Tag: service

Industry News

TALKERS magazine Publishes the 2024 Heavy Hundred

By TALKERS | by TALKERS

TALKERS magazine publishes the 2024 edition of our long-running feature the 100 Most Important Radio Talk Show Hosts in America, also known as the Heavy Hundred. Talk hosts making this prestigious list are nominated and voted on by the TALKERS magazine editorial board based on hard and soft factors including (in alphabetical order): courage, effort, impact, longevity, potential, ratings, recognition, revenue, service, talent, and uniqueness. TALKERS editors acknowledge that compiling this annual list is as much art as science and that results are arguable. TALKERS magazine VP/executive editor Kevin Casey says, “Putting together this list of the 100 Most Important Radio Talk Show Hosts in America never gets any easier. The number of hard-working talk radio hosts across the country make winnowing this down to merely 100 a painstaking task. That said, the editorial board believes this year’s Heavy Hundred truly reveals a snapshot of the makeup of the American talk radio industry in 2024. Congratulations to those hosts making this year’s Heavy Hundred.” See the list here.

Industry Views

Pending Business: How Are We Doing?

By TALKERS | by TALKERS

By Steve Lapa
Lapcom Communications Corp
President

Talkers Magazine - Talk radioHow might we better serve you in the future? How would you rate our service?

These are two common questions you will see on many restaurant info cards as you pay for your meal. After all, the restaurant business is fundamentally based on great food and great service at a reasonable price. Think about this: If either of those two basic components, food (product) and service are missing, you are outta there!

Our radio/audio sales business is based on the same thing: great product and great service at a reasonable price. Yet, why is it you will never find yourself or a manager asking those questions as a part of your regular follow-up or follow-through routine? Oh sure, there is the ever-present pre-sell, “How can we help?” as your advertiser mutters, “lower rates,” under their breath. But seriously, no one above or below your pay grade can process or properly evaluate the answers to the two service questions posed, let alone act intelligently on the response. Could it be we still think our sales and management roles are rooted in show business and if we put on a great show delivering great ratings the advertisers will follow?

Some advertisers will show up, others need to be sold. With Zoom, Teams, programmatic, AI and other initiatives gaining more and more traction, the service improvements in salesmanship is becoming a lost art.

Time to hit the pause button, step back and learn from our friends in one of the oldest business categories on planet earth: hospitality. Let’s learn.

— Ask for feedback as you “serve.” Since my first meeting, my mantra for sellers and sales management was and still is, “How are we doing?” Go back to your winning and losing sales calls. Even managers should review meetings that did or did not move sales and ask, “How can I better serve______?”

— One step at a time. If you could improve just one thing to better serve an advertiser, what would it be? What could it be? Do you even know?

— Do you care? Ouch! Now that is a hard core, in-your-face question. Comfort zones are just so easy to occupy, we rarely push forward.

My real-world experience happened years ago when I asked our advertisers what we could do better to serve them. Many host-read advertisers wanted times sent to them in advance so they could hear the talent in real time. Every one of those advertisers became longterm fans. Do you send your advertisers host-read times in advance? Sometimes, it’s the little improvements that win big dollars when it counts.

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

Industry Views

How Hot Is Podcasting?

By TALKERS | by TALKERS

By Holland Cooke
Consultant

How hot is podcasting? The topic dominated a CES session billed in broader terms: “The Disruption: Media, Platforms & Advertising.” Panelists – executives from social media, major content brands, and radio mega-groups – also discussed “linear” (live) programming and streaming video. But all kept coming back to podcasting, which iHeartMedia CMO Gayle Troberman characterized as “exploding, driving massive growth in audio.”

Not unexpected, since her company is a major player. But, from the other side of the equation, World Wrestling Entertainment SVP Craig Stimmel acknowledges that, post-pandemic, “habits have changed as to where to go” for media; so “we want to make sure our content is everywhere.” His stars are among celebrities whom podcasting connects with fans in what Troberman describes as “live, human, unscripted conversation with people you come to know;” particularly welcome post-pandemic-shutdown. “The more isolated and alone people feel, the more audio delivers intimacy.”

It’s not a radio show

Every panelist spoke of “authenticity,” rather than the slick, polished texture of traditional AM/FM programming. SXM Media SVP Lizzie Widhelm challenges broadcasters: “How can we let go of our playbook, and walk away from norms that have been comfy-cozy?”

“More creators coming into audio than ever before” from politics, sports, and other walks of life, “to engage more deeply.” Audacy CMO Paul Suchman says that delivers advertisers “super-relevant, contextually relevant” places to tell their stories. So “this is a medium that deserves GREAT creative,” not just audio of a TV spot. “Advertising that gets ‘inserted’” doesn’t work as well as “the deep human connection” of podcaster’s very personal delivery. Thus “the lowest ad-skipping rates of any media.”

Podcasting plusses

Just as music streams offer lots more variety than safe-list FMs, spoken-word podcasting is a topical cornucopia compared to talk radio’s largely political fare.

And panelists ticked-off other advantages podcasts offer advertisers:

  • “Quicker and much less-expensive production than video.”
  • “Lower CPM” ad rates, increasingly attractive as recession likely looms.
  • “Really young, and diverse audiences coming into audio in a big way.”
  • “The audiences you’re not getting on TV anymore.”

“Voice has always been how humans communicate”

Troberman describes the iHeart app Talkback feature, which listeners use to send messages stations play, a tool some of my client stations have built-into their apps.

And this interactivity isn’t just a media thing. Audacy’s Suchman mentioned how drivers now converse with Cadillac’s state-of-the-art dashboard: “The next phase of computing will be voice-driven.” Yet – accustomed as we have become to dealing with supermarket self-checkout and other robots almost everywhere – the “intimacy,” “authenticity,” and “diversity” panelists speak of suggest that, as iHeart’s Troberman reckons, “the future of voice is the future of two-way communication via audio.”

Help yourself!

I’ve been reporting from CES all this week for TALKERS…and for you. You can download five 60-second radio reports at HollandCooke.com.

Holland Cooke (HollandCooke.com) is the author of “Multiply Your Podcast Subscribers, Without Buying Clicks,” available from Talkers books; and “Spot-On: Commercial Copy Points That Earned The Benjamins,” a FREE download; and the E-book and FREE on-air radio features “Inflation Hacks: Save Those Benjamins.” HC is a consultant working at the intersection of broadcasting and the Internet. Follow him on Twitter @HollandCooke

Sales

Finding Your Next Great Salesperson

By Editor | by Editor

By Kathy Carr
Howie Carr Radio Network
President

 

BOSTON — What does “sales” really mean in this day and age? And just as important, where is your next great salesperson going to come from?

Here’s a quote from a best-selling self-help author named Og Mandino in his book, The Greatest Salesman in the World.

“Truly, many times have you heard me say that the rewards are great if one succeeds but the rewards are great only because so few succeed.”

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