On July 28 at 3:30pm PDT (22:30 UTC), I’ll be presenting a free “Zoominar” (a webinar, using Zoom) sponsored by the Pacific Planetarium Association entitled Using Music in Your Planetarium…Legally. Here’s the official description:
Many planetarians ignore the copyright issues surrounding the use of commercially available music in the planetarium, while others, fearing the unknown, simply avoid using music in their productions. Still others believe, erroneously, that so long as a facility is covered by licenses from the likes of ASCAP or BMI, they are free to use music in their shows. Get some expert knowledge and have some of your questions answered in the web seminar.
You can learn more about the PPA Zoominar series and find out how to join by visiting PPA’s website. Hope to see you online!
Update: You can access an archived version of the presentation here, and the Q&A here.
I may be a little late (or maybe I’m perfectly timed for the one-week anniversary of the sign-off?), but like everyone else who’s been around radio for any length of time, I have some thoughts about last week’s sign off of two storied media brands – PLJ in New York and Mix 107.3 in Washington, D.C.
In case you missed the news, both stations signed off the air Friday after their owner, Cumulus Media, sold the stations to the Educational Media Foundation (EMF), a not-for-profit Christian broadcasting outfit. EMF converted both stations to become local outposts for its “positive and encouraging” K-LOVE brand, with programming piped in to stations around the country from EMF’s headquarters near Sacramento.
Consistent with my brand as a radio nerd, I first learned of both PLJ and Mix 107.3 as a teenager, listening to jingle demos – specifically JAM’s Breakthrough and Digital Mix, respectively (the latter having the added allure of being used on my hometown’s Mix 107.5 (KWMX/Denver)). Over the years I came to learn that PLJ and Mix two were among a small handful of influential stations that, in many ways, set the standards for contemporary personality-driven radio. More significantly, stations like PLJ and Mix, among others, helped me understand what “good radio” was supposed to sound like, and to establish my own principles and values of successful broadcasting.
Much has been written over the past several weeks about these two legendary stations and their impact on radio, but the one piece that caught my eye was composer-turned-media-technologist Shelly Palmer’s blog post What is a Radio Brand? In his post Palmer argues, in so many words, that PLJ isn’t really a brand because it existed only on the radio and “[o]objectively . . . had nothing special to offer.”
“What fascinates me,” Palmer writes, “is that even though PLJ had been promoting itself relentlessly for the better part of 36 years, the best it can hope for as it rides off into the sunset is to sell a commemorative T-shirts.”
Harsh.
It also misses the point.
What’s fascinating is that a radio station – the type of enterprise that usually gives away t-shirts as promotional items – established enough of a following to establish a market to sell t-shirts. Put differently, people cared so much about PLJ that they were willing to pay money for the opportunity to show their allegiance to the – dare I say it? – brand.
On Brands
Definitions of “brand” abound, but there are a few that have always stood out to me as being especially applicable to the media business: Sergio Zyman describes it as “essentially a container for a customer’s complete experience with the product or company.” Seth Godin says it’s “the set of expectations, memories, stories and relationships that, taken together account for a consumer’s decision to choose one product or service over another.” Ashley Friedlein of Econsultancy describes “brand” as “the sum total of how someone perceives a particular organization.”
If by those measures PLJ isn’t a brand, then I don’t know what is. As the station entered its waning days, and word spread of its impending demise, some New Yorkers became quite emotional about the loss of what they perceived to be a companion. Many had grown up listening to the station and had forged connections with PLJ’s on-air personalities. One need only read the comments on social media to see that people had strong emotional ties to the station.
On Radio
Palmer amplifies his point by noting that “outside of broadcast radio, the PLJ brand has no value. Could you start a streaming service called PLJ and have anyone outside of the NY metro area even recognize it?” He also points out that PLJ’s music format – Top 40 or Hot AC, depending on your perspective – has become commoditized, and that the same music is available, without those pesky commercials, on myriad digital services such as Spotify and Pandora.
Well, yes. Of course PLJ wouldn’t have broad brand recognition outside of New York. It’s a New York brand, and it did exactly what local radio brands are supposed to do: foster deep connections with their communities and, to plagiarize Congress (because who could say it better than Congress?), serve the “public interest, convenience, and necessity.” To suggest that PLJ’s brand was nothing beyond the music it played is to ignore the personality, community, and local focus that radio stations, and indeed, all broadcasters, are uniquely situated to offer.
As I wrote in the days following the Route 91 Harvest music festival shooting in Las Vegas, everyone is quick to joke about the legacy media dinosaurs – traditional radio and television – “[a]nd yet despite the jokes … I have heard of not one person who tuned to Spotify to hear important evacuation information, or who flipped on Hulu to find out where to donate blood. I searched and searched but couldn’t find any weather radar in my Netflix queue.”
To be fair to Palmer, his piece goes on to provide some sage advice on how to ensure that a media brand can transcend its distribution mechanism. That’s an important consideration to be sure, but radio should never lose sight of what it does best: being local, having personality, and engaging the community. To make radio stations look more like the digital services they compete with would be to give up the differentiating qualities that give stations a competitive advantage.
We should never let obsession over technology replace that which makes radio unique. Neither should we ignore the promise of new technologies; instead we should harness their power to amplify our effectiveness. Video didn’t kill the radio star, and neither did the internet. Indeed, it enhanced its reach by making it available in more places, and arguably to a wider audience than ever before.
So What Killed PLJ?
PLJ was a victim of circumstance. Cumulus needed money quickly to dig itself out of bankruptcy and selling radio stations in big markets is a good way to do that. Meanwhile, EMF believes it’s on a divine mission to expose as many people as possible to the word of God, and a good way do that is through radio stations in major markets. (Note that EMF didn’t just create a Spotify playlist…interesting).
Willing buyer; willing seller. Economics 101.
The demise of PLJ (and Mix 107.3 for that matter) thus had more to do with simple market forces than botched branding.
Would Cumulus have spared PLJ and sold one of its other New York stations if only PLJ had developed a stronger brand? I doubt it. And even if it had, we’d probably be having this same discussion about that station.
I’ve been either closely watching or working in broadcasting in some capacity for nearly three decades; in that time I’ve seen dozens of format flips, but I have never seen one generate the widespread emotional response that PLJ’s did.
That suggests to me that PLJ was doing something right.
People still value the local, engaging, personality-driven sound that has defined radio for more than half a century, and that, in turn, suggests that despite reports to the contrary, “radio” — whether delivered through wireless telegraphy, the internet, or some other means yet to be conceived — isn’t going anywhere.
I guess we could call that “positive and encouraging.”
I recently had the privilege of being featured on Dr. Elizabeth Townsend-Gard‘s research podcast Just Wanna’ Quilt. Dr. Townsend-Gard is a law professor at Tulane where she heads up the Copyright Research Labs. The quilting podcast is one of the Lab’s projects, focused on building an “army” of quilters to talk about the love of their craft, as well as the copyright (and other legal issues) confronted by the quilting community.
Fortunately — for me, Dr. Townsend-Gard, and the audience — I didn’t have to talk too much about quilting. Instead, we focused primarily on copyright, Hollywood, and being good quilting citizens. I’ve been on the podcast twice now, and you can listen to both episodes below. For more, be sure to check out the full list of episodes here or, as they say, wherever you get your podcasts.
Local media has become something of a laughing stock in recent years – too many commercials, too much fluff (or too much sensationalism), an artifact of mass media’s past. Millennials hate traditional media, the research says.
Who needs TV when you’ve got HBO Go (btw, can I borrow your password)?
Radio? Is that like Apple Music but with commercials?
And yet despite the jokes, in recent months, as disaster and tragedy seem to have struck repeatedly, I have heard of not one person who tuned to Spotify to hear important evacuation information, or who flipped on Hulu to find out where to donate blood. I searched and searched but couldn’t find any weather radar in my Netflix queue.
Today was no exception. As I write this, many of the stations in Las Vegas are approaching 24 hours of continuous coverage of today’s tragedy and its aftermath. And while some of that coverage has been of the “sensationalist speculation” variety, the vast majority of it has been focused on public safety, recovery, and serving as a foundation upon which to rebuild community spirit.
In short, it’s local media doing what only local media can do. It seems that despite all the trade press fuss, the reports of its death have been greatly exaggerated.
I’m often asked to recommend books and other resources about the media and entertainment industries — so often, that I thought it might be worth putting my thoughts together in written form. So, here it is. I’ll update this periodically as new resources become available.
Books
The most comprehensive yet easy to understand discussion of the audiovisual industry that I’ve ever seen is Jeff Ulin’s The Business of Media Distribution: Monetizing Film, TV, and Video Content in an Online World(Focal Press 2013). For a more technical look at the industry’s economic features, check out the aptly titled Entertainment Industry Economics by Howard Vogel. Currently in its ninth edition, Entertainment Industry Economics has become a stalwart for any media industry strategist or analyst. It’s a bit difficult to read “cover to cover” but then again, it isn’t intended to be — it’s perfect for reading a chapter or two when you need a quick, comprehensive primer on a particular aspect of the industry.
With respect to television specifically, there are three books that, although now dated, are well worth reading to understand the dynamics of the business and, if nothing else, to understand how the business was once structured which informs how far it has come today. The first, and most detailed, is the venerable Ken Auletta’s treatise, Three Blind Mice: How the TV Networks Lost their Way(Vintage 1992), chronicles the dramatic fall of the network television business that took place in the mid 1980s, leading it to lose about a third of its audience and half its profits. For a similar treatment of a later time period (featuring some strikingly similar themes), try Bill Carter’s Desperate Networks (Doubleday 2006), which picks up the story several years later — beginning in 2004. Filling in the time between Blind Mice and Desperate Networks, is Suzanne Daniels and Cynthia Littleton’s Season Finale: The Unexpected Rise & Fall of the WB and UPN, which as the title implies, trace the history of two “netlets” founded in January of 1995, along with a healthy dose of industry background and scene setting for the relevant time period.
Those who remember what radio is might be interested in two competing narratives of the modern radio business (that is, the industry following the 1996 Telecom Act), each focusing primarily on the largest player in the business: Clear Channel. For the “unauthorized” side of the story, check out Alec Foege’s Right of the Dial(Faber & Faber 2008). For Clear Channel’s thinly veiled corporate-sponsored response, see Clear Vision: The Story of Clear Chanel Communications (Bright Sky 2008). The latter reads a bit like an extended corporate recruiting brochure, but taken together, the books offer a nice overview of the radio climate in the late 1990s and 2000s.
For more general background on the intellectual property aspects of our business, including threats from piracy and the so-called “tech” industry, I offer three suggestions: The first is Robert Levine’s Free Ride: How Digital Parasites are Destroying the Culture Business and How the Culture Business Can Fight Back(Anchor 2013). Written by the former executive editor of Billboard, Levine skillfully navigates the tech sector has built business models on the backs of artists, essentially rendering the business of content production unprofitable, or at least unsustainable as a full-time vocation. On a similar note, the more recent Move Fast and Break Things by University of Southern California professor Jonathan Taplin (Little, Brown and Co. 2017) takes a broader view of the tech sector and looks at how the sheer size and domination of several major internet firms — namely, Amazon, Facebook, and Google — threatens the future of our culture.
For a slightly more academic, though still accessible, treatment of our industry’s issues, see Michael Smith and Rahul Telang’s 2016 book, Streaming, Sharing, Stealing: Big Data and the Future of Entertainment (MIT Press 2016). Smith and Telang are professors at the Heinz College at Carnegie Mellon University and co-directors of the Digital Media Research Center which produces research on a variety of topics, including the impact of piracy on particular business models and practices. Their book comprises, essentially, a summary of their research to date, juxtaposed with anecdotes and stories from industry executives.
Those in search of more business or strategy-focused literature would be well advised to read Jonathan A. Knee, Bruce C. Greenwald, and Ava Seave’s 2011 book The Curse of the Mogul: What’s Wrong with the World’s Leading Media Companies (Portfolio 2011). The thoroughly researched volume discusses the economic features of the media and entertainment industries alongside the human aspects of media management — the glitz and glamour that often drive decisions more than the data. In the words of blurber James B. Stewart, the book offers “an insider’s view of how big egos often trump rational decision making, which is invaluable and hugely entertaining for anyone interested in the high-profile world of media.”
Anita Elberse’s Blockbusters: Hit Making, Risk Taking, and the Big Business of Entertainment (Holt 2013) is another must-read for anyone interested in the basic economic structure of media. Elberse, a professor at Harvard Business School, takes the position that the only way those in the entertainment industry can achieve success is by betting big on tentpole films and superstar talent, to the detriment of smaller, less popular (but arguably more artistic) fare. While her views have generated some debate among insiders, Elberse has emerged as one of the leading voices on entertainment industry strategy.
Another scholarly voice in the field is Bharat Anand, whose book, The Content Trap: A Strategist’s Guide to Digital Change (Random House 2016) explores a number of case studies involving companies who have had to navigate the digital landscape to develop and offer new digital products, or to transition old ones to the digital environment. Interestingly, Anand’s take is that while content itself is important (indeed, it’s “king,” if one were to believe the old adage), those who achieve digital success are especially adept at identifying connections among content, and more critically, its users, audiences, or other constituencies.
Podcasts
Beyond “traditional” sources, I get a lot of my news and information about the media industry from podcasts. Here are a few that I listen to religiously:
On the Mediafrom WNYC Studios — a weekly look at the media and its impact on society and culture, including periodic discussions about the business aspects of the industry.
The Pub from Current — a niche program intended for public radio professionals, but also featuring occasional discussions about the evolution of the media industry generally, and the new ways audiences consume news, information, and entertainment.
Remote Controlledfrom Variety — a fairly run-of-the-mill interview-style program hosted by Variety’s executive editor for television, Debra Birnbaum, featuring discussions with a mix of business executives and creative talent.
Scriptnotes — a podcast about screenwriting (and, as the show intro goes, “things that are interesting to screenwriters”). Although focused primarily on the craft of writing, veteran screenwriter hosts John August and Craig Mazin often include discussions of the business and legal aspects of the film and television industry.
The Business from KCRW — hosted by veteran reporter Kim Masters, this podcast features interviews with a mix of business executives and creative talent from throughout the entertainment industry. Typically my favorite part of the show is the first five minutes or so — the weekly “news banter” where Kim, typically joined by Matt Belloni, executive editor of The Hollywood Reporter, discuss the top stories in the entertainment industry over the past week and their implications for our business.
The Spin Off from KCRW — an aptly named adjunct to The Business, this show ceased production at the end of March 2017, but promises to return at some point in the future. In its prior incarnation, it focused on television-centric stories and discussion that didn’t make it into The Business.
Case Studies
One other resource I have found to be very useful when trying to learn about a new industry or business model are case studies published by business schools. These cases are intended to facilitate classroom discussion about a particular issue or challenge facing a business executive, but often contain useful background information on the structure and market dynamics of a particular company and the industry in which it operates. Be warned, though: Since these case studies are intended to stimulate discussion, they typically don’t contain any guidance as to what the “right” answer is or might be (indeed, they expressly disclaim that they shouldn’t be taken as management advice).
Still, for general background, and a sense of the type of decisions that media and entertainment industry executive have to pursue, cases can be invaluable. Here are a few I have found useful (some of which I have taught in my classes at Claremont Graduate University):
There are, of course, dozens of other resources available to better understand the media and entertainment industries, but these are some of my favorites. Is your favorite missing? Let me know what I should add to the list by commenting below.
