800.275.2840 MORE NEWS» insideradio.com THE MOST TRUSTED NEWS IN RADIO THURSDAY, JUNE 11, 2015 Want to succeed as an air talent? Build your brand. Radio stations live and die by how successful their brand is in the market. But personalities are brands too and one of the biggest challenges they face is understanding how their brand fits into the larger station brand. So said iHeartMedia VP of talent development Dennis Clark at the Hivio conference last week in Los Angeles. “You’ve got to be a great show inside the package of the station,” Clark said. “You need to know what the brand values are of the station and where you fit inside that.” Helping young personalities understand the nuances of a station, its branding and style isn’t easy, Clark said. But comprehending them and making the show seamlessly fit that brand are essential, he said. Clark, who coaches talent that includes Ryan Seacrest, Elvis Duran and “The Breakfast Club,” pointed to syndicated morning man Bobby Bones as one who was able to build a new brand for his show when he segued from CHR radio to country. Just as important as branding is creating content that Clark called “repeatable,” that gives listeners something to talk about and repeat to their friends. With competing audio providers continually trying to reposition radio, Clark said the role of air talent can’t be underestimated. “Talent is the difference maker of what radio is today and what it could be in the future,” he said. “We realize our point of differentiation is the talent we have at these stations.” Co-hosts launch podcasts to fortify their own brand. When you’re one of a half-dozen or more personalities in an ensemble show, it can be difficult to build your own radio brand. To help strengthen their brands, some co-hosts have launched their own podcasts. Angela Yee of the New York-based “Breakfast Club” syndicated show hosts “Lip Service,” a video podcast. As the only female co-host in the three-person “Club,” iHeartMedia VP of talent development Dennis Clark said the podcast helps her expand and bolster her voice and brand. Along the same lines, members of “Elvis Duran & The Morning Show” host a “My Day Friday” podcast. “The truth is these shows have a fantastic fan base and spinoffs like these help grow the passion,” Clark said. “It makes them much more interesting and they get to fortify their own brand.” Radio still getting attention and dollars from small and mid-sized businesses. A new Borrell Associates report shows more local marketers say they’ll increase their radio spending than decrease it, even while reporting that online media has become “ubiquitous and necessary.” The firm’s “Local Advertising Hits A Tipping Point” is based on a survey of 7,228 small and mid-size business executives. Eight in ten said they’ve established their own website and/or social media presence while seven in ten said they are spending more on their web services than on traditional advertising. “Over the next year, spending by small and mid-size businesses will shift so far that traditional advertising models will begin to look like niche support mechanisms to a local business’s digital marketing plan,” the report says. It’s not all doom and gloom. The report estimates that in the next year, 60% of local businesses will spend the same amount on radio, and nearly 23% will increase their spend; that’s better than TV, cable, outdoor and newspaper, which appears to be losing favor fastest of all. The report finds a twofold increase in the percentage of NEWS INSIDE >> advertisers who plan to increase radio or TV budgets in the next 12 months. Borrell says the numbers of “won’t buy” are increasing for all media — including online. In April brings another 2010, 22% said they didn’t plan to buy any radio. This year the number increased to listening boost to online 37%. But that’s not unique to the medium. And in many charts, radio looks stable as audio traditional advertising gets pounded all around. [email protected] | 800.275.2840 PG 1 NEWS insideradio.com THURSDAY, JUNE 11, 2015 Targeting seen as key to navigating local ad market. The precise audience targeting enabled by digital media has made it an advertising magnet. But with narrowly-tailored formats, targeting is one of radio’s strengths that can help it differentiate itself in a crowded local ad marketplace. “Small and mid-sized businesses always hear about targeting, and so they get a Facebook page and find out what targeting means,” says Corey Elliott, director of research for Borrell Associates. “But radio ad executives might scream, ‘We’ve been telling you about targeting for years!’ But until they see it, they don’t believe it.” Elliot says a radio station’s challenge is to “know thyself” and sell the station’s specific attributes and get away from the kind of audience measurement that dwells on the “big number.” Another strategy espoused by Borrell, one being embraced by a growing number of radio stations, involves forming an in-house digital ad agency. “Millions of local businesses are in need of marketing leadership,” the report states. “Their digital savviness is lacking . and they yearn for someone with a marketing plan that makes sense of it all.” Stacking streaming up against radio. Are Pandora and Spotify overhyped? Maybe so. Pierre Bouvard, the newish chief marketing officer at Cumulus Media and Westwood One says, “If you ask any hip person on the island of Manhattan about Spotify, they’ll tell you, ‘Man, it’s No. 1.” But in fact, as he notes in his blog, it isn’t. Bouvard cites the just-released first quarter 2015 Share of Ear study from Edison Research showing Americans’ share of audio time spent goes first to AM/FM at 55%, followed by consumer-owned music at 14%. Despite its notoriety, Pandora’s actual share of listening is quite small (7%) – the same size as SiriusXM Radio and a little bigger than time spent with cable music channels. Spotify, Bouvard told Inside Radio, is among the also-rans, lumped among “other streaming audio,” which Bouvard says is just 2%. Edison’s pinwheel chart is a persuasive sales tool, he says. “We should be going door-to-door to our advertisers with this,” he says. How does radio compare to Pandora and Spotify based on reach? The Edison research says AM/FM’s daily reach is 74%. According to this research, 11% listen to both AM/FM and Pandora; only 4% are reached exclusively on a daily basis by Pandora . A majority of Pandora (73%) and Spotify (64% ) listeners also listen to AM/FM. Few Americans are reached daily by Spotify (5%). Bouvard on Why Pandora Isn’t Audio’s Netflix. Cumulus Media and Westwood One CMO Pierre Bouvard makes an interesting comparison between the mystery of Spotify and Pandora’s real audience numbers and the same bewilderment the TV business may feel about Netflix. None of those online entertainment services are rated by Nielsen. Bouvard’s blog unearthed stats from the research firm Ipsos MediaCT’s TV Dailies service, which does track video streaming and says that for one week in April, among 18-34 year-olds, Netflix was most viewed, just ahead of YouTube and out front of the Big Four networks. Those stats caught his attention because Bouvard recently moved over to the radio business from TiVo and knew that television and online executives speculate wildly about Netflix’s real popularity. But neither Spotify nor Pandora carry Netflix’s cache with young listeners, apparently, and on his blog, Bouvard explains that might be because Netflix spends freely to produce new, exclusive content, while Pandora “seems to be replacing time spent with consumers’ own recorded music.” April brings another listening boost for online audio. Listening to online audio continued to expand in April with Triton Digital reporting positive growth in both major dayparts when compared to April 2014. Listening during the primetime Monday through Friday, 6am-8pm daypart jumped 38.6%. The increase was a steeper 41.8% across the broader Monday [email protected] | 800.275.2840 PG 2 NEWS insideradio.com THURSDAY, JUNE 11, 2015 through Sunday, 6am-midnight time period. CHR experienced the largest monthly listening gain in April, compared to March, with a 5.6% increase in the Monday through Friday, 6am-8pm daypart. Classic rock posted the second largest gain (3.6%), followed by country (2.9%), alternative/modern rock (2.1%) and urban AC (0.8%). Three cities experienced monthly listening increases north of 8%: Boston was up 8.9% over March, Phoenix grew 8.8% and Seattle saw an 8.7% boost. Minneapolis (5%), Tampa (4.4%) and Pittsburgh (3.9%) also showed positive growth from March. Setting Apple up for the launch of its revamped Apple Music service at the end of the month, 38% of listening took place on an iOS device during the weekday daypart in April, followed by Android (30%), Flash Player (9%) and Google Chrome (8%). Comparing listening by operating system within the top 10 markets in April, New York had the most iOS listeners during the weekday daypart while Los Angeles had the most Android users. ESPN, iHeartMedia made streaming gains in April. ESPN Radio and iHeartRadio were the only broadcasters with year- over-year streaming listening gains in April among the 10 largest webcasters tracked by Triton Digital. Fueled by the NCAA Final Four, the start of the baseball season and the NHL playoffs, ESPN Radio grew listening sessions by 36% in April, compared to one year earlier, in the Monday through Friday, 6am-8pm daypart.