The Straight Skinny

 

Outside, Looking In: Pt. 1

Like Alice, former format programmers step through the looking glass, follow the genius down (white) rabbit holes

By Carol Archer

 

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Great leaders are deep thinkers who create strategies and develop tactics to achieve them. Radio, in general, has been struggling to keep up on both, hence the tipping point. Today's managers must push the boundaries on traditional thinking and business models to create new opportunities amid crisis. It's important to differentiate between strategy and tactics; a series of tactics don't necessarily produce a strategy; which is why managers need to clearly define a roadmap that yields measurable success before you can begin to implement it.

 

 

 

 

 

“Managers must push the boundaries on traditional thinking and business

models to create new

opportunities amid

crisis.”

– Michael Fischer

Some broadcast companies have started to embrace this thinking and are seeing a light at the end of the tunnel by creating new revenue streams; others are still fighting the same day-to-day battles they fought years ago and are making little progress. Change has to happen at all levels, from the top-down and from the bottom-up.

 

 In order to get past the tipping point professionally or personally, and as managers and as media people, we need to surrender fear and risk, and zero-base our decisions based on the future, not fear of the past.

 

 

Have you reconciled what it will take to move forward, past your tipping point? Are you thinking of the future or settling for the past? What would it take to push you over the edge into creative thinking?

 

BLAKE LAWRENCE, former Emmis WQCD(CD101.9)/New York PD (including the ill-fated Chill-hybrid experiment, and subsequently post-flip to Triple A WXRP PD); XM Satellite Radio Director of Dance Formats; KKSF/San Francisco APD/MD and morning host; and currently populating his blog: AllTheExcess.com, with hilarious, must-read content.

 

 The good thing about being away from a radio station for over a year is that you begin to perceive things as a listener does. You stop caring so much about details and start seeing a big picture in a kind of simplified way.

“Economics forced us to get bigger ratings and sell more ads to help pay down the ridiculous debt our companies racked up buying our stations for ludicrous prices. And we evolved with it, because that was the way to survive. We weren't necessarily happy about playing Motown classics and instrumental cover versions, because it was a-180 away from the format we signed up to do. But when it got ratings it seemed like a good idea. Then our owners wanted even bigger ratings, so we continued the watering-down process we started. We all did it.”

– Blake Lawrence