Pending Business: One Billion and Counting
By Steve Lapa
Lapcom Communucations Corp
President
Let’s talk streaming because I don’t get what is happening. Maybe you do.
Talk shows place decent cameras in the radio studio, maybe one in the control room, possibly a third at a “producer’s” desk, a flat screen or two with cool visuals in the background to fulfill the coolness quotient, push the video stream to YouTube or another platform and wait for the throngs of followers to find the talk radio show, view, subscribe and stay with it until the numbers are staggering.
Sometimes the video stream is promoted on air or your station’s website and the expectation is the online audience will skyrocket. After several months, the viewer numbers don’t skyrocket, or maybe the numbers develop modestly, but sales becomes the art of packaging. Because the scale necessary to move the sales needle is still not happening.
This is not a hypothetical. This is happening today at some of the best radio stations delivering high-level radio programming in markets of all sizes around the country. Why do we struggle with how to turn the best radio programming in the world into competitive online video content?
The short answer is great talk radio programming is just that: great radio programming. But herein lies the dilemma. Great talk radio talent, in any format, are natural masters of the foundational elements that can make their YouTube, Rumble, and other social media video platforms gain audience and successfully generate revenue.
Let’s identify the most important reason why:
1. Authentic. Show me one successful talk radio host in any talk radio format who does not exude “authentic.” Agree or disagree with the host on politics, sports, finances or fishing, great talk show hosts are authentic, and their audience can sense the passion coming through in every show. Now, let’s identify the nasty four-letter word, stopping many great talk talents and their content from performing competitively on current social media video platforms. That four-letter word?
2. Show. Most great talk radio talents understand what it takes to put on a great “show.” Mechanics, formatics, and unique skills are developed over time designed to maximize Nielsen performance. But often, many of these – forgive me here – old media “show” skills are not relevant to the huge audience now consuming 1 billion hours of YouTube video every day. Yet we persist and video stream the radio “show” with the expectation an online audience will skyrocket, sales will explode, and the future is as easy as hitting the send button. It just does not work that way.
The radio industry has developed many of the greatest “authentic” talents in the world. How will we plan for a future that has billions of hours of consumption?
Steve Lapa is the president of Lapcom Communications Corp. based in Palm Beach Gardens, FL. Lapcom is a media sales, marketing, and development consultancy. Contact Steve Lapa via email at: Steve@Lapcomventures.com.
the Annual Report alone, without also uploading it to its intended destination in a timely manner, here more than nine months late, may, in certain circumstances, constitute (and here does constitute) a violation of the requirements to analyze the Stations’ EEO program. The length of time during which Cumulus failed to upload its Annual Report is persuasive evidence that Cumulus did not ‘routinely analyze the adequacy of their various EEO program elements in achieving broad outreach to all segments of the community’ and address any problems found as a result of such analysis… Consequently, given the specific circumstances of this case, we reject Cumulus’s argument that any self-evaluation it did in fact undertake was adequate and satisfied the self-assessment rule.” 
The United Nations and its specialized agency, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) have given the radio industry all around the globe an invaluable gift. It’s called “World Radio Day 2024.” Now in its 13th installment, WRD takes place annually on February 13 with the purpose of spotlighting the accomplishments, importance, and ongoing relevance of the radio medium as it evolves deeper into the 21st century. This year’s WRD theme is “Radio: A Century Informing, Educating and Entertaining.” By officially designating the platform as worthy of its own officially sanctioned UN International Day, the august world body has recognized, spotlighted, and endorsed radio’s continuing relevance and potential for being a vital force for the betterment of humanity.
The United Nations and its specialized agency, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) have given the radio industry all around the globe an invaluable gift. It’s called “World Radio Day 2024.” Now in its 13th installment, WRD takes place annually on February 13 with the purpose of spotlighting the accomplishments, importance, and ongoing relevance of the radio medium as it evolves deeper into the 21st century. This year’s theme is “Radio: A Century Informing, Educating and Entertaining.” By officially designating the platform as worthy of its own officially sanctioned UN International Day, the august world body has recognized, spotlighted, and endorsed radio’s continuing relevance and potential for being a vital force for the betterment of humanity.
Research shows that readers to trade publications like articles with five bullet points. Here are my five bullet points for 2024. If these were to be deployed, you could be thriving by the end of the year. These actions would increase sales and audience share.
Season.” The station says it “featured an informative, spirited, and sometimes fiery debate about the growing problem of organized retail theft and what can be done about it.” Appearing on the panel of experts were Todd Spitzer, Orange County district attorney; Marc Beeart, director of fraud & corruption prosecutions at the L.A. County District Attorney’s office; 
AM/FM radio listeners are 39% more likely to pay $301+ to have their taxes prepared and show greater familiarity, interest, consideration, and usage of tax category brands; 2) AM/FM radio ads drive site traffic for tax preparation brands: In the LeadsRx attribution study of a tax preparation service’s multi-wave campaign, AM/FM radio generated between a 43% to 47% increase in website traffic; 3) Branding early and often in tax preparation service ads drives more site traffic: LeadsRx found the top three creative executions that drove site traffic for a tax preparation service had the marketer’s brand name within the first five seconds of the ad; and 4) compared to other radio formats, a 2023 tax prep campaign on news/talk and sports stations realized a higher percentage share of interactions than the percentage share of their Nielsen ad impressions. 
Earlier this week, Michael Harrison published his top 10 list of suggestions for being a successful talker. Item number three really caught my eye:
the study found that eliminating 10 words of audio copy increases the Creative Standout score by 1%. Creative Standout is achieved when consumers say, “this ad stands out” and rate an ad with an 8, 9, or 10 on a one-to-ten-standout scale. Further it found that eliminating 10 words of audio copy increases web traffic by 0.25%. Creative Standout in audio advertising is strongly linked to ad response via website visits. For each 1% rise in Creative Standout achieved by an audio ad, website response rate increases by 0.25%. Also, the more messages that are included in the ad, the poorer the recall. An ad with four messages will have message recall of only 24%, compared to 43% for ads with just one message. The more messages an ad attempts to communicate, the lower the likelihood of a single message being communicated. 
Folks in the Gen Z and millennial demographics are heavily 
I am always impressed when I see-and-hear radio and TV stations swapping product.
ECHO box technology. He says, “GCN’s Adam Miller explains that their ECHO Files can easily be synced with most radio automation systems for easy delay broadcast with no new hardware needed and about fifteen minutes setup time! There is no need to have staff do daily chores like pulling files manually from an FTP or website. Those days are done! For live affiliates GCN has their ECHO Box that comes pre-programmed for the shows the affiliate carries. The ECHO Box can also do delay broadcast. They are sending these out with priority to stations that take the largest number of live hours, but eventually all live affiliates will receive them as dozens more of the very small ECHO Boxes will be coming in early November.” Affiliates with questions can call Adam Miller at 612-695-5982. 
Ready to go back to the future?
audience. Salem Church Products creates and distributes resources for churches and ministries in the areas of church media, worship, children’s ministry, preaching, teaching and employment through online resources including WorshipHouse Media, SermonSearch, ChurchStaffing, Children’s Ministry Deals and many others. Salem COO David Evans says, “We are proud of the Church Products business we have built over the years. What started with a single website – SermonSearch – has grown into a successful organization providing valuable resources and services to local churches and their pastors. Any time we look to sell a business, we look for organizations that share our passion and that can take that business to the next level. Gloo is just such an organization and we couldn’t be more thrilled.”
place to be in the radio world than iHeartRadio. Thanks to the finest broadcasting executives around, Tom Cuddy, Thea Mitchem and Bernie Weiss for making it all happen. Walking to work every day is like walking through the Radio Hall of Fame. Just to get to my studio, I pass Elvis Duran, Jim Kerr, Charlamagne tha God, Angela Yee and other all-stars.” WOR program director Tom Cuddy adds, “When I joined WOR almost 11 years ago, Mark was my first hire. Since then, it’s been a blast watching Mark grow into becoming the highest-rated radio talk host in his time slot, along with digital numbers that are among the highest in the country.”