Thor Heyerdahl was a fairly complex individual.
With a pretty fundamental grasp on simplicity.
"..Progress," the noted explorer, archaeologist and writer once observed, "...is man's ability to complicate simplicity."
That insightful sharing blipped back onto my radar a few days ago when I came across this story from the business side of the ol' Interweb.
The shares of radio and billboard giant iHeartMedia Inc. have tumbled 27.3 percent since the company warned investors last Thursday that it may not survive over the next 10 months.
The company has $317 million in debt maturing this year, $324 million in 2018 and $8.4 billion due in 2019. As of March 31, iHeartMedia had $365 million in cash on hand, $201 million of which is held by its billboard subsidiary, Clear Channel Outdoor Holdings Inc., which is considered the best-performing unit of the company. iHeartMedia also owns more than 850 radio stations.
Okay, first, it didn't escape me that all of that financial gobbledygook runs clearly contrary to my opening theme of simplicity. And the point about to be made could be made without all the dollars and cents schpiel.
That would, however, have required some editing from the original cutting and pasting of the story I came across from the business side of the ol' Interweb.
And editing requires additional effort.
And I like to keep things simple.
Which puts us right back on topic.
If'n I was, though, to offer up the facts, ma'am, just the facts, it would have looked a little more like this:
iHeartMedia, which owns more than 850 radio stations, warned investors this past week that it may not survive over the next 10 months.
Now, since none of those particular radio stations are NPR, it's a pretty safe bet that the ominous warning isn't merely the latest marketing strategy to inspire and/or motivate listeners to phone in their pledge.
The lack of any mention of tote bags, coffee mugs or all six seasons of Downton Abby on DVD or BluRay pretty much also confirms we're not talking yet another visit from the patron saint of public radio and television, Our Lady Of Perpetual Solicitation.
So, it's reasonable to conjecture that this depletion of dollars is a real deal dilemma. And while it's understandable that one would hesitate to engage in any discussion of the intricacies and complexities of why a multi billion dollar corporation finds itself in dire straits, the truth, in fact, is totally in keeping with today's theme.
Simplicity. Remember? As in simple truth.
Try this on.
They killed themselves.
Oh, no gunfire or blowing out of pilot lights, fresh match ready to strike. No torn sheets tied carefully to the swanky overhead lighting in the executive suites. No pills, poisons, sliced veins or closed garage doors, motor humming along in time to whatever groovy sounds were emanating from the dashboard sound system.
Although, you gotta love the ironic possibilities should that have been the case, should the groovy sounds emanating were emanating from a....wait for it.....iHeartMedia station.
No, they killed themselves by committing the sin of failing to follow one of life's most sacred maxims, most tried and true truisms, one of the most accurate of the aphorisms.
If it ain't broke, don't fix it.
And the thing is that this particular failing is not unique to iHeart, not at all uncommon, in fact, in the world of terrestrial radio broadcasting in general. It's what you might call a pervasive pickle, a run of the mill malady...a "there's a lotta that goin' around".
At this point, I'm self reminding that I pledged to keep this simple and I've wandered a scoche.
So, back on point.
What iHeartMedia did, and has been doing, like many, if not most of their broadcasting brethren, would be like KFC deciding to cut costs by no longer buying chicken.
In a relatively brief period of time, with the ostensible goal of making their stations operate at a more financially efficient level, they got rid of what they bar graphed, pie charted and QuickBookingly determined was expendable expense.
And got rid of the only thing keeping terrestrial radio in the year 2017 alive and showing any sign of a pulse.
Lloyd Price referred to it long ago, eloquently and simply.
Personality.
In the interest of full disclosure, it needs mention here, for those who might not be already aware, that I am a decades long veteran of the broadcasting business, have worked, at one time or another, for more radio stations than Ryan Seacrest has hosted shows and have long been a lone wolf voice ("....a rebel, Dottie....a loner...") lamenting the self inflicted wounds from which conventional radio has been bleeding for a while now. In fact, as recently as ten years ago, I was fired from a highly rated area radio show/station because I recklessly ignored the sage advice dispensed by one of the great and, at the same time, no nonsense minds of our times.
Sheldon Cooper's mother, Mary.
"...it's okay to be smarter than everybody else, you just can't go around telling them that.......why not?.....because they don't LIKE it.....".
That said, ten years, two or three more stations and a fairly calm semi-retired career now as an every now and then talk radio host and full time blogger/podcaster later, I haven't changed a bitty bit of my brain when it comes to what I believed to be, then, and still to be, now, the unfortunate foot shooting that the larger radio conglomerates, in particular, but, even the smaller mom and pop companies and/or stations, here and there, have fired off, accomplishing nothing but speeding up the process of what it was they were trying to prevent in the first place.
The end of conventional radio.
And while I'm ding damn sure that, at this moment, management, both upper and middle, industry experts, too often one of the more giggly oxymorons and, my own personal favorite arch nemesis, broadcast consultants are reaching for the aforementioned bar graphs, pie charts and/or Quick Books to show me the error of my logic ways while simultaneously sticking as many pins as they possess into the authentic, signature series SEP voodoo dolls in an effort to shut off the blasphemy flowing from the authentic, signature series SEP, I stand firm and steady, advancing years and the whimsical occasional inner ear issue notwithstanding, in my resolve as to what got broke when they tried to fix what wasn't already broke.
And for that P.O.V. of what got B.R.O.K.E, we return, for a moment, to KFC and the concept of cutting costs by no longer buying chicken.
The logic lays out like this.
Fried chicken was, is and, likely, despite all the seven thousand things that add to the clutter of their menu with each passing day, the primary, fundamental, in a word, main reason that people go to KFC.
And while, yes, you can get fried chicken at Popeye's and Church's and assorted mom and pop poultry emporiums all across this fowl mouthed nation, there's only one place you can get the finger lickin' good, original Colonel's worst kept secret recipe of eleven herbs and spices.
(Actually, there is a growing school of thought that KFC has long ago been surpassed in quality and presentation by its competitors, but indulge me while I finish making both the metaphor and the point.)
Put another way, let's just say that it is the uniqueness of the Kentucky fried chicken, the bird, that gives Kentucky Fried Chicken, the fast food joint, it's.....say it with me.....personality.
If you take the personality out of the equation, what you're left with is coleslaw and biscuits and that suspiciously close to synthetic concoction they list on the menu as mashed potatoes.
And here's where the "what you've got left don't leave you with much" twists the plot.
You can find coleslaw and biscuits and many more flavorful, even genuine Idaho russet improvements on that synthetic concoction they list on the menu as mashed potatoes just about anywhere and/everywhere.
So, do the math and it all adds up to this bottom line.
You no longer need KFC.
Now, let's play a little game of substitution.
In place of the coleslaw and the biscuits and the synthetic concoction, think news, weather, sports, even the latest information about traffic. (A term that always brings an impish smile to a lot of us because the word "traffic" implies movement and we all know that much of the time, the "information about traffic" you're getting from your radio station is about what little movement there actually is).
To that list, now, also, add this.
Your favorite song or songs. And it doesn't matter whether you're gaga over Gaga or a true Belieber or you're filled with a messa good ol' down home lovin' for Miranda Lambert. Pick a format, any format, pick a song, any song.
Conventional radio, terrestrial radio as it is referred to more often by industry insiders, was, for a very, very, very long time not only your first, best, most dependable place to get the aforementioned news, weather, sports, traffic and/or favorite happening hits from your favorite happening hitmaker, it was, to some degree, the only place.
To paraphrase that oldie but goodie by Mr. Ray Charles, those days are gone, Jack.
And they ain't coming back no more, no more, no more, no more.
Enter the smartphone. And the IPad. And even that now almost grandfather figure in the whole technological scheme of things...the personal computer, lap top or desktop, it's all good.
Every bit, batch and/or bunch of information and/or entertainment that you once relied on radio to provide you, either from the counter of your kitchen or the corner of your desk, from the nightstand by the bed or, more and most commonly, the dashboard of your car is now available to you from that IPad and that PC and, more often and most commonly, that essential to your being able to function in life device that measures an average of two and half inches by five inches, found, more often than not, right there in the palm of your hand.
That apple of your eye.
Or Android, as the case may be.
And with the advent of that instantly ubiquitous accessory/appliance, the radio business was a whole new game with a new kid in town giving a whole new meaning to the term "don't touch that dial."
Suits and bean counter, meanwhile, reacted to a changing marketplace and a changing supply/demand ratio in the customary knee jerk fashion for which suits and bean counter are known.
Trim costs, cut expenses, find a way to do without that which was, at least in bean counter theory, do withoutable.But, no matter what, trim costs, cut expenses.
Given, of course, that upper mid-level and upper management in any business paradigm is always the first to enjoy the benefits of up times and the last to endure the sacrifice needed in down times, the first, most obvious, go-to when it came to "gotta go"s was that tried and true, oldie but goodie source of slash and burn with a capital B and that rhymes with P and that stands for....
...personnel.
And in the world of conventional radio, the personnel most always pushed out when there was out to be pushed was, and is, those whose occupation is second only to bomb squad officers when it comes to risk of abrupt career conclusion.
On air talent.
And, props to Keyser Soze, when it came to favorite midday guy or much loved afternoon drive time gal, just like that...they were gone.
Kinda.
You see, technology had not only gifted mankind with the smartphone that took its place with fingers and toes as critically necessary appendages to the human frame, it has created a means of bringing all you cats and kitties out there that favorite midday voice or that much loved afternoon drive time chatter without burdening the suits and bean counters with that pesky need for an annual contracted salary.
Enter "voice tracking."
Resisting the temptation to glamorize the function with a lot of five and ten dollar broadcasting terms, here's an easy to read and remember definition.
It's the pre-recording of those scant, few moments between songs and/or commercials and/or other daily programming by the "talent", "on the air", at least in spirit, if not in person, at the time.
While that "talent", at the moment you're hearing their voice, is most likely part of the way through their daily shift at whatever full time job they have been able to find to take the place of the full time job they once had in radio before voice tracking came along.
Thanks to voice tracking, radio station owners could create and offer listeners the illusion of real, live, local, clever and connected on air talent who had once been compensated for the tunes they offered up to the tune of five, even sometimes six, figures per year now for the low, low price of just minimum wage per hour.
But, wait! There's more!
The illusion, when you're listening to your favorite talent on your favorite station, is that they are "there with you" from, say 10A to 2P. One of the backstage/behind the scenes tricks of the trade is that, in reality, you're only hearing, or "hearing", that talent for a few short minutes in each of those four hours. With the exception of morning shows that have managed, for the most part, to avoid the slash and edit knife of the efficiency experts, the average music radio station broadcast hour goes shakes out pretty much like this:
Top of the hour....five to six minutes of news
Song
Talent talks....these day, mostly just what we call "that was/this is", as in "that was The Rolling Stones...and this is The Beatles on WXYZ"
Song
Commercial break...as a rule, up to five minutes long
Song
Talent talks, another that was/this is.
Song.
Bottom of the hour..three or four minutes of news
Another commercial break
Lather, rinse and repeat the first half of the hour structure.
When you add up the total time you actually heard the voice of the "on air" talent, we're actually talking (no pun intended) no more than eight to ten minutes, max, out of each broadcast hour.
And with each passing day, month and year, the suits and bean counters put the full court press on the talent to shave what they can from their already minimal time on mic.
So, now, imagine how long it takes a relatively capable broadcaster to pre-record eight to ten minutes.
Uh, how about eight to ten minutes?
And let's have some more fun with math.
Eight to ten minutes per hour. A four hours show.
Four time ten equals....
Forty.
Very good.
Forty minutes and an entire day's midday show, for example, is "in the can".
All for the low, low price of minimum wage per hour.
Just like in politics, the Federal government and needing to buy an even bigger flatscreen, the rationalization and justifications fly like Blue Angels over state fairgrounds on a summer day.
Cost effective.
Outstanding return on investment.
Besides, "The music is the star" ...... the latest bumper sticker to be plastered in front of the sight line of every one who even gets to crack a mic to speak in the first place.
Uh, yeah. Right.
Here's why that particular radio dial dog just don't hunt.
It's that Lloyd Price, IPhone, Ipad thing I mentioned earlier.
Conventional radio, for a long, long time, knew, took comfort in and, understandably took advantage of knowing that, you needed it.
For your news, for your weather, for your sports, for your favorite song from your favorite singer.
And, for a lot of people, for the wit, whimsy, fun and frivolity of your favorite midday guy or much loved afternoon drive time gal.
Thanks to your smartphone and Ipad and Iphone, you no longer need radio for the news or the weather or the sports or your favorite song.
In fact, if you stop to think about it for just, say the time it takes to say, "that was/this is", you realize that anybody with any savvy at all when it comes to attracting and keeping listeners listening and advertisers advertising would know that there's only one thing that conventional radio can offer than all those accessory/appliance appendages cannot offer.
Personality.
As in the personal and engaging and live and local and clever and connected and entertaining personality of the on air talent.
Or as they are also known....the on air "personality".
But, alas, there's just not a lot of personality to be heard on conventional radio these days.
Turns out the suits and bean counters were convinced that was a very savvy way to slash and burn that pesky cost of doing business.
Personality.
That which is to radio like chicken is to KFC.
And conventional radio is buying less and less chicken every single day.
You may have heard about the continued cutbacks in on air talent on radio stations across the nation.
Like, for example, just this week, yet another major staff reduction at a well known broadcasting corporation.
IHeart Media.
Who just happen to own 850 radio stations across the country.
That may not make it to the end of the year.
Thor Heyerdahl was a fairly complex individual.
With a pretty fundamental grasp on simplicity.
"..Progress," the noted explorer, archaeologist and writer might observe today, "...is broadcasting managment's ability to complicate simplicity."
Personality.
Simple enough.
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