-
10 Questions with ... Alan Burns
July 19, 2005
Have an opinion? Add your comment below. -
NAME:Alan BurnsPOSITION:Broadcast ConsultantOWNER:Alan Burns & Associates
1) Did you have a career in Radio before consulting? Details, please.
I started jocking while I was in high school, and worked my way through college both jocking and programming. I got my first PD job when I was 19. Right after college, I did mornings in Denver briefly, then afternoons and music at WBBM-FM in Chicago. After that, I did afternoons at WDAI Chicago, where I once managed to beat Larry Lujack when he was on WCFL. Then I went to work as a consultant for Frank Magid Associates, a Radio/TV research firm. Other people there at that time were Fred Jacobs, Bill Moyers, and Jon Coleman ...quite a lot of talent. Then, it was back to Chicago to WLS for a while. In 1979, ABC asked me to go program WRQX in DC. That turned out to be a great Top 40, and we did some of the best and biggest promotions in the country - like pulling 400,000 people to the Washington Monument grounds for a station event!
After almost seven years at 'RQX, I decided to go into business for myself. I'd done some in-house consulting with ABC, and between that and the experience at Magid, I knew I'd enjoy it. I'm a novelty and variety junkie, and consulting gives me the opportunity to work with different people and different problems. And to have more control over my life and career.
2) If there is such a thing, could you describe what a "typical day at the office" is like for you?
You're right, "typical" is a stretch. If I'm not traveling, I'll get in around 9 and spend the day talking to clients, answering emails, and working on projects. One day last week I wrote a TV commercial, monitored a jingle session online, sorted a music test, and wrote a series of on-air promos ...all for different clients. We just moved our office down to the Gulf of Mexico, so even when I'm at work I can see the ocean and watch people on the beach. I love it.
If I'm on the road, it's a much different day. Up early to listen to client and competitors' morning shows, while having breakfast in the room and checking email, then either continue to monitor the rest of the day or go to the client and spend the day in meetings or working on execution. At night it's either back to the hotel to listen to the night shows or grab dinner with the client to continue our meetings. Then answer emails late, catch a few hours of sleep, and get up and do it all again.
3) How would you describe the current state of our format?
I'm looking for good books for CHR as the spring numbers roll....I think the music has been pretty good the last several months, and spring is normally a good season for the format. In the AC world, Mainstream AC is in very good shape ...but Hot AC, not so much. It lost its way, lost its variety, and the current music got very weak. I'm working on a new Hot AC format that I think will help the stations it is designed for (it's pretty market-and-circumstance-specific). We're finalizing servicemarks, etc., right now.
4) What is your biggest pet peeve about music radio right now?
For the most part, everyone's doing the same things. Partly because being different requires taking risks, and partly because being different takes time for brainstorming and really thinking things through. And no one's got much time lately, especially in the medium and smaller markets where people are wearing six hats.
And there's another thing about music radio right now: we're turning our backs on two very important generations of listeners: the baby boom, and the youngest listeners. People are bailing on the oldies format, for example, which just invites 40 and 45+ consumers to turn to satellite and other providers. And how much research do you think radio has done on teens lately?
5) Podcasting. Instant downloads. Blogs. How can we use the ever-increasing digital technologies to keep people coming back to radio for their entertainment fix?
Let me repeat part of your question: "...to keep people coming back to radio for their entertainment fix." It's still, and always will be, about entertainment. If we're entertaining enough, people will keep coming to us. If not, they have more alternatives now than ever before.
The biggest theme in consumer technology is personalization and convenience; for example, iPod lets you listen to your playlist whenever and wherever your want; TiVo lets you watch what you want to, when you want to; cellular technology gave you conversation with whoever, whenever, and wherever. Radio has to maximize its opportunities to be personal and convenient:
Radio is, when used as directed, the most personal of all media. Use it that way. Talk to one person at a time, not to a microphone or to an imagined group of people. Talk about things that matter.
Target a mindset, a group of people who think alike. Get to know them extremely well, and not just about what radio station they listen to.
Help them connect to other interesting people. Don't forget that TiVo is about watching someone else, and that the majority of the music on iPods was exposed somewhere else or that someone else told the owner it was good.
As for blogs, downloads, podcasts, etc, I think their main value is to help people keep seeing radio as a current technology, not a dated one ...especially for the youngest consumers.
6) What effect, if any, has industry consolidation had on your profession?
It's made consultants focus more on one area of value, and less on another. Before consolidation, consultants like us worked with more stations than owners could own, so we saw more information than most owners did. That's changed. Our client list has always been in the dozens, not the hundreds, so a company that owns hundreds of stations might see more research than we do. Couple that change with the proliferation of spin monitoring of music, and a consultant who simply provided information would be of little value. But the difference between information and wisdom, or data versus knowledge, is key. There's always more data around than wisdom. Fortunately for us, we're in the business of creating solutions more than creating data.
7) Top 40 radio continually reinvents itself. Where do you see the format heading in the next year or so?
Wherever current music takes it. One of Top 40's tendencies in the past has been to overreact to short-term music changes, but I think the format is learning not to do that. One thing about consolidation: it's keeping people in their current jobs or positions longer, so there's more effective "institutional memory" in Top 40 now than there used to be.
But back to current music: I like the growth of R&B music lately. I think that can expand the format's audience.
8) What is the one truth that has held constant throughout your career?
Focus on the audience, and on helping them have fun. As opposed to caring too much what other people - other PDs, opinions in the trades, your friends at the labels, etc. - think. And you'll do very well.
9) What advice you would give people new to the business?
Try to figure out where you want to be in ten years, make a plan to get there, and only take jobs that will further your plan. It's ok to modify the plan as you go, but have a plan.
Learn as much as you can, not only about your job, but also about the jobs of the people you depend on. It makes you more valuable, and builds allies.
Don't be too swayed by fads and passions of the moment. Keep a long-term focus.
Make sure you create time to think and be creative.
And network like crazy.
10) What would you like to be doing 10 years from now?
Living where I live now, at the beach, doing what I do now: working with clients I enjoy. And spending a little more time flying airplanes and working out.
Bonus Questions
What Movie or TV program best describes your life?
I think it would have to be a hybrid of parts of the "Beverly Hillbillies", "Lost," "Sweet Home Alabama," and "MTV Beach House!"
-
-