My longtime friend Dan Mason, the CBS Radio President who is leading the dramatic turnaround of the company made a statement the other day about technology and radio.
Dan reportedly told his new media road show in New York that "$1 billion in ad dollars were telling you that the iPod or satellite radio will lead to the death of radio. That's a myth. To say that an iPod or satellite radio, with little or no human connection, will ever replace radio is absurd." (from PaidContent.org).
Well, maybe not satellite radio, but iPods have already changed the dynamic for radio. Just ask a young person who is not listening to a Walkman and is listening to an iPod. Not radio. But an MP3 player.
CBS is moving in the direction of trying to get radio into new technology. It revealed a new media player that will feature several radio stations at once including Internet brands. They've jumped into the personalized radio business with Last.FM. Have a deal with AOL. Their own individual station streams and so on.
My experience with the next generation does not bode well for any strategy that proliferates traditional radio onto new delivery systems.
The next generation doesn't like radio.
Not the stations. Not the concept. There's simply less need for it in their lives.
New technologies will not only replace radio among the next generation, they already have. And this generation is huge -- with as many Gen Y'ers as there are baby boomers.
I agree with Dan that the idea that new technologies will replace radio is -- to use his word -- "absurd" if you're talking about older Gen X'ers and baby boomers. This group loves radio and will appreciate receiving something they already like on their computers or mobile devices.
But that's as far as you can go.
Without the next generation the radio business will continue to hit the wall. Once the present economic downturn ends -- still a long way off -- there won't be enough new young listeners to help radio continue to grow. It becomes a losing proposition. More radio listeners die and fewer new radio listeners use traditional radio.
The next generation wants to stop, start, time-delay and delete its programming.
This generation wants to mash it up -- have a say in what it sounds like or how it is used.
They want to deliver it to each other -- share it -- at will.
They want community (what we used to call local radio) through social networking online.
One of the hardest things for me to deal with in my years of working with the next generation is that they don't like radio and don't understand what I like about it.
When I describe it, they say what I am describing is not what they hear on the radio.
We're an industry in denial that technology has changed the game. But only radio people have the power to adapt and create new content for a new generation and on the devices they use.
But to begin, we have to understand that more has changed than how to deliver radio programming.
It's not about the technology.
It's the sociology.
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Thursday, May 08, 2008
New Technology Is Already Replacing Radio
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7 comments:
Oh, wait - HD Radio is supposed to unhook Gen Y from their iPods and cell phones! Bilko, Fumbles, and Struble (aka. The Jackal) are all losers!
I think I agree with Jerry's article.
I operate a small Internet-only radio station that features popular music of the past 50 years.
Notwithstanding improvements I've made and such, during the past year or so, the total listener hours per month has steadily declined. This is so even though my station has been listed on iTunes during that period of time.
Indeed, when my station first was listed on iTunes, often it I would get approximately 120-140 concurrent listeners during the busiest time of the day.
Now, more likely than not, I get approximately half that number.
Overall, this diminution seems to coincide with a decline in the number of listeners to online-only radio stations.
At the same time, however, the number of listeners for terrestrial stations that also broadcast online seems to have increased.
But, in general, I would agree that younger generations prefer iPods, portable music in the form of MP3 files,customizable "stations" and the like.
the total listener hours per month has steadily declined..
could be because there is so much content available, a lot more streaming stations than ever before, and we are suffering from short attention spans, as mentioned in one of the last posts.
when we consider there are about 14,000 terrestrial radio stations in the states, and a recent report i read said there are more than 70,000 streaming stations, then kick in a billion podcasts, on demand shows, cable and satradio, and on and on, everyone is going to get a smaller slice of the pie.
content uber alles!
I applaud the innovating thinking from CBS. Somebody sees the future and willing to take chances. Without a doubt the internet is the future of radio. People are still using wired or wireless devices for entertainment but what’s changing is the delivery method and device. The original jukebox is old fashion and out of dated. Let’s hope others follow their lead. The next must have gadget is wireless internet access in your car!
And within 10 years, ever car will have it and competition will force prices down. Cheap internet access will be everyplace including in vehicles. Plus prices for cell phone services will be driven down. You’ll even have cell service from the internet. this is another wireless device that holds mp3’s and acts like radio.
You can get all your weather & traffic reports right on your cell phone.. probably free!
Your column today sort of reverses your previous view that content will bring Gen Y to radio. More local DJs and higher salaries. Perhaps you can explain.
I think that all of us (terrestrial broadcasters, satellite broadcasters, and online only broadcasters) are going to have to accept that while the world wide web is a huge place with untolled listeners who can receive your signal and the country is immense with millions who can receive your satellite signal, these charactersitics are offset by the fact there are now also countless competitors for our audience.
I think that content will set apart some purveyors of programming but that because of the jungle-like environmnet we operate in, we're all going to have to accept less return for a given improvement in the programing.
Nice blog. Thats all.
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