Why Radio will never go away

I saw a commercial last night from Sirius. It's a great campaign all about discovering new music. Something dawned on me. I’d always thought radio would sort of whither away. I’d don’t listen to much radio. My work commute is only 15 or 20 minutes, and then I’m listening to NPR. If I’m in the car any longer, I have my iPod plugged in and I’m listening to my own 2,000 song radio station. I call it: K F E J.

Now, I love music. No. You don’t understand. I really, really love music. My blood pressure rises with the volume. My heartbeat follows the tempo. It’s a lifelong thing. So, whether or not radio will whither, here is the reason it shouldn’t: Accidental Discovery.

I feel the same way about Electronic encyclopedias and Google Maps and the Internet in general. Online search has gotten so good; you find what you want so quickly and easily that you can miss the things you didn’t know you wanted to know. I have found most of my new music from friends and the occasional sleepless night watching MTV. Yes. Music Television does still play music videos in the middle of the night.

Sure there is an argument to be made over the myspace music section or for any of the dozens of independent music sites where you can find tons of free independent music. But, frankly, there’s a lot crap to wad through there. I want someone to do some the weeding out for me. I found Maxwell one day while I was napping through the old Rosie O’Donnell Show. With Muse, it was one evening while I was reading and had my Dish Network TV box tuned to the Modern Alternative Rock channel. I found My Chemical Romance one night on MTV that my spring allergies wouldn’t let me sleep.

The randomness of radio done right can let you stumble on to new and old favorites. Music you forgot about, or never know existed. But AM-FM radio has been in trouble. Most areas across the country only have a dozen or so options, with fewer than that coming in without static. And these frustrations have given birth to the satellite radio phenomenon.

But the thing holding up satellite radio is the “format” battle. Do you want XM or Sirius. Sirius has Howard Stern and Martha Stewart. XM has Opie & Anthony and Oprah. It may sound like deciding between satellite-TV providers, but it’s not. The difference is Dish Network, DirecTV and Cable all show the same channels (Food Network, Bravo, FX, local affiliates…); subscribers are paying for the content delivery. Satellite radio is both different content and delivery.

At some point XM and Sirius are going to get together. One’s going to buy the other, or there’ll be some crazy merger or synergistic alliance where subscribers to either can listen to content from both. Then it’ll work just like the cable TV and we won’t think about it.

And it’s not all roses for satellites. First of all there aren’t local stations available on satellite radio. And I’m not sure the masses are ready to pay for music during their commute. Sirius signed up Howard Stern for $100 Million a year, and then signed up more than a million new subscribers. Yet even with those results Stern has fretted repeatedly about his audience's not following him to Sirius.

But terrestrial radio has hope. Think about the recent surge of the nearly talk-free Jack-FM. And then there’s HD Radio. Think HDTV: but only audio and in your car or on your deck. While only about 7% of the nation's radio stations offer HD a broadcast, the tipping point for HD radio is going to be cars. And at some point radios are just going to switch. When you buy a new radio, it’ll have HD capability whether you want it or not. You won’t have to think about it or pay extra for the service.

The “important” thing here is that any one of these offerings creates a new revenue stream for retailers and manufacturers in the form of new hardware. So stores and factories will hedge their bets to make sure they don’t pick the wrong horse.

For satellite you need to cough up the dough for both the hardware and the service. For HD Radio, you need only cough up the dough for the radio; the content is free. But even then, if you still want to hear un-FCC-encumbered entertainment and your favorite stars, you’re going to have to go satellite; but it’s gonna cost you. You’ll need to help pay for things like Sirius’ great new ad campaign.

Future of TV at Home

Just as movies are facing changes to their consumption model, so too is television. What was once three stations offering advertiser sponsored variety shows, game shows and soap operas is now burdened with Digital Video Recorders, satellites, cable, DVDs, cyberspace and, to confuse things more, the end of the analog spectrum in Feb 2009.

As much as TV has changed, it has stayed quite the same. Sitcoms are still sitcoms, except that we don’t have a Seinfeld, Roseanne, Cheers or Friends going on right now. Dramas, like Desperate Housewives, Grey’s Anatomy and 24 are taking on more and more cinematic qualities, and in many cases, employ much better writing than most movies.

The 500 channels promised by broadband are consolidating due to less-than-expected ad revenue and lack of audiences. Yet there are still a lot more channels available than there were 10 or 20 years ago. With so many channels, and so many of those channels producing original content, syndication seems to be in trouble. No longer does a show that has survived five seasons have a chance to live on forever in reruns.

So here’s the big question: who is going to pay for television programming?

The advertisers?
I have a DVR from Dish Network. I record my shows and skip the commercials altogether. In fact, in the last six months I’ve watched more TV commercials on YouTube than I have on my TV. And I’m not alone. The only thing I voluntarily watch live is sports, so I see ad rates for football, basketball and other to jump. The rates of others, I’m not so sure. Why pay big bucks to hock your wares during the first run of a Lost episode, when that same episode is available for people to download the next day?

Of course, there is always product placement, which if done well is the solution to this whole deal. But don’t get me started about product placement.

And TiVo has been warning about adding some sort of unskippable commercial breaks added to TV programming. But would this revenue go to TiVo or the production companies?

The watchers?
Essentially, this is the HBO or Showtime model. But even these shows start to run into trouble when stars become huge and demand huge salaries (ie. James “Tony Soprano” Gandolfini).

Sure, people already pay for “regular” TV in the form on Cox, Comcast, DirecTV, Dish Network and others, but this is paying for the vehicle that delivers the signal to your house when you tire of the rabbit-ear quality. The content is mostly still supported by advertising.

But now for network shows you can now buy episodes or subscribe to some shows on iTunes and others. You can also buy most popular TV series on DVD. And not only the latest shows, like 24 and Gilmore Girls, but extensive backlogs like Battlestar Galactica and MASH. So far this has been a little extra butter on the production company’s’ muffin because a vintage show’s costs were paid years ago. But with future TV shows, I’m thinking it’s going to turn into a way to pay the bills.

To those cynics out there, it’s even being said that the movie and TV production industries are up for hyping the new blue laser technology is because they are running out of products to repackage. They are running out of stuff to convince you to buy. So they want to repackage old shows and movies again, and convince you to purchase them… again… to support their salaries and produce new shows.

Just like for movies, keep your eye on cyberspace as the end winner of this game. It’s too easy, convenient and pervasive to ignore.

They must read my blog.

The Independent UK thinks the future of movies at home is going to go the way of cyberspace, not blue lasers. It sounds familiar. They must read my blog.

From The Independent:
Despite the claims being made for the new players, some industry watchers
believe the future of home movies and recorded TV shows lies not in physical
players and discs but in cyberspace.

In the next few years, the arrival of internet video will allow people to instantly
order and view films by broadband on their television sets; they won't need a
shelf of videos, DVDs or HD DVDs.

Adam Vaughan, online editor at Stuff, said the magazine viewed the battle
of the formats as "a red herring".

"It's being talked about as a format war but we think we will just skip to
internet video in the next few years," he said.

"It's a bit like SACD (Super Audio DC) and DVD-A (DVD Audio). We were
promised that they would be the future of how to listen to music because
they offered much better sound quality.

"But in fact everyone went for MP3, which is lower in sound quality, but
more versatile. I think ordering movies over the internet will be more
convenient."

Check out the whole article.

Style is Not Important. It’s Essential.

In the early stages of any products life, function is what gets our attention. In consumer electronics: better picture, clearer sound, more organization, greater convenience. These are the things that sell the early adopters.

But the life of innovative function is short lived. We all know you can get a DVD player for $30. While manufacturers and retailers can continue to offer products that cost less and less, one alternative we see again and again is choosing to make them look better.

I recently ran into a friend, one of the most techie people I know, and he proudly pulled a brand-new one mega-pixel camera out of his pocket. It was tiny and could hang around his neck. Obviously, he did not buy this camera for the high-quality single mega-pixel pictures. He bought it because it was small, and it looked neat.

When function is the only thing that matters, a product can look like a giant orange turtle and still sell. But when there are lots of giant orange turtles, it won’t be long before someone decides to make theirs smaller or more attractive. Consumers will not forfeit function, but if a manufacturer is not willing to add an aesthetic value, their competitor will.

A Consumer Electronics Association survey showed us women account for 58 percent of electronics purchases.

That same study showed 46 percent of women say they have the most influence on home purchases and 42 percent reported having equal say.

In other words: "Ninety percent of the time women will make the buying decision because it becomes a function of home décor,” said Michael Steinberg, the former CEO of Macy's West, in a recent interview.

Let me repeat that: “…it becomes a function of home décor.” Translated: it has to look good; it has to fit in the home.

If you watch MTV, maybe you’ve seen the show Cribs. In this show, we get to tour famous people’s homes and without fail, right above the fireplace is a giant Plasma TV. This is not because it performs better. It is because it takes less space, it looks cool and it no longer forces the television to be the central focus of the room. One could walk into the room and not notice that you have a giant TV on the wall. Sure the picture is good; it is a huge screen and all that. But it could just as easily be all of those things and still take up half of the living room.

The point is it does not take up half of the living because people do not want it to. There are other things worth showing off in the home. Décor is important. Style is important.

Of course, “back stage” products like cables, batteries and cleaners do not need to look good, they need to be invisible. If it is not going to add to the décor, just make sure it will not detract. Given the opportunity, and comparable function, ugly accessories will get replaced by stylish accessories.

But back stage products aside, there are other appliances fighting for space in the family room. For example, computer workstations may not be in their own room any more. They could be in the corner of the living room, the kitchen, or in the “media room.” And no one can deny that computer manufacturers are making their products more attractive. I am not sure of the last time I saw a boring beige CPU in my local office store, but it has been a while. Now it seems the standard is ABB (anything but beige): black, silver, white.

Going beyond the elegant white shell of the iMac, Apple is heavily promoting the computer’s wireless capability. Using Bluetooth, the keyboard and mouse can connect wirelessly. No wires on the desktop. This makes it incredibly clean and attractive.

This seems counterintuitive to the Consumer Electronics study, which showed that a majority of women said using "female" colors on technology equipment is a bad idea and would not impact purchasing decisions. But in the market, out on the retail shelf, why does that very marketing strategy work?

In early 2004, Apple introduced the iPod Mini: the smaller, more colorful version of the industry-leading iPod. Sales of the iPod Mini exploded. But here’s the catch: a colorful four-gigabyte iPod Mini cost $250, while a plain white 20-gigabyte iPod costs $300. That’s 20% more price for 400% more memory. And the Mini sold! In fact, it was often out of stock. Could it be because the iPod Mini is pink, blue or silver?

When people say they are concerned with home décor, they mean they want good looking products. Form may follow function, but sometimes, function is not enough.

It is becoming widely recognized that women are playing a larger role in the electronics that are coming into the home. That fact, coupled with the traditional woman’s role as keeper of the home means we all have a new boss. Forget about working for the man. We’re working for the woman.

A new car. Do I have to?

My 1985 Subaru Brat, a car/truck hybrid, is navy blue with a snow-white cap covering the super-cool rear-facing jump seats in the bed. The “Roo” is a small two-seater that is so skinny it takes up barely half of a lane on the expressway and fits comfortably into the most compact of compact parking spots.

The Roo has given me more than 175,000 virtually trouble-free miles. And I am not a person deserving of such giving.

I bought the Roo in the fall of 1991 from a couple of soon-to-be parents in Ann Arbor, Mich. They were making the move to a mini-van. With the purchase came a file folder containing every repair and maintenance receipt for the car dating back to the original purchase.

"Yeah, that’s great," I said, as I threw the folder in the passenger seat while testing the radio. "Do these seats recline any more?"

When I plunked down the $2,000 to buy the four-year-old import, I just thought it was a great way to lug my music equipment around. It was also much cooler than the rusted-out 1974 Ford pickup I was driving at the time.

There was a time - during one of the Roo’s oil-leak phases - when I used the oil pressure gauge like the gas gauge. If the oil pressure was low, I needed to put in a quart. If I waited long enough and the engine started ticking, I needed to add two quarts. Since I was putting in new oil to replace the oil now decorating the street, that was just as good as an oil change. The mechanic who fixed the leak - something to do with a head and a casket - corrected my naive theory.

Later I developed a schedule. The Roo got an oil change once a year, whether it needed it or not. An annual car wash was also in order; navy blue hides dirt remarkably well. Tires needed replacing when one blew out, hopefully close to home.

After a couple years in Ann Arbor and Detroit, I saw gold and platinum in the fabled grunge scene of Seattle. My band mates and I made the trek across the country in a four-car caravan and the Roo made the 2300-mile trip with ease.

After I settled in Seattle, the Roo became very loud and needed some exhaust work. I looked through the folder of receipts to see if any exhaust work had been done before. As I flipped through, the first few were from Dunning Subaru in Ann Arbor, mainly for oil changes and a burned out blinker bulb. Further back in time, the dealership changed to Renton Subaru. That being in Renton, Washington.

The Roo had come home. In January of 1985, those car-selling parents-to-be were newlyweds living in West Seattle. They bought the Roo and drove it to Ann Arbor sometime in 1988, only to have me drive it back five years later.

Fifteen of my 18 years of driving have been in the Roo. A lot has happened in those years. There’s a tear in the front-seat upholstery that has been growing for about 10 years. What at the time sounded like a gunshot was actually a rock from a gravel truck I was following. It started a crack in the windshield that now stretches from one side to the other. Two small patches of rust, one on the hood and the other on the tailgate, are the only imperfections on the body.

I’ve gotten married, bought a house and a new Jetta for my wife. Occasionally my wife will ask me when we are getting another car to replace the Roo. “Next summer,” I say. That has been the standard answer for seven years running.

Future of Movies at Home

I’ve been thinking about this for a little while. I like movies. I signed up for Netflix really early. Like, 2000 early. It was a great way to get movies, and I’m sort of a geek, so it was a cool way to demonstrate that to my wife. I quit after a couple of years because of lots of scratched discs and, the last straw, a disc completely broken in half (The Corruptor with Mark Wahlberg and Chow Yun Fat. I’ve still not seen it…).

So, I quit. But I couldn’t stay away. After a few years of rental stores, I came back last year and I love it again.

I admire Netflix. It’s a mix of antiquated technology (USPS), current technology (DVD) and the future of technology (Internet). Brilliant. But I’ve always thought their days were numbered. There’s been a way to download movies illegally just about as long as you could download music from the awesome and original Napster. But bandwidth, memory capacity and lack of video quality did not lead to as quick adoption of movie downloads as music.

Well, the bandwidth problem is going away. Something like 42% of the country is on broadband. Computer hard drives regularly have upwards of 60 to 80 gigabytes and more. External hard drives are being used by less-than-geeky people. And blank DVD-Rs and CD-Rs are selling in insane numbers. The only issue still outstanding is quality. Simply, because the better quality you want, the more bandwidth and memory you need. And with people accustomed to DVD quality and 42 Plasma HDTVs the general assumption is that people will only aspire to get better quality and bigger TVs.

Well how about this?

Consumers have been known to sacrifice quality for the sake of ease and convenience. Think back to the most referred to event in the history of consumer electronics - betamax vs VHS. It is generally acknowledged that BetaMax was the better technology, yet VHS won by having more partners and better distribution.

The concept of movie downloads, too, has more partners and better distribution.

And besides that: It’s Already Happening. Look at DirectTV, Dish Network, Vongo … These are video on demand sources that let you view a movie as many times as you want in a 24-hour period. The only thing that will hold up the concept of movie downloads is giving consumers the option to keep the downloaded movie file. I believe most people only buy DVDs for the repetition. So their kid can watch The Incredibles two times a day, everyday, for three months. But notice I said “hold up the concept” back there. That’s because it’s going to happen. Even if the movie companies get dragged along by the arm… by iTunes… or some college drop-out programmer in Albuquerque…

Band aids like TiVo, is going to be up to you. It’s going to do the same thing: pull files on demand from a source on the other end of your coax cable, phone line or satellite dish. And if that sounds familiar, it’s because that’s what happens now, every time you log onto the internet.

NOTE: So I’ve finally realized the real industry drawback to movie downloads. There is a reticence on the movie studio and distributors part because they are running out of things to sell. TV shows to package, movie sets to compile. Movie downloads give consumers too much freedom. But, man, consumers are going to drag movie companies along, just as they did to the RIAA.

NOTE 2: It may be slow, but it's coming...
Netflix says mulling options for downloading
Apple's iTunes Movie Store Hurdles - 2007?

New Award: Worst Product Names Ever

And the winner is... A&W

And it pains me just a little to say that. I like A&W. For some reason, I view A&W along with Arby's as a little less fast food than McDonalds and Burger King. (I know I'm just fooling myself).

I offer three things to back up my decision:
1. Chubby Chicken: I don't want to know the name of the chicken I'm about to eat. And worse, they make Chubby look like a mother in an apron, so I can only think they are serving up her own animated chicks. Like most people who've never had to kill their own chickens, I live in denial.

2. Cheese Curds: This just sounds gross. Curds? All I can think of is curdled, rotten milk. Granted, cottage cheese packages include the words Large Curd or Small Curd; but I'd venture a guess that the consumer of small curd cottage cheese at the Haggen is not the same consumer buying the large order of Cheese Curds at A&W. For my money, Fried Cheese would have been a great name option.

3. Getting rid of the Mama, Papa, Grandpa nomenclature: They came back to it, which only makes me think they have someone on their marketing department who has a clue. My advice? Assign this person the duty of reviewing new product names and brands.

PR at Work 4 of 4: Consumer Press

In general, I find consumer advertising expensive. Like, buy-a-new-BMW expensive. That’s why I generally opt for consumer PR. Because the right product at the right time can triple traffic to a web site and impress the heck out of vendors and retail partners.

The downside to consumer PR is you lose control of your message. A product review might be good and it might be bad. Your web site address may or may not get included. The information may end up wrong. You are not in charge, and just about anything can happen. Plan for the best, be optimistic and talk your product up. But keep in mind most products are not going to change the world. Most products are not, in fact, the best things since the iPod. So try not to say your idea is the BEST EVER. Of course, unless it is.

In general, go from the angle your product or service is going to make some people’s lives better or easier. But prepare yourself for a less than stellar write up.

Consumer PR is a bit tougher because everyone wants it. When someone thinks of PR, it is nationwide magazines, newspapers and television they are thinking.

For newspapers, go for the big guys. The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, The Los Angeles Times, The Chicago Tribune, The Seattle Times, etc. Allsop had a small mention in a Washington Post article that resulted in two or three dozen mentions in smaller town papers. That being said, soliciting PR coverage in several smaller newspapers is a little more work, but is usually pretty effective. Just make sure you are sending your information to the correct editor (usually the business editor).

For magazines, target the ones whose readers shop at the stores your products are sold. Go to Barnes & Noble or Borders and look at the magazine section. Think about your subject and think about what kind of magazines your consumers would read. Buy a few magazines (come on, spend the $20). Read the articles and find a writer who might fit. Send them a release and a sample. Better yet, email them the news release in the body of a message. Then follow up with a sample and release in a third-day FedEx envelope.

It helps if you can get an editorial calendar. It’ll give you an idea of planned feature articles throughout the year. If you time it right, you can get your product mentioned in a longer feature story, which has way more impact than a product review.

For television, send it to the right person. Don’t just send info to the newsroom. Send it to the on-air personality who talks about your technology, market or hobby. There are lots of hosts, so spend some time on Google and find the right person.

If you’re lucky, someone from the consumer press will call you. These are reporters. They are just people doing a job: looking for new and interesting things to write about. In general, they have lots of writing assignments going on at the same time, and they can use the help. They may have seen you at a trade show. They may have seen an article in a trade magazine. They may have had someone they were interviewing mention you in passing. If they call: respond. Answer their questions, call them back, be honest, tell your story, offer anecdotes, be prepared to offer other resources. After you’ve spoken with them, ask them to let you know when the article is published.

One final note on this: nothing will drive your web traffic up and drive your conversion rate down more than consumer PR. Put more simply, tons of people will come to your site and see your offering, but the vast majority will not buy. Don’t worry, because the traffic alone will generate sales in the long run.

PR at Work 3 of 4: Trade Press

If the term is foreign to you, a trade magazine is a periodical of some sort that publishes news and features particular to an industry. Say sporting goods. No one outside the sporting goods industry (except for maybe investment people) cares about this publication. It covers promotions, new hires, product launches, product trends, athlete licensing and such.

I recently stumbled on a summary of the top 100 trade magazines. Initially, I was a little surprised there were 100 total trade magazines in existence, let alone a top 100. But think, for every industry from promotional products to holistic vitamims to Hollywood to truckers, there is a community of professionals who need to be connected. And that connection can be made through a trade magazine.

So, who reads Trade magazines?
* Customers (hopefully)
* Competitors (guaranteed)
* Vendors (prospecting)
* Your Sales Team (they better)
* Ad Sales People (prospecting)
* Consumer Press (more on this later)

Really, trade magazines are almost like catalogs: page after page of reprinted product and personnel news releases, with a section of news snippets and one or two longer features. The best ones, in my humble opinion, read like hot sheets or gossip pages. Some look like Vogue, some look like the Wall Street Journal and others look like a college extracurricular newsletter.

If you’re not sending regular news releases to the applicable trade magazine, shame on you. Start today. Take the latest product or service you have, write three paragraphs on it and email it to the editor in chief. Chances are your release will appear in the next issue… for free… in almost the exact format you submitted it. And then that long lost sales rep from Albuquerque will call because he saw the article and you can ask him what he’s been up to for the last three months.

Seriously, the article will get noticed. Also, it’ll be on their website; you can link to it from your website and get some search engine play out of it. And here’s something cool, the consumer press reads these things, too. So if the stars are aligned, that trade magazine coverage could garner some consumer press. All from a three paragraph email you sent to the editor of your favorite trade magazine.

Just like every other journalist, trade magazine writers want new and interesting things to write about and publish. If you help them out, they will help you out with more coverage, and maybe one of those coveted feature/trend stories. They might even start calling you just to check in and see what you have going on. Take advantage of this and make a friend in the publishing industry. It’s not hard. It’s just work.

Those who do the work, get the coverage.

PR at Work 2 of 4: Local Press

Working for an international company, there are different publics with whom we relate. Our trade industry. Consumers around the world. National and Regional media. But the one that raises the most questions in the building is the local press. There are things we tell the local community that we tell no one else. Personnel promotions, new employees, formation of a Ski to Sea team, and we still share bigger company news, like new customers, products or advertising campaigns.

What is the value of local public relations? Obviously it's not product awareness, because the relative sales that result are small. But when communicating with the local community, there are more important things than sales.

Think about this: Company Morale.

About a year ago, the president of my company was on the cover of the Northwest Business Monthly. A couple of days after it dropped, he stopped in for lunch at his favorite Thai restaurant. The owner was excited to see him, because he had seen the magazine cover and he got special attention the whole lunch. I heard about this experience for two days straight.

I later learned that our President’s mother Betty, the Allsop Matriarch, was passing the Northwest Business Monthly around at a dinner party. She had a great time talking about her sons with her friends. And funnily enough, I learned that Betty was showing the article off from the editor of the magazine. Someone he was interviewing had been at the party and mentioned Betty’s gloating. So it fluffed the editor’s ego a bit, knowing we were so happy with the piece.

People love to see their name or their organization in the paper. Friends, family, casual acquaintances and others will see little clips about the organization and comment. "Oh, I saw that you hired some new people, or you launched a new product or you're moving to another building. You must be growing. How exciting!"

But even beyond company morale there are other benefits. Being visible in publications that members of the local government read improves your status as a community member. You are thought of as a local employer, taxpayer and benefit to the community. This eases the way in any face-to-face interactions or disputes.

And even family businesses have investors. They're called bank executives. People like to claim a little bit of responsibility for successes and seeing customers in print gives them a chance to point and tell their friends and associates: "Hey, we work with them."

We recently had some budget meetings with our accountant and bankers and very early in the conversation, we heard: "I saw you guys in the Bellingham Business Journal. I didn't know you had a company store."

It's true. Sometimes there's more to business than sales. Local public relations for an international company can help the organization through company morale, creating a positive community image and building ties with other local businesses.

So I have a plan. I’ve made a mental list of the people at my company who doubt the value of local public relations. And I am going to get each of their names published for something. An anniversary, a promotion, being on our Ski to Sea team. My guess, the first time they see their name in print, I’ll have a new ally.