I used to dread budget season when I was a RVP of Programming at one of the big companies… mostly because it never made sense to me.

The process would usually start with corporate sending out a spreadsheet asking me to outline the on-air lineup station-by-station, and whether or not the shift was “live” or “voice-tracked”… the sole purpose of which was to determine whether there’s an opportunity to replace a live body with voice-tracking.

Corporate would tell you that they wanted YOUR plan, but the reality is you would go through all of the labor and sweat of building a plan, only to have it completely disregarded. They were going to give YOU the plan… not the other way around, and the rest was just a waste of time. PD’s spent so much time working on this and literally creating charts, graphs, and “cue cards” to use for their budget presentation at the corporate HQ that they forgot this was also in the middle of a very important ratings period. Who has time for the product when corporate wants “your” plan?

I remember a now-former CEO who loved to play “gotcha” in the budget meetings. I’ll never forget one particular exercise where he said “imagine you were building a radio station from scratch, which talent would you want on your station?” The goal of the exercise was to get you to rank who your most valuable players were – and whoever was on the bottom of the list almost certainly was going to be fired. Knowing this, I responded with the question “what kind of format is this theoretical station?”… the CEO said “any format”… to which I responded “well, it would depend on the format… after all, the PMD guy on the sports station is really good, but would be an awful morning guy on the urban station, and vice-versa.” Of course he didn’t appreciate my humor, so he turned to the sales manager who had to do the same exercise with his sales team – and indeed the 2 or 3 on the bottom of his list were let go. Thankfully, he never came back to me for another round of “gotcha”.

Radio is a business, and sometimes tough decisions need to be made. As a station owner, I know firsthand the need to find savings and efficiency to keep operating costs under control. But there’s a right way and a wrong way to do it. Playing budget “gotcha” games, and using asshole intimidation tactics are the game of psychologically-damaged narcissists.  Human beings deserve more dignity than that. And decisions to eliminate people’s jobs simply to save money should be made very sparingly, respectfully, and at least with some regret – and after all other options have been exercised. Believe me, it sends a loud and clear message to those who are staying with the company when they see tough decisions handled correctly… and sends an even louder message when it’s handled poorly.

One of my favorite GM’s, Don Bouloukos, used to say it like this… “if you have to let someone go, you don’t want it to be that you can’t have a beer with them 2 years down the road…” Good advice from one of the best managers I’ve ever worked with. And even better advice for those of you facing tough decisions this budget season.

There have been several attempts to do “listener controlled radio” over the past few years. Most have involved using some type of app to vote on what song should be next, and allowing listeners to somewhat program the radio station. Of course, there were always controls put on to prevent too much listener manipulation of the product.

While I applaud the attempt at something new, I don’t believe anybody has the guts to REALLY do it – let the listeners take control of your radio station.

I remember a feature that we started in Detroit a few years back called “MyPod” – where listeners would send in their 10 song playlist, and we would play their 10 songs, and let them tell the story of why the song was on their playlist. I thought this was somewhat innovative at the time, and it really stemmed from a book that I was reading at the time called “Lovemarks” by Kevin Roberts. In it, he talked about letting your biggest fans – those who love your product the most – help design the next generation of your product. Traditional radio stations like to THINK that they do this by conducting lots of research and focus groups – but I didn’t think that was unique enough, so we literally let listeners pick 10 songs they wanted to hear in the order that they wanted to hear them.

Now imagine a format that allowed everyday listeners off of the street to do precisely that? And then you let them tell a story about why they like that song… 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. How interesting and diverse would those playlists be? And how interesting would the content be? Listeners sharing their memories of a certain song, or what they were doing when they first heard it, or why it reminds them of a time that they miss.

This may be crazy, but we need a little crazy right now. Broadcast radio is boring listeners to death. It has become predictable and stale at a time when it needs to be a laboratory to try new things. Not everything will work, but you don’t know unless you try. Innovation has to start somewhere – with somebody taking a risk. Will it be you?

Money shouldn’t be the goal – money is the reward you get for ACHIEVEMENT OF the goal.

When you stop to think about how many successful companies understand this – big brands like Apple,  Google, Jet Blue, etc, you also quickly recognize how few radio companies understand this principle.  It’s a rare owner that will tell you that their goal is to do great radio, create an environment where creative people can create, positively impact the community that they are licensed to serve, and profit from doing so. Most owners simply want to skip all of that and just get to the money.

And therein lies the problem.

From everything that I can tell based on the books and the movie, Steve Jobs liked money… but he also liked great design even more. It was his insistence on quality design and innovation that  drove Apple’s success. Just good enough was never good enough. Sure they could have shaved a few dollars off the cost of production by using cheaper materials and less aesthetically pleasing designs, but he made the decision to go with better quality, better design, and charge a premium for it.

Radio has lost its pricing power in most of the big markets because it has become a commodity. Station A gets the same music as station B. Someone does 95 minutes commercial free, while the other station does 98 minutes commercial free. If you’re just a utility offering the same experience as another utility, people will always go with the cheapest option. I like the BP gas station up the road, but occasionally the Marathon station across the street is a few cents cheaper, so I’ll go there. It’s just a utility to me – the experience is the same.

But a great radio station breaks beyond utility status. A great radio station can charge more for “Mojo in the Morning” because it’s a great morning show that you can’t get anywhere else. Great radio stations think like Apple – charge a premium for great design and better quality.

It’s the difference between a brand and a commodity. If a commodity goes away, people replace it with another commodity. If a brand goes away, people protest its absence.

So which one are you? A brand? Or a commodity?

Even though I’ve had fancy VP titles through the years, I’ve never identified well with the “suits”… you know, the people from the corporate office who think they know your market and your product better than you do.  Even though I was enlisted to be one of them, I was never comfortable with it, because they were really the “best practices squad” – and the problem with “best practices” is that everybody does them.

The term “best practices” should scare you – because it essentially means to do what is safe and proven in other markets. It’s the exact opposite of what radio should be doing today. The safe, proven playbook has been duplicated by nearly every radio station in the country, and that’s why everybody sounds the same.

Welcome to DomTheodore.com. This is the place where we’ll talk about how to disrupt the radio industry.  How do we break the rules and build something unique so that listeners aren’t bored to death? How do we stand out in the sea of other media? How do we use new technology to grow audience? And most importantly, how do we break the model of “best practices” in a way that will likely piss off the suits, but the audience will LOVE it?

These are dangerous thoughts in the current environment. But they are necessary. We need to be thinking dangerously if we want to attract AND entertain listeners so they’ll keep coming back for more. And that means turning the paradigm on it’s head! That means putting talent in the foreground instead of the background. That means taking risks and breaking the accepted practices… and most importantly, it means having guts. Most companies won’t be up to the challenge – but for the precious few that are, big ratings and revenue are in your future.