Content is still king, and GreenStone Media pays the price
Content is king. That is how a media outlet lives or dies -- compelling content that catches the interest of the audience, or some sector of the audience. Any media outlet that thinks it is entitled to an audience because of who they are instead of because what content they are offering will die.
GreenStone Media, the all-woman radio station, has died.
Some time ago, I wrote about GreenStone Media, the all-women radio station for women about women, and wondered how one radio station for women could possibly think it could talk to all women. I figured that the definition of a woman was restricted to a Gloria Steinem type.
After some time, I checked back. I didn't think it looked good for GreenStone Media, based on the anemic activity on the GreenStone Media blogs.
The news today is bad for GreenStone Media and the fans:
To thunderous acclaim from the liberal intelligentsia, a team of feminist icons - including Gloria Steinem and Jane Fonda - last year launched a women-run radio network. The mainstream media dutifully parroted press releases describing the launch as a "breakthrough" for women in the male-dominated world of talk radio.
The Boston Globe, for example, proclaimed that "GreenStone gives women an outlet." Business Week described the venture as "Talk Radio Minus The Testosterone."
Last Friday, GreenStone Media signed off for good. Why did this effort fail? After all, the programming carefully was designed by feminist experts to appeal to female tastes. According to Steinem, "women are more and more turned off by the hostility and argumentative nature of AM talk radio." Greenstone Media was supposed to capitalize on that by offering a different tenor, more "community" and greater respect for different points of views.
GreenStone offered the typical liberal fare - boasting of interviews with Ralph Nader and Alec Baldwin - but also included programming that was downright girly. Morning show segments included "Mean Mommy," with advice for mothers, and "What's up with Guys," providing insights into the elusive male brain.
So I was wrong on that count. Or not entirely right. Typically liberal, with some innocuous apolitical programming to appear fair-minded and inclusive. I note the lack of truly conservative programming.
But still it failed. Why? The obvious reason, of course. No one was listening:
GreenStone's problem was it couldn't attract an audience of either gender. The programming was picked up by only eight affiliates in small to mid-sized markets. Apparently, GreenStone's programming wasn't the talk that women really want.
It wasn't talk anyone wanted. It is described as tepid and uninspired, with few surprises. In their own words, they were focusing on "community", as if you the packaging of uninteresting information would suddenly make it compelling. It doesn't. These women said exactly what you expected them to say on topics you expected them to talk about. All the warm and fuzzy feelings didn't make it less boring. Apparently their business model was based on the notion that being an all-woman radio station, women would listen no matter what they put on. Sisterhood and solidarity and such.
As anyone on the internet will tell you, content is king. And yes, the phrase uses the male "king" because it is alliterative with "content". Maybe the women at GreenStone were offended by that and so ignored that truism about media success. Well, they paid the price.
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Comments
As a (female) conservative-leaning am talk radio listener, I can guarantee you that I would rather listen to gangsta-rap, experimental jazz, or even Celine Dionne (my teeth grit just having to type that) than ever listen to some liberal/feminist fluffy radio station.
I need raw meat (metaphorically speaking), not cotton candy.
Posted by: Dagny Taggart at August 21, 2007 03:51 PM
There was an all-female Radio station?
Geez Jane, unless there was some good skip, I doubt it reached Hanoi.
Women are intelligent enough TO CHOOSE what they want to listen to.
Liberating them appears to have backfired in this (amongst other) femi-na*i case(s)....make a note, you reaped what you sowed.
Excuse me I've got some male gitch to burn.
Posted by: John Doff at August 21, 2007 04:54 PM
What's Up With Guys?
One thing...and one thing only.
All you need is one program about it and you are done.
Posted by: levesque at August 21, 2007 05:01 PM
I can't say how happy I am to hear that Diva Queens, Fonda and Steinem, have to eat crow. Crow also is alliterative with "crap content."
Feminists like Jane and Gloria get their knickers in a knot when "males" generalize about females, while they do nothing BUT generalize about women: what we like, what we don't like, and--even worse--what we SHOULD like and what we SHOULDN'T like. They've replaced Judeo-Christian morality--which applied to males and females alike--with their own brand of fascist-feminazi amorality.
And look where it's got society...and them. Going, going, gone...
Posted by: 'been around the block at August 21, 2007 09:00 PM
Greenstone Media never claimed to be all things to all women. Anybody with a head knows that. Greenstone Media was more than a "liberal/feminist fluffy radio station". They tackled all subject ranging from the war in Iraq to stay-at-home dads. From HPV vaccines to office politics. The continual sniping that Greenstone was nothing more than recipes, man-bashing, and hair-dos just shows the ignorance and intolerance of those who love to flap their pie holes before educating themselves on the topic. "Women are intelligent enough to CHOOSE what they want to listen to." HERE HERE! It's too bad that stations didn't give Greenstone a chance for listeners to HAVE the choice of whether to listen or not.
Posted by: Fed Up at August 23, 2007 03:32 AM
Fed Up says, "It's too bad that stations didn't give Greenstone a chance for listeners to HAVE the choice of whether to listen or not."
Guess what, FU? If women HAD chosen to listen to GreenStone Media in any numbers, other stations would have picked it up and it would have expanded its listener base.
It's the misplaced self-righteousness of Feminist Divas like Fonda and Steinem that really rankles. Look, if these two mega-wealthy, mega-celebrity, mega-connected (even to the mass media) couldn't make a go of their programming it means that not only were women not interested in their message, no one else was either.
Please address why there would have to be an all-women radio station for women about women in the first place? Why do feminists ALWAYS divide the world into male and female, usually excluding the former even though there'd be Hell to pay if men excluded women? Why are all-women clubs allowed to proliferate while all-male bastions are stormed by the feminist bootjacks and become integrated and "inclusive"?
I'm a woman who's FED UP with the totalitarian tactics of extremist feminists of the past 30 years. They've torn apart the fabric of our society, by pitting women against men, women working outside the home against stay-at-home women, women against their own children, women against everything that doesn't fit their narrow view of women's rights and power.
There's more to life than rights, meaning responsibility, accountability, and sacrifice, (that goes for men AND women) and there's more to life than raw power, which in the feminist vernacular usually means women entering the corporate world and making BIG BUCK$.
Feminists like Fonda and Steinem seem stuck in adolescence, having never made it to adulthood. What interests them--often pseudo-issues with importance only for the rich, upper-middle-class, and indolent, in other words, for those with time and money on their hands--doesn't touch on what the vast majority of women consider central to their lives: husbands, children, and the kind of community where women AND men work together to create functional families and neighbourhoods.
Fonda and Steinem have no one but themselves to blame for their failure to successfully launch this latest feminist initiative, which obviously had validity only in their own minds. The parade has passed them by. They've been defeated by their own irrelevance to the vast majority of North American women.
Get used to it, Fed Up, because most NA women are fed up with the feminists and their negative and destructive agenda.
Posted by: 'been around the block at August 23, 2007 06:28 AM
While there is a large 'Katie Couric' contingent here who will absolutely vote for Hillary, they ain't listening to the radio [grammar intended].
Posted by: iowavette at August 23, 2007 04:16 PM
iowavette,
As a woman, you should be ashamed of yourself. The ease at which you throw around insults to Jane and Gloria and other women who are trying to make a difference is a deafening indication that you know nothing of feminism.
There is no men vs. women. The fight is for equality. I am assuming you are aware that to this day, women are still earning (on the dollar) less than their male counterparts. There is no man bashing here, it is just a fact. Why is that?
Your chicken and egg scenario that if women did want to listen to Greenstone, the stations would play it. How do you listen to something that is not available to you?
Did you know iowavette, that a majority of radio programming directors are 20 or 30something men?
Had you listened to any of the Greenstone programming, as I had, you would know that there were just as many men listening as there were women.
Feminist aren't trying to take over the world, nor are they trying to immasculate men. They are working toward a world where things are fair and equitable. As a male I can see it and not feel threatened. Why can't you?
Fed Up
Posted by: Fed Up at August 27, 2007 02:09 PM
My apologies to "iowavette". That last post was for "been around the block"
Posted by: Fed Up at August 27, 2007 02:26 PM
 
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