August 2005 RAP
August 2005 Highlights
Feature: Creating a Topical Paradise
By Steve Pigott
Keeping the imaging topical is a vital aspect to any radio station. Your
audience is dynamic, and forever changing therefore it is important to
reflect their emotions and lifestyle. Popular culture is specific to place
and time, so what may be the big thing in your market may not necessarily be
the one somewhere else. You need to get inside the head of your listener.
What do they do with their time, what TV do they watch, what kind of music
do they listen to and what is the topic of conversation in the bar on a
Friday night?
Interview: Franklin Raff, Raff Radio/Radio America,
Washington, DC
By Jerry Vigil
Franklin Raff, at thirty, is a Washington insider with some fifteen years
in the radio business, spanning local and national sales, station
management, production, and talk. He’s the founder of the unusual
advertising/consultancy shop Raff Radio (www.raffradio.com), and though he’s
a senior network producer – and G. Gordon Liddy’s right hand man – there’s
nothing he likes better than a long night in the production studio. So
either he’s doing something right, or he’s just plain nuts. RAP mag wanted
the skinny. Be sure to check out a sampling of Franklin’s work on the RAP
CD.
Feature: Invasion of the Pod People
By Matt Dubiel
There is an assault on broadcast radio. It started with the web and
morphed into satellite concerns. Enter the Ipod. Even broadcasting big wigs
are calling out the Ipod as a concern.
Test Drive: Pro Tools M-Powered
By Steve Cunningham
When Avid Technology, the parent company of Digidesign, acquired M-Audio
last August for $80 million in cash (that’s right, eighty million), it was
clear that they were buying more than a line of inexpensive soundcards and
controller keyboards. Digidesign essentially owns the pro and semi-pro audio
markets, so the acquisition gives them a substantially larger slice of the
low-end market to complement their dominance on the high-end. The first
fruit of this marriage is a version of Pro Tools designed to run on M-Audio
hardware. Pro Tools M-Powered is a re-packaged version of Pro Tools LE that
runs on one of eleven M-Audio interfaces. This month we’ll take a look at
Pro Tools M-Powered on M-Audio’s Firewire 410 interface.
Production 212: The Demise of Broadcast Radio (NOT!)
By Dave Foxx
I’ve been having one of those really frustrating days today. I had an
article for this column all written and ready to go, but something has come
up that is bugging the heck outta me, and feel compelled to start over
again. I don’t really have any audio that ties in with this column, so I
just submitted a promo for the heck of it. I hope you like it.
So, what has my brain all tied up in knots? Yesterday, I got the results of
a new study. I can’t share the results with you, as they are proprietary,
but one of the assumptions made at the very beginning is that listeners tune
out because of commercials. This has become an almost religious mantra in
radio that I keep hearing everywhere I go. The last few conventions I’ve
seen have been filled with panelists wringing their hands over the imminent
demise of broadcast radio because of iPods and satellite radio. They’re all
concerned because it’s now so easy to have non-stop music at the listener’s
fingertips, 24 hours a day. What a load of horse apples!
Feature: How High a Flame Burns You?
By Craig Jackman
A while back I got flamed on the Internet, not really surprising, but
annoying. Some say I deserved it; some backed me up, though I still haven’t
made up my mind on the argument as a whole. While I see the point that
others were making at my expense, I don’t think that they saw mine. The post
that started it all was a typical one, one that I had seen and responded to
many times before. “How do I get started in radio production?”
Radio Hed: Google Your Way to Insights
By Jeffrey Hedquist
Sometimes just knowing more about the people you want to attract will
help you write for them. The more you know, the more accurately you can
create commercials that will resonate with what’s going on in their lives.
You can find out what’s on the minds of any group by using one of the
hundreds of search engines and simply typing in: what do _______ do? Like?
Hate? (What are) _______ thinking? The most productive one may be (What are)
_______ feeling? Remember, it’s feelings that will establish the emotional
connection for your client.
Q It Up: The RAP Network Speaks - What are your favorite
SFX websites?
Q It Up: What are some of you favorite websites for
downloading sound effects and/or voice tracks (like clips from presidential
speeches, TV/movie lines, etc.)? Tell us a little about each site, such as
cost, if any, the variety of clips, audio quality, etc.
...And Make It Real Creative:
By Trent Rentsch
What have we learned today? Hitting the snooze 6 times rather than the
usual 3 will make you late for work? A diet coke and a bowl of Wheat Chex
won’t stop you from attacking the donut box in the break room? No matter how
low you drop the volume of the music, the client will still tell you that
it’s too loud over the phone? Three and a half trips to the
all-you-can-inhale pizza buffet still won’t stop you from checking to see if
the donut box is empty? At least three orders will show up after 4pm… and at
least 2 will appear at 4:55 pm? On the way home (at 7:30pm) the “Hot Donut”
light is still damned tempting??? Oh wait, we learned all those things a
long time ago, didn’t we?
The Monday Morning Memo: When Will My Ads Start Working?
By Roy H. Williams
The length of the “ramping up period” an ad campaign will require before
you begin to see results is determined by the following factors, listed in
descending order of their importance:
1. Product Purchase Cycle
2. Share of Voice
3. Impact Quotient of message
4. Media delivery vehicle
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