The Death of Dolly Parton Exposes the Weakness of Today’s Radio
August 25th will long be remembered as the day that Dolly Parton died. Every bit as much, if not more, as to how August 16th is remembered as the day of Elvis Presley died. The passing of this icon was significant because not only was she known as a country artist, Dolly was recognized as an actress, business leader, media mogul, creator and owner of a major amusement park, and for her philanthropy. You would be hard pressed to find someone who has a bad word about Miss Parton, or someone whose met her that wasn’t impressed.
Dolly Parton was very special. She not only attracted an audience to the Country music format, she introduced it well beyond radio with her many skills as a performer, writer, lyricist, and ability to make news with her mere presence. She’s the one artist who is in both The Country Music Hall of Fame and The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. Repeating; Dolly Parton was special.
Having had time to reflect on Dolly’s passing, it’s clear to me that what her death did, in addition to generating multiple emotions of loss and grief, was to expose the weakness of today’s radio. Miss Parton’s passing was announced just before 2:00pm eastern. That sent many stations content creators into scramble mode to get talent to a studio (be it home or in studio), to log into music scheduling systems to recreate a music playlist, to start work on producing special imaging, and to update websites, send push notifications, and post to social media.
Unfortunately, it didn’t send all radio stations, the ones you expect being Country and News, into that level of action and attention to detail. I camped out at my smart speaker and asked for country station after country station to hear what they were doing on-air. To say I was disappointed by what I didn’t hear would be an understatement. It was hours after the death announcement before I heard some stations even mention it. It took several major market radio stations almost three hours before they promoted special audio tributes and began playing 100% Dolly Parton music as a way to honor the icon.
I am sure that there are exceptions to my belief that these perceived weaknesses are many. My perception is surely clouded by the failed expectations I experienced, and the notes received from talent telling me they’re embarrassed by how their station missed the moment, or the text from one Market Manager chiding a competitor in his market (a country station) for not only not playing anything from Dolly, they hadn’t even mentioned her passing. Then there’s the major broadcast company whose websites groupwide continued to display the headline “Dolly Parton Shares Health Updates as She Continues Recovery” for more than a day after she expired.
It’s not all bad. My spirit improved as I checked on my radio friends in California, Mississippi, Kentucky, Georgia and Alabama. They were all over it. While checking highly known Country stations, I asked my smart speaker to play WYCD/Detroit. That station was All Dolly and All Tribute to The Queen of Country Music. Among those that I checked, they were the first and quickest to react to Dolly’s death. I called with a compliment to Tim Roberts, Brand Manager of the station and VP/Country at Audacy. He was in his car on the way to a local TV station to be interviewed about Dolly Parton. His reply to me ... “That’s what the audience expects from us.”
Radio, and especially Country Radio, owns Dolly Parton. Some in the format missed the moment. The first 15 minutes of NBC Nightly News was devoted to Dolly Parton. I flipped on CNN and Fox News to see what they were doing. Fox News had a parade of country stars weighing-in on the impact of Parton. CNN featured video clips of Dolly and presented her legacy while identifying her as an American gift. Entertainment Tonight was focused only on Dolly Parton. Dolly’s impact is way beyond music. President Trump ordered flags to be flown at half-mast for a week.
Some country stations acted quickly. Others didn’t. What’s most disappointing is that some of those who failed to act quickly were handcuffed, in reality or not, by a lack of staff, unmanned studios, lacking remote equipment, absent cloud based technology, and with programming leadership operating as a skeleton crew. I feel sure that in some case the multitasking of programmers across multiple formats and many markets served as a time bandit to prevent being prepared for situations of such magnitude.
It appears that in some situations there was no one to make a decision to go 100% Dolly. When Michael Jackson died, WCBS-FM/NY went 100% Michael. There was a spike in the ratings. Why wouldn’t every country station scramble to immediately play a lot of Dolly’s music if not going 100% Dolly. Repeating; some did go All Dolly quickly. They weren’t necessarily the stations one would expect to lead the way. Being two and three hours late, after the death of a cornerstone of a format, should be unacceptable.
Does all this mean that in the time of a weather crisis, natural disaster, act of terrorism or war that your station will be unable to react? Will you be ready to react to a situation and serve your community? Dolly’s death raises that greater question in my mind, and it should yours. The technology exists today that enables stations to update voice tracks, allow talent to work from home (local or faraway), produce new imaging, reschedule music logs, add music tracks into the operating system, and deliver content through the cloud. Websites can be updated from anywhere at any time. Same for Apps.
The absence of physical beings in a bricks and mortar building isn’t optimum, but it need not be the reason for the weaknesses of todays media to be a hinderance to your performance. Not being prepared, little communication as to having a system or plan in place, and the lack of a chain of command, that is what I point to as the causation of such failure. We should be better than this. We have to be better than this. I’d like to believe that we can be better than this.
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