16) Value Added

Value Added is basically the real world equivalent of paying for the burger and getting the fries and drink for free, what you may call a “value meal” or #7 with a Coke.  But in the case of Radio People, unlike their fast food brethren, they do this not so that they can spiff the client and create the relationship. No, Radio People do this because they can’t actually sell the benefits of the product they are trying to sell in the first place…so they do the next best thing, no not sue a bank, they give it away for free.

 

I will give you an example; Let’s say that you go to buy a car this weekend.  While you are there the car salesmen will ultimately try to up sell you to a better version of the car in hopes of getting more money out of you.  Maybe you would do that, or maybe not.  And since the auto industry is in a tailspin the car salesmen would probably meet you half way and give you the entire up sell for half the price.  That way everyone goes away happy and you are probably going back there when you trade it in for a car that runs on human urine.

 

In that same situation, a Radio Person would walk into a client and say that 20 commercials for a week cost $1300 and you have access to hundreds of thousands potential customers, 80% of whom are already in a car listening to that commercial.  To which the client says, “nah, I am not interested.”  Now in the real world an actual salesperson would attempt to resell him on the benefits of the product.  But a Radio Person jumps straight into the doggie position and takes it up the ass, sideways. 

 

Their response to the “no” is always “Well, how bout I give you a HUGE promotion to go along with your spot schedule.”  Having no idea what the HUGE promotion would be, the radio person would return to the office and then have to sell his or her co-workers on the whored-out deal they just put on the books and how $62,000 in promotional mentions on the behalf of the radio station somehow justifies the $1300 the client spent.

 

Just think, when was the last time you went in to buy a washer and they gave you a house to go with it?  It never happens.  But, in radio a 10:1 ratio is pretty common and may explain a lot about the state of the industry.

 

And it gets worse if there is a competitor in your market because then the jocks are brought into the fray in order to do “free” remotes where clients provide them with free hot dogs instead of cash, as if there is some sort of world where I can trade a chili cheese dog for an iPod. And eventually the jocks will revolt and the Radio Sales People will respond with “You already get paid too much as it is, so suck it up and do it for the station.”  In English that usually means, “I am sorry I missed those sales classes in college but to make up for what I lack in skill I have no problem throwing you under the bus a couple of times in what we call Value Added, and if you were a real friend you would accept the cheese dog and be done with it.”

 

And after about four decades of this Value Added monster lurking in the darkness, coupled with a down economy, the Radio Sales Person will do anything to keep making payments on their condo, Lexus, minor drinking problem, and cavalcade of street girls they call “girlfriends.”  So be wary young Radio People of the sales person with a cheese dog.

15) Golf Shirts

Basketball and football players have their jerseys, hockey players have their famed sweaters, but Radio People suit up everyday in their own way, the radio station polo shirt.  To be fair this isn’t the first official uniform of the radio person, before the golf shirt it was the windbreaker, and before that the tie-die T-shirt, and I am sure at some point in history it was a Radio Person’s beloved Derby. 

 

But here we are in 2008 and it is the Golf Shirt.

 

The golf shirt can help Radio People adapt to any circumstance. Their fashionable choice can say “Look, I’m in radio, I don’t have to wear a suit. In fact, this is as dressed up as I’m going to get!”  Although they wear their logo on their chest, a golf shirt can make a radio person feel like their dress of choice is completely un-corporate, unlike those suckers who wear a suit to work everyday. Or, when cornered by a GM/OM/Sales Manager type person, a golf shirt can say, “Hey, this shirt has a collar, I’m all business! I even ironed it (back in 2002)! If I really didn’t care what I looked like I’d have on a station t-shirt like the promotions interns.”

 

When a civiliansees a radio station logo emblazoned on the chest of Radio People, they’re forced to recognize that they’re not looking at just another schlub in a Polo or Tommy Hilfiger. In fact, they might be looking at a local celebrity who talks up and hits the post of Fergie songs for 4-5 hours a day, hands out coozies & Nick Lachey CDs at remotes, or perhaps spends 10 hours a day maintaining broadcast automation systems in a dimly lit engineers office.

 

A station logoed golf shirt can be worn comfortably to an on air shift, a client meeting, or staff lunch. Hell, you might even know a Radio Person who has worn a golf shirt to a wedding or certainly station Company Christmas Party (cause I am sure at the Company Christmas party, nobody knows what station you work for.)  And in very rare cases they may actually wear the Golf Shirt golfing, but since Golf borders on actual excersise, those instances are few and far between…unless the GM is buying the beer.

While a station t-shirt can be owned/worn by anyone lucky enough to show up at the mall on the day of a live broadcast, a station golf shirt is reserved for and thus distinguished only those Radio People who have given their lives this medium for the love of the craft and 100 percent logoed goodness.

 

So the next time you see a Radio Person, take a minute to look them in the eye and say “Hey, nice shirt”!

14) The Spring Book

 

Today marks the start of the only real “official” Radio Person holiday, The Spring Book.  For a Radio Person the Spring Book is like Chanukah except longer and has less candles or any religious connotation.  The Spring Book is when Radio People drastically change everything they are doing in order to make a stellar impression on the listener for the next three months and ultimately get the Holy Grail for Radio People…”A Good Spring Book.”

 

The first thing a good Radio Person does to prepare for a Spring Book is to tighten up.  You will hear all sorts of Radio People say they are dropping music, adding music, changing formats, adding talking animals, shifting air shifts around, maybe even air-checking their DJs to make sure everything is tight. 

In fact, the cornerstone of a good Spring Book is that everything is tight and once the level of “tightness” is established, the Radio Person then gets to pick their catch phrase de jour for the next three months all of which sound like sexual euphemisms:

 

“Tight is Right”

“Gonna Tighten Here Down This Weekend”

“If It Ain’t Tight, It Ain’t Right”

“Got to Tighten Down Before My Competition Does”

It is actually a pretty fun exercise, even if you aren’t a troglodyte.  All you have to do is take something you would do on a daily basis that might be for recreation and replace that action with the word “tight” or “tighten” and you can create your own Radio Person Spring Book Catch Phrase, which I think the Nintendo Wii version is coming out in 2009.

The next thing you have to do is “Make A Big Splash.”  This involves giving something away to your listener that you don’t do for the rest of the year.  Could be cash, a car, a boat, or even somebody’s child…

The ideal formula involves a big-ticket item (like a car) surrounded by a contest that would get you exposure on some other media (like TV or Perez Hilton) and has at least a slight probability to land you in jail even if it is for rigging that same contest. 

A good one that leaps to mind might be:

“Kill A Konvict for a Korvette”

(make sure to change all the letters to “k” for the alliteration)

Then before you execute the contest, after you have gotten the exposure you reveal that it is just a highly trumped up version of Whack-A-Mole for a chance to drive away in a new car and your Spring Promotion is in the bag

The final thing you have to do is some “Spring Cleaning” of your imaging and positioner, because if you don’t reinvent the station from the ground up for these pivotal three months, you are going to have a bad year my friend.  Start by taking all the imaging you currently have and get rid of it and then replace it with new imaging preferably done by the Space Ghost guy, the Master Shake guy, or Don Lafontaine. Then have them say really obscure things like “putting the “o” in iPhone” and sandwich it between those guys reading your new positioner which should be like “The Best Mix of the 80’s, 90’s and Today for the Springtime with more than 96 minutes of music an hour.” 

To see it in context it should look like this:

The Best Mix of the 80’s, 90’s and Today for the Springtime with more than 96 minutes of music an hour, we’re putting the “o” in iPhone… The Best Mix of the 80’s, 90’s and Today for the Springtime with more than 96 minutes of music an hour 108.97 WGRR

And that should do it. 

Radio People love this time of year when they take the 9 months leading up to today and call it practice in order to completely change the format and feel of the radio station so as to insure having “A Good Spring Book” so they can pitch that to their clients. 

See, it really is all about the listeners after all.

13) Outback

 

Outside of a dark production studio or dank, smelly on-air studio, a Radio Person feels most at home at Outback Steakhouse  it is risqué since its foreign but accessible since they speak English in Australia) 

When Outback Steakhouse was founded in 1998 in Tampa, FL few knew what a mark it would leave on the radio industry.  But since it was well placed within driving distance to the legendary WFLZ, its culinary stranglehold on Radio People began to bloom.   

Since then, Outback has become a place for Radio People to hold jock meetings, celebrate ratings, meet with their sales people, or record company reps. It’s also a great place to drown their sorrows after a period of “poor diary placement”, discuss HD Radio, have a send off to a downsized comrade, or just to ogle waitresses (since there isn’t a Hooters in their market). 

While the theme of Outback restaurants are Australian (stuffed crocodiles, boomerangs, sting ray jokes, etc.) Radio People seem to flock to these restaurants not for the decor, but for the menu featuring reasonably priced steaks and most importantly, the infamous “Bloomin’ Onion”.    

 

A “Bloomin Onion” is the signature dish at Outback, and what better way to wet one’s appetite than with an onion that has been breaded, deep fried and blossomed to the tune of 2200 calories and 134 grams of fat.  Radio people like nothing more than being able to ingest the maximum amount of calories in the shortest amount of time (they are lazy by nature), and the Bloomin Onion is the best way to accomplish this outside of the Triple Big Mac.   

This monstrous item is also a great centerpiece for meetings.  You can always spot the Radio People in an Outback Steakhouse, they’re the ones in the back corner wondering who notices them and who average 1 “Bloomin’ Onion” per 2 Radio People (unless they are in sales or production…in that case double the average), and are usually asking their waitress for extra Cajun mayo aioli (usually referred to by Radio People as “the sauce”).

 

Radio People love to follow up a freshly fried “Bloomin’ Onion” with one of Outback’s signature steaks.  What could be a better way to wash down a battered and fried whole onion? Obviously, a steak that’s been grilled in butter! 

 

So if you find yourself navigating any of our countries major highways or biways, take comfort in knowing that you’re only one or two exits from the next Outback Steakhouse, and there’s a damn good chance that it will be filled with Radio People hogging all the aioli.

12) Facial Hair

 

To a Radio Person, facial hair is the sign of a true journeyman or at the very least a morning show guy.  Because Radio People tend to meet two types of listeners and they need to be prepared for both; those they can win over with their gallery of people they met that is stored on their iPhone (see entry # 1) and people they feel the need to wax esoterically and pretend they can do more than recite Daily Show bits and Dane Cook shtick.

To the Radio Person the beard, or more popular goatee is synonymous with a modern day Hume or at the very least Benjamin Franklin.  I mean just look at the Radio Icons who sport the facial hair:

Wolfman Jack…he has a cool name, a cool voice, and he is part Werewolf, where is the downside?

 

Mancow…he wrote a book

 

Bob and Tom…and that other guy in the photo and I think the girl tried but couldn’t grow any.

 

Opie and Anthony, they got people to have sex in a church…who wouldn’t want to emulate them

 

The problem is Radio People have been cursed with a genetic flaw; Well, there is certainly more than one ,but have patience dear friend, we will get to all of them.  The flaw is that while all of them desire to wear the mark of the beast, very few can actually grow facial hair, as if God’s cruel joke was to enslave them to a pre-pubescent lifestyle both mentally and physically…that way they may play World of Warcraft til they are 50 but can never grow a Wolfman Jack-like mane.

In fact, those Radio People who simply cannot grow facial hair have created their own genre of Radio, which we call Conservative Talk.  They figure that if the Gay-Bashing, Ill-informed opinions, and political hate-speak doesn’t tip you off to the format, the lack of a beard will.

Guys like Sean Hannity:

 

Rush Limbaugh

 

And every one’s favorite Anti-Beard: Bill O’Reilly

 

So if you find yourself at a cocktail party and some guy is hogging the spotlight telling stories of doing body shots off Christina Aguilera, check to see if he has a beard, goatee, or porno mustache.  If he does ask him how his station is trending 18-34 females.  If he doesn’t ask him what he thinks about gay marriage, either way you will shift the life of the party in your favor.

11) Research

The following post has a pop score of 76 with a potential score of 102

Radio People LOVE, LOVE, LOVE, research, despite never taking a Statistics class.  Research determines what clothes they wear, cars they buy, restaurants, and, oh yes, the songs they play.  Yup, if you thought either of the following things were true, you fell for the biggest ruse in Radio history:

A)    Radio People play requests

B)     Radio People play songs that you want to hear

Radio People have used research since the dawn of time, asking dinosaurs what types of rocks they liked to hear clanked together and then took those rock sounds and developed what we know today as callout research.

Callout research is when a company that is outsourced (or in-sourced depending on the company) takes 2-second clips or the hooks of songs and plays them to people, 36 tracks at a time.  The funny thing is that with the Do Not Call list, these companies can only call people who still have a home phone, are home around 6pm, and want to take 45 minutes to listen to song hooks instead of enjoying dinner with their family, or pet cat.  Those people tend to look like this:

 

And they control ever song you hear.  Wanna know why your favorite radio station is playing Flo Rida 1174 times a day, it’s because that woman picked up the phone and said it was simply the greatest song she had ever heard that was 2 seconds long and over a phone line.

Wanna know why Wilco never gets played on your favorite radio station?  Cause this guy had never heard of Wilco and liked Fergie’s “Clumsy” better.

 

The really interesting thing is that Radio People ignore other research tools in favor of the ones that they are comfortable with. 

Do you have the number one single on iTunes 36 weeks in a row?  Yeah well those 11 million people don’t count like my stay at home mom with a ham addiction.

 

Do you have the #1 album in the country 6 weeks running?  Well, record companies buy all those records to trump up the sales numbers to get the Radio Person to play the song…of course they do.  Although, that certainly would explain why they are broke right now.

Are you the single that gets played on 16 episodes of Grey’s Anatomy?  Too bad nobody watches that show anymore.

 

Are you the most downloaded single in America by 18-34 year olds who are going out of their way to steal it?  Too bad, we don’t care about that demographic…this week it is 16 year old World of Warcraft Bards.

 

You see Radio People will live and die by their research until the radio landscape is a barren wasteland of vanilla stations that sound like every other station across this great divide. They will put all their stock into, despite its obvious flaws and archaic mechanics.  They will stand beside the research of yore, while they tell you that Arbitron wouldn’t know how to sample an audience if it was written on their hand.

 

Pot…this is the kettle, call me.

10) Satellite Radio

Radio People love the idea of Satellite radio because of all the times they have wanted to say, “fuck” on the radio.  It is a deep desire for every Radio Person to say “fuck” on the radio.  Because that is a peak in Radio that few people other than Howard Stern get to climb.  The other reason that Radio People like Satellite radio is because of all of the different types of music they play.

You see Radio People also tire from playing the same 46 songs 100 or so times a week but that is what their research will tell them to do, never mind the fact that they themselves would never listen to their station and common sense would say if you won’t listen to your product, why would anyone else.  The answer?  It is that Radio People think the average listener looks like this:

 

Whereas Satellite Radio seems to be the nirvana of broadcasting where you can swear, play the songs that you want, it rains vodka, and strippers pay you, instead of the other way around.  Satellite Radio has taken what Radio People “have always wanted to do” and made it a reality.  Kind of like Peanut Butter Twix…it is the same sort of candy, but made better with peanut butter, as everything is.  Even the listeners of Satellite Radio are better as most Radio People think they look like this:

 

Because that is how they view themselves in their funhouse mirrors of insanity.

 

Now XM and Sirrius have joined forces and to a Radio Person it seems like a threesome with Jessica Alba and Angelina Jolie, when really it is more like Britney Spears and Elliot Spitzer.  And sure, the business model of Satellite is better than terrestrial radio but that is a lot like being the smarter retard.

8) Opinions Guess what they are like…

Radio People love to hear themselves talk, obviously. But one of the main reasons they do what they do is so that they can express their opinions as either fact (scientific or otherwise) or law (whatever law would govern the undereducated speaking to hundreds of thousand of sheep at the same time.)

Radio People live by the dictum that he who has the microphone, wins. By that I mean if you are listening to a radio station and someone calls in to present an opinon that may go against the Radio Person, he or she will raise their voice in order to goad the listener into raising theirs and then hang up and call them insane. Now this sort of argumentative style doesn’t work too well in real life, which is of course why Radio People are highly addicted to Internet Porn, cause it doesn’t talk back.

The other place that Radio People have begun to spread their opinion is in the blogsphere. This is where it gets a bit dicey because you can’t hang up on email, you can either delete it or if you are smart enough, write around it. Take for example this Radio Person’s blog…about one of their own listeners:

(here is the email from the listener)

Do you really need to keep on blubbering on with these slam dunk type opinions of the masses? .. C,mon (sic) they, {these silly opinions of yours} are too freaking easy, I know your (sic) not that smart,
your (sic) just lucky to have a captive audience of youngsters pounding Budweiser..dawg

Robert

(Here is the witty Radio Person response)

I’ll match wits with you any day of the week Robert.

You see, my job is to be myself. . . literally.

So if you hear me express something, it’s exactly the same thing as overhearing someone else’s conversation at a bar. You have a few options: you can butt out (tune to another station), you can butt in (which you’ve just done), or you can introduce yourself and make a new friend (which every man and woman between the ages of 18 and 49 in insert random city has done.)

Only a real fruit loop would yell at the person to shut up.

Are you mentally ill Robert?

Your friend,

%*$&

Here is the problem. The Radio Person went on the air and probably said something like “Barack Obama could never be President” which before this week’s speech was a pretty common thought, and then said, what do YOU think, call (insert radio station number) or email me at (Radio Person’s email). Then some customer takes time out of their day to write him and says “I think for a guy who speaks his mind for a living, you aren’t that bright” which is his right and the Radio Person did ask for it. The Radio Person, who will defend their opinion to the bitter end, goes off on a customer and actually is so angry that someone would question him, he tells them to listen to another station or join the masses that listen to this guys show.

Another thing about Radio People, everyone is # 1 in some demo…just give them 5 minutes.

The other thing that Radio People will always tell you right after they give an opinion is that it is their job to “just be themselves” which is the biggest line of utter horse shit you have ever heard. There job is to be entertaining and at times, if able to be, enlightening. But regular people aren’t either…so like a resume, you trump up some excitement by taking an opinion you heard on Fox News and presenting it as yours and then blast off on the first third shift GM worker who took time to share his thoughts with you.

That is how Apple got all its customers, that is how Goggle took over the Internet and that is how Radio People do it. Wanna build an audience? Piss em off one person at a time and trust me in about 90 days your cume will be through the roof and you won’t have enough pre-fab opinions or witty email responses to keep up with em all. But what do I know I am just giving you my opinion and daring you to email me about it.

7) Alliteration

There is no greater accomplishment in the mind of a Radio Person than that perfect alliteration. Webster defines it as: the repetition of usually initial consonant sounds in two or more neighboring words or syllables. To a Radio Person this is very nearly a prerequisite of the job. You take your name or the name of your show and match it up with a word and then call it a benchmark of your show, sell it to a sponsor and you my friend are not only one smart DJ but certainly have the makings of a top notch Program Director. Here are some tried and true examples.
“The Hot 8 at 8” You take the 8 hottest songs and you play them at, you guessed it, 8 O’clock.

Do you have a competitor in the market?
Kill their countdown with “The Nightly 9 at 9” they will shutter in your benevolent presence.

Well, what if you are an afternoon Radio Person?
I give you “The Drive at Five” This way you don’t actually have to do anything. You don’t change the music, play requests or give anything away and you can still sell it to a sponsor, alliteration at its best.

But I think the single best example I have seen this week of alliteration that may have gone too far is:

Yup, Kim’s Kitty Corner…I mean fuck, does it get any better than that. Her name, her corner of the web and it is basically a daily update of LOL cats who don’t have homes or cute catch phrases. This my friends, is the holy grail of alliteration. In fact, the only thing that would have made this benchmark perfect would be to spell corner with a “k.”

6) All Access

If I were to say to you that Radio People love their names, it would be the largest understament since “Mission Accomplished,” was uttered by George W. Bush, cause Radio People LOVE their names.  They love hearing their name, saying their name and most importantly see their names in print.  This is where All Access comes in cause they love printing Radio People’s names almost as much as Radio People love seeing them.

You remember when you were a kid and your mother would congratulate you when you went doddy in the potty?  That is a lot like what All Access does for Radio People.  Were you able to get a phone call on the air and allow hilarity to ensue, All Access will write about it.  Did you get an interview with Gary Coleman where you got him to wrestle a midget?  All Access will write about it.  Don’t believe me?  Here is a story from today:

 Rector And Michaels Duke It Out For Charity 

The fight was a benefit for the CHARLEY FOUNDATION, a non-profit organization that provides support to charitable agencies addressing the critical needs of children.Since most of you reading this were not present, here’s what it looked like- remember when you were in junior high and you and your friends would circle around two kids trying to box in the school-yard…same deal.

RECTOR and MICHAELS boxed to a draw and both guys really handled themselves well for the 3-round match. RECTOR was able to knock GATOR down at one point. Congrats to both of JIMMY and GATOR for being good sports for a great cause.So what about next year?

All we know so far is that RCA/NASHVILLE VP/Promo KEITH GALE, who was RECTOR’s corner-man, was wearing a shirt that read:
GALE vs. BORCHETTA in ‘09. Let the trash-talk commence.  

In fact, there are Radio People that send All Access near daily updates on the status of their shows and get angry when All Access doesn’t print them all.  And to be fair it is a good source of actual news when it isn’t busy posting stories about boxing matches, Llama contests, or who interviewed Barrack Obama this week.

On the other hand they do also provide Radio People with the single greatest achievement for a Radio Person on a given website…10 Questions with All Access.  This is where the site asks Radio People 10 questions (I know, genius) and they spend a full day coming up with the snarkiest answer to prove to their peers that they are in fact the smartest dumb guy in the room.  And my favorite part is the “bonus question” where they ask a Radio Person about music (which is always a mistake) and they will work overtime to come up with the most obscure answer to seem mysterious and indie…when they are clearly neither and got the songs from a blog by Ellen Page.  Like this one:

 What ringtone do you have on your cell? “Scotty Doesn’t Know” by Lustra, and “Sex and Beer” by Pat McCurdy.

Or this one:

 4) Name the artist/act (living or dead) you’d love to meet and why? Willie Nelson. I hear he knows how to party.

But I think the best part is when they interview people who are unemployed and ask them why in a feature they like to call “On the Beach.”  Undoubtedly the Radio Person is so happy to get some ink in a trade mag they will say anything no matter how incriminating it may be.  So to that I certainly give All Access credit and somebody there has a great sense of humor and or irony.  Check this one out…

  What do you miss most about the music/radio business? Free tickets to my beloved Minnesota Vikings/Twins/Wolves and Wild. Do you realize how expensive those tickets are if you actually have to buy them? WOW!

How bout a paycheck, or a job, or the love of the art form?  No you miss plugola which might explain why this Radio Person is out of a job.

Try this one:

 7) What do you miss most about radio? The least? The free movie tickets … no, the listeners! I really do! Being from San Antonio, everywhere I go they recognize my voice (thank God not my face) and ask me what happened? I miss being able to communicate with my listeners! 

 I am sure he really does miss the movie tickets, again which is probably why he is out of a job.  But this how All Access thrives, on the Radio Person who needs to see their name in print, good or bad, or even idiotic they will send it to All Access to see if they will print it so all over the industry Radio People will say “Did you see All Access today?”