Winding Down 2007

Looking Forward By Looking Back

As we wind down the year 2007, we must first ask the question, "What have we learned?"

Some of the lessons we already knew; we just reapplied them. For example, our research told us or we rediscovered that a song 20% burn just means that 80% percent of the audience isn't burned on it. If it's an artist that was valuable enough to play often and early and take a vested interest in breaking, why in the world would you want to walk away from the artist and let another format just have them?

In 2007, Urban radio let go of some songs that they thought were no longer relevant or hip with their P1s -- something that happens a lot once they cross over. Once listeners who are your P1s start hearing those songs on "their little sister's or brother's station," they often change their opinions of them. This is especially true of certain rap artists.

Just because an artist gets picked up by multiple formats doesn't mean that we should stop playing it in drivetime - after all, isn't that what we want? As a business we are overthinking this issue because of the complaints of a very vocal few in the audience. Not that we don't care about those vocal few. We do, but we're in a mainstream business, which means we want 51% percent of the vote.

If you consider an act still important to your audience and the format, you should support it. But it's also important that the artist(s), their management and label know that imaging the artist with the station will be necessary for the station to consider treating them as core artists instead of song-to-song.

The year, everyone realized the value of a strong morning show. It was the year that saw the emergence of the "Movin'" format developed by Alan Burns. We will have to wait a while to see if it worked or if it needs more time and tinkering.

Did the Urban and Urban AC formats come to a crossroads in 2007? Maybe. Is the honeymoon over? In some markets, both the honeymoon and the marriage are over.

Let's go back a few years and look at what has happened with Urban radio. In some major markets, there were two or three different versions of Urban and Urban Adult. Eventually it was whittled down; the strongest player or players survived and the others changed. This kind of thing continues right up to today. It's important that we keep trying because if we discover something newer, faster or more compelling, we all benefit. That's true empowerment.

But wait; some of the major broadcast companies are just looking for ways to reduce their costs. Many don't have a live morning show ... and after their syndicated morning show, they're just music-intensive with an expanded playlist, reduced clutter and commercial load, and an aggressive marketing effort. Does this mean the continuation of the trend where stations eliminate staff and just voicetrack? Probably. 2007 is another year in which there are seemingly more questions than answers.

What Should We Make Of The Meter?

One of big things that happened this year -- and one which received extended coverage in All Access -- was Arbitron's PPM. Arbitron has been working with and developing its electronic measurement system since 1992.

It was supposed to be an improvement on the diary. New data gathering technology indicated that more people were listening, but it also revealed some unexpected and unpredictable habits. For example, the meter showed that morning drive isn't as important as it seemed, nor are Thursdays. More people are listening on the weekends than before. And some formats were faring better than others. Guess which formats didn't do well....

It probably comes as no surprise that Urban and Urban AC formats suffered in Houston, Philadelphia and New York. Getting enough usable data from the sample pools is the problem. For the last several months the usable sample sizes in Houston, Philadelphia and, so far, New York have fallen below Arbitron's targets; the company is having difficulty getting young adults of any ethnicity to comply with the requirements of wearing the PPM all day.

In theory, if the same people who used to get diaries now get meters, we should get similar results, only faster. But in reality the results with PPM are very different. First of all they are derived in two different ways. As a result, cume has increased substantially, while time spent listening (TSL) has dropped to half of its previous levels. The ratings may look similar because there are twice the number of people with half the TSL.

Here's what we know for sure: With the diary, un-aided recall meant everything. While recall is still and always will be important, with PPM, it's important for a different reason. Urban stations still need to have their listeners remember who they listened to and where to find you on the dial, and then listen to your station ... as opposed to trying to remember which station they listened to.

For agencies and advertisers, PPM is a mixed blessing. On one hand they've demanded to see more accurate audience estimates data, but now many assumptions about radio listening are being challenged. Because of pressures from both broadcasters and agencies, Arbitron has delayed up to nine months the PPM rollouts for 2008.

For Urban and Urban AC stations in particular, what also emerged in 2007 were statistics that showed the tremendous buying power that exists in the estimated $300-billion consumer market created by African-Americans. Projections for population growth by the end of this decade show increases to at least 35 million consumers. Spendable income should grow at the same pace to exceed the $300 billion now available to advertisers, including record and CD purchasers.

The size of the African-American population, coupled with the propensity of blacks to spend a disproportionate share of their disposable income on music, make marketing to African-Americans essential to the music industry.

While most general-market stations have found their formats fragmenting in recent years, Urban radio has its own set of problems, particularly Urban Adult radio. The decline of total audience in some markets is also affected by the increasing disaffection of our core audience of women 25-49 in middays. This trend is not related so much to the vagaries of research, but to improper programming. Stations are suffering from image problems. They were perceived as being too laid back, much like the Jazz-formatted stations that realized that if they were to remain true to their cause, they would have to accept a much smaller slice of the ratings pie.

Now what we have to do, going forward, is combine all these elements and then leverage what the audience remembers best. Artists are remembered for their hits. A hit is remembered for its hook and a station is remembered for its "audio snapshots." So, being consistently good is going to be a lot less important than being occasionally great.

These are the things in particular that will affect the state of the industry in general and Urban formats in 2008 -- a strong morning show, precise math, research and moments of distinction. Some say today's audience isn't listening at all - it's merely practicing. Indeed, "audience" is an antique term, perhaps as antique as the record. One is archaically passive. the other archaically physical.

The record, not the re-mix, is the anomaly today. The re-mix is the very nature of the digital. In 2007, an endless recombinant and fundamentally social process generated countless hours of creative product. To say that this poses a threat to the record industry is simply folly. But the record industry, though it may not know it yet, needs to be careful that it doesn't end up going the way of the record. It is not going to be affected as much by legislation as it is by automation.

We seldom legislate new technologies into being. They emerge and we plunge with them into whatever vortices of change they generate. We legislate after the fact, in a perpetual game of catch-up, as best we can, while our new technologies redefine us - as surely and perhaps as often as we've been redefined.

Word.