[SBE] Industry retirement situation

[Barry Mishkind]

Larry,

this is a real problem - something we have kicked around several 
times on the BROADCAST [BC] list.

For many of the reasons you cite, including the press for Internet 
advertising, ad agencies have already said that the money pool 
available for radio is going to be flat, or slightly lower - at least 
on a national level.

That makes getting enough budget for technical matters difficult, 
much less adding signals, digital channels, etc.  Wortse, after 
having made major investments already in IBOC, far too many companies 
- even those not crippled by the cash flow and current stock price 
issues - have decided to burn the furniture, rather than invest in 
more gear/people.

The really sad part is that while we can see these issues, the tech 
folks have relatively little leverage to do much. Sort of like a 
train engineer, we can only drive on the tracks we are given. Until 
the content problem is solved - a way to involve young people in the 
air product - we will see more erosion in listeners/sales. The 
challenge for engineers to avoid being red-lined.

barry

At 10:45 AM 3/15/2008, Larry Will, wrote

>And one more thing Barry - numbers of viewers and or listeners per 

>channel (and total listener pool) and thus the cost per thousand for 

>each station.

>

>Early sales figures for 2008 say it all.

>

>When I ride the commuiter train in and out of Phila occasionally no 

>one has a portable radio or CD anymore just an I-Pod.  especially HS 

>and college age folks.