Radio Continues To Have A "Missing Link" To Listeners

I spend a lot of time listening to the radio. All kinds of radio, from AM and FM

stations to Pandora, Stitcher, Beats Audio, and a plethora of other streaming services.  And to be clear, if it's sound coming our of a speaker, it's radio.  Period. After having spent more than three decades programming radio stations, it's hard not to have sound in the background.  I also spend a lot of time on the Internet, sometimes looking at stations' websites and Social Media outposts.  What I see online frightens me because most of the terrestrial radio stations, and even some of the streaming services, have a disconnect between their audio product and their online presence, what I call THE MISSING LINK.

In other words, most audio content providers don't think about how people USE their product, what else they're doing when they're listening, or most importantly, how they can take the product that comes out of the speakers to a computer or smartphone screen.  Because every day there are less audio delivery devices like the one above and more like this.

Of course, there are still a lot of audio delivery devices that aren't smartphones, but mobile is becoming king and smartphones are the King of Mobile, so let's think of the smartphone as the new radio.  And that includes phones with the FM chip that many broadcasters think is their ticket to mobile parity.  Which it isn't.  Not because having an FM radio in a phone isn't good for free listening or emergencies, but because if there's THE MISSING LINK between the audio and the online component of the radio station, there a decent chance listeners will figure out that the radio station, any radio station, isn't talking to them and doesn't know what their life is all about.

I'm not going to share some of the most glaring examples of THE MISSING LINK, but I've got some great ones saved. There is no shortage of posts that are meaningless, wacky DJ jokes online that don't work if you're reading them and not hearing them, or tweets that are too long, posted by some kind of automation, and either cut off in the middle or edited to being unreadable without a secret decoder ring.

So what's a content creator to do?  First, stop thinking that the only way people can hear your content other from your bone crushing transmitter is with one of these in an office.  It isn't 2003. Yes, there is still listening on computers, but remember, the world is going mobile and the smartphone is the King of Mobile. Second, start thinking about how your online activities can compliment, contribute to, and complete whatever comes out of the speakers. Have talent and promos send listeners to someplace online and get more information about an important local event. Use your online assets to drive listeners to the station at a certain time for something really special, not just the "Top 9 At 9". Talk to the people who aren't in the programming or marketing departments and find out how they use the audio you put out.  You'd be surprised.  And probably a little sickened, because in the world of the Millennials and younger people, you're not doing it the way they want it.

And here's the one thing you can do that will improve your online reputation, and therefore your "cred" with your listeners, no matter what format you are, terrestrial or online, and what market size you're in. Look like you care about your online presence.  That means update your Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest pages regularly, use only good pictures, not some bad, blurry phone photo just to slap something up online, and write different posts for different platforms. Anyone with a shred of knowledge about Social Media knows when they're seeing a tweet with lots of @'s and #'s simply reposted on Facebook and they know the person who posted is either unaware of how to tailor posts for each platform, letting automation run wild, or just plain ignorant.  Each platform online now demands a unique voice, and you need to take the time to create posts in all the right voices and post them when people might actually see them, not when it's convenient for the intern to put them up.

There's one last thing to think about when it comes to relating to your listeners.  Your website is the only piece of the Interwebz you completely control.

Don't force your listeners to look at something like this, it only makes you look foolish.  Listeners know what today's great websites look like, and far too many radio station websites are mired in the past because of benign neglect, not enough updates in the onerous barter contract you signed for "website development" or the fact that someone thinks neon colors and DJ pictures are what people come to your site to see. Guess what, that's not the case.  You can fix the ugly, uninformative website, and sometimes it's the biggest MISSING LINK.

If you're creating content, any content for that matter, are you providing the full 360 degree experience to your users or is there a MISSING LINK?

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Just TRY To Listen To A Radio Station Stream Online

Over the weekend, I tried to listen several times to a very major market radio station owned by a very large multimedia company via their online stream, and I thought my ears would start bleeding.  It was a complete nightmare.

I don't want to mention the station or owner because they would be truly embarrassed to know that their very special programming over the weekend was almost unlistenable if you were trying to listen online as I was in St. Louis.  This company claims to have a "streaming strategy", but by listening to their big broadcast from this very major market, it's clear that whatever they dream of delivering simply isn't happening.

The music content and high powered Air Personalities sounded GREAT.  Its when the breaks came that things imploded.  During the eight or nine minute commercial breaks, I heard commercials start and then get cut off, local commercials begin and then get replaced by streaming spots that ran over and into the net commercial, periods of dead air, the same spots up to four times in one break, and other atrocities that are guaranteed to send many listeners away from the stream.

And let's not even talk about how the stream took up a tab in my browser instead of opening in a new window, so I had to make sure I didn't close it by mistake.  And I NEVER went to that tab to look at the ads the company placed on the page for my viewing pleasure.

I had the same awful experience on my Android phone, where I went to this major multimedia company's app to listen but heard the same brutally bad commercial breaks.

NOTE TO BROADCASTERS:  The future is mobile.  The future is streaming, not those big towers on the Empire State Building or in the middle of cornfields.  If you want to compete with people like Pandora, who know how to run short, smooth breaks, you've got to pay attention to what goes out on the stream during your local breaks.

Please don't send your listeners to the Emergency Room with bleeding ears from poorly programmed streaming breaks.  Thankyouverymuch.

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John Tesh (of all people) erasing the line between streaming service and radio station

The following post is from The Music Meeting, my blog about music for grown ups.

I'm a huge believer that the future of music is mobile, whether it be listening in the car, on a smartphone, or on some kind of device that we haven't even thought of yet.

That being said, I'm very intrigued by a project John Tesh is working on in Los Angeles.  His radio show was carried on an FM station there, but it got taken off.  Rather than try to find another station, John decided to build his own "radio station" on the Internet, complete with streaming audio and mobile applications.  

The highly regarded Internet industry newsletter RAIN: Radio And Internet Newsletter asked me to write about the K-TeshLA project, and here in one handy place are all three parts of the story.  

What do you think?  Would you listen to something that sounds like a radio station even though its only online?  Your comments are welcome below!

RAIN Guest essay: John Tesh (of all people) erasing the line between streaming service and radio station

Mark Edwards is an award-winning radio programmer with experience at WLIT/Chicago, KOSI/Denver, KYKY, KEZK, and WVRV in St. Louis, and more. He's currently managing general partner of Mark Edwards Worldwide, his multi-disciplinary consulting practice.

There’s very little doubt that mobile and personalized content are the future of what is now radio, and in some cases that big tower in the corn field won’t even be part of a “radio station” in the not too distant future.

Multimedia content creator John Tesh may be among the first to see and act upon that future. He's put a radio station online that, in fact, isn’t a radio station or a streaming service; it’s both and neither at the same time. Last week, the entertainer launched K-TeshLA (see RAIN coverage here) a site that looks like a"best in class" local radio station site complete with a 24-hour streaming audio service as part of the package. The only difference between this site and most other Contemporary Christian radio stations is that there’s no traditional radio station connected to the site, just the stream.

(The site was launched the site after Tesh's syndicated radio show was dropped by Salem’s KFSH in Los Angeles. Heard daily on over 300 stations in the U.S. and Canada, Tesh wanted to make sure he was still reaching the important Los Angeles market, and so built what's ostensibly a complete online radio station.) 

The K-TeshLA site is completely localized for the Los Angeles market, right down to showing the local time and weather, working with local charities and churches, and doing actual contests, giving away $100 a day and a grand prize of an iPad. The station is building its own database of listeners, and has wasted no expense in designing an engaging website and high quality streaming player. Both the site and player have deep integration with Facebook, something not found at many FM or AM radio stations.

While the station doesn’t have a mobile site or streaming app yet, K-TeshLA is available on the TuneIn Radio application, and it looks and feels just like any broadcast property on the roster of TuneIn’s stations. Having that parity with traditional broadcast outlets is certainly one of the first steps to leveling out the playing field between stations that have a transmitter and those who are going directly for online and mobile listeners.

Listening to K-TeshLA, one wouldn’t know that it wasn’t a regular FM station. The stream features lots of music, IDs, and Tesh’s “Intelligence For Your Life” content repurposed from his terrestrial radio show, not to mention both national and local advertising.

The big question is, will a localized Internet-only radio station succeed in the world of AM and FM broadcasters and their continuing consolidation into apps like iHeartRadio? We’ll look at that in the next part of this essay.

RAIN Guest essay pt. 2: Can KTeshLA (and other "local" Internet radio) succeed?

Mark Edwards is an award-winning radio programmer with experience at WLIT/Chicago, KOSI/Denver, KYKY, KEZK, and WVRV in St. Louis, and more. He's currently managing general partner of Mark Edwards Worldwide, his multi-disciplinary consulting practice. This is Part 2 of his guest essay; read Part 1 here.

In yesterday’s RAIN, we looked at John Tesh’s hyper-localKTeshLA website and streaming service. Today, let’s tackle the question of how stations like KTeshLA and other locally targeted online only sites can be successful going forward.

John Tesh already has a radio show on more than 300 stations (he launched KTeshLA after losing his Los Angeles affiliate). His show was one of the higher-rated dayparts on KFSH in Los Angeles, so there was already a dedicated local audience for his content, and he was already producing material for his national show. Given Tesh’s recording, touring, writing, and other activities, generating cash from the online venture may not have been as much of a concern as it might be for a standalone business. Staying in touch with a community -- especially without the benefit of a bone-crushing terrestrial signal -- can be costly.

One of the most significant differences between Tesh’s site and the sites of other people trying to “make it” as web radio stars is that Tesh’s site looks great. It's as good as any AM or FM radio station site on the Internet. If anything, the site takes too much from radio stations in an effort to looklike a radio station as opposed to what it is: something between a radio station and a streaming service. While the site carries banner ads, it isn’t plastered with them hodgepodge like some other “web radio” sites.

Taking the time and spending the money to design a world-class website should be the first part of the plan for any webcaster. Clearly, the TeshMedia team considered the visual appeal of their product along with the sound, something rare in the world of webcasting. (Some of the ugliest websites I’ve seen over the last 15 years have been for air personalities putting a show or podcast on the web. They’re littered with banner ads, bad photos, and unusable navigation links.)

A significant expense for the local webcaster is for the stream itself. Beyond royalties and bandwidth costs, some kind of automation system needs to push out the content if it is a full-time format, even if it’s a podcast or constantly repeating three or four hour show. There are ways to do the automation inexpensively, but streaming should not be a bargain basement decision. Great quality, constant uptime, and full-time support are needed for a successful stream, and that costs money. The good news is there are new technologies on the horizon that will significantly lower the cost of streaming, and add personalization and ad-targeting to the stream, helping to generate more revenue.

The world is racing to a mobile, personalized, on-demand model for entertainment, and the opportunity for locally-targeted Internet-based stations is here. If the stations are done right, they’ll generate traffic and response for local advertisers. It can be done, and now is the time to get started on hyper-targeted projects like KTeshLA.

We'll wrap this up with some comments from the people behind KTeshLA and see how their station is performing.

RAIN Guest essay pt. 3: KTeshLA starts "writing the playbook" for radio stations without transmitters

Mark Edwards is an award-winning radio programmer with experience at WLIT/Chicago, KOSI/Denver, KYKY, KEZK, and WVRV in St. Louis, and more. He's currently managing general partner of Mark Edwards Worldwide, his multi-disciplinary consulting practice. This is Part 3 of his guest essay; read Part 1 here; Part 2 here.

Previously in this series, I looked at the differences and similarities between the online-only KTeshLA.com “radio station” and its terrestrial counterparts. Make no mistake about it: everyone working on this project sees it as a radio station without a transmitter, not a streaming channel, a supplemental service of some kind, or anything else.

“John told me he wanted KTeshLA to be like a regular radio station,” said Chris Shannon, Program Director. “We’re adding more to it every day and treating it like a radio station.” That’s evident by listening, online or through mobile aggregator TuneIn. (The station recently launched its own mobile apps for iOS and Android, but I found the listening experience on TuneIn to be far superior to the Triton Digital-provided Android app.)

Clearly, KTeshLA is a work in progress; the streaming player lacks artist and title information, for example. But the concept of running a real “radio station” and doing it "direct-to-consumer" -- as in without a transmitter, corporate ownership, or the expense of all of that -- is incredibly attractive to content providers like John Tesh and his TeshMedia Group.

A direct-to-consumer, online- and mobile-optimized radio station could be used for a myriad of purposes: to target a single locale (like KTeshLA), to use technology to serve ads to mobile listenersbased on their location (whether they’re listening to a locally targeted station or a national service), or to serve specific niche audiences (once the dream of HD Radio).

KTeshLA has a direct format competitor in Southern California: Tesh’s former home, Salem’s KFSH-FM. This raises the question of if, and when, KTeshLA will begin a marketing effort to lure listeners away from their FM competition. Once that happens (and assuming Arbitron is encoding the streams of the online station), the real power of a local radio station without a transmitter might be seen for the first time.

Los Angeles, after all, has a significant number of Pandora listeners, and a huge amount of mobile listening. KTeshLA is poised to take advantage of Angelenos' comfort with listening to mobile "radio." Whether it takes months or years, the station could be among the first to be on par with traditional radio. Developments like the "connected dashboard," streaming aggregation applications, and the growing trend among consumers to perceive anything that makes noise on a computer or mobile device is "radio" may make acceptance and adoption of services like KTeshLA easy... perhaps even easier than launching a new format on FM. 

While it may seem odd to call John Tesh a “trailblazer,” his project in Los Angeles may serve as one of the early instances of direct-to-listener "broadcasting."

This Post Should Be Read By Every Executive In The Radio Business

I've written before about how radio is on the fast track to irrelevance, and that the smart owners and execs in the radio industry have the power to stop that and save the business.  Media guru Mark Ramsey wrote about Pandora and how radio is freaking out about it but shouldn't on his blog yesterday.

Today, I found a blog post by Steve Parker, Jr. talking about what I think is the root problem for most radio companies and stations when it comes to their digital future or lack thereof.  Quite simply, they lack a digital strategy, even if they think they have one.  I've worked for companies whose long term digital strategy changed as often as I changed my socks.  That won't get you to the Promised Land in an era of mobile, personalized, on-demand communication and entertainment.  And the people who run most of the big radio groups just don't get it. 

Here's Mr. Parker's post in full, via Jack Myers Media Business Report's website

Lack of Digital Strategy & Accountability is Killing Brands - Steve Parker, Jr.-Levelwing

March 9, 2012

Published: March 9, 2012 at 02:55 PM GMT
Last Updated: March 9, 2012 at 02:55 PM GMT

'Doing' is not strategic insight. Just because it is measurable does not mean it is accountable.

If you are reading this and don't own a smartphone, you might as well stop right now. You won't understand nor can you be helped at this point – the technology world has passed you by. To the rest of you who have an iPhone or another 'super' smartphone, such as a Droid or Blackberry, read on. Many of you are probably reading this from your mobile phone as we speak. In fact, I'm doubtful you could put it down for a day or even a few hours. We have all become heavily reliant on our mobile devices – and for great reason. Mobile phones don't just make calls anymore; they actually help us in our daily lives. In your personal life, you have bought this device so you could have the 'Power of the Best' – best technology, best experience, best of everything. So, why in your business life are you settling for something that only makes calls? Seriously, why have you settled for the basics, knowing very well there is something much better and much more powerful? In the business world, this mindset goes way beyond phones: using Google Analytics when you could be using Omniture or simply reporting on campaigns vs. uncovering true business intelligence.

Smartphones have apps for seemingly everything – simple tools we use nearly every day for things like travel, directions, games, photos and social experiences. We use our phones to talk, write, chat, video conference, listen to music, check blood pressure, buy products, sell products, check email, do our online banking…

In short, smartphones and apps are all around us and engrained in our daily lives. But there are some things an iPhone or Droid just can't do. Contrary to popular belief, 'there's an app for that' doesn't actually apply to everything.

Digital Strategy:
Sorry, there is not actually a digital strategy app. However, most businesses are treating digital as though there is some magical strategic app that will make it easy to grow a business. Facebook is not a strategy. Twitter is not a strategy. Search engine marketing is not a strategy. Most companies, from the Fortune 500 to the local dry cleaner, do not have a sound digital strategy. You could argue this, but you would be wrong. It's true many businesses are implementing digital activities and, in some cases, doing a lot and seeing success. However a solid, well-planned strategy is lacking in most every case. Executing upon paid search marketing campaigns, communicating via Twitter or delivering a set of viral videos online is not strategy. I will clarify that I do believe in strategy for each of those separate executional elements (solid planning, measurement and management process, if you will), but an overarching strategy is still of most significant importance.

Measurement & Accountability:
Sorry, no app here either. Most businesses in the digital world fail to achieve true measurement and accountability – it's arguably one of areas most wrought with error. Many companies simply choose not to hold their investments in digital accountable. Let me be clear: measuring and reporting on clicks, likes, fans, site traffic, sales, share of voice and ad rates on some nifty dashboard is not the same thing as holding your marketing investments accountable. Those metrics (and many others like them) provide your business with little more than false hope and misdirection. Measurement and accountability are not quite so convenient and easy to attain. True accountability takes dedication, hard-nosed planning and a keen focus on goals.

Why Do Businesses Fail at Strategy or Accountability?
The answer is an inability to answer a simple question: 'why?' Most businesses do not know WHY they are doing the things they are doing in digital. No, the answer is not as simple as 'to sell more stuff.' That's the derivative – it is always the derivative or the expected outcome. But WHY are businesses doing the things they are doing? Are they doing them because of economic indicators, weather patters, overall demand in the marketplace, to provide better service to customers, to refine customer channel strategy, to define patterns in the business that can be shared throughout the organizational hierarchy? WHY? An honest and clear digital strategy answers these questions, provides clarity and then allows the business to execute strategically against them. Just because a million dollars was spent and a study shows brand awareness increased by four points does not mean the campaign was a success. Similarly, just because that $1 million in media sold $2 million of products does not mean it was successful either. You must understand why that happened and how you can improve from there. 'Doing' is not strategic insight. Just because it is measurable does not mean it is accountable.

People Are the Only Apps of Strategy and Accountability
People are the real applications that drive a business. Driving strategy and critical thinking while holding a business accountable starts with people. People have the power to create, guide, teach, define, measure and hold accountable that which is meaningful. Without true strategy and accountability, most well intended efforts will fail. You and your team of co-workers, senior leadership and third-party partners should fight for the hard answers, to define strategic vision and hold accountable all tactics and people involved. It's not easy, but it is right.

I've read that Steve Jobs didn't believe in the whole concept of apps initially. Good thing he got on board, though. They have helped to transform Apple and the ways we interact with our devices. However, one thing I am certain of is that he did not rely on an app to plan his business nor let something that is measured define accountability. Steve Jobs understood the complexity of strategy, held the business accountable and delivered well against that strategy and accountability plan. Sometimes our apps need updating – and, frankly, we are those apps.

Steve Parker, Jr. is a Co-Founder and Managing Partner of Levelwing, a digital advertising agency that provides data-driven marketing solutions. Steve can be reached at sparker@levelwing.com. Follow me on Twitter at @sparkerjr.

This advice applies to almost any brand, but it is particularly relevant to radio, because radio can choose to embrace the future or continue, in most cases, to not acknowledge it.  Or to think they've got their "digital strategy" under control and in reality be far behind the rest of the Digital Universe because they rely on second tier vendors and second tier "Digital Gurus" inside their organizations. 


Don't get me wrong, I WANT radio to win the Digital battle.  But how many radio companies started working Wednesday afternoon to make sure their station or group iPad app would look right on the new Retina display?  For that matter, how many radio companies even HAVE iPad apps?
 

What was once the digital equivalent of Thomas The Tank Engine is quickly becoming a Bullet Train, and radio has to get on board, be able to react instantly to changes in technology and user behavior, and do whatever it takes to stay relevant in a Pandora world.  I know some groups and stations can do this.  I just wish the ones that can't or won't would get on board the train before it runs them over.

 Related articles

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The Night Radio Became Irrelevant

A fallen tower, no more effective than a
radio station that doesn't let its listeners
know what's going on in their world

February 11, 2012 will always live in my mind for two reasons.  First, the tragic loss of Whitney Houston, one of the greatest singers I've ever heard and in the same league as Frank Sinatra, Nat King Cole, and other iconic singers throughout music history.  But that's not the only thing that happened that night.  It's the night that radio, as a medium, proved itself irrelevant because Houston's untimely death happened on a Saturday night, a time when the majority of American radio stations look like this.

Nice studio, but nobody is in the chair. Automation is in control.

It doesn't have to be that way.  Over the years, the companies who own radio stations, especially the biggest companies with the biggest stations in the biggest markets, have been forced by economics and debt to run much, and in many cases, most of their programming using automation and a practice called voice tracking, where a faraway Air Personality records the things said on the radio days in advance.  Many local radio stations only are live weekdays from 6AM-7PM, prime time for advertisers, and a growing number of stations are moving to automation in parts of that time period as well.  And few if any stations have a real contingency plan for situations like the death of Whitney Houston.

Whitney Houston 1963-2012

So what does all this have to do with February 11, 2012?  Plenty.  Whitney Houston's death was announced shortly after 8PM Eastern that evening, and thousands of radio stations were already running unmanned from empty buildings, airing voice tracked local-sounding shows if they were lucky, but most likely broadcasting pre-recorded oldies shows, reruns of talk shows that aired already, dance mix shows assembled days or weeks before, or some other kind of "it's Saturday night and nobody is listening" content. And without a contingency plan or someone willing to take control of their stations in times like these....

What they weren't running in most cases was the news that one of music's all time greats had died in a bathtub in Beverly Hills.

I'm not making this up, I heard it.  While updating the story on The Music Meeting website, I listened to the streams of over 100 radio stations, in multiple formats, with multiple owners, and in markets ranging from New York City to Minot, North Dakota.  Less than a dozen of those stations either played Whitney Houston's music or talked about her untimely passing.  Yes, there is an argument that a Country station shouldn't talk about the death of a pop star, but Whitney Houston was bigger than a normal pop star, she was a Pop ICON.  Every radio station should have at least mentioned her death.  Or at least that's what I think.  You can tell me I'm wrong in the comments below.

Sadly, people who were in charge of the few radio stations who did do something about Whitney Houston's death were busy giving themselves high fives and not helping the other stations in their local cluster or chain to get the word out.  Here's a tweet from a Boston radio programmer.

dylansprague@dylansprague

Proud of @Kiss108 and @JAMN945 - on live tonight with Whitney tributes @iHeartRadio

11 Feb 12

• Reply
• Retweet
• Favorite

So who DID cover the death of Whitney Houston best?  Who stopped everything and devoted all their time to the biggest pop culture story in a very long time?  CNN and Piers Morgan.  The network's Don Lemon told the story on the air that he had finished his usual Saturday shift and as he was leaving the CNN Center in Atlanta he got the word to go back upstairs to the CNN studios because Whitney Houston was dead.  Lemon had no time to prepare for the story but did a tremendous job of covering it in the early moments as the news was literally being fed to him in his ear and he was reading it from his Blackberry.

In time, Piers Morgan showed up from his Los Angeles studio.  He was on his way to the annual Clive Davis pre-Grammy party at the same hotel where Whitney Houston died.  Along with his showrunner Johathan Wald, Morgan did a tremendous job of doing interviews with Houston's friends and entertainment business heavyweights, getting live reports via phone and from reporters on the scene around Los Angeles, and telling the story of Whitney Houston's death with respect, sensitivity, and compassion.  He and the CNN team did what radio used to be great at no matter what time it was, clearing the decks and providing complete coverage of a story that certainly was news, but was also pop culture and certainly would be the only thing people would be talking about for days, probably weeks.

It isn't too late for radio to reclaim the position as the "go to" place when a musician or pop icon dies, or even when severe weather hits.  

We all remember the stories from last summer of radio stations who waited too long to broadcast severe weather alerts because there wasn't anyone in the studio to quickly get them on the air. With a little thought and a commitment that starts at the top and filters down to the entire radio station staff, radio can be ready to deal with whatever comes up, no matter when it happens.

If you're a radio owner, manager, programmer, or the newest "Baby DJ", here are some things you can do now to be ready for the next "big thing":

• Make a written plan, with copies in every studio, the engineering department, every department head's office, and on the station's computer network with plans on what should be done in the case of big events, including severe weather, serious local news event, major power outages, national emergency, national news, news of interest to each station's listeners (by format and location) and more.
• Decide who has the authority to interrupt regular programming to get the news on.
• Know what resources are available to each station: other stations in the cluster, local news partners like TV stations or newspapers, national news networks, and local experts on different types of mayhem and pop culture.
• Have a plan for someone to come into the radio station to deal with the situation.  Whether it's a tornado warning or the death of an artist, someone on staff should be on call at all times to drop everything and do what Piers Morgan did as soon as he learned that Whitney Houston had died.
• Work with sister stations in nearby markets, especially larger markets, to see if they can help you get content on the air when you can't do it yourself.
• (Sorry, this may make engineers and some Managers cringe) Investigate a way to get on the air from outside the station when the studios are unstaffed.  Can you use a remote control and code to break into programming via telephone?  Do you want to get fancy and do it over the internet?  Can the news/talk station in the cluster, the one most likely to have people on staff for the most hours, take over the air of all its sister stations?
• Don't forget, radio is now more than just radio. What's the plan to update text message subscribers, social networks, and your website?
• Finally, discuss with all the stakeholders in each station what qualifies as important enough to break in to each station.  Music format can help you decide how big a star from another format should be before you break into a totally different format.  There may be other considerations as well, like what if someone from your area is in the news or passes away?  Sometimes there's no set answer for this question, but thinking about it will make the decision to interrupt or not interrupt much easier.

I still believe that radio can fix many of the things it has messed up over the last few years.  One of them is reclaiming the place in listeners' minds as the first place to go for the latest news and information.  What do you think?  Please feel free to comment below.  Let's come up with some ideas every radio station can use.  

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• A Tearful Jennifer Hudson Will Perform Whitney's Biggest Hit at Grammys [Whitney Houston] (gawker.com)