I am sure by now you have read, heard, or perhaps seen images on-line or on TV showing the incredible destruction caused by the tornados that have devastated Missouri, and in particular, the town of Joplin. Now comes and interesting story from CNN which mentions the important part local radio stations have played in keeping locals informed. Here is the story, thanks to the CNN website
(CNN) — A panicked Frank Reynolds dialed the number for KZRG on Tuesday morning. The Joplin, Missouri, radio station was the glue that was holding the tornado-devastated community together.
Reynolds’ great-nephew, Skyular Logsdon, only 16 months old, was missing after the deadly tornado struck the family home. Reynolds told the station’s talk show hosts that Skyular was born prematurely and was small for his age, weighing only 20 pounds.
“When the tornado hit, we lost track of him,” Reynolds said, the urgency apparent in his soft-spoken voice.
He gave his number to the radio station, in hopes that someone would call it.
Reynolds was hardly alone. With so many people still missing and so many homes destroyed after Sunday’s tragedy, Joplin residents have been relying on their local radio stations for news and information.
For the first 24 hours, there was no electricity. Both cell phones and land lines were out, as was Internet service. All that people in Joplin had were battery-powered transistors.
The tornado missed the station building by a few blocks. So Zimmer Programming Manager Chad Elliot’s staff cranked up the generators and turned off the music. They even canceled the commercials. All they did was provide vital information to people who had lost everything.
Elliot said it was the first time the stations had stopped all else to provide 24/7 information, though he had learned the power of radio two years ago during a jumbo ice storm.
“We’ve had this situation before, when radio becomes the only way of communication,” he said.
Immediately after Sunday’s killer tornado, Elliot said emergency crews drove to the station to provide information for broadcast. The station began telling people where to go for medical help. Or what number to dial for information about the missing. Or where they could buy gas or where there was still a Walmart standing.
Elliot said it reminded him of the family members of the victims of the September 11 attacks who held up photographs of their loved ones in hopes they were not under the rubble. Only, he said, there were no pictures in Joplin — just trembling voices.
One after another, the calls streamed in.
“We had people calling about family members who went to Walmart to pick up a few items, buy something for Sunday dinner and they just didn’t come home,” Elliot said.
The radio hosts tried to console and comfort even though they, too, had not been spared from tragedy. Elliot said seven of his 30 employees lost their homes. They still reported to work.
“It’s tough,” said Audie Renee, a host on the Kix 102.5 country music station, whose second-floor apartment was shredded. “We have an obligation that’s very difficult.”
Surveys have shown that radio is essential during natural disasters. A 2005 study conducted after a succession of hurricanes along Florida and the Gulf Coast the year before found that radio was the top choice for information during a storm.
“When the lights go out, the radios go on,” said Bill Rose, senior vice president of media and marketing for Arbitron, the nationwide radio and TV ratings firm that conducted the study.
“Radio has a personal connection with people in their community,” Rose said. “That connection is probably tighter in smaller communities like Joplin.”
During the storms in St. Louis last month, radio station KMOX moved its coverage of Cardinals baseball to a sister station so it could provide uninterrupted storm coverage. Arbitron numbers showed its listenership spiked more than fourfold.
In Joplin, Elliot plans to continue continuous emergency coverage until Wednesday morning. But even after the music returns, he said, listeners of his radio stations will find news at the top and bottom of the hour.
This crisis, like all others, will eventually fade, he said. “But right now, there is desperation.”
Closer to home we have seen the importance of local radio with the recent fires in Slave Lake Alberta. The Newcap station known a
s 92.7 The Lake was a causality of the fire as the studios on 3rd Ave were destroyed by the fires. Newcap engineers worked around the clock to get the station back on the air, and relocated the the staff to the Edson Office. It was initially thought that the transmitter site on top of Martin Mountain was destroyed by the fires, but Newcap engineers determined on 16/5 that the transmitter was still operational. Local officials allowed broadcast Engineers to visit the site and they quickly got a streaming audio feed from Edson set-up and running with 48 hours of the station being destroyed.
Newcap Engineers worked all weekend to build a studio in Slave Lake and as of 30 May Paul Allen & Courtney Murphy were broadcasting live from Slave Lake, as 92.7 Lake-FM “The Spirit of Slave Lake”. Their website is a great example of how a local radio station helps link a community together.
One of our strong beliefs is that the air personalities on music based radio stations should make the music the hero of the show, and find ways to talk up the music and deliver relevant and timely information about the artists and music played on radio. Now, one of the heavyweights of American Radio is asking his stations to do a better job of promoting the music played on radio. Dan Mason, the President/CEO of CBS sent a memo to his radio programmers today instructing them to improve song identification on air and strengthen the broadcaster’s relationships with record labels. Mason wrote that, “Effective immediately, CBS Radio Contemporary, Rock, Urban and Country stations will increase the integration of title and artist information on new music releases in an effort to personalize, and drive sales of the product. We will also be expanding our radio play history online as far back as several years, providing a living synopsis of the songs we feature on the air for anyone to access.” He also declared in the memo that, “We shouldn’t just play the music, we should showcase the music. Love of the product is contagious.”
Mason said, “While I was in Los Angeles recently, I met with a leading music industry executive to discuss the mutual benefits of keeping an open dialogue as our respective businesses navigate the future. Certainly the dynamics of 2011 are vastly different than they were 20 years ago for both industries, and maybe it’s a bit idealistic to think things can be the same as they were when I was the program director of WPGC in Washington. But I believe we should always be thinking about where we were and where we are now, and how we can apply what we’ve learned to help us grow.”
In the spirit of this conversation, I asked this exec what’s the one thing the radio industry could do to help sell more music. The answer came from him in less than five seconds which astonished me. He replied, “Just give the title and artist of the music you play.” Pretty simple idea and it wasn’t the answer I expected. He went on to question me as to how the concept of not giving that information ever crept into radio programming in the first place. Having been around programming for 40 years, my recollection was that in the early 80’s that information was defined as clutter – the more music and less talk theory. I didn’t subscribe to that theory, but it was the thinking at the time.
Mason also added that, “This is a commitment I feel very strongly about. Our listeners should hear an immediate difference in the way we present our day to day programming as we implement this. … This is a positive step CBS Radio is taking not only to support the sale of music, but in strengthening our relationship with the artists and those that promote and manage their careers.”
At ByrnesMedia we encourage our clients to not only promote the music they play on air but also to display the title and artist information on their website, and where possible, on their Smartphone and iPad applications. Some of our clients even allow listeners to purchase music directly from their website. Promoting music in a positive manner of radio is something that Canadian radio stations do a better of than our neighbours to the south of us, but CBS are looking to improve their marks in this area.
A new survey conducted by MARKETSOURCE for the website TWICE.COM, confirms what we have suspected for some time; The average consumer is more interested in swapping out their existing car stereo for one that controls a connected iPod or iPhone than they are in buying satellite radio or HD Radio for their vehicle. They’re also more interested in buying a car stereo head unit that connects to any cellular smartphone to stream Internet radio stations and music services.”
Responders to the survey that was conducted in the USA amongst adults 18 and up in 501 households are more interested in Internet radio than in Satellite radio.
“A total of 57% of respondents said they would be very, or somewhat interested in listening to Internet radio and music services through their car stereo system. A total of 47% of all respondents would also be interested in replacing their car stereo system with one that would enable them to do so.
Based on this research things do not look great for future growth of Satellite radio subscriptions, as only 16% of people who don’t own satellite radio are very, or somewhat interested in getting car satellite radio in the next year, down from last year’s 24%.
There was slightly better news for HD radio, as “interest is rising, with 30% of non-owners saying they are very, or somewhat interested in purchasing the technology for their car in the next year, up from last year’s 28%.”
Thanks to allaccess.com for this story.
Listener Driven Radio Reaches its 85th affiliate with the additions of stations in Philadelphia, Albuquerque, and Omaha as well as eight of the top 10 radio Markets.
LDR’S Technology Allows Radio Stations To Boost Ratings While Giving Listeners Programming Control Through Social Media
Listener Driven Radio (LDR) reaches it 85th affiliate this week with the additions of KDRF-FM (Albuquerque), WIOQ-FM (Philadelphia) and KOOO-FM (Omaha). Since the company’s launch in 2009, LDR has captured eight of 10 major U.S. radio markets including New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago. LDR has also expanded its roster globally, with affiliates in Greece, Italy, France, and five major markets across Canada.
LDR’s President Daniel Anstandig credits the accomplishment to the company’s innovative team and ground-breaking software that “transforms broadcasters into crowdcasters, creating a dynamic social music experience by leveraging the power of social media to grow radio station ratings.”
LDR is the first interactive radio platform to integratewith Facebook to elevate ratings. Listeners can access a radio station’s playlist via mobile or the station’s website and vote for their favorite songs. Input and voting from listeners directly affects the music played on the station. The platform also automatically emails and instant messages listeners who opt in, informing them that their favorite track plays on the air and impacting PPM results.
For more information:
Daniel Anstandig President, LDR (216) 965-5440
Greg Hunt VP/Affiliate Relations, LDR (440) 925-7847
The much talked about free music service from Google called Music Beta lauched today, well at least in some parts of the world. It is being positioned as “A better way to play your music” and promises users the ability to upload their personal music collection to listen anywhere, keep everything in sync, and forget the hassle of cables and files. However, when I click on the appropiate link from my office in Canada I get the following message from Google, ” We’re sorry. Music Beta is currently only available in the United States.”
From the Google website here is what they are promising:
Listen anywhere, even offline: You can get to your personal music collection at home or on the go. Listen from the web or any enabled device with the Music app available from Android Market. Not online? No problem. The songs you’ve recently played will automatically be available offline. You can also select the specific albums, artists and playlists you want to have available when you’re not connected.
Stay in sync, without the hassle: Spend more time listening to your music and less time managing it. Once your
music is online, it’s always available. Playlists are automatically kept in sync, and you don’t have to worry about cables, file transfers, or running out of storage space.
Your collection, now in one place: Upload your personal music collection to a single library, even if it’s scattered across multiple computers. You can upload music files from any folder or add your iTunes library and all of your playlists. And when you add new music to your computer, it can be automatically added to your music collection online.
Mix it up: Create your own custom playlists with just a few clicks. Or use Instant Mix to automatically build new playlists of songs from your collection that go great together. All the playlists you create and all the changes you make to them are automatically available everywhere your music is.
Watch the video here
Bob Pittman got an opportuntiy to promote radio and the compnay he works for these days, Clear Channel, to readers of the Los Angeles Times over the weekend. Pittman who calls New York home these days said when asked how radio was doing in this new Digital age said “The perception out there is that radio is somehow in trouble. The reality is that we have the same percentage of the population listening to radio, at 93%, as we did in 1970 when it was 92%. It’s not declining. Clear Channel reaches 237 million listeners a month, and that doesn’t include our online listeners.”
He also took the time to put Pandora in it’s place saying ” Pandora is not really radio in that it’s not curated. It’s more like a playlist that you put on shuffle. They don’t have local information or local personalities. That said, Pandora is a nice feature. When I was at AOL, we had Instant Messenger. It was a nice feature, too. But it remains to be seen whether Pandora can be a free-standing business model.” However he did admit that Clear Channel plans to allow users of iHeart Radio to build custom radio stations just like they do with Pandora sometime this summer.
You can read the full interview here thanks to the LA Times.
Warner Music Group, the world’s third largest record company, appears to have reached an agreement to sell the company to Russian billionaire Len Blavatnik for $3.3 billion. If this deal is approved it means that all four of the big record label groups will be foreign owned.
What does this means for Canadian radio, other than a larger percentage of the royalty fees radio stations pay for the rights to play music will now be sent to Tokyo, Paris, London and soon Moscow? To be fair this may change as Citibank is looking to sell Britain’s EMI Group Ltd., which it seized from Guy Hands’ Terra Firma private equity group in February after it defaulted on a loan. In 2009 Canadian radio paid $115 in tariff fees for the rights to play music, and this number will be even higher in 2011 with the introduction of additional tarrifs.
I wonder if and when the revised Copyright Bill (remember Bill C-32?) ever makes it back to Parliament how this will be spun by those looking to take even more money out of radio’s coffers.
This story seems to be gaining more traction as now app store analytics company Distimo is forecasting that Android would surpass the App Store in size before the end of July 2011. German research firm Research2guidance, agrees with Distimo’s findings, and believes that Android will blow by Apple’s App Store by August 2o11. This is another reason why we need to be developing applications on more than just the iPhone platform in my opinion. You can read more about this story here thanks to Tech Crunch
| All people 12+ Monday – Sunday 2am – 2am | Montreal | |||||
| Survey period 24 /1-24/4/11 | Share % | Cume | Daily Cume | |||
| Station | Market | Jan-Apr | Dec – March | Nov-Feb | (000) | (000) |
| Station | Market | % | (000) | (000) | ||
| CJAD | Montreal CTRL Anglo | 26.1 | 26.4 | 25.9 | 518.3 | 203.3 |
| CJFMFM | Montreal CTRL Anglo | 18.6 | 18.5 | 18.2 | 783.5 | 240.2 |
| CFQRFM | Montreal CTRL Anglo | 16.7 | 16.5 | 17.2 | 773.2 | 200.2 |
| CHOMFM | Montreal CTRL Anglo | 10.6 | 10.2 | 10.3 | 649.1 | 142.2 |
| CBMEFM | Montreal CTRL Anglo | 8.3 | 8.1 | 7.5 | 230.6 | 71.3 |
| CBMFM | Montreal CTRL Anglo | 3.1 | 3.1 | 2.9 | 214.1 | 28.8 |
| CKGM | Montreal CTRL Anglo | 2.9 | 2.8 | 2.6 | 246.6 | 47.2 |
| CJPXFM | Montreal CTRL Anglo | 2.5 | 3.0 | 3.3 | 304.1 | 31.4 |
| CFGLFM | Montreal CTRL Anglo | 1.9 | 2.0 | 2.1 | 631.7 | 45.4 |
| CITEFM | Montreal CTRL Anglo | 1.1 | 1.2 | 1.2 | 581.7 | 33.8 |
| CKMFFM | Montreal CTRL Anglo | 1.0 | 1.1 | 1.2 | 550.7 | 36.2 |
| CKOIFM | Montreal CTRL Anglo | 0.9 | 0.8 | 0.8 | 572.9 | 41.1 |
| CHMPFM | Montreal CTRL Anglo | 0.8 | 0.8 | 0.8 | 291.4 | 18.8 |
| CKAC | Montreal CTRL Anglo | 0.6 | 0.5 | 0.5 | 175.4 | 13.9 |
| CKLXFM | Montreal CTRL Anglo | 0.6 | 0.5 | 0.5 | 206.4 | 10.8 |
| CBFFM | Montreal CTRL Anglo | 0.3 | 0.3 | 0.3 | 118.0 | 8.9 |
| CBFXFM | Montreal CTRL Anglo | 0.2 | 0.2 | 0.2 | 132.3 | 4.7 |
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TERMS
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Share – Within a central market area, the estimated total hours tuned to that station expressed as a percentage of total hours tuned to Total Encoded Radio.
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Cume (000) – Expressed in thousands, this is the total number of people who were exposed to the stations for at least one minute during the analyzed period.
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Average Daily Universe – The average daily universe for the analyzed period. The universe is expressed as daily averages because it changes slightly daily as the intab changes.
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| All people 12+ Monday – Sunday 2am – 2am | Edmonton | |||||
| Survey period 24/1 – 24/4 2011 | Share % | Cume | Daily Cume | |||
| Station | Market | Jan-Apr | Dec – March | Nov-Feb | (000) | (000) |
| Station | Market | % | (000) | (000) | ||
| CHED | Edmonton CRTL | 10.7 | 10.7 | 10.5 | 507.9 | 125.0 |
| CISNFM | Edmonton CRTL | 9.0 | 9.0 | 9.1 | 725.4 | 97.4 |
| CKNOFM | Edmonton CRTL | 8.7 | 8.4 | 8.1 | 946.4 | 154.9 |
| CIUPFM | Edmonton CRTL | 7.9 | 6.7 | 5.3 | 902.1 | 122.3 |
| CKRAFM | Edmonton CRTL | 7.8 | 7.4 | 6.9 | 869.5 | 129.8 |
| CHDIFM | Edmonton CRTL | 6.8 | 6.4 | 6.3 | 685.8 | 123.7 |
| CFBRFM | Edmonton CRTL | 6.7 | 6.5 | 6.5 | 683.9 | 108.7 |
| CIRKFM | Edmonton CRTL | 6.4 | 6.1 | 5.8 | 678.0 | 101.9 |
| CBX+ | Edmonton CRTL | 6.0 | 6.0 | 5.7 | 329.8 | 79.4 |
| CKNGFM | Edmonton CRTL | 4.8 | 5.3 | 5.4 | 845.1 | 110.9 |
| CFCW * | Edmonton/Camrose | 4.3 | 4.6 | 5.1 | 244.2 | 45.3 |
| CHBNFM | Edmonton CRTL | 4.2 | 4.6 | 4.7 | 848.4 | 128.9 |
| CFMGFM | Edmonton CRTL | 3.4 | 4.5 | 7.3 | 870.1 | 100.1 |
| CBX FM | Edmonton CRTL | 2.7 | 2.6 | 2.6 | 213.4 | 34.6 |
| CFRN | Edmonton CRTL | 2.0 | 1.9 | 1.9 | 206.0 | 31.9 |
| CHQT | Edmonton CRTL | 1.6 | 1.6 | 1.5 | 227.2 | 36.5 |
| CKEAFM | Edmonton CRTL | 1.0 | 0.8 | 0.8 | 518.7 | 33.3 |
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TERMS
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Share – Within a central market area, the estimated total hours tuned to that station expressed as a percentage of total hours tuned to Total Encoded Radio.
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Cume (000) – Expressed in thousands, this is the total number of people who were exposed to the stations for at least one minute during the analyzed period.
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Average Daily Universe – The average daily universe for the analyzed period. The universe is expressed as daily averages because it changes slightly daily as the intab changes.
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