Zach Sang
Tora
Category: Advice
Email: New Rules
By Holland Cooke
Radio Consultant
BLOCK ISLAND, RI — Remember that one thing you’d never make it to the driveway without?
Your keys. Now there are two things. It’s tough to imagine a day without that everything-in-your-pocket thing we used to call “a cell phone.”
Texting and Twitter have raised the bar on Email.
When I first started consulting, client stations would mail me aircheck cassettes in padded envelopes. No, Harry Truman was not in the White House. That was first-term Clinton administration era technology. Tick tock.
Station Management: Three for your Netflix List
By Holland Cooke
Radio Consultant
BLOCK ISLAND, RI — Forget those boring management training videos! The acting is bad, and the situations are contrived.
Instead? Rent these three Hollywood hits and share with your team.
Sexual Harassment:
See “Disclosure,” in which Demi Moore’s buff, ruthless executive hits on male subordinate Michael Douglas. Author Michael Crichton (“Jurassic Park”) turned the tables by making a woman the unwanted aggressor. And in doing so, he shows us one of industry’s more volatile issues from a different angle, one sure to sensitize your employees to nuances they might miss by examining the problem from the usual man-hassles-woman perspective.
Your Station Promos: “Blah, blah, blah?”
By Holland Cooke
Radio Consultant
BLOCK ISLAND, RI — Nothing we say about the station on-air adds listeners, because the only people who hear promos are already listening.
The goal of on-air promotion is to add Time Spent Listening (TSL) by existing cume — specifically adding additional occasions of listening — with messages which suggest why-and-when to come-back-for what-promos-promise.
Five Critical Steps to Success with
Online Video for Radio Websites
By Walter Sabo
Sabo Media
Chairman
NEW YORK — Since 2007 a company our team founded, HITVIEWS, has pioneered the monetization of online video. While giants such as Budweiser wasted $28M on little watched BudTV, we discovered an extremely efficient way to reach audiences with online video. The internet has inspired a new breed of stars: Online Video “webstars” and HITVIEWS was the first to identify them and link them with advertisers.
Very smart brands know they need to be in the online video space but ALL of their initiatives failed to garner a significant viewership. But “webstars” like Jenna Marbles, TheHIll88, Nalts, Whatthebuck, Sxephil, Tobuscus, Community Channel and a select group of other elite online performers are able to pull MILLIONS of viewers to each of their videos.
Boston Bombing: How Radio Can Help…
Or Hurt.
By Holland Cooke
Radio Consultant
BOSTON — Prediction: The Boston perpetrator(s)’ capture will be crowdsourced.
Today, you will be photographed, possibly hundreds of times. Cameras are everywhere now. They’re in banks and stores. They’re robo-toll-takers, and toll-evader witnesses; and red-light cameras and automated radar traps have become a controversial new municipal revenue stream. Riding mass transit? Smile. Since 9/11, that’s been The New Normal…on a normal day.
Five Impact Trends to Help You Reach the Future Safely
By Walter Sabo
Sabo Media
Chairman
NEW YORK – The challenge of working at most radio stations or broadcast companies is the staff is pre-occupied with job security. As a result, trends that should be noted and discussed are dismissed in order to prepare the weekend schedule and worry about corporate. As the CEO of an executive-on-demand company, Sabo Media, we are presented daily with new products, talent and ideas. Here are five that are interesting and may be helpful in growing your business:
Have You Hugged Twitter Today?
By Holland Cooke
RadioConsultant
BLOCK ISLAND – Remember Seinfeld-in-reverse? It was a special episode that was entirely backwards. It began with closing credits and ended with the opening theme. The plot started-at-the-end…then ended at-the-very-beginning. We saw Jerry and Kramer meet for the first time.
In the final scene — the earliest chronological moment, a flashback, to a time before the Internet — Jerry’s date was telling him about the advent of Email. “Email,” Jerry asked, puzzled, “Why would I want to send someone an Email?”
Do You Sound “CompuServe”
to Smartphone Users?
By Holland Cooke
Radio Consultant
BLOCK ISLAND, RI — To avoid a common mistake I hear in my radio travels, promos for your station’s website should END – not BEGIN – by plugging the site.
Instead, begin by telling ‘em ONE REASON they want to go there.
Fundamentally, a promo is a commercial, right? So, as with copy you’d write for an advertiser, you should:
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Radio: “House of Cards?”
By Holland Cooke
Radio Consultant
BLOCK ISLAND, RI — Ruthless and cunning, Congressman Francis Underwood (Oscar® winner Kevin Spacey) and his wife Claire (Robin Wright) stop at nothing to conquer everything. This wicked political drama penetrates the shadowy world of greed, sex, and corruption in modern D.C.
But you won’t see it at the multiplex. Or on HBO, or Showtime. Or on TNT, FX, or other basic cable channels which are now so aggressively producing top-shelf original programming. “House of Cards” is an original Netflix series.
