With ad revenues on the decline and jobs and salaries being slashed nationwide, many television and radio pros on the beach are wondering how, or maybe even if, their skills translate to the post-consolidation era.
Broadcasting vet Leo Laporte, whose career includes stops at KFI in Los Angeles and KGO in San Francisco, may be setting a trend as one of the first to answer the “what now?” question.
From a cottage in Petaluma, California, Laporte and company host over twenty “netcasts” each week, focusing on techno-centric topics ranging from everyday gadgets to network security. Each episode can be seen and heard live over the Internet and are also available for download through iTunes and other syndication points such as the Roku video streaming devices.
How is that working for him? In his keynote address to the Online News Association last year, Laporte reported revenues of $1.5 million that was doubling every year. At the time, the relatively flat costs of the business (including a staff of seven) were a mere $350,000. The money comes from carefully selected advertising, in the form of endorsements of products which Laporte and his staff actually use.
Certainly, due to his techno-geek fame (from hosting shows on ZDTV, later known as TechTV), Leo came with a built-in audience who was capable of finding, downloading, and consuming his content. But people like Steve Jobs are getting richer and richer helping everyone to easily find, download, and consume that content. And soon, they might be helping you get paid by that kind of content.
If you are on the beach, educate yourself on how easy it is to record and syndicate your material. All it takes to get started is a Heil mic and a mixer, or even simpler, a microphone that plugs right into the USB port of your computer. The free Audacity software makes recording and editing easy.
If you are still working, you should be offering your audience a podcast - either portion of your show or special content available only for download (perhaps with it’s own sponsorship). Give them, and the rest of the world, the chance to hear your show on their terms - terms not limited by their proximity to a radio, or radio transmitter, at a certain time. And with the global reach of the Internet, you’ll be able to find a lot more of that target demo out there. The key is to broaden your reach but narrow your market.
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