AMA (Ask Me Anything): Here Are The Answers (Part 1)

hey there it’s David H Lawrence the 17th
and boy did I get a lot of questions
when I asked people if they wanted me to
answer some questions ask me anything
this is episode number 100 of our 365
episodes in 365 days one a day video
challenge and I say our when I mean it’s
mine
but hopefully you’re getting some
benefit from this so I was deluged with
questions there’s gonna be more than one
session which I’m actually kind of
pleased about I I was hoping that these
videos weren’t just going off into the
ether and not being helpful to people
not being and I could tell from the
engagement that it was it was reaching
some people and it was reaching some
people in a very profound way and some
people not so much
but I think we’re doing a fairly decent
job of it now this I’m going to answer
this following question as a way to sort
of preview why it’s going to be more
than one set I got two different
questions I got two different questions
why are your videos so short and why are
your videos so long so I guess I’m right
where I want to be I
these videos are supposed to be between
five and eight minutes long sometimes
they’re a little longer I try not to go
less because YouTube kind of penalizes
you if your videos are shorter than five
minutes in terms of placement and reach
and all that sort of things so I want to
go at least five minutes long but I
don’t want to do 20 minute long videos I
don’t want to do 30 minute long videos
hour long videos for a couple of reasons
number one mindshare I am very well
aware that you have plenty of options
for listening to things podcasts
newscasts television shows radio shows
music audiobooks you’ve got all kinds of
options and so I want to make sure that
I am succinct and that I am efficient
about how I do these things and and not
take up too much of that mind share
so when I worked for America online we
used to do focus group sessions every
six months or so and one of the things
that we would test was how long could we
maintain someone’s attention before they
were interrupted with some other
competing technology the phone the
television even their family email
something else going on on their
computer and the answer 99 times out of
100 was five to seven minutes and so
that five to ten minute range that five
to eight minute range seems to be a
reasonable balance between not being
able to get deep into any subject at all
and being so deep into it that instead
of it being like a nice bite-sized
digestible chunk it turns into this like
banquet that leaves you bloated it’s
like it’s hard to like wade through it
plus it’s just me talking and really who
wants to see me talk more than that
amount of time so that’s our first
question next what was or is going on in
radio that made you leave the industry
oh that’s a great question so in the
first part of my career I was in radio
from 1976 until 2008 or so so just over
30 years and I still went back to radio
from time to time for the next five
years or so but what was going on in the
latter part of my career was syndicated
radio none of the difference is doing
radio locally you go to work for a radio
station every day you’re on the air for
a certain amount of time you get paid by
the hour you get a salary whatever it is
and you’re heard in that local market
syndicated radio is network radio or
radio where you’re heard on more than
one station or you’re heard on the
satellite and terrestrial stations and
that was the bulk of my work for the
last probably 20 years or so yeah I’m
gonna say 15 years or so and what
happened in that same 15 years is that
the United States government passed the
Communications Act of I think was 1995
that allowed companies to buy an
unlimited number of AM stations FM
stations and television stations in
addition they were given permission to
have their own syndication wings so what
is now I believe I Heart Radio or radio
comm one of them used to be Clear
Channel and they had premiere radio
networks so they had the Clear Channel
Radio stations probably some 400 of them
across the country when they were all
said and done they started scooping up
all of these thing and they had premiere
radio networks which was their
syndication way now the thing is all of
their individual radio stations were
told
you must take programming from our
syndication company if you’re going to
take programming from syndication at all
so it was very difficult for me as an
independent syndicator to get my radio
shows on on stations that were owned by
one of the big three at the time now I
had some really outlier stations like
WGN in Chicago which wasn’t owned by the
big the big three and wor in New York
and I was on XM and Sirius before they
merged so I had some advantages but by
the time 2007-2008 rolled around it was
just a cesspool of a business to work in
and it was losing relevance it was
losing what’s called the signal strength
not of the transmitters or so but the
signal strength of radio radio in
particular is a a medium that has lost
some of its luster to television to the
Internet to streaming to podcasting to
audiobooks sure it still reaches close
to 100 percent over 99% of the
population in the United States
everybody in the United States lives
within the reach of a radio station but
do they actually use radio the way they
used to and the answer is absolutely not
you tell tell kids today about your
favorite jocks your favorite DJ’s your
favorite talk show hosts they would they
won’t know what you’re talking about
oh they have a favorite podcasters oh
yeah sure and I have favorite channels
on you know Spotify and Pandora yeah oh
yeah yeah yeah
and I think my mom listens to some
station that plays like you know you
know Kenny Kenny Loggins music she likes
country I don’t know but the idea that
radio held a big huge place in my life
growing up it’s just not the same for
kids anymore
and then finally today we’re gonna pick
up with the the next set of questions
tomorrow can you recommend a safe and
reliable ad blocker for Mac and the
answer is no I don’t recommend ad
blockers at all because ad blockers
always have false positives meaning they
block things they aren’t supposed to
block I would use Chrome’s pop-up
blocker it’s built into the Chrome the
Chrome web browser but I don’t run ad
blockers at all I also happen to have an
attitude against ad blockers because I
mark it online and I think if you were
you know an honest broker when it comes
to your your marketing you shouldn’t be
in a situation where if something is ads
supported you shouldn’t be in a
situation where people are blocking that
ads support which pays for the content
so I have a sort of a philosophical bent
to get it but just a technical bent the
pop-up blocker with chrome works great I
haven’t seen any ads whatsoever if
you’re talking about getting rid of the
ads on a page I find that to be just a
little bit reprehensible because that
page is being paid for not by you with a
subscription or you with an access
payment but by the advertisers that are
there so I say you know give the people
that are creating that content what
they’re do and don’t block the ads
that’s the way I look at it and that’ll
do it I’m really happy that you have
asked so many questions we’re gonna get
two more next time around I don’t know
how many of these AMAs I’ll be doing
before I get to the end of the list but
we’ll take them one little video at a
time if you’d like to join my youtube
channel and know when these videos are
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and if you want to see the latest video
I’ve done click on that frame and
YouTube will play it for you I’m David H
Lawrence the 17th where you could have
asked me anything and I thank you so
much for watching and I’ll talk to you
tomorrow.