R&R 2007 CONVENTION PREVIEW Alexandra Cahill The R&R Convention, the premier annual conference for the radio and record industries, is scheduled for Sept. 26-28 in Charlotte. The Convention, which takes a year to plan and involves all R&R staffers on some level, provides a forum for industry professionals to exchange ideas with their peers and educate themselves about emerging challenges. For the second consecutive year, the convention is co-located with the NAB Radio Show.
Convention attendees will also have access to NAB exhibitor areas and sessions, including part one of the Jacobs Media presentation on "The Bedroom Project: Radio Uncovered" on Sept. 26. Arbitron VP of domestic radio research Dr. Ed Cohen and Jacobs Media senior consultant Dave Beasing will conclude their ethnographic study on the perception and use of radio among 18- to 28-year-olds at a convention session on Sept. 27.
According to Jacqueline Lennon, R&R's director of conventions and special events, some highlights include the Publisher's Profile Lunch, featuring CBS Radio president/CEO Dan Mason; Zomba Label Group artist Raheem DeVaughn's performance; and the multiformat Rate-a-Record Lunch, of which Duran Duran frontman Simon Le Bon and bassist John Taylor will be a part. (Rate-a-Record is a service mark of Dick Clark Productions.) Le Bon and Taylor will also be interviewed at a general session earlier in the day called "Wake Up With Duran Duran Live."
This year, Lennon and R&R staffers are trying a new approach to panel sessions. "We took a different angle by providing almost a dozen multiformat panels, in addition to our format-specific sessions," she says. "Many of radio's challenges and issues are shared by stations in every format, and we wanted to bring together executives from diverse genres to help contribute to the brain trust."
The Sept. 26 general session "PPM Revolution: Cashing In on the New Ratings Currency," led by R&R executive editor Paul Heine, will educate attendees about the complexities of the Portable People Meter. Heine and the panelists, including Arbitron VP of programming services Gary Marince, will explore how the PPM affects the way radio is programmed, marketed and sold and its impact on specific formats.
R&R CHR/top 40 editor Kevin Carter will moderate another multiformat panel called "From Zero to Syndication" on Sept. 28. Carter got the idea for the session from a story he and R&R AC/hot AC editor Keith Berman wrote last year.
The article featured a number of "successful local shows that were just starting to make moves in the syndication arena," Carter says. "Since then, these shows have actually made a lot of progress, so we wanted to feature them. Plus two of the shows that were featured [WNKS' Ace & TJ and WLNK's Matt & Ramona] happened to be based in Charlotte. We figured that would be a good springboard."
For the multiformat session "Are You Smarter Than Your Listeners?" on Sept. 27, Carter plans on "boldly ripping off generic game show concepts and hoping we don't get sued." Critical Mass Media will bring national, multiformat research results to the session. "We're going to put the questions up as a PowerPoint presentation and give multiple choice responses. Two teams of programmers will compete against each other to see who can answer the most questions and try to predict what the civilians have answered," Carter says. "We figured it was a more entertaining way to present research."
R&R radio editor Ken Tucker will tackle nontraditional revenue in the multiformat panel he moderates on Sept. 26, "Not Your Father's NTR." Tucker says that "in the current market, over-air sales are flat, while NTR is up significantly. The more you know about what's working for other stations and groups, the better off you'll be." He adds, "Radio can't be simply thought of as what you put on the air anymore."
According to Lennon, "R&R editors work closely with their advisory committees, which comprise professionals from both the radio and record sides of the business" to build panels around what they decide are the most timely topics in their format.
"Where Have All the Rock Chicks Gone," an active rock panel scheduled for Sept. 26, is the result of R&R senior editor/alternative/active rock/rock editor Mike Boyle's collaboration with his committee. "Attracting large numbers of female listeners to rock formats is a problem—that's nothing new—but rock radio may be its own worst enemy," Boyle says. "We'll be discussing why we continue doing certain things on the air and how to better attract a larger female audience to the active rock format."
Boyle also coordinated the alternative format session on Sept. 28, "The Radio and Records Business vs. the Internet—Staying Relevant in the Digital Age." Jacobs Media's Beasing, who will serve as moderator, says that "these days, Internet exposure—some intended, some not—appears to be replacing radio as the first source for new music." He and his panelists plan to "explore how that changes the format's role and how we should adapt to the changing times."
R&R urban/rhythmic/gospel editor Darnella Dunham coordinated the "Radio Needs This" panel on Sept. 28 to address what urban programmers can do to improve their stations as the PPM technology is refined and continues to roll out. "A lot of programmers are seeing the results that are coming out of Houston and Philadelphia and the urban stations aren't faring as well as they did with the diary methodology," Dunham says. She sees this panel as a good opportunity for programmers to hear the perspectives from heads of urban programming and prominent urban programmers and "get some ideas about how to make their stations better as PPM starts to roll out in more markets."
For a complete convention agenda, visit www.radioandrecords.com/Conventions/RRconvention.asp. |