2. Three “C’s” of Radio Today
• Competition
• Consolidation
• Control
3. Competition
• Most competitive of today’s media
• More “radio” than anything else
• More radios than TVs; more radio stations
than TV stations or newspapers
• Take in the least amount of media advertising
dollars (about 8%)
• Radio is largely a local medium
• Audience share: 82% tune into FM
4. Consolidation
• Prior to the Telecommunications Act of 1996,
most radio stations were owned by single
owners; at the time, you could not own more
than one AM and FM in any one market
• Market: a geographically based media area; its
size determined by population
• Telecommunications Act of 1996 allowed for
multiple station ownership, resulted in
supergroups like Entercom, Clear Channel &
Cumulus
5. Consolidation
• After an initial boom in acquisitions, many of
radio’s biggest groups are now selling off
stations, after failing to turn the kinds of
profits expected
• LMA: lease management agreement/local
market agreement – allows a radio group to
control the programming, operations and
sales of additional radio stations in the same
market (without violating ownership rules)
6. Control
• Rigorous product control
• Research driven programming and advertising
• A lot of cross- talk between sales, promotions
and programming to create a unified station
message for both advertisers and the
audience.
7. Programming: Formats
• What is a format?
• The genre of the station; its
music, personalities, contests,
positioning
• What is a target audience?
• Broken down with demographics (age, race,
gender, socio-economic status, geography)
• How to identify the target audience?
8. Types of formats
• Country
• News/talk
• Oldies
• Hispanic
• Adult contemporary (AC
• Sports
• Contemporary hits radio (CHR)
• Classic rock
• Classic hits
• Hot AC
• Modern rock
• Active Rock
• Urban
9. Noncommercial radio
• Community stations: supported by members of the community,
serves that community, and employs the community
• College radio: licensed to schools as a learning tool, serves college
communities
• Public radio stations: meet criteria established by the Corporation
for Public Broadcasting
• Low Power FMs (LPFM): news stations that serve small listening
areas (i.e. the Thruway traffic channel)
10. Satellite Radio Today
• Started strong, forecasters
predicted annual revenues of
$8B by 2014
• iPod and other mobile media
may have been a factor in
decreasing audience
• Today, just one company:
SirusXM
11. Growth of Internet and Mobile
Broadcasting
• More than 80% of Americans have
access to broadband connection, and
nearly 505 of homes have at least 2
computers (Arbitron)
• ComScore: 2010 – 14% of smart
phone usage was to listen to music
• Internet music services have to pay a
fee to the Copyright Royalty Board
for performance rights for music
• Some services are limited (number of
skipped tracks, time length of stream
– all part of their CRB agreements)
12. Radio station structure
• Operations: Traffic department – coordinates
advertising on a station, between sales and
programming
• Sales department: sells airtime for a station
• Program department: on-air staff, program
directors, production
• Engineering: responsible for keeping the
station on the air, and sounding good!
13. Radio employment today
• Consolidation, automation, syndicated
programming, has made the job market very
competitive
• 17% ethnic minority, 42% female
• Starting salaries are very low, but the
potential for success is always there!
• Typically sales will make the most, average on
air salary is $25,000
