Re: [Swprograms] Is Radio Still Radio if There’s Video?

[Bill Bergadano <ka2emz@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Agreed John a definite no

Bill Bergadano
KA2EMZ


John Figliozzi wrote:
> I have a short answer to this question regardless of what follows 
> below.  No.
>
> John Figliozzi
> Halfmoon, NY
>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> February 14, 2007
>
> Is Radio Still Radio if There’s Video?
>
> By RICHARD SIKLOS
> Ted Stryker, a D.J. at KROQ in Los Angeles, considers it a perk of the 
> job to wear shorts and T-shirts to work. But last Sunday as he dressed 
> for the Grammy Awards, he pulled out his best blazer and a flashy belt 
> buckle, knowing three video cameras would stream live coverage of his 
> show to the Web sites of 147 CBS radio stations.
>
> “What’s great about radio is no one knows what you’re wearing,” Mr. 
> Stryker said by telephone as he made his way through the throng at the 
> Grammys. “I wanted to make myself a little bit more presentable.”
>
> Mr. Stryker, who has done some TV work in the past, said that to 
> create his best radio voice, he often must contort his face in 
> embarrassing ways.
>
> “It’s so different doing radio compared to TV,” he said. “Who knows 
> what faces I make when I’m talking on the radio? I hope I’m not making 
> the same faces today.”
>
> The nation’s commercial radio stations have seen the future, and it is 
> in, of all things, video. As a result, the stereotype of a 
> silken-voiced jockey like Mr. Stryker, slumped and disheveled in the 
> studio chair, may never be the same.
>
> Across the country, radio stations are putting up video fare on their 
> Web sites, ranging from a simple camera in the broadcast booth to 
> exclusive coverage of events like the Super Bowl to music videos, news 
> clips and Web-only musical performances.
>
> “This is no longer the age of ‘having a face for radio,’ ” said Dianna 
> Jason, the senior director of marketing and promotions at Power 106, a 
> Los Angeles hip-hop radio station. “This is a visual medium now.”
>
> Audiences in Los Angeles, for example, will be able to tune in today 
> to Power 106 for an annual Valentine’s Day event called “Trash Your 
> Ex,” in which jilted listeners are invited to put mementos from past 
> loves in a giant wood chipper — and to let it whir while the disc 
> jockey, Big Boy, urges them on. And for the first time, audiences 
> everywhere will be able to watch streamed video of the event, to be 
> held in a parking lot in Pasadena, on the Web site power106.com.
>
> Whereas video was once said to have killed the radio star — according 
> to the pop song by the Buggles that was the first video shown on MTV 
> in 1981 — it is now emerging as an unlikely savior for an industry 
> facing an array of challenges.
>
> In the age of YouTube and the radio talk show hosts Howard Stern and 
> Don Imus as television stalwarts, this might not seem all that 
> remarkable, except that the radio industry has been singularly tardy 
> in embracing the interactive age.
>
> But now many of the largest radio companies are scrambling to stay 
> relevant as their listeners’ attention is drawn in many directions — 
> iPods, cellphones, satellite radio and various streaming and 
> downloading musical offerings from companies like Yahoo and AOL. “A 
> lot of our stations are starting to embrace video and generate new 
> revenue streams,” said Joel Hollander, the chief executive of CBS 
> Radio, the nation’s second-largest radio company, after Clear Channel 
> Communications. “I hope video helps the radio star. Maybe radio will 
> save the video star?”
>
> More than 90 percent of Americans still listen to traditional radio. 
> But the amount of time they tune in over the course of a week has 
> fallen by 14 percent over the last decade, according to Arbitron ratings.
>
> Industry revenues are flat, and the Bloomberg index of radio stocks is 
> down some 40 percent over the last three years.
>
> Reflecting the investor malaise, a group of private equity companies 
> has proposed buying Clear Channel Communications and taking it private.
>
> Video now makes up only a tiny fraction of the $20 billion a year that 
> radio generates in advertising sales. But it could represent a 
> much-needed new source of growth in a rapidly expanding online video 
> market that everyone from Google to newspapers to broadcast television 
> wants to be in.
>
> Radio executives and personalities say their video efforts will be 
> different because they capitalize on radio’s traditional strength in 
> using on-air personalities and local events to draw in listeners.
>
> Taking a cue from YouTube and the rise of user-generated video, a 
> polished, TV-quality product is often not the objective. Another Power 
> 106 video effort featured a staff member, dressed like a shrub, 
> jumping out of a planter to surprise visitors to the station’s office 
> on Halloween.
>
> An alternative rock station, 94.7 FM in Portland, Ore., last fall 
> began a “Bootleg Video” series in which a listener is lent a video 
> camera to record a clip of a local performance by a hot band like the 
> Killers for the Web site. “Sometimes it’s a little shaky, but we want 
> that,” said Mark Hamilton, manager at the station, which is owned by 
> Entercom Communications. “We don’t want it to be perfect.”
>
> The Web site for the radio station WFLZ in Tampa, Fla., features a 
> video series called “Naked,” on the lives of its hosts away from the 
> microphone. “I’m not very pretty today,” one of the station’s disc 
> jockeys, Ashlee Reid, says sheepishly on the latest installment as she 
> arrives at work and realizes the cameras are rolling before bantering 
> with a colleague about chest hair.
>
> Ms. Reid, who is 26, said being videotaped was odd, but in the year 
> that the radio station has been producing monthly installments of the 
> show for downloading, it has not yet caused her and her colleagues to 
> alter their hair or wardrobe. “Maybe we should, but we don’t,” she said.
>
> Similarly, producers for Adam Carolla, the Los Angeles morning host 
> whose program is carried on many CBS Radio stations, regularly record 
> vérité clips featuring Mr. Carolla and a co-host, Danny Bonaduce, for 
> posting on the Web.
>
> The nation’s biggest radio companies are also doing slicker 
> productions, like Mr. Stryker’s Grammy show, that try to capitalize on 
> their size and reach.
>
> Clear Channel, whose Internet efforts are led by Evan Harrison, an 
> executive vice president, has elaborate video programming available on 
> the Web sites of its 1,200 stations, including Tampa’s 933FLZ.com, 
> where “Naked” is featured. Clear Channel has made some 6,000 music 
> videos available for downloading online, but has also been producing 
> original video content that individual stations can feature on their 
> Web sites and disc jockeys can promote on the air.
>
> These programs include “Stripped,” a series of taped performances by 
> artists like Young Jeezy and Nelly Furtado that are often acoustic or 
> done in small clubs. The company has also been producing “Video 6 
> Pack” in which bands like Fall Out Boy appear as hosts of their own 
> program and play videos they like.
>
> According to comScore Media Metrix, Clear Channel sites ranked sixth 
> in December among music Web sites, behind MTV, AOL, Yahoo, MySpace and 
> Artistdirect.
>
> Radio industry executives stressed that, so far, their video efforts 
> could be considered experimental and only one facet — along with blogs 
> and audio podcasts and a nascent service called HD Radio — of how the 
> industry is adapting for the Internet age.
>
> “People are either going to have to get with the program or get lost,” 
> Fatman Scoop, a disc jockey on Hot 97, an FM station in New York, said 
> in an interview. “People don’t sit in front of a radio for three hours 
> like they used to. If they don’t hear a song they like, they go to the 
> Internet.”
>
> In his case, what listeners will find on hot97.com is a weekly video 
> show about relationships that Fatman produces with his wife, Shanda 
> Freeman, called “Man and Wife.” Introduced in November, the shows are 
> usually taped in the couple’s bedroom in New Jersey and run several 
> minutes each.
>
> Fatman, who prefers to be known by his radio name, said that the show 
> was entirely owned by him but that his bosses at Hot 97 — owned by 
> Emmis Communications, like Power 106 — recognize that raising the 
> visibility of its personalities on the Internet could only be good for 
> attracting listeners and advertisers.
>
> “What we’re trying to do is reach the listener in any way possible,” 
> he said. “If somebody sees that you’re on ‘Man and Wife’ on hot97.com, 
> they will listen to your show.”
>
> Radio and video may be a more natural fit than expected. In his book 
> “Understanding Media,” the cultural theorist Marshall McLuhan wrote 
> that “the effect of radio is visual.”
>
> Certainly, Howard Stern and Don Imus have had video extensions of 
> their radio shows for years. Even Mr. Stern’s new employer, Sirius 
> Satellite Radio, is planning a move in that direction. The company has 
> said it plans to start beaming a video service of children’s 
> programming to play on screens in the cars of Sirius subscribers 
> sometime this year.
>
> For now, most of the new video ventures originating from radio are 
> just starting to generate revenue. Mr. Hollander of CBS Radio and Mr. 
> Harrison of Clear Channel declined to say how much new revenue they 
> were attracting.
>
> Mr. Hollander said plans were in the works at the CBS Corporation, 
> which is better known for its television network, to begin integrating 
> some of its video programming into the radio division’s Web sites. The 
> Web site for WSCR, the company’s sports radio station in Chicago, 
> featured live video from its pregame coverage of the Super Bowl in 
> Miami. Earlier, the station streamed coverage of its 15th-anniversary 
> celebration.
>
> Mitch Rosen, the station manager for WSCR, said the video efforts 
> attracted advertisements from 8 to 10 businesses that normally thought 
> of the station as only an audio outlet. To add some visual flair to 
> the anniversary broadcast, Mr. Rosen put two of the station’s popular 
> hosts in tuxedos. “They did get some ribbing from listeners,” Mr. 
> Rosen said.
>
> For crossover advocates like Fatman, however, audio and video will 
> soon be interchangeable in the D.J.’s repertory. “That’s where it’s 
> going,” he said. “It’s getting to the point where you’re going to have 
> to be good at both.”
>
>
> Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
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