Owners and managers of most commercial operations do everything they can to attract and hold loyal customers. These businesses understand that once a customer has been won over, that individual’s repeat business can add to the bottom line for years, even decades to come. The same is true about Radio. As a multi-station manager, I [...]

How much sales training is enough? Personally, I believe a Radio sales rep cannot get enough training. With over 30 years in the business, I was always learning something new…for a while. Then, after a period of time, I found I was hearing the same training but from different sources. Certainly there were variations on [...]

Like many–if not most–Radio professionals, I’ve had the good fortune to work for a variety of station owners. Some owners are excellent, and these are the ones that truly understand the business. Often, a future owner starts out as a news reporter or air talent and either work their way up to ownership or inherit [...]

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 [...]

Hitting the “scan” button on your car radio these days can bring a deepening level of disappointment. Is it just me, or is there a bland sameness to music stations that have become little more than a jukebox…one song after another with the occasional bland comment thrown in? I had the good fortune to grow [...]

A sales consultant I know was recently telling me about one of his clients. He said the stations were experiencing a rough period — this is unusual? — and some days as much as 69% of the available inventory was going unsold. The stations were only selling 31% of their ad time. I asked if [...]

Yes, it’s the most unbelievable blog post! We’re blogging like never before! And you’re going to read fantastic words that are so incredible you won’t believe them ’til you see them! Does that sound stupid to you? How do you think it sounds to Radio listeners who hear that drivel in an unacceptable number of [...]

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 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 [...]