From operating a Radio station to your personal finances, everyone has to abide by a budget. Your personal economic situation might not be guided by a plan on paper (or in a spreadsheet), but it is quickly obvious to even the most financially clueless that you cannot continue to spend more than you accumulate. Unless [...]

When station revenues begin to decline, management quite sensibly looks to reduce expenses. One obvious example of red ink on the P&L is the monthly payment to Arbitron (or whatever ratings service your station employs). While it’s tempting to not renew the ratings contract and pocket the savings, most sales people shudder at the thought [...]

It has been another long year of discontent on the economic front and Radio, to my disappointment, has yet to recover along with the rest of the country. With two years to encourage renewed economic growth, the current administration has been able to barely make the needle quiver. While Radio station operation is a far [...]

Working in Radio through the recession of the late ’70′s and various minor economic downturns over the decades, a pattern started to emerge. Somehow, local retailers managed to sense a slowdown in business long before it revealed itself in national statistics. They responded to their perceptions by cutting back on their advertising budgets. Our stations [...]

The topic of Radio paying performance rights to recording artists has been tossed about like a hot potato for the past several months. And there are good arguments on both sides of the issue. In today’s economy — what little of it remains — many stations are on the edge of bankruptcy. Will adding another [...]

As a kid, I remember being amused and perhaps a little fascinated by the “Magic 8-Ball”. You may recall the over-sized sphere — black with the number “8″ in a white circle — was supposed to be able to answer questions about the future. For me, the answer that appeared most often in the window [...]

It has been eleven months since this blog has addressed a political topic. The accuracy of that previous observation is yet to be determined, but certainly appears to have gained credibility following some of the recent comments by President Obama. Now, we see a number of prominent Democrat politicians opting to retire or resign from [...]

It had to happen eventually. Those of us in Radio could see it begin back in the late ’70′s. In the early ’90′s, the trend was obvious. Now, as we enter the last year of the 21st Century’s first decade, the monsters are visibly in pain, trying to hold off the inevitable. So it is [...]

Most Radio broadcasters are happy to see the last of 2009. With a number of major Radio companies at or near bankruptcy, most operators are struggling to keep their heads above water in an increasingly oppressive economy. But in the middle of the doom and gloom, there are glimmers of hope. In a few markets, [...]

In an earlier post, we talked about the fact that your Radio clients don’t require everyone to respond to their ad message; it is necessary only for enough people to react to the ad to produce a return on investment for the advertiser. Unfortunately, most Radio sales reps can’t or won’t convince the advertiser to [...]