Let’s Talk Turkey!

Imagine…

A traditional radio company, a big one, finds that after years of success revenues are dropping and they’re losing a significant share of media buys — maybe even half as much as previous years. The suits get nervous. Something must be done. So a meeting is called. There’s a brain storm. Someone pipes up, “Hey, how about something to do with the internet?” People nod. But, quietly they are concerned that there’s no money there and it will likely cannibalize whatever is left of the traditional radio business. Smarter, cooler heads prevail. Imaginations run wild. Ideas are hatched. A vision is shared. Two years later, this big, old radio company is running the eighth biggest music streaming platform in the world — shattering expectations, goals, and super-serving their audience with a social radio experience unlike any other.

Sounds inspiring, no?

Okay, I took some dramatic liberties but that is essentially the story behind Karnaval.com, the number one start-up in Istanbul, Turkey according to Wired Magazine. It’s a multi-media, digital radio service created by the largest radio group in Turkey Spectrum Medya.

“It’s great to be singled out like that,” said Spectrum Medya CEO Ali Abhary. “But, it is even more poignant as a radio station, with radio being one of the oldest and not necessarily the sexiest mediums out there, for us to be on that list with those other great companies is a wonderful testament to what radio can be and that radio doesn’t need to have this dodgy, old image that it sometimes does.”

On this week’s Radio Stuff podcast, Abhary explained why Karnaval.com was an important business extension for the radio company.

“Just like in any other market, in Turkey we see radio revenues flattening and in fact radio’s share of the advertising pie has reduced. Historically about ten years ago it was about 6% and now it’s about 2.8%.”

Abhary’s challenge was to create a digital business that complimented the terrestrial radio stations, but didn’t cannibalize their traditional revenues. Enter Karnaval.com – a “radio rich,” digital platform that streams their five FM stations and 11 niche formats (Jazz, Classical, hard to find Turkish music among them.)

It wasn’t an easy sell for the traditional radio employees.

“It did take some time, but I think everyone has bought into it now. We promote our stations now as ‘Metro FM is a Karnaval.com station,’ our radio IDs are broadcast that way.” Abhary understands the trepidation, “Seeing this sort of disruption in their business is a little disconcerting at first, but I think they all understand now the value and the power the digital element can give and the great story that it gives to advertisers and listeners alike.”

Employees were the first hurdle. Listeners caught on quick and loved it straight away. So much so, they expanded the vision to include social interaction through the San Mateo, California company Jelli. Now listeners can vote songs up or down in real-time influencing the streaming radio’s playlist.

The next challenge was advertisers.

“It took a while to get it out there. Are you trying to sell ads to digital buyers or radio buyers? We’re able sell advertising on a targeted basis whether it’s targeted by device or by demographics or geography of listeners. The digital buyers are able to understand that. We’re also able to price it on a cost-per-listen basis. And they get that as well. But, the challenge is they don’t have audio creative, typically. The radio buyers on the other side, they have the audio creative but they don’t have necessarily the understanding of targeting or the digital capabilities that digital radio has. So, we actually did a two-pronged approach. We have our terrestrial FM team selling the Karnaval.com inventory that we have to regular FM buyers and we’re saying, ‘Who cares whether sound people are listening to is being transmitted on FM frequency to an FM receiver or via a Wi-Fi to a mobile phone or to a laptop connected to the internet? It doesn’t really matter as long as the sound is there.’ And the radio buyers have now bought that on and they’re starting to send us old-fashioned radio buys to the platform. The digital buyers at the same time whether it’s using audio or not using audio through rich media, pre-roll videos and whatnot, are also buying on from there. For a business that’s about a year old we’re doing fantastic revenue growth right now. ”

In just over a year, Karnaval.com is meeting and exceeding its goals and serving over 6.5 million unique users each month accounting for 21 million hours of listening. Karnaval.com uses its FM stations to promote the platform in addition to social media, TV commercials and sponsoring concerts. Through the concerts they can create unique content for the digital users such as back stage artist interviews and acoustic sets.

“The great thing about the service is that it has a lot of rich experience as you listen to radio that is beyond just listening to audio. So, as a song is playing you have artist biographies, discographies, a lot of photo galleries, we have an integration with Ticket Master where if an artist has a concert in town it will let you buy tickets to see that artist as you are listening to the song.”

Karnaval.com is not trying to compete with the Pandoras and Spotifys of the world. But, interestingly enough one of the “big services” in streaming music approached Karnaval.com this week in an effort to buy advertising for their own online music service.

I would encourage you to check out Karnaval.com or download the app, And you can try, but be forewarned it is all in Turkish. Regardless, it’s a great model for radio and new media success.

(Credit: I was first introduced to Karnaval.com from UK radio futurologist James Cridland) 

Arbitron Panelist,”F— this!”

“The first couple days I’m wearing this thing and I’m turning into radio just trying to get these points and then finally I said, ‘Well, f— this.’” – Former PPM panelist

How many times have you wanted to say ‘f— it.’ to Arbitron? Those were the words of a caller I will call “Joe” to the Tom Leykis Show on New Normal Network.

Listen to the comments in context here.

This is a taboo topic of conversation for terrestrial radio and it would disqualify a radio station’s ratings faster than you can push “scan” when the Kars-for-Kids commercial starts up. However, it was the Top Story on Radio Stuff’s podcast. (editor’s note: Arbitron emailed their responses to our questions, so we had a British bloke voice the answers on the podcast. It’s worth a listen for that alone.)

DISCLAIMER: As a programmer, I have praised Arbitron for measuring my genius programming with precision when ratings are high and cursed them when they dropped. (Certainly there must be a sampling error, no?)

Joe v. Arbitronado

So, I sent the audio from “Joe” to Arbitron’s Director of Programming Services Jon Miller and asked him what he thought. He says it sounds like things are working the way they should.

 “Arbitron has safeguards in place to help ensure the integrity of our PPM ratings. In this case, the panelist’s comments are a demonstration of some of those safeguards, such as calling households if their compliance in carrying the meter falls off.”

Caller Joe complained to Leykis:

 “I started getting all these phone calls. I’m thinking you know who the hell is this calling me? We’ll it’s Arbitron. So apparently this meter has something that can tell when you’re moving and when you’re sitting still. And so when I’m not moving, they’re calling me – pretty much harassing me about why am I not wearing the meter and they can’t get accurate ratings and I need to be wearing my meter. Well, after about two weeks of this, they called me and said, “You’re not wearing the meter!” and I finally said, ‘alright, fuck this. Send me a box and I’m sending all this shit back.’”

Miller wouldn’t go so far as to characterize the company’s behavior as harassment, but the calls are part of the quality control.

“Arbitron monitors compliance with its instructions, contacts households who aren’t complying and works with them to improve their carry habits whether through coaching or other incentives.”

The 2010 Broadcast Architecture study on PPM panelists talked to one woman who clipped her meter to a ceiling fan, Joe plopped it down in front of a radio, and I’ve heard that others have attached them to pets. So, Jon Miller, how do you know when a panelist is cheating.

“The PPM has a motion detector built into it allowing us to capture both the motion records and media exposure from that day. There are thresholds for how many hours of motion a day we require for our panelists to be counted in the days ratings, and the more they wear the meter the more incentives they receive.”

And then there’s sample size. It wasn’t brought up by the caller, but it is commonly heard uttered in anger and echoing through the hallways outside PDs offices.

“PPM’s sample sizes are designed to deliver the same level of statistical reliability as the Diary survey, but with less total sample. We accomplish that by surveying listeners for a much longer period of time (28 days in just one PPM survey month) compared to the one-week diary timeline. This level of detail, thousands and thousands of days of measurement across a single month, allows us to see so many granular things with PPM data that we just can’t with the Diary.”

Parting Shots

“If Arbitron is the standard in terms of traditional AM and FM radio then it’s a flawed standard.” -Joe the caller

Joe’s point would be more valid if he wasn’t just complaining that he wanted to earn the money without doing the work.

Jon offers some real valuable insights here for everyone in radio.

“One of the most fascinating things I’ve seen over the 5+ years that PPM has been in use is how much and how fast listening habits are evolving and changing. Nothing stays static in PPM, and we’re finding that radio listening is dynamic. This continually motivates broadcasters to continue offering compelling content on stations with clear and strong brand images, so that they can cut through with listeners in an ever more crowded media world.”       – Jon Miller, Arbitron VP of Programming Services

Clear. Strong. Brands. Cut Through.

And I would add this:

“PPM isn’t perfect, but it’s all we’ve got.” – Larry Gifford 

Upon Further Review

We can’t force our ideal listeners to participate – it’s a roll-of-the-dice and sometimes you roll snake eyes.

Arbitron is weeding out at least some of the cheaters. Good.

We can’t know “true” listening behavior without NSA quality spy equipment and the violation of our listener’s constitutional rights.

Stations and panelists are both trying to game the system. Makes me wonder who Arbitron is gaming.

The sample size is what it is, unless stations want to spend even more ridiculous amounts of money to be told your station is still – awesome, sucky, irrelevant, vital – depending on the time of the month.

The success or failure of your station is in the hands of Caller Joe. Good luck.

Is This The Best You’ve Got?

“A diamond is a chunk of coal

that made good under pressure.”

– Anonymous

Every day whether you are a producer, a talent, a board op, recording a podcast, or editing audio – ask yourself these important questions…

1. Is this the best we’ve got?

2. Would I listen to this?

3. Is this relevant?

4. Are we playing the hits?

5. Is there a better, different, more impactful way to do this?

6. Does this live up to the Mission and Brand of my company?

If the answer is, “no” – what are you doing to change it, make it better, evolve it, and own it?

“It’s the little details that are vital.

Little things make big things happen.”

– John Wooden

When I come across smart, successful people have can contribute to our conversation, I enjoy passing along their thoughts. Radio consultant Valerie Geller wrote the book “Principles of Creating Powerful Radio.” Her principles are worth reviewing…

 · Tell the truth.

· Make it matter.

· Never be boring.

· Speak visually, in terms listeners can picture.

· Start with your best material.

· Story tell powerfully.

· Listen to your station but also check out other media – know what’s out there and what the audience is listening to and how they get their information and entertainment!

· Ask: Why would someone want to listen to this?

· Talk to the individual. Use “You.”

· Do engaging transitions & handoffs.

· Promote, brag about your stuff (and other people’s stuff!)

· Stay curious, relax, and allow the humor to happen.

· Be who you are on the radio.

· Take risks, dare to be great.

I love those principles. Use these as a guideline as you go about your daily tasks. Every day, whether it’s the NFL Playoffs or the dog days of summer, make certain you are passionate, relevant, interesting, engaging, curious, entertaining, informative, impactful, telling stories, teasing, taking risks, being creative, driving for results, doing everything it takes to make remarkable radio, acting with urgency, thinking differently and having fun. These are the things that separate good from great.

 “Success is dependent on effort.”

– Sophocles

Um, Uh, I Mean… Is This Great Audio?

Over the years, I’ve worked with producers, programmers and top production folks in the biz. Based on our insights and opinions I present some of the qualities of a great soundbyte Please feel free to add to this list.

• Adds emotion, color, reaction, humor, or shock to a story or topic
• Audio quality is clear and crisp  
• Gets right to the point
• Tells us something we don’t already know; incites or informs
• Should be a strong, succinct opinion that feels exclusive to radio (Though clichés are the norm amongst athletes, it is our duty to ask questions that elicit responses that educates the listener)
• Is compelling, interesting
• Should support or advance a story or topic
• Is between :05 and :15 though can be shorter or longer on occasion. (if longer… shorter versions should be made to accommodate sports updates)
• It should end when the subject begins to change.
• Start the byte at the point where whoever is talking starts speaking without the saying “um, uh, oh, etc.”
• Any ums, ahhs, or oh’s in the byte should be cut out, as long as it still sounds natural, also any gaps where the speaker is gathering their thoughts should be cut out as well as long as it doesn’t change context
• The end of the byte should come right after the point is established