You Better Listen to the Radio: FM fights back

In the face of growing competition from satellite radio, Internet radio and iPods, the terrestrial radio industry has launched a multi-million dollar national campaign to promote itself. Artists including Nelly, Alicia Keys, Ashanti, Avril Lavigne, Ludacris and Hoobastank have recorded 30-second spots giving props to radio for helping their careers.

The six-week initial campaign, with the tag line "Radio: You hear it here first," was launched on Monday as part of an unprecedented collaboration among more than a dozen radio conglomerates. Its goal is to remind listeners of its claim that terrestrial radio (i.e., plain old radio) is the place they are most likely to hear new and favorite artists.

The companies collaborating in the campaign, which is coordinated by the National Association of Broadcasters, include virtually every major radio group — and, by extension, more than 3,000 stations across the country. ABC Radio, Clear Channel, Cumulus, Emmis, Infinity (which is owned by MTV's parent company, Viacom), Susquehanna and several others have agreed to donate $28 million worth of airtime to run the 30-second spots.

Keys' spot features her speaking over the sound of her piano and a cheering audience. "Before you knew this woman's worth ... before you rocked my poetry ... before Usher was my boo and A-minor was my key ... before the Grammys, before you caught me fallin', before you knew I chopped out Chopin ... before I rocked the Great Wall of China, before fighting AIDS in Africa, before you knew my overnight success was seven years in the making — you heard me on the radio." A voiceover then intones the tagline, "Radio: You hear it here first."

"The radio industry decided it was time to more aggressively promote the fact that free radio breaks thousands of new artists a year," said NAB spokesperson Dennis Wharton. The advertising agency hired by the NAB selected the artists for the campaign. "There are a lot of people that want to give testimonials about the influence of radio in establishing their careers," he continued.

Wharton brushed off a suggestion that the move was spurred by shock-jock Howard Stern's announcement that he will move to Sirius Satellite Radio in 2006, which came on the first day of the NAB Radio Conference, which was held in San Diego in October (see " 'Howard Stern Show' To Air — Uncensored — On Satellite Radio In 2006"). The move became one of the hottest topics of the conference.

"This campaign was in the works four to six months ago, way before Stern made his announcement," Wharton said.

Ads in magazines such as Spin, Vibe and Entertainment Weekly will be rolled out later in the year as a continuation of the program, which Wharton said does not have a set end date. The initial spate of radio spots are aimed at 18-34 year olds, but future campaigns will be aimed at country and talk-radio listeners and will feature such up-and-coming acts as John Legend, the Bravery and the Ditty Bops.

Though Wharton denied the ads were aimed at blunting the rapid growth of satellite radio — whose two players, XM and Sirius, have reportedly doubled their audience to more than 4 million over the past year — the move comes at a time when Stern's announcement has boosted satellite radio's profile considerably. It is also worth noting that for years, many music fans have decried radio's limited playlists and heavy load of commercials.

While subscription-based satellite's numbers pale in comparison to the more than 225 million daily terrestrial-radio listeners (according to NAB statistics), there is little question that the radio industry is feeling pressure from satellite, as well as iPods and Internet radio (see "For More And More Music Fans, Satellite Radio Is Heaven Sent").

Part of that pressure comes from the breadth of commercial-free programming heard on satellite, which recalls the free-form days of 1970s FM radio. With whole channels devoted to unsigned acts, hip-hop, techno, indie rock, artist-programmed specialty shows and other niche categories, satellite offers fans a much wider variety of music than most terrestrial stations.

"Some people have suggested that there's an element of preaching to the choir in these ads," said Roger Nadel, executive editor of radio industry trade magazine Radio and Records. "But they are very concerned about younger listeners who don't have a lifelong relationship with radio. I think they freely admit that all this new technology has caught them off guard, whether it's satellite or iPods or cell phones. Radio is fighting for its life because there are so many alternatives out there."

After unprecedented success in the late '90s, Nadel pointed to four straight years of marginal revenue growth at radio as another reason the business is going on the offensive.

But XM spokesperson Chance Patterson said the answer is much simpler. "What's ironic is that these ads come at the start of the year, when stations have the most surplus of unsold commercial spots," said Patterson, vice president of corporate affairs for the Washington, D.C.-based satellite leader, which has 68 commercial-free music stations. "Instead of using them to play more music, they've elected to jam more ads in, which is what's wrong with [terrestrial] radio to begin with." Wharton denied Patterson's claim about the timing of the campaign.

"It's a bit of stretch for them to say [terrestrial] radio is breaking new artists these days," said Patterson, adding that he expects XM's audience to grow to 20 million in five years. "[Terrestrial] radio has reduced its playlists so dramatically that most new music never gets heard. Aside from some college radio, bands like Modest Mouse, Franz Ferdinand, Norah Jones, John Mayer and Los Lonely Boys were heard on satellite long before commercial radio. This is great buzz for us."

Wharton replied, "I think the claim that we're not breaking new artists is false when you have artist like John Legend and the Bravery standing up to say what a role radio is having in helping their careers." Citing NAB statistics, he said that commercial radio "broke 1,000 new artists and 4,000 new songs" in 2004.