Can Clear Channel Be Cool?

photo by kevincrumbs

Radio is dying. There is more and more syndication of shows and the localization is going right out the window. Here in Orlando we have CBS Radio and Clear Channel and they both pretty much suck if you want to hear ground breaking music.

Honestly the satellite radios are not any better. The music might be hot and fresh and there are more genres and channels, but still, it's not what we want in an iPod generation.

In order for these Clear Channel, Cox or CBS's to matter again, they need to give the users what they want, when they want it. I am not talking about calling in a request. I mean on-demand.

Here's the big ideas:
The iPhone can pretty much make both traditional radio and XM Radio obsolete. How? Easy, Pandora and 3G. Last.FM and 3G. When iMeem launches their iPhone App, forget about it. Clear Channel needs to be right up their backside developing an application that users can take where they want and listen to the music, news, talk that they want at anytime and any place. All your major shows are syndicated anyway, store em online, throw in a few advertisements and let the user go get em.

Create synergy between the community, your station and the online world. When having your big concerts, get local. EDBD does this with a Battle of the Bands but it does so on a 2nd rate stage in front of the hot dog stands. Get the community involved. Once you have them involved make them be a part of your brand and allow them to share that involvement with their friends, co-workers, etc. Then the idea is to get your online strategy to sync up with the community aspect. In today's world you cannot have one without the other.

Let your advertising sync between everything that you do. It will make the advertiser happy and the message just may get across to the viewer/listener. Create a total advertising package.

I dunno, these were just some thoughts I had today. Tomorrow I hopefully pick up my iPhone and one of the 1st Apps I'm grabbing is Pandora.

What do you think? Can radio even compete with these new cutting edge companies? Can Clear Channel become cool again and break out of their corporate b/s? The more I think about it, the answer is no. They move too slow.

Let the local markets do it themselves. Interesting. Can radio be local again? That's another topic in itself.

Come on, join in the radio conversation. I'd love to hear from ya!

-Greg Rollett

Universal / NBC Lost Its “Cool”

Universal has lost its “cool.” They have lost sight of the core of their business, the fans. This isn’t breaking news, but it is disturbing to me and the way that I consult my musician clients.

The facts:

Universal now enforces that everyone on their music roster, limit streaming songs to 90 seconds. These include Myspace pages.

Universal has pulled all of its content from iTunes including hit NBC TV shows and all artists.

Universal/NBC has removed all content from YouTube and replaced it with behind the time Hulu.com.

The real facts.

The next generation of music fans get their music online. Whether this be finding new bands on Myspace, Purevolume, or whatever. They also buy music digitally so they can play them with the white ear buds on an iPod. They buy their music with iTunes, like it or not.

YouTube plays and streams more videos per day than you could even imagine in your wet dreams. They find out about movies, tv shows, bands and celebs through this little time waster. Like it or not, this is the future of video.

Much like the tv, kids like to have 1 box give them loads of choices. That is why iTunes, Myspace and YouTube are the major players in the entertainment market. I can log into Myspace and get hit from every direction by any band that I want, all without leaving the site. With iTunes, a customer can browse through an infinite number of artists, tv shows and movies and put them all into 1 shopping cart and pay with 1 pre-established account. With YouTube, they can watch whatever they damn well please and be redirected to other clips from the same genre. This generates their interest to go see a movie, DVR a tv show or check out a band live.

What they did and how they could have avoided the screw-up:

All of their music is available at other online sites, most noticeably Amazon Music. So are their hit TV shows. The problem is that no one knows this outside of tech circles and bloggers. Hulu.com and NBC Direct have been ripped apart by bloggers and media industry since its launch and the fact remains that everyone on YouTube, stayed in YouTube. They are now just watching other networks shows and then turning on the tube to their advertisers on prime time.

The Myspace thing is just ridiculous. It took Colbie Caillat apologizing to her fans via a Myspace blog to discover this bizarre finding. What now? Fans will listen to someone else on Myspace and buy their songs via iTunes. How ironic.

Conclusion

Universal, you had the fans in the palms of your hands. You were greedy and looked for more money. Who is going to pay close to $10 for one episode of Heroes when I can get the whole season on DVD for $25 in a few weeks. Oh and I have DVR too, so I can watch it whenever I want on my big screen.

Sorry Universal, you are not going to survive this new media age with actions like this. Call me I got some solutions.

Speak out and let Universal know how they snubbed the most important people in their organization, their fans and customers.

-g-ro

Damn That Steve Jobs: What Is So Powerful About Apple's Marketing and Why Do We (I) Fall For It?

So I did it. Said I wasn't going to, but I did. Told Jen, no matter what the Apple Genius told us, there was no way we were going to walk out of the store with a new iPod. Especially the new iPod Touch. No matter how "cool" it seems, no matter that the price is cheaper than an iPod of the past, no matter that I just shelled out some nice pennies for my Sidekick and renewed my T-Mobile contract for another 2 years. But I did it!

So what went wrong for me and right for Apple? Was it marketing? Was it the product? I mean it is the coolest thing since sliced bread, right? Was it price? Or was it that on a Sunday afternoon, in an over-crowded Apple store with people drooling over life's little luxuries, I couldn't resist being left out of the loop? I was sick of seeing people with iPhone's. I was tired of being an indie musician who is still holding onto the CD for dear life when everyone around me has converted! I wanted those damn "little white headphones", that those "cooler" than me know are just not cool anymore! I wanted to buy into the Apple life and I did, with a nice fat $300 deposit (yea went for the 8 gig but hey it's still the coolest thing since Transformers!).

So I got home, downloaded the newest version of iTunes and got rolling! WOW! Apple done did it again. This thing is incredible. But what I want to share is that even though the product delivers, with features, size, price and everything inbetween, that wasn't the major reason for my decision (even though it didn't hurt). I bought it because Apple has found a way for me to "buy into" an exclusive club. That is power! That is the power of Apple.

I found out about this exclusive club from the Marketing Guru who transformed the Apple you see today from the close to bankrupt Apple of pre-iPod days. He just put together a great little Marketing eBook, "Marketing Apple". Get your copy at MarketingApple.com.

Well its time to get some more Tunes loaded on my new iPod Touch! Forget football, nah never that but it will be a multitasking afternoon.

Get ready for some great topics this week including reports from my first group of clients, my analysis of certain company's social media strategies, an exclusive look into PropertyQube and so much more.

I have added some great new links that look into Marketing, Branding and Social Media Strategies that are great reads and have very useful information not only for Rollett Marketing but for companies looking to get an edge on their competition in this changing and emerging social media generation!

Thanks again Steve for making me cool again, now my cycle is complete! iBook, iPod and well unapple but the Sidekick, truly a Millennial's daily necessities and essentials for survival!!

-G-Ro

Steve Jobs Did It Again: Apple is Back Like It Never Left

Steve Jobs hit the podium at 10am on the dot this morning and he did not disappoint. During the morning presentation he let the audience know that this weekend would see the first glance at some new iPod's in retail stores!!!

Here are some killer new pics:








Now are you ready for some stats:

Over 3 billion songs downloaded from iTunes
Over 600,000 downloads of iTunes
Over 110 million iPods sold
iTunes is the number 1 Digital Download service in all 22 countries that it is featured in
iTunes is the 3rd largest music retailer in the US behind Wal-Mart and Best Buy
Over 6 million songs in the iTunes catalog
Shipping its 1 millionth iPhone this week!

Direct quote from Mr. Jobs:

“This last stat I want to share with you blew my mind. In the US, of all the music releases in 2006, 32 percent were digital only releases,” said Jobs. “They were not released on a CD. Wow. Look how far we’ve come: A third of the music released in this country was not on a CD. So that gives you a feeling for how far we’ve coming in the last 5 years in the digital music revolution.”

Apple took this show by horns and ran with it. I know that I'm excited and I will also not have to completely break the wallet either. The Nano will start at $149 and the 8 gig iPhone will drop $200 to $399.

Fro complete continuing coverage Mac World has you covered! If anyone gets their hands on the new Apple products this weekend let me know!

This is another breakthrough for Apple as they continue their monopoly (no matter how hard anyone tries) on the Digital Music and Hand held device market. Even with its loss of NBC this week, Steve Jobs shows no signs of slowing down. It has basically become, 'jump on the train or get run over.'

I have no beef, just that I won't switch over to AT&T for the phone. (but if you read on Mac World, they made a touch screen iPod that looks identical to the phone and is slimmer, imagine that!)

What a day Apple, what a day!

-G-Ro

Rumor Alert: New iPod Announcement Tomorrow-Touch Screen Anyone?

Apple is expected to unveil its next-generation iPod lineup, including an iPod video with a touch-control interface, at a press conference on September 5, according to sources at Taiwan-based contract manufacturers.

The new iPod video will also come with a wide-screen panel, high storage capacity and Wi-Fi connectivity, the sources indicated. In addition, the new iPod video is expected to be powered by NAND flash, instead of a hard disk drive (HDD).

Apple is outsourcing the production of the new iPod video to Taiwan-based Inventec Appliances, which is expected to start volume shipments by the end of this month or in early October, the sources noted.

Apple's new products will also include a new iPod Nano and iPod Shuffle, to cash in on the upcoming Christmas season, stated the sources, who also noted that sales of the new iPod series is expected to total 22-23 million units in the fourth quarter of this year.

Could be craziness from the Mac camp tomorrow! We'll have to wait and see, but be sure to come back tomorrow for the full update and hopfully some product pictures of the new generation of iPods.

Gotta love it.

This information was provided by:DigiTimes.