• by October 12, 2005

"IT'S A SAD DAY IN THE RADIO BUSINESS" -- That's what we heard from not one, but several people yesterday when it was learned that radio giant Infinity Broadcasting shorted out its research transistors. The truth is that it's an even sadder day on Madison Avenue, because the decision signals that radio - or at least one major radio player - doesn't seem to take the ad industry's push for accountability seriously. Ultimately, that will prove to be a sad next year, or an even sadder year after that for radio broadcasters, as begin receiving a new frequency from the ad community: not the kind for frequency associated with reach, but an increasingly distant and weak signal that will begin to fade as marketers lose faith in the efficacy - and ultimately, the efficiency - of radio as an advertising medium.

It's not that radio doesn't work. We all know it does. We just don't know at precisely what levels, exactly when, where and why it works. Or how it works in conjunction with other media. That, of course, is because of the way radio is measured. "Radio is a medium that's trying to enter the 21st Century with a 19th Century technology." Hey, it's not us who said that, but someone who should know: Tony Jarvis, the former head of research at Grey Global's MediaCom Worldwide unit, who joined the radio crusade early this year, and until this week was its greatest champion as head of research at Infinity. By 19th Century technology, Jarvis is referring, of course, to the pencil and paper, which after all this time is still the method people use to record when they listen to radio.

Paper diaries have already been universally rejected as a method for measuring electronic media by the ad industry, so why does radio cling to it? Especially at a time when it confronts new challenges from the outside, as well as new competition from inside. It's time for terrestrial radio broadcasters to come down to earth. They're facing competition form Internet broadcasters, satellite broadcasters, and even their own listeners. And it's especially ironic that Infinity, the company that dominated so many radio markets with radio personality Howard Stern in its arsenal, is going to have to sit idly by as Stern skewers terrestrial radio in general, and Infinity broadcasting in particular from a Sirius satellite berth way up in the stratosphere. Along the way, he'll be picking off listeners, Arbitron radio points, and ultimately, some important sponsorship dollars.

But maybe that's what Infinity chief Joel Hollander's head-in-the-sand strategy is all about. Maybe, if we just pretend that nothing's actually changed, media buyers won't notice. They won't notice that radio has grown far too dynamic within a media marketplace that generally is growing far too complicated, amid clients who are demanding increasingly greater proof of performance to rely on pencils and paper.

To be fair, we don't actually know if Hollander plans to take a pass on the 21st Century, but it's sure beginning to look that way. While radio industry rival Clear Channel Communications is at least making noise - issuing an RFP for a new "state-of-the-art" measurement system - it sounds as if Infinity may have stopped breathing. The corpse just doesn't now it yet. It wants to reap a few more quarters of obscenely high media industry margins, before the rigor mortis begins setting in. And when it does, we'll all be able to smell the decay.

To be sure, Jarvis is not the first casualty of radio's ostrich complex. We take Gary Fries decision to opt for retirement midway through his attempt to reengineer the business, as another sure signal that the terrestrials are terrified of change.

Fries' message has been all about delivering the kind of accountability, improved proof of performance, and ROI that will make once again make radio's cash registers sing, not just preserving, but growing its ad market share relative to sexier media. It's surprising to us that at a time when even older school media like newspapers and outdoor are shoving people out of the way to grasp hold of the future radio is content on living in the past. The lesson is clear: If you want to get ahead in the radio business don't do what people like Fries or Jarvis, or big marketers and agencies are clamoring for. Just bury your head deeper in the sand and hope it will go away.

So we wish Tony Jarvis good luck. We wish Gary Fries good health. And we wish Arbitron could wiggle out of its Nielsen deal just long enough to get the support of a medium that might actually care about its future: television. But that's a riff for another day.