposite direction. Take Twitter, for instance. If you have a positive or negative experience on Southwest Air, let @southwestair know on Twitter. You will get a response, and that response will be human. In fact, @southwest air is a real, bona-fide person with a vibrant personality whose "job" is not to endlessly tweet ads for Southwest, but to continue providing that Southwest Luv to their passengers online and off.

Forrester analyst Jeremiah Owyang noted today that humans don't scale. If you read Owyang's blog, or follow his prodigious output on Twitter, you might wonder how he keeps up with it. The answer, according to Owyang himself, is that he doesn't--"the wheels are falling off!" I don't think they've fallen off for Owyang yet, but his message is clear. Keeping up with social media is work, just like maintaining your network of personal and business relationships is work. Social media doesn't 'automate' interaction. Instead, it provides tools to help you maintain your relationships and make your interactions richer, but it doesn't scale. It isn't supposed to, really, if you keep to the spirit of social media.

Everyone has their own Dunbar's Number, and social media may help you to augment that, but make no mistake--you can't just sign up for Twitter and blast out promotional messages all day long and call that "social networking." People connect with people, and people want to know there is a real person behind that avatar.

How this ties into radio should be obvious. If your programming is automated and piped in from servers unknown, don't expect to do the same with your social media outreach. Won't work. If you can't put a thinking, feeling, real human being behind your social media efforts, don't bother--you'll get found out pretty quickly. Your social media presence can be an outstanding conduit of local information, music information, viral videos, etc.--but it must be a two-way conduit, or your efforts will absolutely fail. I wish I could tell you there was a magic social networking button, but there isn't. You, your air talent, your marketing team and even your sales team have to work, listen and learn. You can't automate that.

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Part of any dialogue about the ongoing viability of the AM dial must hinge on how many broadcasters could truly be relocated on FM. In recent years, broadcasters have become increasingly enterprising about using FM translators to accommodate simulcasts of both AM stations and now the programming from their FM channels. And in the headlines in recent days: even the Detroit/Windsor market has room for another FM, it now seems.

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I live and work firmly within the New York metropolitan area. I happen to love much of the programming available that emanates from New York on the AM band -- sports on WFAN and ESPN Radio, News on WCBS and WINS, talk from WABC and WOR, business news from Bloomberg, and Radio Disney especially when I'm with my daughter.

There is only one problem -- I can BARELY HEAR ANY OF THIS. To listen to these stations from my metro, I usually have to listen through all manner of scratch and hiss. Often, I can hear nothing at all. If it is raining (and it has been non-stop for several weeks), almost nothing comes in. And let me restate -- I'm not 'DXing' radio stations from hundreds of miles away. I'm trying to listen to my market's own radio stations!

At last year's Jacobs Media Summit in Austin, I was privileged to be asked to run for "President of Radio" and to give a speech with policy suggestions for the radio industry. In my speech I proposed a plan for 'sunset-ing' the AM Band. Let's pick a time period, perhaps five years, for a date certain when AM Radio will cease. At that time the bandwidth can be sold and a fund created to compensate license-holders. During those five years, any AM brands worth their salt would likely make the transfer to the FM band, replacing duplicative FM music stations, and allowing people to actually listen to that great programming.

I honestly thought I might get some traction with this idea, or if nothing else some attention. But for a variety of reasons, few of the many good suggestions made that day got onto the industry's agenda. So I thought I would give it another go.

AM radio's secondary purpose of providing communication to rural America has long since obsolesced. There is too much radio advertising inventory chasing too few advertising dollars. All manner of fabulous programming -- programming that compels listeners and advertisers -- is going unheard on the AM band.

So what do you say readers: Is it time to start the sun setting on AM Radio? Your comments are welcome.

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I can't believe these guys aren't syndicated yet. And that production!

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I was discussing the merits and demerits of Nielsen's entry to the American radio ratings market the other day, and I mentioned that one obvious negative is the once-per-year ratings plan for the 51 smaller markets that Nielsen is launching.

And while the "if I get a bad book I have to wait a year for a new one" is clearly a negative, it got me to thinking about the 'old days' of shorter ratings 'sweeps' months.

Back in the days before continuous measurement was launched in America's bigger markets, radio stations went, well, crazy during the rated periods. Big contests, big guests, the morning and other shows were of course never on vacation. Tons of television advertising attempted to hype that month or quarter, along with billboards, direct mail, telemarketing....the works.

Now, with no individual month or quarter being the 'crucial' period, it allows radio operators to treat each month the same. And in this case, it allows for a sort of 'mutual non-proliferation pact' among the stations these days...no one advertises because no one else does.

I confidently predict that in those 51 Nielsen markets, stations will go back to doing SOMETHING during the one, annual, short ratings sweep. And, at least THAT will be good.

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Judging an industry award is, at best, a labor of love -- emphasis on the word labor. You find yourself slogging through a lot of mediocre material. You deal with an overwhelming amount of politics for something that was supposed to be a fun add-on to your real job. And, without intending to diminish the actual winners here, you certainly never feel that you have such an embarassment of riches that you could fill each category several times over.

I was a judge in the radio station category of the RAB's Radio Mercury Awards for several years in the early '00s when I was editor of Billboard's Airplay Monitor. Typically, the judging was a morning's work. Over the course of that morning, I would hear a lot of very cliched work -- nobody should ever be allowed to do a game show parody again, although Netflix can be grandfathered. I would encounter at least a spot or two that was so offensively stereotypical I was surprised it hadn't been protested off the air. Then there were those spots that were agency quality work in terms of polish, but not otherwise remarkable.

That said, I never felt the pickings were so slim that nothing should win -- the decision made by the Radio Mercury Awards judges this year. I do, however, agree with Eric Rhoads that the best local spots are not necessarily being submitted; even seven or eight years ago that was the case. A lot of radio's production directors are too busy grinding out work for four stations these days to solicit national attention, for one thing.

At a time when nothing in radio feels like it's getting better, production at the local level has held its own. For one thing, the national spots have gotten worse, just because so much of the business is now for patent medicines and other sponsors of dubious repute. And, for better or worse, the screaming car dealership spots are in shorter supply. Admittedly, I hear New York and Philly radio. But I also hear Allentown, Pa., Monmouth/Ocean, N.J., and Trenton, N.J. And I hear a lot less of this type of spot these days:

First Wooden Sounding DJ: Gee, I wonder why Sally won't go out with me?

Second Wooden Sounding DJ: Maybe it's because you use the wrong caulking supplies?

First Wooden Sounding DJ: Really? Caulking?

Second Wooden Sounding DJ: You'd be surprised how much difference it makes. The folks at Robinson's U-Caulk, 2155 Industrial Highway, can help with caulking, weather-stripping and so much more. Sally will definitely go out with you once your windows look better and are more energy efficient.

Wooden Sounding Traffic Manager: Hey, Steve! Nice windows!

First Wooden Sounding DJ: Thanks, Sally! Say, would you ...?

Wooden Sounding Traffic Manager: You bet!

First Wooden Sounding DJ, (doing his own tag because there's obviously nobody else left to drag into the production room): Robinson's U-Caulk, 2155 Industrial Highway, or call 278-253-CAULK ... that's 278-253-CAULK.

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I am a huge fan of the NPR show "Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me", their weekly comedic news quiz. Over the years, the show has become a consistently funny show, and often goes well past funny to riotous.

After having the rare time to listen to an entire show on the radio (as opposed to the podcast), and then catching some of "Prairie Home Companion" on the same station this past weekend, it dawned on me how unusual these shows are. They are recorded in front of 'live' studio audiences!

There are almost no examples of audience-response in all of radio these days. No wonder morning show jokes often sound...limited. They are usually greeted either by silence or the over-aggressive chuckles of the rest of the morning team.

And, despite the connotations to "olde-tyme" radio, there is nothing about hearing radio with a live audience that makes it sound dated...if anything it sounds more modern because it is so refreshingly different.

In today's world of stripped down "commercial" radio, it must make the opportunity even greater for examples of "live" radio on the Infinite Dial. Heard any good radio plays performed in front of a studio audience lately? Or other examples of how special radio can sound with audience response? Let us know in the comments section.

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Earlier today, Norway-based Opera released a preview version of Opera Unite, which incorporates innovative new technology into the latest version of their eponymous web browser software. After playing around with it a bit today I've come away quite impressed--especially by its potential as a interface to media.

Opera Unite basically connects browsers to browsers without using client-server technology. In other words, if I want to access media on one computer from another, as long as they are both running Opera Unite they are connected without any intermediary or third-party server. While these sorts of connections have been possible before, they haven't been built into the browser, and haven't been very easy to use. The promise of Opera Unite is that, one day very soon, my parents could fire up their browser and look at new pictures of their grandson on my machine without needing IT support or using yet another login at yet another third-party file/photo sharing site.

For the purposes of this space, the real paradigm shift lies with Opera Unite's media technology, which lets me play music from my home computer on my Macbook Pro using only a web browser--and also lets my friends do the same. OK, that's not revolutionary--but that isn't the end of the vision. Imagine, as Opera's Lawrence Eng has, that I could play a song on my browser, and all my friends could hear it at the same time while browsing the web. Then imagine that Opera Unite Jukebox, as Eng paints it, allows me to put 10 songs into a "queue," and 9 of my friends to do the same. What we've just created is a true, participatory radio station--the ultimate manifestation of bringing your CDs over to a friend's house and having a listening party. Throw in the ability to vote for/rank songs and comment, and you have the radio station of tomorrow.

The trick here for broadcasters of today is not to "beat" this--you can't beat personalized radio--it's to join this. The best way to join is to be one of those 9 friends. As I've written in this space before, social networking connects people with other people, not stations or brands. If you are a music station, the time is now to brand or re-brand your air talent as credible arbiters of musical taste. The fleeting, short-term rewards of the PPM jukebox aside, you cannot out-jukebox the Internet. It's time to find the voices in your community that are knowledgeable and influential on music and give them a platform--regardless of their "jock skills"--and reclaim radio's place as an important platform for music discovery. These voices don't necessarily have to be local--my first "arbiter of taste" was Rock Over London's Graham Dene--but they have to be real people with the freedom to take chances and open the mic again.

Today, when I want to learn about new electronic music, I ask my friend Mike. When I want to learn about new Indie rock, I connect with my friend Chris MacDonald at IndieFeed. These two have earned their place on my Opera Unite Jukebox because I trust them to steer me to the good stuff. Music broadcasters need to stop worrying about the short-term vagaries of PPM and start finding the folks like Mike and Chris in their market who can speak authoritatively about a genre and make informed recommendations to an audience the likes of which no algorithm or database has yet to touch. For music broadcasting to survive, it can't continue to "install formats." Radio has to fundamentally rethink how it connects with listeners, and how it can serve as the intermediary between listeners and advertisers. People will never connect with jukeboxes.

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Of course, the European Parliamentary elections do not get a ton of attention in America. But there was the very interesting victory for a couple of seats in the Parliament by the Swedish "Pirate Party."

The party was formed in the ashes of the Pirate Bay Web site, one of the largest download sites for music, video, and games. True to the name, the Pirates were willfully flouting the copyright laws and encouraging the free 'illegal' downloads. And the four owners of the site were prosecuted and now sit in a Swedish jail.

Instead of saying: "Gee, I guess stealing that stuff really is illegal", they have turned this cause into a kind of 21st century civil rights. Campaigning on the themes of "Internet Privacy" (read: "I can download what I want") and shortening of copyrights, the Pirate Party turned out about 7% of the vote in Sweden.

One has to respect the supporters of piracy turning their thoughts to the political system to achieve their goals, as compared to, say, denial of service attacks and the like. And it does sound oh-so-Scandinavian to believe that music, video games, movies and television shows should be entirely free to everyone...let the producers figure out how to make money to pay for it.

But at the same time, it is a struggle to associate the 'right' to download your music for free with actual 'human rights'. It will be interesting to watch if the Pirates are the next 'Greens', who have turned ecology and sustainability into an ongoing, legitimate political force. Or is this just the latest joke party? And will we see a Pirate Party in the USA?

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So how much attention does a non-commercial dance station usually get from the music industry? Having programmed the sort of college top 40 that had to buy its own records, I'm guessing that high-school dance station WMPH (Super 91.7) Wilmington, Del., does a little better by dint of its unique format and the relatively small number of full-time dance outlets. But does the industry quiver in its boots when they don't play a song? We reported on WMPH's month-long boycott of artists affiliated with the musicFirst lobbying effort for a performance royalty two years ago. Now it's alluded to in a record industry filing charging retaliation against musicFirst artists.

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