What is you product?
Programming? Commercials? Combination of?

Who are you selling it to?
Market Specific? Regional? National?

What do you need to make it work?
Me?
Bob's LOCAL CARS 4 LESS?
The National Sleepytyme Bed Company?

What do you offer that your target market can't get anywhere else?

What benefits of product do you offer that are more valuable to your target than a competitor offers?

The answer to question #1 is: none of the above. Your product is the listener.

if so, Then the industry needs to do a better job selling "THE LISTENER"

Actually, it's some fraction of the listeners mind share.

That is the actual product people will pay for.

And the sell goes both ways, double agent style. While that mind-share is traded for value, getting it and keeping it means drama --connected minds --entertainment.

The product has, and always will be, a compelling audio sound that entertains and/or informs the listener. This isn't rocket science. Yes, the media competition is more complex today, but radio will survive ONLY if they can provide these two elements. Plus, being able to show advertisers that the listener still exists. Frankly, even with all the problems the medium has experienced, radio still has a reasonable life-span. We just need to keep the basic principles alive,(as outlined above) something that seems to have been lost the past decade or so. Too optimistic? Perhaps, but I know of many that are surviving just fine using these basic principles.

Must be a slow day here on the ol' PDXradio board 'cause once again there's a new thread on the same old topic...

Well, this is a radio board, and there are a fair number of people with exactly this on their minds, wondering just how we got here.

And those recently set aside have some extra bonus time to consider it.

Hell, I would bitch about it. Regularly. Nobody wants to see a trade and their skill investment devalued and marginalized for no good reason.

You sell a clients product, say a furnace, to your audience the listeners. Your vehicle can reach a massive amount of people
for a price that can be cheaper than say TV or Print. But when you sell this product (the furnace) your really selling comfort, warmth,
reliability, service... your painting a picture with words letting the listeners imagination actually paint the picture. Now for say a burger joint.....Everyone from Burger King to Wendy's sells burgers fries and cokes .....you sell them the difference (What does your client offer that the other does not)? With Burger King it's "Have it your Way" With Mcdonald's in the early days they sold the kids who put the pressure on the parents thus doubling their revenue with familes with children, not to mention the millions of dollars they spend creating top of mind awareness. The same applies when selling your station! What are you doing different from the other guys? Are you giving money away? Are you more of a presence than the other guys? Do you
have live and local talent or do you syndicate? What makes you stand out from the rest of the pack?

....thread on the same old topic...

summer reruns..........

....thread on the same old topic...

summer reruns..........