Little did Pete Townshend know that when he wrote “Goin’ Mobile” nearly three decades ago that he would be speaking about a revolutionary trend for the next millennium. With mobile devices, consumers can effortlessly and instantaneously participate with radio via text, Facebook, Twitter, and photos/videos. The request line will soon be a forgotten tool, and email is not far behind.
Fred Jacobs
By Fred Jacobs
I recently spoke at Don Anthony’s “Morning Show Boot Camp,” my first-ever appearance at that event. I walked in not knowing what to expect in terms of vibe and attitude. I walked out feeling a sense of confidence that the “content creators” in the air studio are the least of radio’s problems.
By and large, the jocks and personalities I encountered were upbeat, passionate, and excited about radio’s future. During a presentation by KZOK’s Bob Rivers, I heard a genuine sense of realism about the need for personalities to contribute to revenue generation and NTR. It was very encouraging.
I also got the sense there’s a very realistic attitude about the need to integrate technology into personality shows. There were several discussions about social networking, and other digital tools, and how best to make them part of a show’s strategy.
That’s where mobile enters the conversation. While many personalities have texting and streaming video in their shows, a greater understanding of the role that mobile plays is paramount if radio is to successfully evolve, and remain relevant and accessible moving forward.
Many radio people came into this business with the “Theater of the Mind” DNA – your job is to paint pictures with your words because radio is not a visual medium. While the basic principals of entertainment and information on the radio still encompass some of these tenets, to not embrace change in the form of new media and digital technology is to diminish brands, and to hasten radio’s irrelevance.
As our company’s jacAPPS division has grown exponentially during the past nine months, we have gone to school on mobile. Our conclusion? Mobile could become the biggest medium of all, surpassing radio, television, film, and even the Internet.
How? Media consultant Tomi Ahonen is the most eloquent analyst on the topic of mobile. He believes that with four billion mobile devices in the world – more than there are radios, TVs, and computers – mobile is only going to become more important over time.
Tomi posits that mobile is the “7th medium” with the potential to cannibalize the media that preceded it. Consider this: everything that society has created using print, cinema, recordings, radio, television, and the Internet is now available on your personal mobile device. That’s why his premise becomes more convincing.
Add to that Tomi’s list of mobile’s unique benefits:
- It is the first personal mass media channel – More so than any other media or gadget which are often shared, your mobile device is personal. You tend to check it and use it privately, and it is customized to fit your needs and usage.
- It is always carried – A quality that clearly differentiates it from TV and even radio back in the transistor/Walkman days. You wouldn’t be caught dead without your phone. In fact, many young people sleep with their phones.
- It is always “on” – We pretty much turn off every device from radios to TVs to computers when they’re not in use. But our mobile devices are always ready to receive a call, a text, or an alert. These devices have our attention.
- It provides a built-in payment system – We are slow here in the U.S. on this front, but judging by the way that devices are being used in Europe and Asia, it won’t be long before Americans will automatically use their devices (instead of credit cards) for everything from vending machines to purchasing movie tickets. Already, this feature charges consumers for text votes they send to shows like “American Idol.”
- It is available at the point of creative impulse – That built-in camera (and video recorder) allows users to point, shoot, and share. This gives consumers the instant opportunity to create content, such as CNN’s i-Reporters or even pictures that listeners take at concerts.
- It has near-perfect audience usage data – This feature will come into play as mobile becomes more mature as an ad medium. The ability to more accurately measure audience composition and usage is a powerful tool.
- It captures the social context of media use – This is an interesting premise that speaks to how consumers interact with one another using their mobile devices. It could be Tweets or it could be using your device to access Facebook to encourage a network of friends to vote for a contestant on “American Idol.” Because consumer decisions are so often influenced by friends, mobile devices enable those social networks to rapidly communicate with one another in real time – not when they get around to checking their email or voice mail.
The other dynamic in play is Apple, and their drive to dominate this space with the iPhone and the iPod Touch. As of this writing, there are 45 million of these devices in the world.
Now you’re seeing Apple move swiftly to keep the competition down, while offering a $99 iPhone and selling it at WalMart. If you’re one of those “Apple elitists,” think again. The company’s goal is to make the iPhone (and iPod Touch) as big in the mobile device space as the iPod has become in the mp3 player world.
This is important for broadcast radio which has been shut out of the iPod phenomenon because Apple never saw fit to build FM radios into these ubiquitous devices. Coupled with the death of the Walkman, the iPod is one of the key reasons why radio has essentially lost its portability over the past decade.
But the iPhone changes that. Apple is allowing broadcast radio back into the portability game via its incredible App Store. Applications provide a golden opportunity for radio – individual stations and personalities – to have content available on these popular, portable, personal devices.
A great deal of the success of the iPhone and iPod Touch is attributable to the App Store – a runaway success for Apple, and a key reason why they are so far ahead of the game. Because of apps, these devices are new every day.
At its 1-year birthday, the App Store claims more than 1.5 billion total downloads, 65,000+ apps that have been developed, and more than 100,000 developers creating cool, useful, and fun applications each and every day.
We’re one of these developers, and I can tell you that after creating more than 90 apps that are rapidly approaching the 1,000,000 downloads milestone, Apple makes it relatively simple and convenient to create these apps.
As Cory Treffeletti, the President of Catalyst, notes: “Apps are the new web sites.”
When it comes to apps, it’s like 1995 all over again, when perhaps 5% of the world’s companies had web sites – and the other 95% were thinking that it was time to build one.
As we see conservative firms like Bank of America, General Motors, Hallmark, and Christie’s develop apps, it’s just a matter of time before every important brand – radio stations, personalities, and even station events – have their own branded applications.
Remember those old Star Trek episodes where Kirk, Spock, and Scotty would escape a galactic dilemma by altering the “space time continuum?” Well, that’s what mobile devices will do for radio and personalities.
For morning shows, they are no longer tethered to 5:30-9 a.m. Instead, mobile enables them to become 24/7 brands, available to consumers via streams and podcasts whenever and now wherever they choose. Similarly, radio stations are no longer tethered to transmitters and towers in order for consumers to access and enjoy their content.
With mobile devices, consumers can effortlessly and instantaneously participate with radio via text, Facebook, Twitter, and photos/videos. The request line will soon be a forgotten tool, and email is not far behind.
Little did Pete Townshend know that when he wrote “Goin’ Mobile” nearly three decades ago that he would be speaking about a revolutionary trend for the next millennium:
When I’m mobile
Fred Jacobs is President of Jacobs Media. The Southfield, Michigan based firm consults many of America’s most successful Classic Rock, Mainstream Rock, and Alternative stations. Fred can be reached at (248) 353-9030 or fredjacobs@jacobsmedia.com.
