One of the most important things is Clear Channel's Less Is More initiative. When they brought it up last summer, I advised our clients that this was a work in progress and that it could take up to two years to see if it’s successful.
   The stations seem to be on track. Some stations have seen ratings improve. We’re looking now to see the spring book, and if we see Clear Channel on an upward trajectory in terms of ratings, we’ll know it’s working. Radio needs to improve, and Clear Channel is addressing that. We’re seeing positive things. 
    I personally have no problem running 30s. However there are a lot of accounts where they really want that 60, and the 60 is not going away. 
  Another important development is digital radio. With analog radio you have one signal. Digital has three. When WCBS goes digital, they’ll be able to play three streams of music because they’ll have two digital and one broadcast streams. I told Arbitron that it is going to have to get ready to measure all this, because radio is going to be fractionalized much like cable TV is.


There’s been lots of talk about satellite radio. Do you see it really taking off over the next few years, or will it have a much longer growth curve?

   The threat of satellite is slightly exaggerated. Yes, it exists but not to the extent the satellite operators say. Edison and Arbitron report that 84 percent of survey respondents say they are okay with commercials if they are not having to pay to listen to radio. 
  Satellite is here. Is it going to cause major problems? At this point, no, I don’t think so.
   And it’s going to be a much longer growth curve than they’re anticipating.


What’s your opinion of podcasting and what it means for radio? Is Jack a good format for advertisers?

   IPods pose only a small threat. They’re something people like to have and carry around, but they’re not going to take a lot of listeners away from radio.
   People get a sense of community from radio. It gives you the news and weather. It lets you know what artists will be performing in the area. 
   Podcasting allows people to become their own programmers.
   As for Jack, I don’t think it’s a bad format. It’s not bad for advertisers if it draws the listeners. The problem is the stations themselves don’t really have on-air personalities and on-air promotions. You’re not going to get a lot of the smoke and mirrors, the promotions, the things stations do to pick up ratings.
   But if they can go back to clients and offer them a lot of listeners at a fair rate, clients will say fine.
 
When you first heard about Less is More, what was your opinion? Has it changed?

   My opinion hasn’t changed. When I first heard about it, I said congratulations to Clear Channel. They want to improve radio and that’s great. They had people come up to Carat and talk to us about it. They were very good at communicating their idea.
  People were concerned about rates. What’s going to happen to CPMs?
  Basically, it’s a matter of negotiation. I don’t think they’re forcing significantly higher rates on people. We’re not seeing any rate-gouging. 
   If they are successful increasing time spent listening among current listeners and adding to their cume, their ratings are going to go up. And depending on pricing, the CPPs could remain steady.


Has it gotten too much attention?

    No not at all. I think the advertising industry, the press, has been very good at communicating the Less Is More concept. I think it’s getting just the right amount of attention. 


How has radio changed over the past five years?

   Initially, in 1999-2000, there were just too many commercials on the air because stations were capitalizing on the dot.com boom. But stations were being held responsible to keep increasing sales after the bust happened, and unfortunately stations kept airwaves cluttered to meet those expectations. 
   Also there's the issue of homogenization. Some people complain that there's too much crossover. 
   I happen not to think so. There are some excellent programmers out there that let individual stations have their own autonomy. I think if you have good programming directors, stations won’t sound the same. 
   Also over the last five years, with group owners owning multiple stations, there was a real push for the cluster sell. But there was resistance from buyers and clients. Sales directors would try to sell four and five stations in the same market. But buyers rightly resisted. Even at a reduced rate, it isn’t always the right mix of audience. I think they realized they could only only go so far with cluster selling.