Study: Digital Revenue Surging In Small Markets +Radio Doesn’t Have A Strategy. Part Two.

February 7, 2017

The total is still a relatively small number when compared to radio’s $14.7 billion in annual ad revenue, however, the good news Digital Revenue for radio is still growing big-time. And it appears small market broadcasters are really starting to kick it into gear.

A new joint research report from the Radio Advertising Bureau and Borrell & Associates found that digital revenue for radio will increase 22% this year to a record $753 million. The report states that small market stations are seeing the highest growth rates. Small markets saw growth rates for digital sales between 36% and 83%.

According to the new report, in 2015 the average radio station generated between $49,159 and $602,783 in digital advertising sales, depending on market size. It also showed that among the more than 800 clusters, the average market cluster surveyed broke the million-dollar mark in digital sales for the first time, reaching $1.1 million, and 2.5% of market clusters made more than $5 million in digital sales. Overall, digital ad sales growth averaged 12% for radio stations.

Borrell Associates CEO Gordon Borrell said, “We’re seeing a lot more optimism from radio managers this year. Twice as many told us they’re planning for growth of 20% to 50% in 2017, so there’s obviously something in the air.”

This is the fifth year that Borrell has produced the report for the RAB. The report utilizes Borrell’s database that tracks digital revenue for 10,597 local online operations in the U.S. and Canada, including 3,210 radio stations. It also provides insights from a recent survey Borrell conducted of 2,667 radio advertisers, as well as a 14-question survey of 194 U.S. radio station managers.

Radio Doesn’t Have A Strategy. Part Two.

By Ron Robinson -

February 5, 2017

(By Ronald Robinson) Radio continues in its refusal to address the communication model it has held and protected, sometimes viciously, for decades. Radio has been unable to define, never mind successfully defend, the premises and dogma on which it has been running…forever. Is it any wonder, then, that ownership and management put almost all available resources into sales?

The holy grail of radio has always been the “one-to-one” mythology. Please appreciate: Nobody has ever been able to demonstrate, never mind prove, how the premise works or, more importantly, its utility. Radio newbies are told: “When you are on the air, pretend you are talking to a good friend.” Writers get the same instructions. Enter: “The Personal Listener.” In other words, “The Primary Delusion.”

The hook was set. The matter closed, never to be challenged again.

As every angler knows, a fish at the end of the line has just had its mobility drastically inhibited. Plus, that fish will also be more at risk to its natural predators. Those who have seen video of a shark violently taking a catch just before it gets boated will agree that, for the shark, it was easy pickin’s. Radio, indeed, has a hook in its mouth. And it shows.

Radio musters a cadre of defenders of the pervasive dogma that makes up the current status quo. If the one-to-one premise is even (gawd ferbid) momentarily considered as potentially or partially false, attempts to claim that the only, albeit already rejected, solution would be to talk to an entire audience as a group. This is a false, uninformed and disruptive conclusion.

However, we are forced by rational reality to accept that any radio audience is made up of a large number of individuals. It would be foolish to presume we are speaking to that group. Practically, we are speaking at an audience. And if we do it properly, each unknown, unspecified individual will process the content – as an individual.

Recently, I demonstrated how, through the linguistic process of “transderivational search” (TDS), every single listener is unconsciously forced to extrapolate an understanding of everything said on the radio, every time. What makes those unconscious exercises easier to accomplish is the communicator’s ability to switch from a forced, direct second-person point of view (“you”) to an indirect, implied third-person point of view (anything else).

Part of the TDS process is also about each listener having a vague, conflicted intuition that the “you” can’t possibly be them. Besides, the rest of a presenter’s content usually has nothing to do with multiples of any specific, individual listener, and the mass tune-out is well underway. This one TDS strategy solves the painfully destructive single listener/group dichotomy! Woo-Hoo!

Readers who have made it this far may have prematurely concluded this material to be, essentially, nerdy, wordy, and unworthy of consideration. Such a position disregards the fact that the only element of radio we can influence and control, locally and/or corporately, is how we communicate to our audiences. But we don’t, and never have. And it shows.

Is it likely the top management of GE gets together and concentrates exclusively on getting the sales departments’ skill-sets up a notch or two? Or does somebody risk piping up, as an afterthought, saying, “Anybody keeping track of that jet engine thingy?” Uh, no. The quality of GE’s products gets the priority. The quality of radio’s on-air and creative services doesn’t even make it onto the agenda.
And it shows.

I have learned (in other environments) how people suffer from delusions, distortions, and denials. None are rare. When asked, individuals agree these are debilitating thought-experiences. (Lucky for them, these experiences always belong to somebody else!) Radio, however, does own them all.
Meanwhile, let me introduce another related, but still twisted, item of radio dogma: The admonition for on-air people to be “personal.” This is toxic nonsense, even allowing for good intentions. The more accurate and useful adage would be delivered as follows:“Be personable.” Huge distinction. Instead, we try to worm our way into audience members’ skulls by attempting to snuggle up to their individual identities. No listener thanks us for attempting to crash his or her unique, subjective realities with blunt, ineffective language. But, radio does it anyway. “We ain’t yet learned to talk good for the listeners, y’all.” And it shows.