Zuckerberg, that is.  Founder and CEO of Facebook.

Fast Company has a great piece on leadership lessons from Zuckerberg, and here is a sampling:

1. Have A Strong Personal Philosophy

“We don’t build services in order to make money,” says Zuckerberg, “we make money in order to build better services. Facebook was not originally created to be a company. It was built to accomplish a social mission–to make the world open and more connected.”

What is your goal?  Is it only to make money by any means necessary?  Or is it something deeper, something significant, something your consumers and partners will embrace as much as you do?  Do you have a social mission? Why not?

2. Give it Time

“I’m here to build something for the long term. Anything else is a distraction’” Zuckerberg said.

Are you in it for the long-term?  Can you dodge the distractions of this week, month, or quarter?

3. Support A Culture Of Innovation

“Things still retain the playful air of a tech development hive, but with an edge,” says Fast Company.

4. Pull, Don’t Push

Fast Company:

What Apple and Facebook know and more specifically their founders/CEOs’ Steve Jobs and Mark Zuckerberg have in common is aspirational clarity. They appear to be able to see where the puck will be and into the future of what their market will not just want, but go ga-ga over and then they deliver it. Some may refer to that as their being market makers, but what enables them to make their market is that they can anticipate what will delight their customers and members that those people don’t even know will delight them.

It’s about pull, not push.  Or, as I put it in a recent post, you can’t force people do do anything nowadays, you must attract them like moths to a flame.

What’s the best way to defend radio’s audience from those who steal away attention and usage and ad dollars?

Here’s one strategy from my friend David Bujnowski of Coburn Ventures (where I am a research fellow).

In the “old days”, service providers could trap their audience who either didn’t know or didn’t care what their alternatives were.

Today, with hyperpersonalization running rampant, consumers have a choice of a million different service providers.  The customers can’t be held captive any longer.  We are free to choose and we’re well armed to find whatever it is that we want (and that my old “service provider” is no longer giving me).

So…as a service provider, how do I keep my audience?  I have to build/create a service that is so bright…so energetic…so wonderful…that the moths WANT to come to [my flame].  It’s their choice!

Spend less time mimicking others.  And spend less time trying to figure out how to keep me held captive (you can’t do it!).  And spend more time on your product so that I’m drawn to it like a moth… so I just can’t help myself.

This is important and too easy to forget.

Defending our products and services from the choices enabled by the inexorable march of technology is a fool’s errand. If technology can conceivably solve a consumer problem, assume that it will – and sooner than you think.

Recently I told one broadcaster about a tool that could transform one of his radio assets in a very meaningful way (forgive the vague description). His response:  We can’t do that because the audience might like it too much, and if they like it too much they will listen more to that and less to my stations.  In other words, “If I don’t believe in the future maybe it will never come to pass.”

Well, the future always comes to pass.  The question is whether or not your business is a part of it.

The key is to seek out these disruptors, to embrace them and wield them like weapons, not to look the other way.

Our best defense is a vigorous offense.  The secret to protecting our audience is attracting them like moths to a brilliant flame.  It’s not to  force them or bribe them or trap them.  It’s about attraction. It’s about being that good.

In a world where anybody can have anything they want, “average is over,” as Tom Friedman writes in the New York Times.

“Average products for average people” (to use Seth Godin’s phrase) will be impossible to defend against products and services designed perfectly for me.

We can try to keep consumers captive – or we can captivate.

I and many others in and around the radio business would prefer to create magnificent flames.

Recently I was interviewed by Olivia Collette for Sparksheet, a business-to-business blog on media, content and marketing.  Olivia has allowed me to share the audio of that interview with you, so here it is.

Some of the questions we covered:

1. Is Pandora “radio” or not?
2. Is “radio” today a service, an experience, or a medium? (My answer:  It’s an “experience”)
3. What’s one sentence that can define radio for the future?  And what can we do because of that?
4. What’s the difference between “retention” tactics and “discovery” tactics for radio?
5. Which is more important in the success of our digital ideas, money or passion?
6. Is personalization a replacement for a “curated” radio experience – or just a supplement?  And is Pandora really as much “work” as it seems to be?
7. What “curation” is – it requires the presence of human beings and a sense of “taste”
8. How can broadcasters make their content stronger in the midst of so much online competition?

Here’s a sharable, social version of the interview:

And here’s a non-sharable, not-so-social version:

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Why do what you’re doing?  Because everybody else in radio seems to be doing it?  Or because it’s the right thing for you and your organization to do?

Why jump aboard the iheartradio bandwagon and make your stations available on that platform?  Because every so often there’s a news release about another broadcaster who has, or because it’s the best way for you to advance your progress in streaming?

Why pursue a dedicated mobile app?  Because everybody needs a dedicated mobile app, or because its central to your digital strategy?

Why install a deals platform?  Because that’s what the other guy is doing, or because you know how to monetize this and make it an important component of your media brand portfolio?

And so it goes, one example after another, where some broadcasters looking for answers look outside rather than within.  And what we too often find are broadcasters following the wagging tails of other broadcasters traveling to this destination or that one for reasons unknown to anyone.

But isn’t this progress?  Maybe.  But maybe not.

“Progress” is the value you and your consumers and advertisers derive from one unit of effort in a world where time and resources are scarce.  You literally can’t do everything and so must do what’s most important.

But too many broadcasters don’t know what’s most important, so instead they do what’s easy.  And “having what she’s having” is incredibly easy.  Not just easy to mimic, but easy to justify:  ”I’m doing it because they’re doing it.  Let’s all do it together.”

The problem is that doing what’s easy or chic is not the same as doing what matters.

Indeed, doing what’s easy without it being particularly important explains why so much of what we do is done so half-hearted and without the kind of commitment that makes the difference between dabbling and success.  It’s why so many of our initiatives are as light on investment as they are on ingenuity.

We spend too much time looking at each other and not enough time looking inside at ourselves and around us at our consumers and our clients. We spend too much time looking at each other and not enough time looking outside the industry altogether for ideas that were not born from radio brands.

Take mobile apps, for example.  Does every station need a dedicated mobile app?  Not necessarily.  Every station needs to be present across platforms in ways that consumers want and advertisers value, but that doesn’t necessarily imply a dedicated mobile app.  The question isn’t “to app or not to app,” the question is “What do I need an app to do that I can’t do without the app?”  To chase an app without a strong reason will guarantee that little value will be placed on that app and “getting an app at low cost” will be more urgent than having a good reason to build one in the first place.  The end result:  Time wasted on unimportant matters and an app few consumers care about that makes little difference to the brand, the consumers, or the advertisers. Opportunity lost.

A couple years ago when I revamped my own digital platform I didn’t use any competitor as a model.  Then and now my platform looks and functions completely differently from those of other companies who do things like me. My intention was to create a media brand that solves problems for a community of businesses and entrepreneurs in and around radio.  The emphasis was on media – video, audio, text, books, etc. And it was not about glorifying my efforts but rather showcasing opportunities for the marketplace of businesses my brand serves.  As of now I have had more than 126,000 video views – that may not be a lot in your business-to-consumer world, but for a vertical market of folks in and around broadcasting that’s pretty impressive.

In other words, I looked within for a goal and a strategy to achieve that goal.

Your answer will not be the same as the answer for your broadcast peers.  In part because your assets differ from theirs, but also because while they may launch this or that initiative, the sad truth too often is that they don’t know why they’re doing it.  Chasing the tails of our broadcast peers is not a good enough reason.

Antenne Bayern is still the market-leader, but its sales dropped .6% to 83.53 million euros in 2011. The largest increases were made by public station 1 Live and its commercial competitor Radio NRW, while the largest loss hit Hit-Antenne, which was down 12.7%.

Overall, privately-owned stations took 69.8% of radio ad sales in 2011, with the rest going to public stations.

Here are the top ten grossing radio stations in Germany:

1. Antenne Bayern – 83.53 million (-0.6%)
2. Radio-Kombi Baden-Würtemberg – 79.79 million (+3.8%)
3. Radio NRW – 77.19 million (+10.9%)
4. 1 Live – 56.19 million (+16.2%)
5. Hit Radio FFH – 49.20 million (+1.0%)
6. Hit-Radio Antenne – 47.00 million (-12.7%)
7. SWR 3 – 43.34 million (+4.4%)
8. Bayern 3 – 41.16 million (+12.0%)
9. WDR 2 – 40.78 million (+8.7%)
10. Radio Schleswig-Holstein – 34.75 million (-0.7%)

Once upon a time “NPR” stood for “National Public Radio,” and the “radio” in NPR was the exclusive means of distributing the network’s content.

This was an era when stations would solicit funds from listeners to support this and other programming and send a big chunk of those funds back to the network.

That was then, this is now.

Today, radio is not the distribution channel for NPR content, it is simply another distribution channel for that content (albeit the most important one).  Yet the funding equation works precisely the same way, and that’s confounding.

Because when radio becomes not just the distribution channel for content but also the means of discovering content you can hear on demand and directly through other means, that represents a change in role of the local station from distribution partner to advertising vehicle.  And if NPR is using radio to advertise its content elsewhere, then shouldn’t NPR be paying the stations rather than vice versa?

This is an oversimplification, of course.  NPR affiliates benefit hugely from that content and certainly should be paying fees to use it.  But as that content spreads across the spectrum of distribution channels in a digital age, shouldn’t the revenue derived from those channels benefit the “advertiser” affiliates in the form of discounted fees?

Well, you might say, everywhere these programs occur you will hear pitches to support this or that public radio station within the program itself. But this is ludicrous.  If I am a fan of This American Life and I can and do download it on demand, why should I support my local public radio station because of it?  Why should I even support the station that produces it? It’s the program I love, not the station which gave birth to it. Why should I make Chicago’s public radio station richer when I live in San Diego?

If, however, This American Life asks me to support This American Life directly – no middle-man, then I get what I’m paying for and I’m paying for what I get (no matter where the money actually goes).  And if more public radio programs solicited this way, some fraction of those dollars should go to discount the fees of the stations licensing those shows, since they are active “distribution partners” in their success.

But if shows solicit for themselves instead of the stations that run them, how are local stations supposed to drum up sufficient support?

The answer is not only the local programming that makes each station unique. The answer is also that there is value in aggregating these shows into a tapestry of content and filling in the blanks with locally-produced content.  That is worth something.  It’s worth quite a lot.  The pie is tastier than any of its ingredients alone.

But there’s also something else:  I believe it’s important for all local public radio stations to extend the experience beyond the content and into the local community, to enrich the lives of local consumers and local members with direct experiences, not only radio content.

In every market NPR can be heard but a local public radio station can be experienced.  And that’s something special. “Public service” should not mean only over the air.

This would be a model that gives consumers and fans what they want the way they want it.  A model that recognizes that shows are supported for one reason and stations for another.  A model the acknowledges that technological innovation means local stations are less a distribution channel for NPR and more an advertising partner, a megaphone to current and potential audiences.

A model that refocuses local public radio stations away from content for its own sake and towards improving the lives of its consumers in its local communities.

Gordon Borrell is a fan of radio, but not of radio’s performance on the digital sales front.

How are radio’s digital selling efforts different from those of other media platforms? It turns out they differ quite a lot. It’s a sad thing, says Borrell, and radio is on the verge of “blowing it.”

You need to go to the highest level in the organization, says Borrell, to make the investments required to keep radio healthy for the long run.

Watch this conversation with Gordon Borrell.  In it, he explains how radio’s potential is great, but how it’s at risk. He explains how too much short-term thinking makes radio vulnerable to disruptive change. He explains some of the recipes we need to follow to repair the problem, and he showcases some of the broadcasters who are already well on their way.

This is advice both critical and constructive.

Watch:

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Steve Jones is the VP of Programming for Newcap Radio, one of Canada’s largest radio groups. He’s also the author of a new book called Brand Like A Rock Star: Lessons from Rock ‘n Roll to Make Your Business Rich and Famous (website) and this book teaches how any brand can learn the lessons of rock superstars to make those brands more effective.

I talked with Steve about the book and how we can turn these lessons back home towards radio.  Watch this video of our conversation:

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Steve, one of the key themes of this book is the importance of having passion for what you do – something which drives you, which matters to you a lot. Rock stars and other music artists often exude passion, but do you think we sometimes lose that sense of passion as broadcasters?

Yeah absolutely. I think we often get caught up in numbers and in ratings in the moment and forget that if you don’t truly care about what you’re doing, if you’re not passionate about it…they say your smile comes through on the air, but the passion comes through on the air. Fun comes through on the air. It’s easy in the business of broadcasting to lose sight of how much that really does matter. When you truly care about something you’re able to communicate a level of passion and excitement far beyond someone who’s just going through the motions or just doing it because it’s PPM friendly or it’s what they’re told to do.

“Branding like a Rock Star” is about passion, it’s about values, it’s about being part of a tribe; something bigger than yourself, almost in a religious sense. Bands like The Grateful Dead were able to inspire that level of passion and dedication and devotion.

Passion is really what branding is about, it’s about emotion. There’s a lot in the book about the idea that brands aren’t logos, they aren’t positioning statements, they’re emotions, emotional connections, and it’s really hard to control that. Even if you spend millions of dollars to try to influence it, ultimately what people think about you, what they feel about you, what they passionately believe you are is what you really are.

If brands are about emotional connections, what can I do as a radio brand to make those emotional connections? What are some of the rules of thumb?

We have to be about things people care about. No one will ever come up to you as a morning show host twenty years from now and say “I love the way you play twelve-in-a-row commercial-free every hour after 9:00 am.” But they will come up to you and say “I remember that time when your dog died and you were in tears on the air. I can so relate to that because my dog had passed away.”

When we talk about things that matter to people, when we really connect with them on a level that makes a difference in their lives, that’s where passion is, that’s where emotions come from. You can throw up positioning statements all you want, and you can play as many songs-in-a-row uninterrupted as you want, but you’ll never ever achieve any level of emotional connection doing just that. All of those things are important, but we can’t lose sight of how important emotions really are.

The best broadcasters I work with are all keenly aware of the fact that PPM doesn’t reward them if they get sloppy on the mic, if they do anything other than play a lot of music in a row for too long a stretch. But at the same time, they are also keenly aware that if they don’t make that mic-time count, if they don’t connect with people on an emotional level about things they care about, then they lose. They know how important this is even though it may not be obvious from PPM. Is that what you see, too?

Yeah, I couldn’t agree with you more on that. It’s easy to say that this is hard to do, so let’s not do it; let’s just play another song, let’s play another five-in-a-row because it’s difficult to be real and human and it’s difficult to elicit emotional reactions in people. But we have to strive for that. It’s the only way to succeed. It’s the only way to build a brand.

If you build a brand, if you build up expectations, that’s the only way to get people coming back to you because in our business it’s inevitable that people will go away. We’re going to play songs that people don’t like and there’s just no way around that. Not everybody likes every song. So you need to have that expectation in your audience, that expectation built-in that if I come back something good will happen.

Your book talks about two seemingly opposing forces, both critical to building a great brand: Consistency and change. How do you reconcile these two things as a broadcaster, the need to deliver to expectation and yet the need to evolve?

Look at it from a musical point of view. AC/DC is an example of consistency, and there’s no doubt that a band that played really three chords in thirty years is consistent in everything they do. But it risks being a bit boring, and it’s sort of discouraging that you can never change.  But you can change.

So look at the Beatles. With every new song came a revolution in recording techniques, in songwriting techniques and how songs can be created, how they could be written, how they could be presented. People didn’t just buy Beatles music because they were great songs, people ran out to buy the new Beatles albums because they were a step forward in how we digest music.

In business, it’s the same thing. Consistency can be “being the same” or you can be consistently amazing. You can consistently surprise your audience; you consistently amaze them and delight them in different ways. It doesn’t always have to be exactly the same way, but the point of consistency is that even as you change, you change in a consistent way. Listeners come to expect that they can get something from you, something very big from you and they can consistently get that even if you’re giving it to them in different ways each time.

How do you build in innovation in an environment where resources are slashed, where people are stretched, where incentives are very short-term? How do you maintain an innovative spirit, and how do you make sure that you keep that change and that evolution happening?

I think if I could easily answer that question we would save the industry.

Ultimately, it comes down to the right people. You have to have people who are empowered and people who are capable of taking that empowerment and turning it into something positive on the radio. You have to have people behind them on a management level who will stand up for mistakes and recognize that failure is an essential step to success, that sometimes we’re going to make mistakes, it won’t always be perfect – not every at-bat will be a home run. And you have to have patience because things don’t connect overnight.

All those things are somewhat lacking in our industry and I realize that with resources slashed, it gets harder and harder to do it. But it only takes one or two great people. It doesn’t take twenty people to be great on the air. One or two great shows can elevate a whole radio station.

Of course, as you win, resources become more available to you. So there is a chicken and egg thing; how you get ahead when resources are cut? But once you get ahead the resources tend to come, and if you use them wisely, you build on that success and snowball it.

You need the permission to fail, the permission to try things, because without those trials you’re spinning your wheels, right?

Yeah and I think every band has done that. Every band has recorded a song that didn’t quite connect.

Look at U2. They went through a whole phase in the early 90’s of recording music that they felt was relevant but that most of their fans felt was weird. But they came around, came back, and they continued to evolve and, remarkably, U2 has survived through all these changes to be the most profitable rock band of all time.

Brand Like a Rock Star talks about the idea of not selling products or services per se, but selling experiences. In radio, how would you define what you mean by an experience?

Again, it goes back to emotions. It goes back to what I feel when I listen to a certain radio station.

I’ve talked to jocks about that before and they say “What do I say? How do I talk to this target listener,” and I tell them, “Don’t focus on what you say, focus on what they’re going to feel. Focus on the experience at the end of it all.”

That could be a big thing, like a morning show where the experience is edgy or the experience is raunchy, the experience is humor, the experience is sex, the experience is celebrity gossip.  Whatever the experience is, the emotion is, that’s where it begins. It’s so much more than just “get in and out in ten seconds.” It’s so much more than just using certain words. It’s really about building an experience and an expectation.

One of my favorite chapters in the book, and it’s one of the weirder chapters that I was reluctant to even include, is about the power of white space – the power of what you leave out, what you don’t say, what you choose to surrender, and how that impacts your brand.

In the case of the book, I’m writing about business in general but it applies to radio, too, and what songs you don’t play, what things you don’t talk about, what clients you don’t allow on your radio station, what you choose not to stand for and how much that can have an influence on how your radio station is perceived and how your brand is perceived as a business. In the book I used examples like the Beatles White Album and Led Zeppelin IV – albums that had no title on them. These bands were able to add a little mystery and intrigue to what they were doing.

In radio we seem sometimes so excited to tell everybody everything about what we do, and in business it’s sort of the same thing. People put an ad on the radio and talk about ten different things in the ad because they’re so excited about communicating what they’re about. I think there’s a lot to be said for stripping that back and leaving a little mystery and intrigue in the brand.

The little details we leave out, the mystery we’re able to create around promotions or around on-air content, and stories. It’s creating drama, it’s creating a reason to tune in and stay tuned in because something really cool is happening here and you might not even know what it is but there’s something cool happening.

RMC has gained half a million new daily listeners in the past year, according to the November-December survey. The daily reach 7.9% is the highest ever for the station, as is the 6.6% marketshare.

Hit station NRJ’s daily audience is up by 555,000 year-on-year to 11.4%, following six consecutive positive ratings results. The morning show 6/9 de Manu has won 190,000 new listeners in the past year. However, the marketshare is up only slightly – from 6.2% a year ago to 6.3% now.

The marketleading full-service station RTL is down from 13.2% to 11.8% in daily reach, while the marketshare drops from 12.7% to 11.9%.

No matter how many or how few listeners are tuned to Pandora at any given moment, 125 million registered users is a whole lot.

Think of the registered user count as analogous to the number of people who own radios.  Owning a radio is being “registered to use” radio.  While the Pandora numbers fall far short of radio’s “registered” distribution, the numbers move closer by the day.

It seems obvious to me that Pandora will become an increasingly attractive alternative for radio’s traditional advertisers as radio’s reach advantage continues to diminish.

Given that streaming is not unique to Pandora – that radio can play in that game, too (and with a much louder and larger megaphone) – this should be viewed as an opportunity for a larger market for all.

In this video, Pandora’s Tim Westergren talks to USA Today about their huge increase in registered users, their global opportunity, and Clear Channel’s challenge to their online radio empire – is it a threat or validation of everything Pandora stands for?

It’s the second year in a row that the country’s commercial radio stations reaches a new revenue record. Radio is also expected to increase its share of total advertising revenue rom 3.9% to 5%, when TNS Gallup releases the 2011 media expenditure figures for 2011 at the end of January.

“Finnish private radio has had very good yearly growth in the past four years. There is not just one single reason behind the growth. The industry has invested in programming and training. The word is out about how cost-effective and powerful radio is” says Stefan Möller, managing director at Radiomedia – the organization for the privately owned radio stations in Finland.

Stefan Möller expects further growth in 20212, thanks in part to the addition of another 10 stations and 56 new frequencies.

It was the best ratings debut for a new series in the history of Animal Planet.

And the name of the show was Hillbilly Handfishin’.

In the ocean of choices on cable TV, how does one series stand out from the rest, particularly if folks are making their viewing choices from an on-screen guide?

The answer:  Start with a great title.

How do you prove that?  ”I don’t have to,” says Animal Planet’s president Marjorie Kaplan in Fast Company:

Just say it three times and it’s true.  In a world where people are scrolling through [programming guides] and you never have enough marketing money, if you can put out a title and people go, ‘I’ve got to watch that….’

Now in the radio world there are rarely programming guides to scroll through (a separate problem and a separate post, to be sure, because there should be). But there’s still an acute need to get noticed.  And to be talked about so others notice you, too.

The water cooler conversation – real or virtual – needs to be sparked somehow.  And the pithiest unit of attention-grabbing, interest-generating energy you can define is a program’s or segment’s title.

“More music morning show”?  Yawn.

“Johnny, Kenny, and Cindy in the Morning?” Yawn.

“All Request Hour?” Yawn.

Create a standout, memorable title, then live up to it.

That’s how you get noticed.  That’s how you attract trial in a world where every listener occasion counts.

Agita swept over the radio industry at the end of last week as Clear Channel announced that “Clear Channel Radio” is now “Clear Channel Media and Entertainment.”

This is something that should surprise no one.  I first noticed this “new” name in the email signatures of several Clear Channel execs over the past year. And if you believe a company’s category should be shaped by what it does and where it’s going rather than what it used to do and what it became famous for, then you might actually call this change long overdue.

To anyone who thinks that “what’s in a name” doesn’t matter, you’re wrong.  A name is a distillation of an aspiration and a strategic vision. It is with Clear Channel just as it was with the company that was once called “Apple Computer” and is now officially known as “Apple.”

To anyone who thinks that this name-change symbolizes bad news for radio, you too are wrong.

As any reader and viewer of this blog knows, I have long argued that the definition of “radio” can be as broad as our competitive advantages and leverage will allow.  This is why so many broadcasters have already made a name-change.  It’s less a curse on radio and more a recognition that radio is a much bigger box than we and (more importantly) our advertisers have historically believed.

As Clear Channel CEO Bob Pittman correctly put it, the new branding “underscores that we are taking our brands and content wherever our listeners expect to find it..”

Radio, you see, is not a broadcast tower with a rate card.

Radio is an idea with an audience, where your job is to illustrate that idea with content and get that content to that audience wherever and however they want it.

Once you have an audience you have the freedom to create new ideas congruent with the appetites and expectations of that audience (hence the logic of “deals” and radio together, for example).

You are limited only by your aspirations, your resources, the talents at your disposal, your commitment, and your inherent vision for what’s possible – for new ways to link consumers and advertisers in the presence of your brands.

This is what Clear Channel Media and Entertainment is all about.

Congratulations, Clear Channel.

The title of the piece in USA Today says it all:  ”YouTube spends $100 million to redefine TV.”

Beginning this month, YouTube is gambling $100 million that by seeding professional production firms such as Young Hollywood — whose slate of YouTube-only programming premieres Monday — it will draw more eyeballs for longer viewing sessions.

YouTube is a massive distribution channel, but not a creator of content.  So what to do?  How about invest in content creation!  And so they are.  And name brand content-creators are falling all over themselves to get a shot at the YouTube distribution platform because they understand what some of us in radio too often take for granted:  Broad distribution is scarce, precious, and essential.  YouTube has it.  So does radio.  And if maintaining relevance in the wake of the fast-multiplying choices for advertisers is the goal, you had better invest in content.

USA Today goes on:

Put simply, the word “television” is being redefined. What once was something produced by a network or cable channel for a screen in the living room is fast becoming anything cobbled together by nearly anyone for a range of devices. This is the culturally revolutionary, highly interactive future YouTube is banking on.

No longer the decision of network gatekeepers, “television” is now “video” and it’s as close as the nearest screen.  YouTube has made its living to date aggregating content’s long tail.  Now it wants a piece of the “short head.”  Because that’s where the dollars are.

This same redefinition is transforming “radio.”  Hence all the angst over what “is” and “isn’t” radio, whether or not it lives in an Arbitron ranker.  You can fight this redefinition, or you can exploit it.

Your choice.

YouTube’s move is to build channels rather than shows per se.  In the New Yorker, Shishir Mehrotra, YouTube’s head product manager, explained the rationale:

Advertising will be done at the level of the audience rather than at the level of the show. Content is no longer proxy for an audience—we know who the audience is. We know what your preferences are, the types of shows you like to watch.

YouTube, and its parent Google, know a lot about what you’re looking at online.  Content may no longer be a proxy for an audience but it is obviously the central attraction to building that audience once the distribution channel provides the “tracks” for the train to run on.  YouTube knows that branded content attracts more advertisers than random amateur videos of kittens on surfboards, hence their hefty investment in content creation and professional channels, like Young Hollywood.

This should serve as a reminder to all in radio about the central primacy of content, where “content” means not only the favorite music of an audience where that music could live in an infinite number of advertising-supported forms elsewhere.  It also means “content” with a capital “C.”  The kind that’s unique and compelling, whether local or not. More often than not this will mean non-music programming.

The opportunities to create such programming are boundless.  But it begins with the recognition that this is the spot where radio’s future lives.

As Ford’s Jim Buczkowski has said:

Customers have so many choices. Radio should worry less about technology, as streaming becomes ubiquitous, it’s about content. Consumers will be able to get the same content through an internet connection they are now getting via the antennas in local areas. Content is most important.

Worry less about technology.  Worry more about content.

What’s the point of being a “local” station if “local” DJs aren’t interacting with “local” consumers?

What if your listeners could interact directly with DJ’s via mobile devices – and audio – going well beyond a typical Facebook page or TXT message?

That’s the premise of what Zambig offers.

Zambig has created tools designed to enable interaction between listeners and DJ’s and to take those interactions social – with audio.

In this video, Zambig founders Blair and Cordell Giesen talk about what their application does and why it matters in the larger picture of social media, interactivity, and monetization of radio’s consumer/advertiser relationships.

This video is about a lot more than Zambig and its products.  It’s about how to connect listeners and radio brands, person-to-person.

Watch this:

Prefer audio?  Try this:

Download mp3

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Radio Mirchi is India’s leading commercial radio network and is owned by the Times of India Group through its Entertainment Network India Limited (ENIL) subsidiary. The new station in Abu Dhabi will be run by ADMC, which already has four radio stations in the market: Emarat FM, Abu Dhabi FM, Star FM and Abu Dhabi Classic FM.

Recently the folks at SoundCloud (a very good tool, by the way) did a presentation called “Why Sound will be Bigger than Video.”

Well, with all due respect, I don’t agree.  At all.

Here’s their argument (points are summarized from Business Insider):

Simplicity. Twitter is popular because it gives users a way to express themselves in only 140 keystrokes. But now everybody with a smartphone has a microphone in their pocket, and it takes only one click to record something. A lot of smartphones are getting video recording as well, but it’s a lot less intrusive to record a conversation or sound snippet than it is to point a video camera in somebody’s face.

Simplicity is not just about “difficulty of recording” but also “difficulty in discovering.”  And sound is infinitely more difficult to discover than video.  One picture is worth a thousand words, and video is comprised of many pictures per second.  Music is obviously much easier to discover than any spoken word audio content because music can be scoped down to a “hook” whereas most spoken word content must be experienced at length to be appreciated.  And that takes time.  And time is scarce.  And that means it’s anything but simple.

If I want to create something that’s easy to identify, discover, and consume, video has it all over sound.

You can listen while you do other things. Video requires your undivided attention, but you can listen to audio in the background while reading or doing other things.

True on the surface.  Assuming we’re talking about music.  As for spoken word content, not so much.

In fact, is it even true of video?  After all, much TV viewing occurs in the proverbial “background” while other things go on.  So is this a real advantage of sound or an advantage of music over non-music, video or audio?

Creation tools are changing. People often associate audio with music that’s professionally recorded by major label artists. But the tools to record and remix sounds are becoming cheaper and easier to use.

This is a music-centric view of audio.  Yes, anybody can create great quality audio for their music.  Whether anybody wants to listen to it or even knows it exists is another matter.

Sound is connected to your emotional centers more than video. Don’t believe it? Ljung suggests plugging your ears the next time you’re watching a scary movie. Without the soundtrack, it will play more like a comedy.

While this is a bit of an exaggeration (horror movies without sound play less like comedies and more like boring dramas), it’s the best point of the bunch. Still, the advantage of video is that it almost always includes sound, right?  And together both pack a punch that beats the impact of either alone.  So this is really a theoretical difference, not a practical one.  After all, video includes sound but sound doesn’t include video.  So who will really be bigger?

Now, to be clear, sound does not NEED to be bigger than video to matter.  Not to advertisers, not to consumers.  Video is not the antidote to every advertiser’s ailment.  But rather than have a David & Goliath presentation where one medium takes on another, what I’d rather see is a presentation where the best practices for sound are illustrated in ways that advertisers can learn from and exploit for the benefit of their clients and for those of us who work with sound every day.

Here’s the original SoundCloud presentation:

By the way, it’s interesting that this presentation was recorded…

…on video.

Recently I was interviewed by a reporter for a major advertising trade, and she asked me whether broadcasters “see the light” that shines on future opportunities, or are they stuck in the past, defending an industry structure that will never be what it once was.

Many do see that light, I explained.  And there are two stories broadcasters can tell, one of which is unfortunately favored over the other.

The first story is one of decline.

It’s one where radio reacts reflexively to claims that “nobody cares about radio anymore” with evidence to the contrary.  It’s one where broadcasters illustrate radio usage as being as great or greater than ever despite the huge number of distractions consumers have today that never existed before.  It’s a story where we attack the new competitors as being “outside” our category or being “less than” radio in one way or another.  As the attention and interest surrounding radio alternatives rises, we go for the jugular.  We recognize that advertisers are attracted by these shiny baubles and fear the notion that they will take their dollars, previously earmarked for us, and devote them to these new ideas.

This first story is a story about defense.  It’s the story of a caged animal lashing out.

If you’re an advertiser, you find this story pathetic and uninspiring.

The second story is one of opportunity and innovation.

It’s one where radio welcomes new competitors because in the cold, harsh light of day those competitors may earn a seat at the table, but it’s still the kids’ table.  And smart broadcasters know that these competitors will simply make their industry better, because that’s what competitors do.

This is the story where radio acknowledges that while reach is still awesome, folks are not listening to radio as much as they used to and that’s okay. Why? Because it’s not radio’s fault – it’s not because radio’s “bad.”  It’s the “fault” of the zillions of alternative ways people spend their time nowadays and it’s why NO mass medium has the same intensity of usage it had 20 years ago.  So get over that.  The listenership is not going to iPods or Pandora or wherever. In fact, it may not be listenership that’s going anywhere.  It’s time that’s going places.  And time will follow whatever fun and entertaining things can fill that time, whether those things are audio-only or not.

So, Mr. Advertiser, stop asking whether folks are listening more or less to radio because it doesn’t matter.  In a world of booming choice, value flows to he who can aggregate consumers, even if it’s not as many consumers as it used to be. Just ask network TV.

And Mr. Broadcaster, stop obsessing on reach.  This is not news to advertisers, and they’re looking for a fresh message.  That’s where the second story comes in.

This second story is one that illustrates the many innovations radio has embraced to extend its enviable reach across new platforms (and what these are vary with the broadcaster – some have many, some have none).  The more radio attracts engagement across platforms (including the one called “the real world”), the more we take back the time radio alternatives have stolen from us. It’s how we give our many audiences new places to go and things to do that they would never have known about if not for radio.  An example: What’s the best way to put your deals platform on the map?  Unite with the massive megaphone of radio, that’s how.  The reach and power of radio makes everything non-radio work better.

Several broadcast groups are projecting that 40% of their revenue will come from non-traditional sources in the years to come.  Those are the groups telling the second story.

The reporter indicated to me that of all the broadcast folks she has talked to, I’m the only one that told the second story.

Tell the second story.

What’s the biggest change you see on the media horizon?

That was one of the questions asked of me last fall in New York during an intensive day-long session with trend gurus, technologists, and investors.  It was part of Coburn Ventures’ annual Crosby Gathering (I am a research fellow with Coburn).

Here’s my answer to that question, and it’s summed up in the title of this post:  ”I am my own medium.”

You can see the answers from lots of other attendees at the event here.

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In the latest Arbitron ratings, Clear Channel’s Lite FM (New York) KOST-FM (Los Angeles) and Lite FM (Chicago) all surge, thanks to the introduction of temporary Christmas music formats.

Clear Channel’s AC-formated New York station Lite FM is up from 6% to 8.2% in marketshare, making it the clear leader in the metropolitan market. CBS Radio-owned runner-up WCBS-FM (classic hits) is up slightly – from 5.7% to 5.9%, while Clear Channel’s hit station Z100 is flat at number three with a 5.1% marketshare.

In Los Angeles, KOST-FM is up from 3.9% to 6.2%, easily surpassing last month’s number one – Clear Channel’s talk station KFI, which falls from 5.6% to 5.2%. Clear Channel’s hit station KIIS FM slides down to third place with a 4.4% share (-.6), making it only a tenth of a percentage point bigger than CBS-owned rival Amp Radio at 4.3% (+.4).

The most dramatic shift is in Chicago, where Clear Channel’s AC station Lite FM shoots up from 14th to first place, while the share more than doubles from 3.1% to 7.4%. CBS Radio’s WBBM (news) is down to second place, but the share dips just a tenth of a percentage point to 5.9%. In third position, Tribune’s talk station WGN has a 5.1% share (-0.6).

See the figures for the top ten stations in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago and San Francisco on our Ratings page here.