INK TANK

Stick a Needle in My Veins: My Life as a Junkie

Note: The following  is offering a product, which I think would make an awesome last-minute Christmas gift for employees or advertisers that can be shipped in time for Christmas. Do not read further if you don’t wish to learn about a cool new radio. I don't want you to feel tricked into reading a commercial message.

Yes, I’m a junkie and have been for over four decades. I’m not addicted to some dark-alley drug. Instead, I inject it through my ears (along with millions of other Americans). My vice is radio and as a result my other vice is collecting radios … all kinds of radios.

In my office you’d find shelves full of antique radios and other cool radios in all shapes and designs. To me there is nothing quite as nice as a well-designed radio. Radio is my heroin.  I know it's a sickness but I’m not willing to live without it.

My oldest radio is an old breadbox home brew that I picked up in a farmer’s estate sale in Indiana. My most unique is called a Tesla, which is a beautiful art deco streamline design produced in Europe in the 1930s. My most collectable is an original Walt Disney Steamboat Willy Emerson pressboard radio from the 1930s. I have loads of colorful radios made of Catlin, an early pre-plastic material, and I have a warehouse full of old floor models. Oh, and I have a collection of radio memorabilia and old microphones.

As you can see, I’m addicted.

The Quest for a Better Radio

I buy lots of radios. If I see a cool design, I buy it. If I hear of a great product I buy it. I’m always on the hunt for a better radio. And though I don’t have the time I used to have, it’s not unusual for me to sit up late to “DX” distant AM signals. I even have a radio which has a super-antenna designed to reduce the whistle and increase the reception of distant stations.

A few weeks ago I got a call from Bob Crane, who has a company called C.Crane, a direct marketing catalogue full of radios and a big radio advertiser. He told me he was coming out with a new radio and wanted to know if I’d be willing to give him my feedback. I liked it so much I decided you might like it too. Its called a CCGozo.

Unexpected Size

When saw the box for the CCGozo I assumed it was about the size of any other tabletop unit, but when I opened the package I found it to be unusually small. My first reaction was that it was kinda cute. It’s not much bigger than a box of mac and cheese.

Unexpected Sound

My next reaction was that, being so small, it can’t possibly sound very good. I was too lazy to put batteries in it (frankly, I did not want to waste a set of batteries on it because I was convinced it would sound tiny and tinny) so I plugged it in and tuned around the dial.

The audio was amazingly clear. Then I realized I was on the AM dial and in the house with all the electrical noise yet there was none of the typical AM interference. Then I switched it to FM and I was absolutely floored that the radio could sound that clear and that good while being so small.

The Comforting Sound of Tubes

Most people are not old enough to remember when radios had tubes. The sound of radio changed with the invention of solid state electronics, which no longer required tubes. Tube radios had a sound, which was rich, warm and had a unique presence. This little radio has the rich sound of an old tube radio without the whistle and interference.

Feel Good Audio

Of course I’m a radio junkie and I love radios. But if I were giving a radio to an advertiser or an employee for Christmas I would want it to sound awesome, have great reception and have a nice design. The fact that it’s kinda little is an extra benefit because it takes up very little space. I fell in love with it right away yet its sound is crisp, clear and has that old tube sound, which is unbeatable.

If you can ever fall in love with a little table top radio, I think this is the one.

Finally a Great AM/FM Radio


For each of the last couple of years I’ve told you about radios, which make great gifts for employees and advertisers. Though I have to admit the AM broadcasters were upset that the last two did not have AM radio.  This one does and it sounds terrific.

But don’t take my word for it.  I’m confident enough that you’ll feel the same way and you can hardly go wrong for the price. But if you hate it, send it back and get a refund. Bob Crane will stand behind it.

You won't pay the price on the website for this product or any of the products listed below. Bob has agreed to sell CCGozo for $99.95 each if you buy 2 or more if you use our links. If you need a last minute gift for advertisers or employees you can still get it in time for Christmas if you order today.

You can learn more here.

Eric Rhoads
Radio Junkie Since 1969

PS: 10 Christmas Goodies for Radio Junkies:

What advertiser in America sells radios on national radio and has for decades? C. Crane and Company. They believe in radio, they love radio and they spend a fortune on radio. Bob won’t tell me how much but I know it's a fortune …. And it must be working because he is there year after year. Frankly a nice way to thank him for his passion and love for radio would be to take a shot at this little gem. 

I love C.Crane radios because Bob is a radio junkie and is driven to invent radios with better sound and reception. He also makes some other cool products. I’ve listed my favorite other products in case you’re looking to add something to your wish list. I personally own each of these products and would not write about them if I did not love them.

My top 10 Favorite CCrane Products for Radio Junkies like me (all which are discounted for you with the links provided if you buy two or more).

 1. AM/FM/Shortwave Pocket Radio: Though I don’t smoke, this is just a little bigger than a pack of cigarettes and it’s the radio that goes in my travel bag. I can listen to the world.

2.    CC Witness: This is an MP3 recorder and player which has built in AM and FM so you can record broadcasts and listen and turn them into an MP3 file to email your friends. I bought one for a radio consultant friend when they first came out and he tells me it's the single most valuable tool he has as a programmer so he can listen on it and them save the broadcast so he can go over airchecks with his air talent.

3. CC Radio- EP: This sits at my desk. It's a great basic radio with killer reception. The reception of CC radio is always the finest for pulling in distant signals.

4. CC Wifi: Also at my desk I can listen to internet radio around the world. It’s wireless. I’ve owned it for a couple years and I use it a lot. Lets me hear what stations are doing in far away places plus towns across America. If something is going on in some city I’ll tune in to see the radio perspective.

5. FM Transmitter 2: This is so cool. Plug any source into it and you can listen to that on any radio in the house. I like to plug my ipod into it and then let it play so I can tune in when I want it.

6. CC Solar Observer: I use this when camping with my boys. Its one of those wind up power radios AND is solar powered. It’s also great knowing I have it if the power goes out. If you lived in Connecticut when the snow hit a couple weeks ago you probably ran out of batteries. This would have been awesome.

7. Super USB WiFi Antenna 3: I have a cabin on my property that cannot get access to the wifi in the house… until I plug this antenna into my PC. Suddenly I getting the signal and I can get up to one mile away if I’m line of sight.

8. CC Radio SW (Shortwave): I love to listen to the world and though I love my pocket Shortwave this one has exceptional reception and more features. I sometimes put it by the bed at night and listen to the world with the headphones. It’s really a great reception radio.

9. CC Radio 2: Exceptional AM reception. This thing pulls in from long distances. CC makes my favorite reception devices. The audio tuned for talk radio so I love its rich sound. I also love that it has the HAM radio band so I can listen to local Hams and it has NOAA Weather alerts.

10. CCGozo: Though I talked about it above I wanted to list it here too because it truly is one of my top 10 favorites.

Does Radio Win By Fighting Pandora?

Pandora is slamming terrestrial radio. Releases about their listening stats as compared to Arbitron ratings of stations in markets across the country are making a lot of radio people mad. Some because they view Pandora as stretching the numbers to make their story look good. Others are concerned because a streamed signal is not evidence of actual listening, whereas PPM records actual listening. Others are frightened but refuse to admit it. I and some others simply wish we thought of it first.

Related Stories

• Pandora's CEO Keeps Eye on Radio's Revenue
• WARNING! WARNING! Pandora Targeting Radio's Advertisers And Station Clutter.

Is Pandora doing anything wrong? Probably not. I don't know a manager in radio who has not found a truthful way to tell their numbers story in some ranking or comparison to make themselves look good. In fact at our Forecast conference Lou Paskalis (pictured right), VP of Global Media, Content Development and Mobile Marketing for American Express was discussing a partnership with Clear Channel as being refreshing because they actually came in and listened to the problems they needed to solve rather than "every station coming in and showing us how they are number one. They can't all be number one.

PANDORA The Game Changer

The game has changed and like it or not you're in it. Some in radio want to battle the fact that a listener on Pandora should not be counted in aggregate but by individual station listening because the stats are not apples to apples because the listeners is on different Pandora channels whereas Pandora is using that captive listeners total listening time. So what? After all from an advertisers point of view all they care about is whether or not they capture that listener. We too could play that game. Is it different from Clear Channel touting their total aggregated listening number in a market or nationally? I think not.

Though what Pandora is doing is no different than bundling all the listening hours of a cluster in a market radio seems to think it's a bad idea because it misleads  advertisers when they take the total Pandora listening in Dallas for instance and compare it to a single station. They are right, kind of.

The problem as I see it is that they are comparing one form of measurement to another, which may be good competitive strategy but it lacks credibility. The bigger problem is that most local and national advertisers don't know the difference and when they see a comparison of Pandora vs a local station they believe the numbers not understanding the full picture and why it may not be a fair comparison.

Radio cannot have it both ways. Out of one side of their mouth they are asking for equality in measurement and out of the other side they don't really want it. What if, heaven forbid, Pandora shows up bigger than local radio if side by side accurate ratings are provided? Though it may seem like a good idea, it might not be.

Should Arbitron Step In?

Arbitron has a responsibility to step in anytime their numbers are being used, especially if and when two side by side numbers are not the same measurement yet are being used as a comparison as if they were in the same methodology. They should visibly (to advertisers) make sure that Pandora vs. local radio stats are being properly represented. They also need to produce a document, which warns local and national advertisers of the things floating around the market just like they used to sticker a book when a station was not following their guidelines. Most important they need to set a standard so advertisers know what is and is not real even if it makes Pandora look good.

But Arbitron's success is dependent on radio's continued success and if radio stops an effort to correct what they believe to be misrepresented numbers comparisons they have to be willing to live with the alleged misrepresentations. So many feel Arbitron should leave it alone. Ultimately they will probably do what their customers demand and my guess is that the radio companies won't demand it.

On the other hand if they agree to it they may be opening Pandora's box because its possible it could represent Pandora well. This is where they cannot have it both ways. I suspect subscribing companies may have a hand in pressuring Arbitron one way or the other though they are very good at remaining neutral.

Is Pandora Radio?

 
At our Forecast conference there were discussions about whether or not Pandora is radio and whether is should be  measured by analysts as radio or digital. Frankly listeners don't make the distinction between Pandora, Slacker, Your station or Sirius XM. To them its radio. They don't think about the delivery mechanism or whether one is pure play audio vs localized entertainment based audio.  And there is a generation who does not find themselves wed to a radio, but live in a world where the swiss army knife of all devices having all services is what they care about. They will listen to the ones they most prefer and broadcasters can't change that.

A Look into the Future

This discussion will be laughable ten years from now. Maybe five. It's the same discussion that took place between AM and FM. I'm old enough to remember the discussions when FM listening overtook AM listening and whether or not it should be counted as valid. AM broadcasters did not think FM should be considered and many tried to prevent advertiser adoption. There was even discussion that FM stations should not be allowed to become members of the RAB. It was fruitless, useless and silly.

Its human nature to want to protect your turf by finding ways to block the acceptance of others but you cannot block consumers from making the call of what they most want. Fighting technology is silly and radio broadcasters are pretending that Pandora is not a factor and that everything is status quo. Again its, silly and shortsighted.

When Groupon came to the scene radio was quick to poo poo its existence. But when its giant valuations became known radio decided to get into the game and compete or collaborate with Groupon, Living Social and others. Thus the creation of Sweet Jack. Yet Pandoras Billion dollar valuation may not yet have gained enough to notice, even though they are valued higher than all publicly traded radio companies combined. Rather than pretending Pandora isn't a factor, why not compete with them for a piece of the $500 million dollar pure play market, which is bound to grow exponentially. You have the power to brand, the power to create. Compete head to head. Or better yet, innovate and come up with something better. You have powerful brands, which offer some big advantage.

Your biggest disadvantage, however, is making fear-based decisions. What if I cannibalize our terrestrial radio stations? Its that thinking that killed newspapers and though our efficacy remains strong (unlike theirs) we should assume someone will kill us and therefore should own and invent the killer so we control it.

Though I remain pro- radio because I love radio, I am not against Pandora or any other form of online radio or satellite radio and I think the terrestrial radio looks silly trying to fight them. These are exciting times and these challenges are the wake up call I've been predicting since I went into the internet radio business in 1999. Though my timing was off my predictions are coming true. Internet listening is a viable option, its business model is more viable today than ever, streaming is lower cost and bandwidth is growing in availability and radio is sharing listening with serious internet only competitors on a multitude of devices.

At my first Internet Conference in 1998 I laid out the future we are living today. You, terrestrial radio had a 13 year chance to get ahead of this and invest in the technology and now that it's happening many are whining. Isn't it time to be pro-active and stop thinking you can stop the momentum of things consumers embrace?

Is Pandora crushing terrestrial radio? Probably not. But advertisers are believing their story and Arbitron needs to step into the discussion and make sure the story is clear, no matter the outcome. Radio should defend what it owns in terms of listening and should defend any competitive threat to make sure numbers are accurate and well represented. Beyond that this is a dog eat dog world and the best competitors usually win. Perhaps the focus should be on keeping your lead.

I think we, the industry have it backwards. Embrace Pandora. Embrace Satellite Radio. Embrace those things most likely to eat into our revenues. Embrace them, understand them, and be joyful that they are bringing new advertiser interest to audio. Then find a way to have a piece of that pie.

Eric Rhoads is the Publisher of Radio Ink which in 2012 will be celebrating its 20th anniversary. He can be reached at [email protected] Or you can leave your comments below.

 

The New Station

"It's about time," I thought. "Finally, I'm hearing something great about a local station." I was in a national chain store, and music was blaring over the PA system. When I went up to check out, I heard the two girls at the counter talking. 

Girl One: "I love this station. It's absolutely incredible."

Girl Two: "I know. It's so awesome."

Then they spotted me waiting to pay, so I said, "New station? What station is it?" I was indeed curious because every song the station was playing was a smash, but I hadn't heard a break to hear what it was.

Girl One: "It's a hot new station on Pandora. Queen Radio."

Last week at Radio Ink Forecast, there was a lot of discussion about Pandora. The analysts were debating whether they should include Pandora in radio numbers -- up to now, they've been monitoring it as "digital revenues." But the debate was never resolved, even though Pandora has opened local sales offices and is selling radio to local advertisers. It was also mentioned that the market cap of Pandora is larger than all the publicly traded radio companies combined.

Perhaps the answer comes from the listener. To those two girls I encountered while shopping, Pandora is a station. They didn't say it was an Internet station or a local station, just a station. If their PA system accesses the Internet for its content, all stations there have an equal shot to get played. They chose Queen Radio.

Does radio have its head in the sand? Certainly Clear Channel doesn't, since it's investing heavily in iHeartRadio. CBS Radio also does not, as it continues to support Last.fm and Radio.com. But what about the rest of us?

Some slough it off because online makes up only 2 percent of all radio listening. Others think that the business model can never fly because of the cost per listener minute of streaming. But should you ignore it?

Certainly if you're in any of the top markets where Pandora has local sales organizations, it's not practical to keep your head in the sand. To think they won't convert your advertisers to their advertisers is probably naive. Though Pandora may not have the numbers you have, they have an exciting story to tell, and they have the advantage that everyone is buzzing about them.

Early in my business life, one of my mentors told me a couple of things that apply here:

1. Healthy paranoia will keep you from being complacent and arrogant. You need to understand your competitors better than they understand themselves.

2. Never ignore a competitor. You may not have thought of everything, and one little thing can change the game forever.

3. Things change so fast that sometimes you don't know what hit you. One day things are normal, the next day everything has changed.

4. Always do an analysis of your true vulnerability. You're always vulnerable somewhere.

At Forecast, Lou Dickey said, "Radio's usage stats and efficacy have not changed like they did for the newspapers." He is right. Radio remains strong. We do not appear to be losing our audiences. We're still a part of people's lives. But we need to understand that things could change in a split second and that Pandora, Slacker, and other online radio plays are a factor not to be ignored. We need to be smart and make sure we're extending our brands online and, most importantly, cementing our local relationships with listeners and giving them deeper reasons to listen than "the greatest hits."

My dad was in the meat case business as a young man. Every grocery store had meat cases. When the supermarket was introduced, everyone predicted the doom of the small local grocer. My father thought it was the end of his meat case business. But after all the predictions of doom, he found his business actually increased and he sold more meat cases than ever. His industry was reinforcing that: "Ah-ha! They were wrong. The supermarket isn't changing things after all!"

Then suddenly, almost overnight, not another meat case sold for 10 years. He had to reinvent and go into a different business. He said the change was like flicking a switch.

Will consumers and advertisers flick the off switch on radio? Though none of us like to think so and though the numbers remain strong, what if this shift in listener-directed music has changed everything forever? What if the predictions of Pandora eating radio are right? Are you ready? Is it possible that the iHeartRadio Clear Channel is investing in will replace the transmitters they so dearly hold? Though I don't think so, I know people who do. One of us is probably right. A little healthy paranoia can't hurt.

And from the consumer standpoint, it really doesn't matter. If they can find it on computer, their car, their mobile and streaming devices, to them it's just another station.