Company News · December 17, 2007

Does Imaging Still Matter?

By sross

“‘Imaging’ as we know it doesn’t matter in a PPM world. To those of us who grew up with radio, it matters deeply. To our ears, it’s 90% of the total package. But to a generation who is accustomed to hearing their music without hype in-between (iPod, etc.), it matters little. Now if [you’re] saying that the message between the songs needs to change to suit this new environment (both in quality and quantity) then I wholeheartedly agree.”
That’s a comment that was left on Edison’s Infinite Dial blog a few weeks ago. The author, Joe Greenlagh, was responding to veteran programmer Michael Steele’s disappointment with the imaging on Los Angeles radio. The role of imaging is a longstanding debate, but it’s one that has taken on a new currency with the decidedly more streamlined presentation now audible on most Clear Channel music FMs. (Neither comment mentions Clear Channel explicitly but many other recent posters on this topic do address those changes specifically and sometimes vehemently.
Greenlagh is right that imaging — usually of the more aggressive variety — was very much a part of the radio that today’s managers and programmers grew up with, whether it’s the Bill Drake-era legal ID (“And now, ladies and gentlemen …”) of the ’60s or the “Lock it in and rip the knob off” sweepers of the ’80s. Any composite aircheck put together by a radio station production director is likely to be 70% imaging, 20% morning show, and 10% anything else. So there is a certain amount of unavoidable nostalgia in this debate. And after a decade of being told to focus on what goes between the records, it’s hard to accept that what goes between the records should be so minimal.
There are really two questions here: “Does imaging still matter?” and, if so, “What kind of imaging?” The first one is a little easier to figure out when you consider that even a minimally produced radio station can be heavily imaged. And one clue is to look at the imaging on WRFF (Radio 104.5) Philadelphia, the Clear Channel Modern Rocker that has become a showplace both for its new streamlining and for how to program in a PPM world. WRFF isn’t strictly jockless; it has brief, unobtrusive backsells. But imaging plays a heavy role in explaining what the station is and how to use it.
On Radio 104.5, very conversational imaging is used to thank the listener for trying the station (something most stations should do but don’t), to point out the shorter stopsets, to billboard the “oh wow” songs, to point out that the Alternative format is back in the market (“something’s been missing from Philadelphia radio–was that you?”), and even to position the station as an answer to satellite radio and iPods (“why pay for music?”).
Radio 104.5 even goes as far as one drop that says, “We’re not going to explain Radio 104-5. If you like it, that’s explanation enough, isn’t it?” That may be a little coy, given that many of the station’s best selling points (a lot of uninterrupted music, playlist depth, etc.), are indeed discussed on the air. But there is indeed no traditional attempt to explain the station in one slogan, possibly because “Mass-Appeal Alternative Rock Of The ’70s, ’80s, ’90s and Now with a Lot of Music and Some Hot AC Functionality” would be as long as some of the songs.
In that regard, Radio 104.5 is doing the same thing that the jockless, American versions of Bob- and Jack-FM did so prominently for a while, using imaging both to explain the station and, at the same time, place the station above anything as mundane as radio positioning. It’s the radio equivalent of Bud Dry’s “Why Ask Why” — which was still an advertising slogan. Jocklessness and being less produced are often thought of as a similar aesthetic, but regardless of how a station is produced, if you’re not letting the jocks do a lot, you’re probably relying on imaging even more.
It is worth noting that, ultimately, both the staffed and jockless versions of Bob- and Jack- had similar ratings peaks and life-cycles. You can look at either jockless KCBS-FM (Jack FM) Los Angeles or the higher-profile WARH (the Arch) St. Louis as “the right way” to do the format. And given the hole for both an Alternative and a Modern AC station in Philadelphia, it’s possible to argue that presentation is secondary to whether there’s a hole in the market for the music in question. That said, Radio 104.5 also came along at a time when another music-intensive station (WBEN) had added jocks. And it’s hard to imagine WRFF now with any other presentation.
As for the second question, about what type of imaging can still work in 2008, there are very few briefs filed on behalf of “hype.” It’s a sufficiently tempting target that every now and then, radio stations go after it, whether it’s WCGY Boston’s “no hype” automated Top 40 format in the ’70s or KRBE Houston’s “Hits without the Hype” in the early ’90s. In those periods when “hype” is out of favor, it’s hard to imagine that anybody is going to want to hear high-energy DJs or in-your-face production or jingles between every record again.
But it has often happened in radio that when “clean” is in — unobtrusive imaging and formatics — “hype” is waiting in the wings. The most influential radio station of 1980 was AOR WLLZ (Wheels 98.7) Detroit with its low-profile “first name only” jocks that wouldn’t be out of place on Radio 104.5. But the most influential station of 1981 was its polar opposite, Mike Joseph’s “Hot Hits” Top 40 WCAU-FM. And KRBE eventually evolved very successfully to an innovative, highly-produced presentation that still didn’t sound cheesy to anybody who had liked the “no hype” version.
You don’t have to deny the appeal of WRFF to suggest that listeners might also respond to another way of doing radio as well. There is certainly a case to be made that what will set radio apart from iPod and barely-produced Internet radio is to do something different by sounding big and exciting again. Both imaging styles have a place on the radio, and as history shows, when you hear too much of one, you eventually need the other as a change of pace.
So then the question becomes who would be willing to go first? Clear Channel’s existing large-market Top 40s usually cover the franchise to the extent where no operator is eager to go after them; (Pittsburgh is a recent exception). Even if WXKS-FM (Kiss 108) Boston is more streamlined these days, you’d probably need more than just a presentational difference to take on the station with the Kiss Concert. But if I were going to launch a Mainstream Top 40 station in Denver or Las Vegas or Baltimore, markets that haven’t embraced the format in a while, I’d go the foreground route. And if I could play a lot of music that I knew the market wanted, that would be good, too.

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