Music And Wine

Music isn't enough.

It's time to enter into a new age of superstar air talent, where program directors are creative geniuses rather than fixtures in board room meetings. It's time for radio to become fun again, before it's too late.

Personally, I think satellite radio is doomed. And I think HD radio as a compelling medium is doomed.

Terrestrial radio, on the other hand, has a relatively easy fix for it's problems. No, really.

Put the keys back in the hands of the person driving the car. Then demand, and reward, results.

I'll use Movin' in Dallas as an example. Movin' is a bad gimmick that landed with a thud in the fall, and sputtered slowly downward through the winter. This makes sense, being that the format is radio's version of a poor man's get rich quick scheme. I'm sure glad they didn't wipe out a heritage station to put that thing on the air!

Oh, wait...

Still, the solution is simple. Throw out the gimmick. Lose the cheezy imaging. Kill that embarrassment of a website. In its place, launch a unique Dallas radio station, targeting the same 25-44 women in Dallas that Movin' is failing to reach. Unless aliens came down from outer space and abducted every woman in the metroplex between the ages of 25 and 44, there's plenty of room for a 25-44 female station to succeed there.

Fill the station with talent. Staff it 24/7 with air talent who have something to say. Air talent who know how to entertain women and will live, eat and breathe Dallas. Create fun viral marketing promotions that get women talking - and get them enjoying radio again. Hire someone who creates imaging that has intelligence and wit. Inspire people. And for the music? To hell with formats. Research those 25-44 women and play their favorites, regardless of format. Hire an MD who longs for the old days when music was king, and have that person build playlists by demographic rather than by industry expectations. I remember working with an MD who nit-picked every aspect of his logs. It was his art. A lost art.

Most importantly of all, corporate needs to empower people at the station level. If those people fail, fire them. If they succeed, reward them with even more freedom.

I don't envy the position record labels find themselves in as music becomes increasingly disposable. These days, consumers treat music like cheap beer whereas previous generations treated it like fine wine. Then again, corporate radio is treating it's talent like cheap beer rather than fine wine.