A few weeks ago, Kossack
hybronk posted a success story about how a group of progressives in Baton Rouge, LA successfully persuaded a radio station to carry Air America Radio. It was a
fantastic diary, so if you haven't seen it, feel free to do so now. I made a fairly lengthy comment about radio and how to go about this, and I've been meaning to do a full diary entry spilling everything I know about radio, and to give others this knowledge in hopes they could help create change in their corner of America. Well, finally, here it is.
In this diary, I will attempt to give the basics on the gooey innards of radio, and hopefully give you some ideas on where to start if you're looking to achieve what Baton Rouge achieved. I'm going to cover how radio works, specifically the AM band/talk radio, and why it's easier than you think to get Air America on the air in your city. It's gonna be a long diary, and I will probably bog myself down with too many details, but I'd be more than happy to answer questions. And away we go.....
1) How do those voices come out of that little box?
Now, I can't give you exact figures, but for the most part, I'd estimate at the very minimum, 80% of programming on talk radio is delivered via satellite and distributed by dozens of content providers. Of course, the most famous talk radio host is Rush Limbaugh, syndicated via the Premiere Radio Networks. Premiere is the largest, and some other large syndicators are Jones Radio and the United Stations Radio Network. I could bore you with a laundry list of syndicators and syndicated hosts, but the general principle is the same. Each host comes via satellite from a remote location and is available via transponder to any station who has the equipment to dial it up and who has broadcast rights in that market. Most (if not all) syndicated/satellite programming is accessed through the same equipment; it takes little effort to move from one host (or network) to another. Think of it as going from your VCR to your DVD to your PS2 and so on. In some cases, a live person flips a couple of switches or moves a dial or two and the program is right there, ready to be recorded and broadcast later, or broadcast live right there on the spot. We'll get back to this point a little later; I'm just laying the groundwork for why it's really easy to flip formats.
2) Isn't it expensive to run a radio station?
Well, yes and no. It's expensive to do it from the ground up. The equipment itself is very specific and very expensive, and it costs money to pay the electric bill and to hire someone to make sure the buttons are pushed at the right times. However, existing stations, especially on the AM dial are very cheap to operate. Whether starting from the ground up or running an ongoing station, the biggest expense is the licensing..first for the actual signal you're broadcasting on, and second, for the clearance to whatever your programs are going to be. For music stations, they have to pay ASCAP/BMI fees so they have a license to run every song you hear on them. For talk/syndicated programming, sometimes a license fee has to be paid to the syndicator to run a particular program. Your Rush Limbaughs and Laura Schlesingers and Jim Romes and Don Imuses of the world charge a pretty hefty fee to run their shows. (It goes the same for FM radio, the Howard Sterns, and Bob & Tom, etc. Basically, FM is way, way more expensive than AM on pretty much every level, in every market) It's not a generic lump sum, either. It's a sliding scale. A station in Boston running Rush Limbaugh will have a higher price to pay than a station in Missoula, Montana. However, most syndicated programming does not require rights fees to be paid at all. The syndicated programming that does not charge fees gets their money via barter. All that means is that if WXXX wants to run the Kinetic Dissent Hour of Power, all they have to do is sign an agreement saying they'll run the commercials from the satellite programming unedited and in the correct times. They may also require the station to run an addition set of commercials outside the actual airtime of the program, but it's usually something low, like 1 minute of commercials per day. So, the station does not pay anything out of their pocket. In my example, whoever syndicates my show (The DailyKos Radio Network, for argument's sake--DKRN for short) goes out and finds advertisers and they play those commercials during my show. It's that simple.
3) Well, if it's so expensive, smart guy, how does WXXX make money off what they air?
When DKRN signs on a new affiliate, they'll send WXXX a "clock" of the show. I could bore you with an actual clock, but it looks kinda like a pie chart. Instead, I'll do it textually.Your run-of-the-mill AM talk/news clock goes something like this, for every hour of programming..
00:00-00:06 - network news
00:06-00:07 - local available
00:07-00:15 - program content
00:15-00:18 - network spots (national ads)
00:18-00:20 - local available
00:20-00:35 - program content
00:35-00:38 - network spots
00:38-00:40 - local available
00:40-00:58:50 - program content
00:58:50-00:59:50 - local available
00:59:50-00:00 - top of the hour legal ID
In this example, the part labeled "network spots" are the commercials DKRN is delivering as part of my program. The "local available" spots are the ones WXXX gets to sell. They can sell whatever they want out of those times, at whatever rate they can get. Most networks will fill that time with either PSAs or really, really dirt cheap spots, so WXXX doesn't have to worry about dead air. A successful radio station will sell those spots. An unsuccessful station won't. It's (almost) that simple.
A slight aside here....this is something I need to include, and could probably make an entire diary of its own out of, but I'll bring it up here. You can't always tell the political leanings by the advertising you hear. Sure, you can a lot of the time, but the farther up the chain you go, it's harder to decipher. Let's say in my example, DKRN plays commercials for E-harmony.com during my show. Now, as an astute progressive, you know deep down that E-harmony.com is run by right-wingers, and you can't believe for a second that DKRN will accept money from such garbage, and especially not on your favorite show, the Kinetic Dissent Hour of Power. As Lee Corso would say..not so fast, my friend. It could be that DKRN sold a bundle of ad time to an advertiser agency, who in turn went out and found advertisers. All the agency was supposed to do was sell the time, and E-harmony and Gold Bond Powder and Ovaltine is who bought what the agency sold. By virtue of their agreement with DKRN, though, DKRN has to run those spots. It's a bit more complicated than that, but just because E-harmony runs spots on my show doesn't mean I endorse them or like them, it just means that E-harmony bought the time, and DKRN needed the money to pay for the satellite time and uplinks, plus pay my fantastic phone screener and researchers. Oh, and I don't even like Ovaltine. Advertisers (and agencies who represent them buy a) what's popular or b) what's cheap. That's the long and short of it.
4) OK, so radio is cheap, but you can make money at it by running cheap programming. And you don't like Ovaltine. Now what?
Here's where I try and tie it all together. We've established how a radio stations puts programming on the air, and that if a station is currently running, they're already equipped for alternative programming. We've got a general idea on how the station makes money. Where do we go from here?
First, target low-rated radio stations, preferably on the AM dial. You can find general ratings at Radio and Records but they'll only show you the ratings for people aged 12 and up. Talk radio is skewed older and to a narrower demographic; generally, talk radio is geared towards those aged 35+, sometimes 25+. You won't be able to find specific ratings like that unless you know someone on the inside in that market. But, armed with what I've told you, you can generally pick out what stations are rated well by listening explicitly for commercials. For the most part, agencies make their ad buys based on ratings. That's it. They pay a dollar amount per ratings point, and they don't care if it's talk radio, sports radio, or polka radio; whatever's the most popular in that daypart and demographic is what they'll buy. The big money is agency money in local radio. We're talking Coca-Cola, Home Depot, McDonalds, etc....the national advertisers who buy local radio dollars. Other local money comes from Joe and Phil's Used Fish Shop, or the Ski Nebraska Council, etc. This money is spent sometimes based on ratings, and sometimes based on personal preferences. Maybe Joe and Phil are huge Kinetic Dissent fans, so they buy local ad time.
How can you use this to your advantage? Spend a few hours (not all at once, that's pretty tedious) listening to AM radio. Listen for PSAs, stuff from the AD Council, etc. and know in your heart that nobody paid for that time; it was just given away. That's a sure danger sign for a radio station that's not billing. Sure, we run PSAs and we're proud to do it (and obligated to do so) but the more you hear means we're not playing commercials. During the hours of 6am-10am, 10am-3pm and 3pm-7p, if you hear a lot of PSAs, that station is not billing during the key moneymaking hours. If it's overnight or in the evening, it's not that big of an indicator, as generally, the dark hours are populated by BTA spots (commercials sold at a cut rate, and run at the BTA - best time available) and free commercials the radio station traded to get something for them. For example, my station vehicle is a '79 Nova, so expect to hear quite a few commercials for Shifty Sam's Used Cars. Basically, if you're hearing a lot of PSAs or Shifty Sam during the day, the station is not billing so good and are ripe for a change.
Here's where you pick up what they did in Baton Rouge, and you run with it.
5)Alright! We have a brand spankin' new Air America affiliate, or our local AM station runs Ed Schultz at night. How do we support them?
This one's the easiest of all. Call or write/email station management and proclaim your love for the programs you hear. There's an old adage in radio that only 10% of listeners will ever call in. Be that vocal minority. Tell the management you love the changes. Better yet, patronize the advertisers you hear, and best yet, tell said advertisers a) you heard them on the Kinetic Dissent Hour of Power and that's how you found out about them or b) tell them it's great they advertise it and you'll support them more from now on because of it. Best yet, if you own a small business, spend ad money on those stations or programs. You may not be able to afford a full schedule to run all week long, but if you show you're willing to give them some money, even if it's just to sponsor the weather breaks or hourly news, you'll be doing a world of good for the cause. Money talks, and if you can walk some of your money to those advertisers, or become an advertiser yourself, you're not necessarily keeping progressive programming on the air, you're giving the station management justification for keeping it on.
I think that just about covers it in a semi-linear fashion. If you need a term or two explained, feel free to ask. I might have accidentally slipped some jargon in there, and if there was too much of it, I apologize. I've been in radio for over 10 years, I've done everything in radio but sell ads, and I've worked for FM and AM, and even an NPR affiliate, so I feel comfortable in answering almost anything. And if not, I'll honestly tell you I don't know, or help you find the answer.
Thanks for your time!