I was in an all day discussion with Mark about my perceptions on Radio. I thought I would present it here:
I did not see it mentioned - the exclusivity of Radio. Much like telephone and cable - radio and television stations also have a monopoly on access into the American home. (And you do not need to put a crappy looking antenna on the side of your house.) No net-neutrality issues here. If local stations could see this they would understand they have a captured audience whom they should customize their programming to.
Also there has to be a new model. Young people have short attention spans so too many ads break their attention and they move onto some other media, include fewer short adds directed towards younger people, and there must be topics of interest - relationships, tech stuff, local events, reviews of pubs, interviews with brew masters, breweries, interviews with local bands (The only place I learn about local talent is through weekend inserts in the local paper), local mom and pop wineries, non-chain eateries, talk about sex, love, parenting, jobs, careers, starting small businesses, interview (Young)small business people, young people in small towns, young people in city living, security (Way to many CSI police stories.), for some examples; include a twitter account to give young people the ability to customize the programming - and be willing to go with it. Understand young people all have something playing all the times, radio just has to figure out how it will be them i.e. advertise not wasting band width because it is delivered separately via radio wave streaming. Then deliver each programming segment in podcast form downloadable for a fee.
Finally radio must realize they have a great plus - most young people watch video podcasts and they know horrible programming when they see it. Ugly people, pontificating with lousy ideas and opinions - their young, with lousy voices - no one tells them they sound horrible and cannot be understood, with lousy rates of delivery and a constant stream of interrupting or talking over each other at a cascading rate of speed with tons of references to acronyms or initials to speed up the delivery. Most pod casts are only 40 minutes to an hour even though the material they have could be talked about for two hours. Pod casters could never sustain a three hour drive time program - pod casters are not this organized, their thoughts are not organized, succinct or able to be formatted into an easy to listen format. Asking them to prepare and create an agenda with professional transitions with guests who are great interviewers and carry this of over three hours - not happening - to much work. But radio "still" has announcers who know how to do this. Radio personalities understand all of this and podcasters are satisfied with a million "hits" radio personalities are satisfied with several million listeners. Who is more hungry?
I used the word "still" because those in radio believe they are in decline so they exude this aura and young people who would like to break in with talent are discouraged and turned away. The older more distinguished seasoned, finished, professional and successful radio personalities are dissappearing leaving none to mentor, train and coach the new radio announcers. To say nothing about the producers being lost due to attrition.
Also there has to be a new model. Young people have short attention spans so too many ads break their attention and they move onto some other media, include fewer short adds directed towards younger people, and there must be topics of interest - relationships, tech stuff, local events, reviews of pubs, interviews with brew masters, breweries, interviews with local bands (The only place I learn about local talent is through weekend inserts in the local paper), local mom and pop wineries, non-chain eateries, talk about sex, love, parenting, jobs, careers, starting small businesses, interview (Young)small business people, young people in small towns, young people in city living, security (Way to many CSI police stories.), for some examples; include a twitter account to give young people the ability to customize the programming - and be willing to go with it. Understand young people all have something playing all the times, radio just has to figure out how it will be them i.e. advertise not wasting band width because it is delivered separately via radio wave streaming. Then deliver each programming segment in podcast form downloadable for a fee.
Finally radio must realize they have a great plus - most young people watch video podcasts and they know horrible programming when they see it. Ugly people, pontificating with lousy ideas and opinions - their young, with lousy voices - no one tells them they sound horrible and cannot be understood, with lousy rates of delivery and a constant stream of interrupting or talking over each other at a cascading rate of speed with tons of references to acronyms or initials to speed up the delivery. Most pod casts are only 40 minutes to an hour even though the material they have could be talked about for two hours. Pod casters could never sustain a three hour drive time program - pod casters are not this organized, their thoughts are not organized, succinct or able to be formatted into an easy to listen format. Asking them to prepare and create an agenda with professional transitions with guests who are great interviewers and carry this of over three hours - not happening - to much work. But radio "still" has announcers who know how to do this. Radio personalities understand all of this and podcasters are satisfied with a million "hits" radio personalities are satisfied with several million listeners. Who is more hungry?
I used the word "still" because those in radio believe they are in decline so they exude this aura and young people who would like to break in with talent are discouraged and turned away. The older more distinguished seasoned, finished, professional and successful radio personalities are dissappearing leaving none to mentor, train and coach the new radio announcers. To say nothing about the producers being lost due to attrition.
Both the paid podcast model (with very few exceptions) and the "interactive" model (Listener Driven Radio, Jelli) have had little success. One of the most popular podcasters with a subscription model drew just over 3200 unique visitors in September, the most recent month I have metrics for. Another podcaster draws about ten times that much traffic, but his show is advertiser supported, so there are still ads, just like OTA radio.
While some companies are working hard to shorten their ads, commercial broadcasting is still a business and sadly the cost of free over the air radio is commercials. Remember Clear Channel's "Less Is More"? Gone. Companies that capped their spot loads have removed the caps on minutes, units, or both because they have to "hit their number".
There is still a place for the young in radio, and I've worked with some immensely talented people just out of college or younger in the last few years. These people will understand the declining value of sending out one signal for all to hear and embrace the concept, technology, and experience that local radio will need to evolve into over the next decade in order to thrive. It can be done, but not by gimmicks or podcasting, but by creating individualized user experiences.
While some companies are working hard to shorten their ads, commercial broadcasting is still a business and sadly the cost of free over the air radio is commercials. Remember Clear Channel's "Less Is More"? Gone. Companies that capped their spot loads have removed the caps on minutes, units, or both because they have to "hit their number".
There is still a place for the young in radio, and I've worked with some immensely talented people just out of college or younger in the last few years. These people will understand the declining value of sending out one signal for all to hear and embrace the concept, technology, and experience that local radio will need to evolve into over the next decade in order to thrive. It can be done, but not by gimmicks or podcasting, but by creating individualized user experiences.
Mark,
I was not writing of a straight pod cast show. More like Michael Medved, Hugh Hewitt etc. where I can listen via AM radio to their regular show but their online content (Pod casts, interview transcripts, show notes, links discussion etc.) require a monthly fee for access. Two birds with one stone. With my limited understanding of Social Media (Twitter and Facebook) it is supposed to drive people to a product or company, help products or companies be better known to the internet consumer and to identify consumer trends for companies to capitalize on. Is radio outside such a model to be more listener driven through social media?
This is the problem with on air advertising - does the show support the advertisements or the advertisements support the show. For young people who have grown up with so much access to media without advertising, reduced advertising or what I call passive advertising - banner ads and flashing ads around what they are attending to, but not interrupting or stopping the stream. They are used to this way of receiving advertisements and are not tolerant of interruptions. I on the other hand have grown up and had been desensitized to the interruptions. After no television or cable and getting my media off the web with no, or reduced number of ads I am appalled at the interruptions on television even though I do not believe the quantity of ads has increased. I also listen to AM radio and know when the hard breaks are coming and mute the advertisements. This is what happens to consumers when there is a choice. This is what has happened to commercial radio and television when the age old proven model (From the dawn of radio) ran into internet delivery. I think the answer is time because for most of the existence of the web content has been undervalued i.e. giving away content. Lately the internet has been more on a bent of locking down content and requiring a fee. As this behavior increases it will become the norm and consumers will understand the pay to play mentality. Best example is Netflix. The moment they proposed, what I saw as a modest increase, a whole lot of people bailed, why because they are used to undervalued content. Where are they going to go? Back to commercial television? No more streaming? Eventually content will be seen as more valuable and the older model of advertising interruptions or a Netflix style flat fee for content will win out making commercial television and radio competitive. (At least there is no up front fee to the Telephone Company or Cable Company to hook up to radio. Think about this. My Comcast bill currently is $39.99. That fee is necessary to visit any web site. To listen to radio requires no ISP or fee. And there are still advertisements when I get to most web pages. Radio has none of this tethering to an ISP.)
Your last paragraph is totally correct. But if you think of the internet as each web site is a radio station and each web site is out to capture a specific audience or provide a portal (Google) to all the other content. Web sites are not trying to capture all the traffic only a portion - your words - "These people will understand the declining value of sending out one signal for all to hear..." Most people who run web sites, blog, sell or provide content know they are targeting only certain people not "for all to hear" or read. If you can imagine a porn site with news, weather, interviews and a tech show wrapped around porn. You would say, "That is ludicrous, those who want the porn would be put off by all the other stuff and those wanting all the other stuff would be put off by the porn." Targeting your audience and competing for this select group - which station or web site provides the pertinent content, does it in an entertaining way, making it a finished product is going to get the listeners or the hits. I keep thinking of NPR "All Things Considered" and some of their other programming. My 23 year old son listens to these shows today. We never listened to NPR when he was growing up. I think the attraction is exactly these things. These are not gimmicks they are the nature of radio, the strength of radio and the history of entertainment in this country. Consumers will purchase great programming and radio has a history of providing such a product.
I was not writing of a straight pod cast show. More like Michael Medved, Hugh Hewitt etc. where I can listen via AM radio to their regular show but their online content (Pod casts, interview transcripts, show notes, links discussion etc.) require a monthly fee for access. Two birds with one stone. With my limited understanding of Social Media (Twitter and Facebook) it is supposed to drive people to a product or company, help products or companies be better known to the internet consumer and to identify consumer trends for companies to capitalize on. Is radio outside such a model to be more listener driven through social media?
This is the problem with on air advertising - does the show support the advertisements or the advertisements support the show. For young people who have grown up with so much access to media without advertising, reduced advertising or what I call passive advertising - banner ads and flashing ads around what they are attending to, but not interrupting or stopping the stream. They are used to this way of receiving advertisements and are not tolerant of interruptions. I on the other hand have grown up and had been desensitized to the interruptions. After no television or cable and getting my media off the web with no, or reduced number of ads I am appalled at the interruptions on television even though I do not believe the quantity of ads has increased. I also listen to AM radio and know when the hard breaks are coming and mute the advertisements. This is what happens to consumers when there is a choice. This is what has happened to commercial radio and television when the age old proven model (From the dawn of radio) ran into internet delivery. I think the answer is time because for most of the existence of the web content has been undervalued i.e. giving away content. Lately the internet has been more on a bent of locking down content and requiring a fee. As this behavior increases it will become the norm and consumers will understand the pay to play mentality. Best example is Netflix. The moment they proposed, what I saw as a modest increase, a whole lot of people bailed, why because they are used to undervalued content. Where are they going to go? Back to commercial television? No more streaming? Eventually content will be seen as more valuable and the older model of advertising interruptions or a Netflix style flat fee for content will win out making commercial television and radio competitive. (At least there is no up front fee to the Telephone Company or Cable Company to hook up to radio. Think about this. My Comcast bill currently is $39.99. That fee is necessary to visit any web site. To listen to radio requires no ISP or fee. And there are still advertisements when I get to most web pages. Radio has none of this tethering to an ISP.)
Your last paragraph is totally correct. But if you think of the internet as each web site is a radio station and each web site is out to capture a specific audience or provide a portal (Google) to all the other content. Web sites are not trying to capture all the traffic only a portion - your words - "These people will understand the declining value of sending out one signal for all to hear..." Most people who run web sites, blog, sell or provide content know they are targeting only certain people not "for all to hear" or read. If you can imagine a porn site with news, weather, interviews and a tech show wrapped around porn. You would say, "That is ludicrous, those who want the porn would be put off by all the other stuff and those wanting all the other stuff would be put off by the porn." Targeting your audience and competing for this select group - which station or web site provides the pertinent content, does it in an entertaining way, making it a finished product is going to get the listeners or the hits. I keep thinking of NPR "All Things Considered" and some of their other programming. My 23 year old son listens to these shows today. We never listened to NPR when he was growing up. I think the attraction is exactly these things. These are not gimmicks they are the nature of radio, the strength of radio and the history of entertainment in this country. Consumers will purchase great programming and radio has a history of providing such a product.
