I tend to use this space as a “how to” venue. I like to share my insights on how to get the media excited about you, your message, your products, your services and books. My hope is that the information I offer will enable you to generate media placements for yourself to further your public relations efforts.

However, I’m frequently asked about the value of PR in relation to the business goals it’s designed to enhance. People wonder what will happen if they’re able to achieve a picture-perfect PR campaign and get the media to notice them and generate coverage for them. They wonder if the upside is increased sales, or if it’s in the branding or maybe it’s just the increased exposure for their company or projects or their book.

The short answer is yes, but the long answer is a bit more complicated than that. First thing’s first. When we do a print campaign, for instance, we rate it based on the reach of the publications in traditional print outlets and online outlets. We use two key terms – circulation and visitors per month (VPM) – and while one of those terms is old and the other is new, they are based on the same principle.

When we use the term VPM, we’re applying it to the online publications in the same way that newspapers and magazines use circulation figures to apply to their audience numbers.

Back in those primitive days before the Internet, when paper and ink were still a popular means of communication, PR firms rated the success of their print campaigns by adding up the circulation figures of the newspapers and magazines in which they got coverage for their clients.  So if an article was written about you in the Philadelphia Inquirer that would be rated as a pretty good hit, because that paper has a circulation of about 300,000 readers daily. Now that’s not to say all 300,000 people read the article that was about you. It’s simply a measure of the potential readers of your article.

Then along came the Internet.  We now live in a time in which almost every newspaper or magazine article is repurposed online and more people get their news online than offline. In an attempt to present advertisers with a “circulation” figure for the Internet versions of their print publications, publishers created the tracking of unique visitors to their news pages, and that number is called VPM.

For example, if we place an article on a Web site like the Huffington Post, which has a VPM of 22 million, it doesn’t mean that 22 million people are reading your story. It just means that your story was placed on a site that has an online “circulation” of 22 million. It’s just like the Philadelphia Inquirer example above, where the circulation of that publication is 300,000, but there’s no way to calculate how many of those 300,000 readers actually read your article.

So VPM is simply a “circulation” figure for the Internet and it’s how campaigns are tracked in the era of new media, which isn’t much different than the way it was tracked “back in the day.”

Just as in the above example, it’s also impossible to track specifically how many people watched your TV segment or heard your radio interview. The ratings systems for TV shows are not specific enough to track who was watching at the moment you were on the air, and the ratings system for radio is not universally used, so extrapolating accurate numbers for specific days and times is also near impossible.

With radio PR for example, the measures we look at are the size of the market, the wattage of the station (5,000 watts is good, 500, not so much) and in the case of national radio shows, how many stations carry the show through syndication. These are broader brushstrokes than what people can achieve through advertising on the Internet and tracking clickthroughs, but it is also far less expensive. In online advertising campaigns, advertisers can track exactly who visited their Web site, what Web site referred them, what they viewed on the site and even how many minutes they spent on each page. Coming from that experience, it can sometimes be difficult for marketers to understand why the same kind of granular audience analysis doesn’t exist in PR.

But, keep in mind advertisers are paying for that infrastructure with their fees, which are often many times the cost of a solid PR campaign. In addition, those ad campaigns lack the power of third-party verification that exists in PR – when a host has you as a guest on a radio or TV show it’s a tacit endorsement of you as an expert.  It’s someone of authority saying you’re credible and authoritative in your field. With advertising, the media savvy audience knows you paid for the space, so the only credibility those ads carry is that you had enough money to buy the ads.

How does all that factor into your bottom lines? Well, sometimes they do, sometimes they don’t, because reaching a lot of people with your message does not equate to making them want to buy what you’re selling. So many other elements are factors in the “buy” decision – your Web site, your specific product or service, the topic of your book if there’s one in play, your price point compared to your competitors, your distribution and availability – I could go on and on here. The truth is that both PR and advertising can only inform your potential customers that you, and what you are marketing, exists.

In the case of PR, it not only informs people, but it also adds credibility to your reputation, as PR coverage carries more “endorsement” weight than any advertisement you can ever purchase.

The key idea to take away from all this is that you won’t necessarily make sales just because you’re doing PR, but you’ll be hard-pressed to make sales without it.

For that reason, I thought it might be helpful to share some basics about marketing, PR and advertising, as it relates to your company’s growth.

Let’s start with a very simple, but thorough definition of marketing. The American Marketing Association defines marketing as “… an organizational function and a set of processes for creating, communicating and delivering value to customers and for managing customer relationships in ways that benefit the organization and its stakeholders.”

This definition makes it pretty clear that marketing is not an activity by itself, but rather, a collection of strategies and actions aimed at driving business to your door. Marketing tactics may include branding, advertising, public relations, merchandising, direct mail advertising, phone sales, infomercials, multi-level marketing, and more.

It also includes the production of “collateral” – materials such as sell sheets, brochures, media kits, sales kits and any other document that supports the sales department. This marketing collateral differs from advertising as it is used later in the sales process, often as materials used by sales people to close prospects.

Let’s talk about advertising. It’s a marketing activity in which companies pay for space in print publications or on Web sites, commercials on radio or television, or direct mail pieces to advertise their products or services. This is paid space, so you control everything that goes into the message, and the cost of the space is based on reach and repetition.

Public relations differs in many ways from advertising. The Encarta dictionary defines PR as: “the practice or profession of establishing, maintaining, or improving a favorable relationship between an institution or person and the public.” Publicity is one of PR’s tactics and involves pitching a news story about your company to the press (both offline or online), and booking your spokesperson as a guest on radio and TV.

Given that the media is driven by ratings on radio and TV and by subscribers and visitors per month for hard copy publications and online news sites, they know precisely the demographics of their audience and what topics keep them engaged. Consequently, they’re very selective about who they interview as guests or who they choose to spotlight in their publications.

The great value of PR is the implicit endorsement that comes with appearing as an expert guest on radio or TV, or being the focus of a story in a newspaper or magazine. So, while advertising serves the needs of the company who is buying the advertising, PR serves the needs of the consumers who watch TV, listen to talk radio and read hard copy or online publications as their source of entertainment and information.

Of course, these are just very brief definitions – intended to give you a simple overview of the topics. I decided to write about this only because in my day-to-day conversations with clients and people interested in our PR services, I find people often confuse advertising with PR, and marketing with advertising – even when speaking with executives at large corporations. Yet each one of these tactics, when understood more clearly, can be so important to an organization’s survival and growth.

Hopefully this brief explanation can be helpful to you.

Public relations is by far the most affordable and effective marketing tool available for small businesses and consultants. That’s a bold statement, but perfectly reasonable when you know the facts. I can’t tell you how many times I am approached by entrepreneurs who ask me, “Can I afford to do PR?” I always answer the same way: “You can’t afford NOT to do PR.”

Advertising is Not Public Relations

First, understand that advertising is not PR, and PR is not advertising. Advertising is simply a tactic by which you pay for placement of an ad—in newspapers or magazines, direct mail pieces or Web mediums—which you hope will generate responses commensurate with the amount of money you spend. The problem with this plan for small business people is that you have to spend a significant amount of money before you reach enough critical mass to make enough sales to recoup the money you’ve spent. At the end of the day, it’s a numbers game, and a game that only large companies can afford.

People Trust News

Public relations is cost efficient, because it delivers more than just numbers—it delivers trust. According to research, people trust news coverage far more than advertising. For example, TNS, a leading marketing information group, announced in early 2009 the results of a survey of 1,000 US households regarding consumer trust. The main result is that people tend to trust the news and what they read in print. As far as advertising goes, not so much.

In that survey, only 35 percent of respondents showed any level of trust in advertising, a number that would concern most CEO’s and their bean counters!

Here’s a summary of the findings:

• Local newspaper credibility – 46 percent
• Local TV credibility – 44 percent
• Print advertising credibility – 21 percent
• Television advertising credibility – 11 percent
• Print advertising trustworthiness – 17 percent
• Television advertising trustworthiness – 9 percent

The reason public relations is more trusted is because of the implicit endorsement of the media organization that covers your story. Let’s face it, if they are willing to put it on their free air time, their editorial space or their web site, it means you were at least important enough for them to expend resources to cover your news. With advertising, anyone who can pay for the space can buy it. There’s not much pre-qualification or trust required there – just a check book.

Cost Savings

In addition, a good public relations campaign costs about one-tenth of an advertising campaign. A small advertising budget will buy you a campaign that drops a pebble in a pond, and you hope the tiny ripples reach some customers. A PR campaign has the potential to drop a boulder in that same pond, for the price of advertising’s pebble.

Some retainer-based firms are taking on small businesses and consultant clients at cut rates these days, while “pay-for-performance” style agencies (that do project-based work with placement guarantees) are even more cost efficient because their guarantees help mitigate your risk.

All in all, there are a wide variety of inexpensive options out there for small companies who feel they can benefit from the branding and exposure good public relations delivers. In addition, advertising is an exercise in sales, whereas PR is an exercise in so much more. Good PR counselors help their clients with branding, messaging, positioning, crisis communications and community relations. The better ones know how to position you with the media as an expert in your field so that whenever a story breaks in your industry, you get the proactive call from the media to help them analyze the event and interpret it for their audiences. In many ways, PR delivers a marketing gift that keeps on giving.

Women influence 95% of all purchases and control 80% of all household spending.

She specifically points out their spending habits in these categories:

• Domestic Products

“Buying the ‘small stuff’ has always been in the woman’s domain. Part of her domestic duties as wife and mother has been to keep the family healthy, warm, and well nourished. From the family meal to the family doctor, from shirts for her husband to shoes for her kids, chances are those choices have always been hers.

“What many marketers haven’t caught onto yet, though, is that women’s spending power now extends far beyond shoelaces and shirts.”

• Big-Ticket Items

“In the past, the big-ticket items like cars, insurance policies, and major appliances were historically bought by – and therefore marketed to – men. Things have changed! Nowadays, women need their own cars, their own computers, their own cell phones, and their own investment accounts – among many other new big-ticket items – and so manufacturers are facing a whole new market.”

• The Buying Power of Single Women

“Get this: Single women head 27 percent of households in the United States. Did you register that? More than one out of four U.S. households! Thus, a substantial portion of the market for cars, computers, and cell phones, for instance, is dominated by women serving as sole decision makers.”

• The Buying Power of Married Women

“Looking at married households (55 percent of U.S. HH), the fact of the matter is that the woman of the house spends not her own paycheck but a good deal of her partner’s as well. She still handles all the domestic spending. And when it comes to the big-ticket items, not only is she buying her own products – like the single women above – but she also has a disproportionate say in the shared decisions, such as cars, investment accounts, and family vacations.”

So, what’s the “take-away” from all this information? Again, it’s that – Women influence 95% of all purchases and control 80% of all household spending.

As it’s important to me that our clients are groomed to do their best, we provide them with helpful tips they can study and apply. Let me share a few of these tips, in case you’re also using this medium as a means of promotion. These particular tips relate to your appearance: how to dress, which colors show best, make-up (that includes you guys as well) and more. I hope you enjoy them!

1. Wear something that conveys your personality and your message: You don’t want to be judged by your appearance, but knowing that happens, prepare for it. You want to appear confident and professional, so make sure you are comfortable in what you wear and that the color and fit compliment you. Keep in mind that not every camera angle is going to be close up. Your whole outfit will show, including the shoes. Make sure that your shoes are polished and that laces are not frayed or missing all together. Remember, you want to give a good impression so that your appearance speaks to your credibility!

2. Be choosy about color and pattern: Small, tight patterns do not come across well on TV – they tend to shimmer, so solids are better. Certain colors are overpowering on TV or tend to bleed. Black, white and red fit this category. Blue works very well on camera. You want the audience to focus on your message, not your clothing, so keep it simple and classy.

3. Jewelry: Microphones are very sensitive, so although those dangling earrings and that big chunky necklace go beautifully with your suit, you will want to remove them so they do not make any distracting noise. Keep it tasteful and simple; a nice necklace, a ring or two and classic earrings are a good choice.

4. Manicures: Manicures are not just for the ladies anymore. Clean, buffed, trimmed nails are important for men and women alike. When the camera zooms in for a close up on your book or product, your hands will reflect your level of professionalism. For the ladies, if you choose color for your nail polish, tone it down so it doesn’t detract from the cover of your book or product.

5. Put on your face: Not all shows have make-up artists. You should make sure you are made up in an understated and professional manner. Some base and some powder should do the trick. Base will help keep your pores from showing and powder will keep you from looking shiny. This goes for the men, too. Yes, you are going to have to wear make-up, and you may have to apply it yourself! Make sure, gentlemen, that you cover your face and your forehead with powder; you want your message to shine, not your forehead! If the show has a makeup artist, they can then enhance what you have done. If they don’t, then you will look good anyway. Remember…less is more.

Now you can be more prepared for that close-up!

As Lee is one of the top “go-to” guys for helping national talk show hosts be the best at this medium – who better to give you advice on how to effectively use this medium when appearing as a guest!

I’ve separated the interview into two parts – below is Part 1 and this link will take you to Part 2.

I hope you enjoy the information!

My Interview with Lee Habeeb: Part 1

Marsha Friedman: Lee, why do you think being a guest on talk radio is such a good marketing vehicle for promoting a product, book or service?

Lee Habeeb: There are a few reasons why being a guest on talk radio is superior to every other medium.  First and foremost, when you’re on a talk radio show you’re getting the implicit endorsement of the host.  And what makes talk radio so powerful is the fact that the relationship between the host and the listeners is very intimate.  This differs from TV where pictures and action distract the audience’s attention and the segments are very short.  The speed of television is – four minute segment, commercials, four minute segment, and commercials again.

With talk radio, the hosts are on with the audience three hours a day (every day) and people become addicted.  They listen in their cars and online.  That three-hour session with that host over a long range of time builds a strong bond.

And these bonds are lasting.  This is evident in the career span of the average radio host.  Look at Gordon Liddy, Rush Limbaugh and Michael Savage, they have been doing it for decades and continue to go on and on.  The life of their careers is longer than most television hosts.  Television tends to chew up hosts and spit them out.

And so, the intimacy between the host and listener is powerful.  When you’re a guest, you become the expert the host is endorsing because he’s carving out some of his show time for you.  And I think that is the true power.  It’s the testimonial power and the implicit endorsement that you’re getting from this host.

MF: I couldn’t agree more.  What qualities would you say are the most important for somebody who wants to make the most of their air time when being interviewed as a guest on a talk radio show?

LH: The most important thing to think about is… “Who cares?  Why should I be listening to you?  What are you going to do for me?”  That’s the voice of the audience and they’re brutal.  Just think about when you’re the audience.  If the program doesn’t either pull you in emotionally or provide quality information…you hit that clicker button.  And how many times a day do we hit our clicker buttons while watching TV?  I would say 95% of our choices in television are choices away from certain programs seeking something we like instead.

MF: To reiterate your point, when prepping for the show the question most important to ask yourself is “Who is your audience and why should they care?”

LH: Exactly right.  The most important audience is the host.  If you can engage him, he by proxy is the entire audience.  The only reason most people gather around “The Savage Nation” is because they’re interested in what Michael Savage has to say and what he is interested in.  So by proxy, you don’t have to worry about entertaining Michael’s audience, you simply have to engage and entertain Michael.

The beauty of radio is you’ve got no one to look at, so all you have to do is engage the host.  You’re rarely even in the same room with them.  Moreover, since the host booked you on their show, your message is something they are interested in.  But if the host doesn’t like your interview, you are out the door!

MF: You mean a host will cut the interview short?

LH: Absolutely.  Your job as a guest is to entertain the host, share good insights and provide quality information.  In other words, provide good content for the host…which is what they want more than anything else.  After all, in many cases they could have three hours to fill per day!

MF: You’re really hitting on something which can be an obstacle for talk radio guests to overcome – making the most of their time on air.   The natural inclination for guests is get on the air and start selling.  But the problem is that they end up sounding like an infomercial!

LH: It’s crazy to think “I’ve got to say the name of my book 14 times!”  I’ll never forget, one author we had on Laura Ingraham’s show, who had obviously been coached by a consultant who said, “Name your book 12 times.  When you’re saying a sentence, name your book.”  And so he kept on saying, “Well, in my book “Blah Blah”…in my book, “Blah, Blah.”  Finally, Laura said, “Hey, this interview’s coming to an end right now if you say the title of your book one more time.”  He couldn’t just have a conversation with her and, of course, he only got five minutes and we didn’t book him anymore due to his shameless self-promotion.

The important thing to remember is his time on the air was not his time.  The host has loaned you the airtime, whether you paid for it or not.  As the host, I have given you good grace to invite you into my house.

Ask me about my family before you sell me your book, product or service.  Develop a relationship with me.  If you can do this, I will give you more time, plug your book or product, push you towards success…all without even thinking about it.  Even when you leave the studio, I’m going to say, “Wow, what a great guest.  Don’t forget, you’ve got to go out and buy so-and-so’s book.”

To help this along, be prepared before you are interviewed.  Have your five funny bullet points, a personal story and a flattering story about the host.  The best way to achieve this is to research the host.  Listen to a podcast of a recent show and find out something special that happened and say, “Before we get into the book, I listened last Thursday and that segment you did with so-and-so on sailing, even if you’re not a sailor, you had to love that segment.  Just thank you for doing what you do.”

You’ve got to care.  I think too many people don’t care, and to me pre-show preparation represents caring.

MF: Great point Lee.  It may seem like a lot of research before each show, but the payoff has got to be worth it.

###End of Part 1###

Click here to read Part 2

Talk radio, (one of the most under-utilized goldmines I can think of), can be a powerhouse in terms of promoting your book, your products, your company and services.  As I write this to you, I’m reminded of a great example of this.  A few years back we worked with Dr. Will Wong, a phenomenal media spokesperson who represented two different companies with natural health products.  Both companies focused all their marketing efforts on ongoing talk radio campaigns.

Now listen to this….

The first company went from $55,000 in sales to $7 million in a two year period.  The second company went from zero in sales to $6 million in the same amount of time.

Will called me one day so excited, to tell me, “Every morning now, I come into the office to the sound of our phones ringing off the hook and a very happy sales staff!  We’ve not only increased our direct sales, but our stores are calling to restock their shelves and we’ve obtained more distributors.  In the past we’ve tried all sorts of marketing, advertising and PR, but this talk radio campaign has been by far the most productive!”

The winning formula that I’ve seen work over and over is simply this:  having a message with mass appeal; a spokesperson who can talk about their message as it relates to top news stories and is skilled at using the air time to effectively promote their product without sounding like an infomercial!  A winning combination!

And it really does make sense.  The beauty of talk radio is that you are having live conversations with people all over the country.  Even better, you are talking with a host who invited you on because he or she felt their audience would be interested in what you had to say.  The result: instant credibility with a very captive audience.

But Will isn’t the only example.  Over the years I’ve seen many talk radio successes which is why I’m such a believer in the power of talk radio as a great promotional vehicle.  Who knows, this could be just what the doctor ordered to explode your own business!

In the 20+ years I’ve been in public relations, one of the most difficult elements of the game to teach clients is that the press is not a service organization whose sole purpose is to cover what PR people pitch them. Their business model is simple; they exist to inform and entertain their readers, so they can grow their subscriber base and sell advertising against those numbers.So, if you want to participate in the “press game” it is vital to recognize what wins the press loyal readers and increases their circulation…and then help them to do it!  Step one is to get together a power-packed pitch.  According to the Associated Press Stylebook the preferred term for a press release is not press release; it’s NEWS release.  After all, it’s not called a press-paper – it’s called a NEWSpaper.  Like it or not, public relations people don’t get to determine what the news is. Only news professionals get to do that when they choose what to write, print or air.

So, just because your company opened a new store in Cincinnati, doesn’t make it NEWS. However, there may very well be a nugget of newsworthiness that you can offer up to the press in order to get them interested in the opening of your store.Where do you find those nuggets? Here are a few suggestions to help you mine the news gold in all your announcements:

Read Your Local Newspapers -You can’t find a news hook until you know what the news of the day actually is.  And, because it changes every day, you need to stay on top of the news (or hire an agency to perform that function for you, and trust their judgment when they advise you of potential news hooks).

Determine How Your Story is Relevant – This is the lowest hanging fruit in the news hook orchard. Look for anything in your business that is relevant to news taking place in your community or nationally. If you’re opening a new bicycle shop in Los Angeles, then do some news searches to see what reporters have been writing about the area.

Say you discover that the area is economically depressed, in which case you can pitch to the press the idea that a new retailer opening there is a boost to the local economy, and that you’re willing to take a chance on success in that community. Or you may discover that bicycle ridership has increased nationally by 10 percent over the previous year, with new riders indicating they have started because they are trying to get fit. Now you can pitch the local press on the angle that your new shop is aimed at capitalizing on this national trend.

This strategy is known as “localizing” a national story, which every newspaper and TV producer loves. Because it’s a national story, they are going to report it anyway, but they’d prefer to have a local hook so they can be more relevant to the local audience.

Develop Stories That Have a Beginning, Middle and End – Make sure you tell reporters a full story. Let’s use the bicycle shop as an example. Opening a bicycle shop may not be much of a story on its own, but what’s the story behind the story? Did the owners overcome any unusual obstacles in fulfilling the dream of opening their store? Was the owner ever a competitive bicyclist? Have the owners used their knowledge of the sport or inventory to help any children’s charities or causes? Are they active in their community? Identify the story behind the story, and you’ll have plenty of opportunities to find a news hook that’s relevant.

Take Action – There is a reason why so many commercial enterprises and not-for-profit charities and community organizations partner up for special events – it’s a win-win situation for everyone. It’s important for every commercial enterprise to be a good citizen and use some of their resources to help others, and it also helps to make sometimes un-newsworthy events relevant. Opening a bicycle shop isn’t a big deal, but holding a grand opening event for a local children’s charity makes the opening more relevant. If the owners use the event to help raise money and donate excess inventory to needy children, it is both a worthy venture and a genuinely heartwarming feel-good story worthy of news coverage.

Helping people should be its own reward, of course, but that’s also why newspapers and charities love these events. It not only gives editors and TV crews something joyful and happy to report, but it also enables the charities to get their messages out to the community at large. Your business improves its public image, and deservedly so, as long as the help is genuine and comes not from the pocketbook, but from the heart.

At the end of the day, most of the time you can find news hooks in even the most mundane of news releases.  The key thing to remember is that the focus of the release isn’t to sell, sell, sell – it’s to convince a reporter that you have news to report and that their readers would be informed or entertained by what you have to tell them.

Think like the journalist, help them do their job, and you’ll find that your enterprise will generate more press coverage as a result.

Let me explain.  Say you’ve written a cookbook on southwestern foods, and many of your recipes contain salsa as a main ingredient.  Well, you and your book can be the focus of a national publicity campaign for the salsa manufacturer interested in building or maintaining brand recognition.  AND, at the same time, provide a great opportunity to educate consumers about the variety of ways their salsa can be used (other than a side dish for chips!)  You can do a cooking segment on TV demonstrating the great taste and wide variety of salsa recipes.  How about your book and its salsa recipes featured in the food and lifestyle sections of daily newspapers and magazines? You can even do interviews on talk radio shows that focus on food, health and lifestyles.  These hosts would love a gift basket of salsa and chips as part of the conversation when you appear as a guest on their show. Subsidizing a campaign like this would undoubtedly give the salsa company a handsome return on their investment! Another example might be a book with household tips (Queen of Clean comes to mind!) that includes products used in unique ways – like toothpaste to flash patch walls or club soda to remove stains on your clothes.  Each of the manufacturers of these products could be approached to sponsor portions of your book tour!

What does a corporation gain by investing in the promotion of your book?  The answer is simple – live, on-air conversation and demonstration of their product and editorial coverage that’s priceless.  This broad national publicity does more to strengthen brand recognition for an existing product or build brand recognition for a new product than any advertising campaign is capable of!  It will have a direct impact on sales that is unbeatable and unmatched by advertising dollars.

So, be creative in your thinking.  If you’re resourceful and have good credentials to be a spokesperson for a company’s product – you and your book can be a great marketing vehicle for that company to invest in.  It’s a true win/win partnership for everyone.

A maverick in the world of radio broadcasting, in addition to being a weathered trade journalist, Harrison has been at the center of many of the most exciting radio revolutions of the past 30+ years.  As you know, Talkers, is the leading talk radio publication and was one of the first radio trade journals to expand into the cutting edge technology of the “New Talk Media” which includes talk on the Internet and satellite radio as well as cable television.

Recently, Marsha Friedman, News & Experts Founder and CEO of Event Management Services, sat down with Michael and interviewed him about the changing landscape of talk radio and how these changes will revolutionize the industry as a whole. Please click here to read Part 1 of this interview.

Marsha Friedman: First off, what effect do you think the new Arbitron Personal People Meters will have on talk radio?

Michael Harrison: I think that Arbitron is having a difficult time rating radio accurately.  It is not their fault, it’s just down to the fact that radio is almost impossible to rate accurately.  It’s so large, mysterious, idiosyncratic, fractionalized, unstable and spread out in so many different directions.  There are so many things going on at any given moment that there are numerous ways of slicing and dicing the ratings for specific target audiences.  Thus, there are lots of ways of being number one in something. Also, it’s so unwired, meaning there’s no way of really attaching a meter to the reality of the act of listening to the radio without interfering with how a person listens to the radio.  All of that combined makes it almost impossible to accurately rate radio.

The diary method worked for a long time, although it was extremely inaccurate.  There was a huge “guesstimate” element involved in terms of a margin-of-error and it was very chancy depending on many factors: who got the diary, how it was distributed, and even if the person could recall what they listened to.  Everybody in the business knew that it wasn’t a very good method, but the diary method was geared to dealing with the mom-and-pop culture of radio that existed before corporate consolidation and everybody had a stake in it.

You heard broadcasters say things like, “Well, it’s not a good system, but it’s the only system we have, so we have to live with it.”  But in corporatized radio that doesn’t cut it anymore, especially since we’re in a highly technical era where people want exact numbers.  They want specifics and they want them now. The whole diary method being old and last quarter just doesn’t cut it anymore.  The problem with the People Meter goes back to what I said before about radio.  It’s so difficult to track that in order for Arbitron to do it truly accurately from a standpoint of mathematical science, they have to have so many units out there and painstakingly monitor the distribution of these units – which would make it nearly impossible for them to make any money in doing it.  So, that’s why they keep having these fits and starts and different factions complaining that it’s not accurate, that it’s not fair.  Of course, Arbitron won’t admit this… and I can’t really blame them.  They are doing the best they can.So to answer your question, they have a lot of work ahead of them and there are a lot of problems that are deeper than Arbitron can really be responsible for.  What are the big problems facing terrestrial radio as we enter into the 21st Century?  A big one is the fact it’s almost impossible to rate accurately.

Marsha Friedman:  You say it is nearly impossible to rate accurately Michael, but do you see a better solution in sight?

Michael Harrison: Well, I don’t really see much of a better way to do it because you can’t attach a wire to everybody’s radio in their car and at home to really be able to monitor accurately.  We have to come to grips with the situation and deal with it honestly.  We have to have better salesman in radio, better account executives that go out and educate their clients as to how to really buy radio.  We have to educate the agencies because you can’t just sell PPM and radio by the numbers.  It’s not good for radio or the clients, only the agencies because it makes their lives simple. Cost per point should just be one element of the marketing equation based on the premise that it is a guess at best.

There has to be a massive education as to the qualitative nature of radio beyond just a quantitative nature of radio, and that burden falls on the shoulders of the marketing departments of radio stations.  Clients out there also need to be educated and demand more of their ad agencies.  Putting money out there based upon cost per point is not going to give them the effectiveness for their dollar that they seek.

Even deeper, as we enter the age of the Internet, you cannot talk about the future of radio without talking about the future of the Internet. We’re going to reach a point where, because people will be able to find whatever they’re looking for using search engines, the nature of the programming will define the nature of the audience.  If you’re doing something either on the radio or the Internet that people want to hear, see or consume, common sense will indicate that you’ve got an audience.  And the key is for us in the marketing world to understand the nature of the programming will be defining the audience.  If you build it, they will come.  But if you build it and they don’t come, it’s because they didn’t want it or need it.  I guess, simply put, radio sales people have got to sell the idea of common sense.

Marsha Friedman: In this electronic age, what do you think that terrestrial radio needs to do to survive?

Michael Harrison: For terrestrial radio to survive it needs to have the best programming available anywhere, and that programming has to be exclusive to AM and FM radio.  If they stream on the Internet based upon the current conventional wisdom that people will hear it on the Internet and thus go back to listen to the radio…they’re not going to.  Once they’re listening on the Internet, they have no reason to go back to the AM or the FM dials.

They should create different programming for the Internet and leave their best programming, or their real meat and potatoes, on the AM and the FM dials.  On their Internet site, the people will hear clips, excerpts, cutting room floor stuff, special programs which will compel them to go back to their AM or FM radio to hear the station itself.

That’s the only answer.  The current model of streaming your programming, although in the short term it gives your advertisers and your brand more exposure (which is a good thing), but in the long run it’s quickening the demise of the AM and the FM channel having any value whatsoever.  But because corporate radio lives in a world of quarterly reports, there is the irresistible urge and pressure to sell the future out for immediate gain.

Marsha Friedman: Do you propose this to save their lives or just prolong the lives of the AM and FM stations?

Michael Harrison: I want to point out that this is only a measure that will prolong the life of AM and FM.  It will not extend it indefinitely. The only thing that AM and FM can do today that makes sound business sense is to prolong their life an extra few years because I think the handwriting is on the wall.  I don’t believe that AM and FM can survive for very long one way or the other in the wake of the Internet. The Internet is going to continue to change everything. These websites that we now consider to be adjuncts to the radio station, or promotional vehicles for the radio, will actually replace the radio station.  And, they’re going to do so a lot quicker than we realize.

Marsha Friedman: Wow. So Michael, what happens to the whole terrestrial radio industry?

Michael Harrison: It moves to the Internet and becomes bigger and better than ever before. It becomes more diverse. It becomes multi-channeled. It becomes infinite in terms of its real estate, inventory and creative ability. It becomes unfettered and unrestrained by FCC regulations. It will be superior. Today’s AM and FM radio station will evolve into tomorrow’s “media station” – a broadband superstation, if you will. The only parties that have anything to lose by this transition are the people who have serious money invested in the licenses.

Marsha Friedman: So what you are saying is that in the future you won’t need licensing?

Michael Harrison: No, you don’t need a license to be a broadcaster in this new era that’s unfolding.  What you need is to have a product that people want to hear, and not only will they hear it; they will also look at it and read it.  Again, I predict that we’re going to see the rise of what I call a media station which will be oriented to audio, video or to text.  It’s going to replace the radio and television stations, magazines and newspapers.

For example, the media station of The New York Times will be oriented to text because its history is that it has writers.  The heir to WABC-AM will be a media station oriented to audio because it is the heir to great speakers, talkers.  The media stations of the big television stations will be video oriented, again because their roots are in video.

The only difference is that they will all have elements of each other.  They’ll be no such thing as what I call “monomedia” – media that exist independently of each other with special appliances necessary to receive them such as “radios” and “television sets” or “CD players” and “DVD players.”  Audio-only in this new environment will seem archaic because the appliance that you’re listening to it on now has a screen.  And will the screen be blank?  Of course not, you’ve gotta put something on this screen, and it doesn’t mean that you have to have a television show.  It just means that there will be a video accompaniment to whatever it is that you’re presenting in an audio way.

For example, say you are interviewing an author of a new book.   While the author is being interviewed on the radio, people who are consuming this on the media station will also have a chance to see a picture of the author, a picture of the book cover, maybe a coupon that they could print out, maybe extensive information about the subject in text form that they could download and print out and on and on.  We are adding to the dimensions that we’re playing with and this requires intelligence and abstract reasoning.  It’s a completely new paradigm and it’s unfolding before our very eyes.  My educated guess is that within 10 years it’s going to be a completely different landscape.

And the only thing standing between websites being an accompaniment or an extension of 20^th Century media (radio and television stations) is a couple more clicks of the technological evolution towards cars having Internet radio in them and video monitors being standard equipment.  In other words, cars being completely Wi-Fi’d and people being able to click on any of an infinite number of media stations with the same ease they can now turn on a radio or television station.

Marsha Friedman: I had another question about the quality of weekend programming for radio stations.  We’re seeing far less radio infomercials being produced and time being bought which certainly affects the revenues of the radio stations.  But also you have the issue of the quality of weekend programming being so inferior.  How do you see all of that playing out?

Michael Harrison: Well, I think that it’s self-defeating for radio stations to have to broker time to inferior programming on their precious airwaves in order to make money which goes back to what I said before about selling out the future for immediate survival.  Unfortunately, the reason they are forced to do this is because of the problems they are having selling spots and advertising.  So sadly they have to resort to a method of generating revenue that at one time was considered embarrassing. It would behoove the stations to be as selective as possible in their choice of brokered shows and help their clients produce as decent a product as possible. Not likely to happen, though.

Marsha Friedman: I remember back in the early 90′s when I first got into business, there were a few stations that brokered time.  Boy has that changed!

Michael Harrison: Correct, correct.  This is an unfortunate thing, but I understand why they’re doing it because we’re in a period of time when we’re seeing the decline of the radio spot as a workable unit of measurement.  It’s getting harder and harder to sell these things and as a result, they have to do whatever they have to do to survive.  But again, it’s killing the viability of radio and its future unless, of course, they put good shows on.

I have to say out of fairness, there are a percentage of brokered shows out there that are actually very good.  It is not a majority percentage, but they do exist. So let’s not paint all brokered shows as being bad.  That’s one.  Two, there are a lot of shows out there that are not brokered but are still paying to get on and that’s called compensation where the syndicators are paying the stations, not the stations paying the syndicators, but the syndicators paying the stations to get on. They’re calling it by the more positive term “compensation” because it’s more mainstream well-known talent than your local chiropractor promoting his practice. But it’s still a form of brokered show.

So, again, it comes down to the fact that terrestrial radio is having a terribly difficult time generating revenue via traditional advertising sales and this ties back into the discussion we had earlier about the difficulty in getting accurate ratings and selling this product quantitatively in a marketplace that understands radio has serious, serious problems.

Without quality content there can be no future for AM and FM radio.  It can’t be because you can get better stuff on the Internet.  And then as soon as the Internet is a few notches more accessible and ultimately ubiquitous – it’s over.  Ah, but out of the ashes of good ol’ 20th century terrestrial radio will rise the phoenix of exciting, unlimited media station broadcasting – and what a wondrous scene that will be!

Please click here to read Part 1 of this interview.