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Post by bonnevillemariner on Apr 8, 2013 9:35:00 GMT -6
So I'm driving into work today and don't feel like plugging my iPod into my aux port. I turn on the radio, KNRS FM, to catch a little Glenn Beck. It's been a while since I listened to Beck (or anybody else for that matter) via traditional radio.
I sit thru the top of the hour news...fine. Good stuff. Traffic good, weather good, embedded ads bearable. Then several minutes of ads. Ah, the same old stuff-- cheesy plumbing spots, divorce law attorneys, sweet jack. I didn't miss those commercials.
But here's the kicker: at 7:06 or so, when the intro music to Glenn Beck should be starting, I'm still hearing ad spots. Ad ends about 3/4 of the way into the intro and the show abruptly starts. And that's not all. The last segment prior to bottom of the hour news was cut off too. No idea how long, but the segment came on mid-conversation. Several more times throughout the show we catch Beck mid-sentence coming back from a break.
Seems like every time I give traditional radio another whirl, I realize yet again that it is no longer a viable source of entertainment for me. Two critical things were quite obvious to me:
1. Ads above programming, which is upside down. I'll take some ads with my talk show, please, not a full course of ads with a little talk show as a garnish.
2. Nobody's listening at the station. Whether or not this is true, seems to me they just click play and walk away for the day.
Traditional radio sure isn't trying very hard to keep me tuned in. Back to my podcasts. Maybe I'll check in again with KNRS next month. Maybe not.
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Post by CAwasinNJ on Apr 9, 2013 1:40:46 GMT -6
Sounds to me like there's an automation system that's misconfigured. Still no excuse for that. A company I worked for once had an issue with something like that. A new guy made a mistake and the programming got cut off several times a day for a week. You'd think someone would be listening to the station though.
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Post by bonnevillemariner on Apr 10, 2013 9:04:01 GMT -6
I have no idea how broadcasting works, but it seems to me there might be two issues here. Most of the cut-offs could be due to a misconfigured automation system, but the cut-off at the beginning of the program is something I've noted every hour since. It seems to me they're sneaking in an extra ad.
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Post by dxstuboy on Apr 10, 2013 17:24:48 GMT -6
Its called over billing, if that is what they are doing. When I worked in southern Wyoming, the stations we had used to over-bill certain stop sets so we had to add an extra commercial (or two) after the regular commercials, and it always sounded abrupt going back onto the bird from there. It has to be done manually, at least on that system. This sounds more like what CA said, a misconfiguration of the time, that or Beck's program firing signals down that the receiver misinterprets. Could be a number of things. It happens on almost every radio station I've ever listened to, no matter how professional they are or not. Sometimes you will chop into the programming, or in the case here, cut off a commercial mid-sentence to go back on the bird. That is a timing issue.
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Post by bonnevillemariner on Apr 11, 2013 8:05:33 GMT -6
dxstuboy, what is the purpose of over billing? Why does it happen? Although it may be a technical issue, what it sounds like to those of us not in the industry is that the station is sacrificing its special relationship with the listener in order to pack as many ads in as possible.
And I don't mean to imply that this problem alone is why I rarely listen to radio any more. It's just one more way that radio is losing touch with the listener and one more indicator that radio is unaware of powerful listening trends. Keep in mind, this is coming from a lover of radio and an aspiring ham.
See, traditional radio no longer jibes with the iPod generation's listening behavior. Streaming and podcasts have irreversibly bred an on-demand/in-control mindset in the listening public. I want to listen to what I want, when I want-- uniterrupted by commercials (or at least very minimally interrupted by them). I'd much rather pay $6 per month to subscribe to my favorite podcast or music service than cede my valuable time to an automated radio station whose primary goal is to shove as many ads as possible down my throat.
Of course there are a few aspects of radio that cannot be replicated or replaced by on-demand podcasting (or even streaming from faraway lands): breaking local news, weather, traffic, local sports coverage, and emergency situations. No matter what streaming service I'm listening to, I'll always tune back to KSL or KNRS for these things. But outside of these specialties, nothing entertainment-wise on traditional radio is compelling enough for me to deviate from my on-demand/in-control listening habits.
But entertainment via traditional radio for me has become a novelty, an activity I engage in only when I see police lights ahead or want to feel old-school. Beyond those things, it offers me nothing else. It would be one thing if I felt the industry recognized this, but I don't think they do. They hang everything on the dashboard. Well, I got news for you, radio-- you're losing the dashboard, perhaps slowly, but very surely.
Might be time to wise up.
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Post by dxstuboy on Apr 11, 2013 21:47:03 GMT -6
I never knew the purpose of overbilling. My best explanation of it is that too many business or advertisers if you will requested to be on a certain day part. Say you had 20 businesses that all wanted their message to be heard twice in the 5 pm hour. That is 40 ads. How are you going to fit 40 - 30 second commercials, or sixty second commercials into one hour? You can't unless you cram as many ads into a stopset as possible. The average radio listener probably wouldn't notice, or tune out. I've never been on the sales side of radio but I've been on the other half, the programming side. Overbilling was always done manually, meaning someone had to be at the computer during the break to put the ads in one by one (if a station was satellite run).
Again, it sounded like crap when it went back into satellite, but... commercial radio and all of its thousands of employees across the country would not survive without revenue from ads. Here in my neck of the woods, our sales staff has the sense to not overdo the amount of commercials in a stopset. Our competitors across town haven't learned that yet. When you have 4 minutes of commercials, you're going to lose your audience to another station playing music. Nobody wants to sit through that many commercials, especially if they suck. 3 minutes is about all I can handle before I flip, but for the average person it is much less. My job depends on ad revenue, so I worry.
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Post by kenglish on Apr 13, 2013 14:37:12 GMT -6
I was watching Turkish TV last night.... They go to, what seems like, about 20 commercials in a row ("Stopset"?) during a show, after putting up a graphic that says "Reklamlar" (Turkish for "Advertising"). Near the end of the series of ads, they even put a countdown clock in the lower-left corner, presumably to let you know the bathroom break is ending soon. Many of their ads are so creative and quirky, that I guess many people don't mind sitting through the whole break, though.
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Post by egnlsn on Apr 13, 2013 16:26:04 GMT -6
I was watching Turkish TV last night.... I've heard people say that they couldn't find anything good to watch, but don't you think that's taking it a little far.
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Post by kenglish on Apr 14, 2013 15:24:02 GMT -6
There's actually some good programming on some of those "foreign" channels. Turkish has as good of production values as most US networks.....same for Kuwait and some other national broadcasters. Also, you can find some interesting stuff....last night I saw parts of an un-edited/uncensored Clint Eastwood movie (might have been "Josie Wales") on some Russian channel. Saw an Eddie Murphy movie on one channel last week...English, with Cyrillic subtitles.
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Post by egnlsn on Apr 14, 2013 17:31:06 GMT -6
You've got too much time on your hands, Ken...
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Post by bonnevillemariner on Apr 15, 2013 8:17:48 GMT -6
My job depends on ad revenue, so I worry. And you should. I'd love to see traditional radio succeed and catch up with the times, but I fear it won't. The industry still brings in revenue and they think their monopoly on the dashboard is stable. It's not. Not only have listening habits changed, but people's options have increased exponentially. When I get in my car, I have my choice of listening to the radio, my iPod, or my phone. From my phone I can access tens of thousands of streams. I've culled my favorite 25 or so over time. They're all really accessible via a mobile app that is optimized for use while driving. And that's just on the listener side. Advertisers are spending less on radio ads and more on online/mobile ads because they can be quantified better. As I said before, there are some aspects of traditional radio that can't be effectively replaced by podcasts and mobile streaming (local news, weather, culture, etc.). But rather than strengthening those aspects, radio seems intent to let them fade away. The result: cookie cutter stations with no sense of community, nothing unique whatsoever. Talk stations these days just take the nationally syndicated shows. Music is programmed from who knows where-- it's just a humanless jukebox, with long stopsets of horrible commercials. I tried a station in Hawaii the other day hoping to catch a hint of island flair, maybe something unique that Hawaiian audiences appreciate. Nah, same songs as every station on the mainland. Same voice over guy too. Please tell me this, all you radio guys here: why on earth would I tune in to your station?
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Post by dxstuboy on Apr 15, 2013 12:43:04 GMT -6
Please tell me this, all you radio guys here: why on earth would I tune in to your station? Because I give you local news (I'm a reporter). Other than that, I can't see why, unless you want to hear the same 10 songs every hour. I do like our classic hits station though because the stopsets are short and the music is good. We also don't overdo it with saying the name of our station 10 billion times after every song like some others do.
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Post by CAwasinNJ on Apr 15, 2013 22:12:34 GMT -6
Unless somebody can pull a rabbit out of their hat, I don't see in-car streaming to be a serious threat. It just doesn't scale. MP3 players, especially built-in ones, are a much bigger threat IMO. You're right though. Why would you want to listen to a jukebox that I built with songs I think are good when you can listen to your own with songs you think are good?
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Post by bonnevillemariner on Apr 16, 2013 8:29:25 GMT -6
Unless somebody can pull a rabbit out of their hat, I don't see in-car streaming to be a serious threat. It just doesn't scale. Not yet, but stranger things have happened. We're coming up on the 5 year anniversary of the iPhone. Just a short 5 years ago, nobody outside of high tech circles could have predicted how the iPhone (and the mobile revolution it sparked) have permeated our lifestyle. Today most people can't imagine being separated even briefly from their outboard brains. I just read a C-NET article reporting that shopping via mobile devices increased 81 percent last year. Most all online purchases now are made from phones. I don't have any stats, but I wonder what share of all audio listening is mobile devices and phones. I'd bet it's pretty high. Radio in the dashboard is still viable because mobile wifi isn't yet ubiquitous and mobile bandwidth is still expensive. But don't discount the possibility of somebody pulling a rabbit out of their hat. MP3 players, especially built-in ones, are a much bigger threat IMO. Thing is, the line between podcasts/mp3 and streaming is blurring. Or, more accurately, their delivery systems are merging. I use an app called Stitcher to listen to most national news content. It's a pretty slick aggregator that creates personalized "stations" from various shows. My Stitcher news station include a 5 minute FNC news flash, a news podcast from CNN, a sports news flash from ESPN and a science report from Scientific American. Stitcher is primarily a streaming app, but it has a feature that will download all these segments when on wifi for offline playback as podcasts. My commute is 30 minutes. Total duration of my Stitcher news update is around 35 minutes. So unless it's snowing, my AM/FM dashboard radio will just gather dust. The bottom line is that people are increasingly turning to their smartphone for audio content. Don't be surprised when auto makers start focusing less on the dashboard AM/FM and more on mobile phone integration. You're right though. Why would you want to listen to a jukebox that I built with songs I think are good when you can listen to your own with songs you think are good? Unless...UNLESS you're a local DJ that is passionate about the music you play and are enthusiastic about conveying a certain feel to your listeners via the playlist you've just crafted. Then I'll take you any day over Pandora or an iPod playlist. Traditional radio is the perfect medium for this. Inexplicably, however, the industry has rejected that model.
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Post by CAwasinNJ on Apr 16, 2013 22:48:55 GMT -6
The only thing I can really disagree with you on is "Most all online purchases now are made from phones." That sounds fishy to me. If the stat were "mobile devices" then maybe, but it's still hard to believe.
I do think that if streaming/podcasting on-the-go is going to have a future it is by loading from wi-fi or a wired connection like you mentioned. There are limitations though, and I've hardly heard anyone talking about that going widespread. Everyone seems to be concentrating on on-demand delivery which is just not going to work with the infrastructure we have now. Too inefficient. If we can come up with a multicast one to many system over wi-max or some other kind of large area distribution system, then it might work. Right now, I don't see it.
You last point though is the best one. What I was comparing was a traditional radio jukebox (like My 99.5 for example) compared with Pandora or a set of MP3s. In that case, the personalized music wins most of the time. (There's a place for a jukebox run by someone else, but overall I don't think it's best.) What you said is specifically NOT a jukebox. If you asked people as recently as the late 90's about their favorite radio stations, they'd probably tell you as much about the personalities as the music. And going back to the 60's and 70's the personalities were more important than the music in a lot of cases. People STILL talk about the legendary DJ's of that period because of the impact they had. (See Dan Ingram from WABC NY, or The Real Don Steele at KHJ LA, or John Records Landecker at WLS Chicago among others.) That's what I think Danny Kramer is trying to continue now online. If radio wholeheartedly embraced that philosophy, radio could have a new renaissance. The danger is that they don't and they become more irrelevant or worse have online stations step in and do it for them.
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