Friday, 18 May 2007
So many things to be said about this with regard to auto
broadcasting, apart from it being for robots, which is what
government and advertisers want us all to become anyway.
I have heard Erics arguments in the past with regard to
the comparison between broadcasting from a rust bucket in the north, or a land based comfortable air conditioned state of the art studio. The preference is obvious, so apart from the occasional commemorative RSL the former is never going to happen again.
I mention this because, I see pleas for something new to prevent
this pointless form of broadcasting, well what about something old, that something being to broadcast in the style and with the
passion and attitude of most of the 60's pirate DJ's.
What we have today is either the personality presenter who we
have come to loath or love over a great many years, and who is
grossly overpaid for what they do. Or the media studies graduate trained to toe the management line, who all sound the same, play
of the same playlist, and read liner cards, in short robots broadcasting to robots neither of whom know any better because
they don't know the history.
If we could get back to the situation of these happy times, where we had D.J's with personality, who were trusted by management to build an audience, treat it with respect, and give
it what it wanted, the way they wanted it. The advertisers came in behind that. These were the professionals who had the happy
knack of making each person they broadcast to, feel that, even although they knew another 5 Million people were listening, felt that the DJ was doing it just for them.
Now the advertisers and the agencies have control of the output
down to what is said, or what is played and when, so they can place their product the way they want to, and sod the audience.
In those halcyon days, the audience was the client, this is what
we need to return to now, with the advertisers as the secondary
client fitting round that. The advertisers may take the view that they pay the money so they call the tune, but they fail to
realise where that money comes from, namely the listener to whom they sell their overpriced product to be able to afford the advertising in the first place.
The other choices are listener subscription, advert free, or
licensed beeb style broadcasting.
One thing that I see is that advertisers will have to spread their budgets further over many more stations on different platforms, with much smaller audiences. Are their advertisers
enlightened enough to take this on board the benefits to them
of giving the listener back the control they always should have
had are manifold, but I doubt they can take their blinkers off now
--
Arthur G. R. Sutherland
http://www.radioscotland.org.uk/Radioscotland.htm
http://aquan.tripod.com/Pichome.html
http://www-users.york.ac.uk/~ags3/Work.htm
Funny, I've thought that for a while . . . .
In article <464...>, ... (Arthur G. R. Sutherland) wrote:
Now the advertisers and the agencies have control of the output
down to what is said, or what is played and when, so they can place
their product the way they want to, and sod the audience.
In those halcyon days, the audience was the client, this is what
we need to return to now, with the advertisers as the secondary
client fitting round that. The advertisers may take the view that
they pay the money so they call the tune, but they fail to
realise where that money comes from, namely the listener to whom
they sell their overpriced product to be able to afford the
advertising in the first place.
Hi Arthur
Not quite the case – I mean why was RC first started, to advertise an artist. Then there was the well known record labels being assisted. Anyone look back into the same era with the Decca Record Show.
They were hardly putting the listener first and were certainly within the era you refer to.
I once saw an editor, we were just arriving at a special venue in Germany to look at some new technology stuff, who was asked by some dealers, "who is more important, the readers or advertisers"? I've never seen an editor go that red before, nor since.
There is always a balance. The station has to decide what type of audience it wants – then it has to offer that audience to advertisers. If it is the audience is commercially viable it will get advertisers and sponsors, if not it won't.
Yes there are times when agencies will come to stations and make suggestions, why not? Anyone who thinks they have all the ideas is stupid! If the idea is good for the station, I'll do it – if not I won't.
Also a big section of that which we call advertising these days are in reality paid for public information messages – how to do this, don't get caught when you are on holiday doing that etc etc. Now whilst you do contribute to those ads, I guess you pay tax, they are not overpriced products being sold, they are messages for people.
One thing that I see is that advertisers will have to spread their
budgets further over many more stations on different platforms, with
much smaller audiences. Are their advertisers
enlightened enough to take this on board the benefits to them
of giving the listener back the control they always should have
had are manifold, but I doubt they can take their blinkers off now
This is a big debate taking place right now – some will maintain that the old ways of getting ads from agencies is how it will remain.
Very recently, a group of that which I'll describe as forward-thinking ad-agency people got together in London Village to look at how there are exciting opportunities from the digital age – the conference call even had me speechless for a while, and that takes something very powerful to make that happen :-)
What I can share with you, also, is that the more digital audience measurement takes hold the better it will be. It will mean more accurate audience measurement and with that the audience will have some input in that they can decide if they want to listen to service X,Y or Z and it will make a difference. That will also include measuring people who no longer feel they have a service for them. However, I'm not sure that is the control you are referring to, if it is then your solution is very close – if you are asking for something very very different then I've missed your point.
Eric
Eric Tesug <...> said:
Now this is where I am confused, who decides what is a proper service?
What about people who want a non-stop music service?
In days of yore this was what were called Test Transmissions.
In article <...>, ... (lloyd A) wrote:
Eric Tesug <...> said:
Now this is where I am confused, who decides what is a proper service?
What about people who want a non-stop music service?
In days of yore this was what were called Test Transmissions.
That was days of yore. In days of yore an American talk station was used as a test transmission and it proved more popular that the proper service :-)
In days of yore there was little choice.
In days of yore the notion that I would be connected at 3.6M to the internet with a USB dongle plugged into my laptop would have been laughed at – something from Star Trek.
The days of yore are great, wonderful.
Days of yore with 78rpm chunks of stuff being played
Days of yore when tape got ruined and the interview was lost.
Yes the days or yore were great, there's no denying that, but they are days of yore – today people want and DEMAND more things than the days of yore and who are we to say what they want is not proper. I certainly am not.
In the days of yore the news story on Sky News now would have had many people saying, in news rooms, oh we have to be cautious with that. Today over 50 million hits on a web site have shown people power – right or wrong that would not have been possible in days of yore.
I respect the days of yore, but I would much rather live now than then.
Eric
