Challenges abound in today’s multi-media landscape and radio’s task of remaining a relevant and vital force in the entertainment lives of listeners and consumers is an ongoing process. The proliferation of digital devices and the mechanics of social media have made accessing and utilizing entertainment, information and engagement easy and variable to the point of serious competition among all the key players. Radio certainly counts itself among this group. We’ve asked a panel of experts in the field to address the current forces that confront the medium and we’ve received a wide range of useful perspectives from the likes of: Dom Theodore, Peter Smyth, Rick Cummings, Chris Oliviero, Pat Welsh and more.
For our Year-end feature this year we are asking a select group of radio executives and programmers to address a best practices model for radio going forward. Radio executives are certainly acutely aware of the global variables the medium is currently confronting and the numerous options listeners have to access and enjoy their music news, sports, information and entertainment, while programmers live where the rubber meets the road and are optimally positioned to discern, appreciate and understand what listeners truly demand for radio utility these days. Today’s standards of operating stations have changed drastically given the macro dynamics that have influenced the very nature of the medium and its surrounding multi-media competitors.
The challenge remains constant: adapt, create, adopt and execute tenets of programming, marketing and distribution that are applicable to today’s expansive business environment, while accounting for the inherent multi-media players that have become part of the complex competitive landscape.
We asked our panelists to address the various essentials of sustaining radio’s viability to insure a healthy position in the ultra-competitive multi media marketplace. In doing so the emphasis of perspectives will be in the following areas:
- Radio’s product – How does radio sustain its entertainment value to listeners in the area of content (music/personalities/presentation)?
- Delivery systems – What are the essentials of ensuring radio’s ubiquity among consumers given the technology advances in digital receiving devices and the proliferation of multi-media digital players?
- Digital platforms and Social Networks – How does radio optimize the value of these areas to enhance and grow its bottom line revenue objectives?
- The future – What areas should radio be more focused on than they’re currently not, that can conceivably enhance its future position in the competitive multi-media marketplace?
Dom Theodore
Dom Theodore, CEO, RadioAnimal Media Strategies and Program Director
The Blaze Radio Network
• Radio’s product:
The problem with “best practices” is that everybody ends up following the same playbook, and the end result is a medium where everything sounds the same. So I humbly offer a different point of view – how about the new ‘best practice’ is to ‘break all of the rules’? Authenticity doesn’t fit into a neat little box, and I believe the audience is CRAVING authenticity more than ever before, at the same time, radio is offering less of it than ever.
Somewhere along the way, Top 40 decided that the “she-male” friendly liner card jock who is simply a curator for the music and station promotions is the model for what a CHR jock should be. The end result has been a bumper crop of generic, boring, uninteresting, and negotiated-down-to-complete-non-offense liner jocks with nothing to say. These “plastic” announcers have all of the authenticity of an info-mercial, and are way less entertaining.
At the same time, you have more delivery systems than ever before for music on demand. So while radio attempts to compete on an “appliance” level with these other delivery systems, we’ve already lost that battle. For an on-demand experience? Radio already lost. For an appliance that dispenses music? Radio loses. There are far better appliances for this purpose that won’t dispense commercials with the music. What about service elements like news and weather? There’s an app for that on demand. Radio loses again.
So how does radio carve out a place in this ever-shifting world of media consumption? We need to go where these other platforms can’t go. How about an audio entertainment experience that extends beyond just the music? How about talent that connects emotionally with the audience? Not just format “barkers,” but authentic entertainers that actually have something interesting to say beyond just selling the next five songs or the station contest? How about being plugged in to what’s happening locally like connecting to the schools and making interesting local people the stars of the show? How about mastering the art of storytelling so instead of the audience being trained to leave every time a jock talks, we instead make the jock a reason to tune in? This can happen, but it’s going to take a complete change in priorities by the current operators, managers and talent. And sadly, I doubt that anybody has the guts to do it, until our medium drives off a cliff, and then we have no other choice but to try something new.
• Delivery systems:
Notwithstanding the big unnecessary Las Vegas concert, I do believe that Clear Channel has this right and is light years ahead with the iHeartRadio app. Bob Pittman is often criticized for his emphasis on heavily promoting this platform, but it’s the absolute right thing to do. And as wireless broadband in the automobile becomes the new “normal,” it’s not hard to imagine an iHeartRadio button on the dash display that allows access to thousands of stations. This is a good start. But in order to be successful, it’s going to take more than just a robust delivery system. It’s going to take outstanding ‘deliveries.”
The problem is, in our digital future there will be much fewer barriers to entry than exists today, so a 15 year-old in Ohio could start a radio station in his basement and I could drive around and listen to it in Texas in my car, and that kid might get a huge audience because his content will be more authentic than your commercial station. This is the reason that some of the simplest YouTube videos draw more views than network television. The audience craves authenticity and ‘real’ more than ever before.
• Digital platforms and Social Networks, optimize the value and grow its bottom line revenue objectives:
Social Networks are a very powerful complement to our medium once you understand the purpose of it and accept the fact that you are absolutely powerless in this space. The consumer has all of the control. Keep your sales department FAR away from your social media platforms. It’s a quick way to lose authenticity points. I’ve seen some stations make the awful mistake of using social media to plug advertising clients and the audience will simply unlike, un-friend, or stop following you. You violated the unspoken agreement. They agree to accept communication from you as long as you provide communication that interests them.
Strangely, I’ve seen jocks reveal more about themselves and express more authenticity in social media than on-the-air. If these same jocks shared their lives on-air like they do on social media, their ratings would be much higher and their stations would be far more relevant. Social media is a great way to express your authentic self – but if you’re not authentic, you will be exposed. You might be able to fool some people, but those people will tell the others, and then you’re dead.
• The future:
Research and Development: Look at the successful companies of our time. They provide a good model for what radio needs to do. Take Google for instance. They make a REAL commitment to research and development. Look at Google Glass. You can’t buy it yet, but they are developing it now and letting their most passionate fans test drive it and offer up ideas on how it can be best used. I just read about Amazon.com’s CEO Jeff Bezos’ vision to instantly deliver orders using drones instead of snail mail. You can bet he’s spending some money to explore this possibility. How many great products did Steve Jobs give the world? He wouldn’t research these products because he knew that you can’t test innovations conceptually. You had to let people discover it, but he always dared to try something new.
Then there’s radio. Let’s be honest with ourselves, this industry as a whole does an awful job with innovation and R&D. Everybody is too busy looking at what everybody else is doing and using the same research screeners, getting the same results, implementing the same plans and getting the same 3 share. Then we all scratch our heads and wonder why everything is so “compressed.” Or when something even slightly innovative is attempted, it is never adequately funded at launch. Then when it never gets off the ground, it’s declared a failure even though it wasn’t really a legitimate attempt in the first place.
Authenticity: PD’s need to stop spending hours staring at the mountain of data we now have in a PPM world and start listening to what’s coming out of the speakers. What is the experience like? How interesting is your station? Listen like a listener, does anything connect emotionally? Throw a curve ball once in a while. Dare to make a calculated “mistake.” Are you just a juke box? Are your recorded elements just as interesting as the live elements? Or are they just a well-produced list of facts? Is your imaging “logical” or “emotional?” Remember, people choose products based on emotion over logic.
Be Delivery System Agnostic…Get the Delivery Right: Who cares if ‘radio’s delivered on an app, or a mobile device, or a standard FM radio, or in a ball-point pen? The delivery system doesn’t matter – don’t get hung up on that. Focus instead on the delivery. Find that balance between consistency and inconsistency to keep them coming back for more. Ultimately remember that you are in the CONTENT business, and not the radio business.
Peter Smyth
Peter Smyth, CEO, Greater Media
• Radio’s product :
Radio must be creating relevant and unique content, whether that’s between the songs, long form in morning drive, or in a spoken word format. The best stations have a clear definition of their brands’ values and their audience interests and focus relentlessly on those characteristics. A great radio station has a stable of airstaff, each of whom knows his or her “character” or role in the brand and is able to bring enthusiasm and personal creativity each day. All of this is filtered through a discipline that insures ratings effectiveness. Discipline, brevity and playing the hits are no reason for repetition, dullness or fading into the background.
• Delivery systems:
The best radio stations will be available whenever and wherever the listeners want to access them. Digital provides a platform for aspects of the station brand that are not appropriate for the broadcast channel, but may have substantial minority appeal within the audience.
• Digital platforms and Social Networks:
Digital assets provide a creative platform that allows advertisers to complete transactions with our audience directly extending their on-air messaging. The formats and presentation are highly customizable and can be tailored to be positive for both the advertiser and the station brand. The best practice is to not only sell digital inventory but to sell complete solutions.
The social networks are an excellent platform for expanding and deepening the one-to-one relationship of the air personality with the listeners. Because of the evolving nature of the social space, the best stations are very particular with commercial messaging, and execution must be carefully monitored. The message must be considered informational, not commercial in nature in order to be valuable to the social community.
• The future:
A key development that needs attention and action is the evolution of the digital dashboard. Radio must find a mechanism to partner with the automakers to insure our continued position during commuting times. This is a rapidly-changing area of technology and decisions made within the next 12-24 months will affect radio’s mobile accessibility for years to come.
Chris Oliviero
Chris Oliviero, EVP, Programming, CBS Radio
• Radio’s product:
The most impactful strategy to guarantee the long term viability of our medium’s entertainment value is to create an environment that is attractive and supportive of creative thinkers. Be it on-air or off- air content creators, if they believe radio will give them the resources, along with the time, to hone their craft then they will choose our canvass to paint their masterpiece. But at the same time if they feel we are a place that manages the creative process through spreadsheets and P&L’s and one that has a low tolerance for creative “swings and misses” then they will go elsewhere. All great entertainment companies, regardless of medium, have this inviting culture as a hallmark.
• Delivery systems:
Modern technology has leveled the playing field for content creators, including radio, where in our case means we no longer have a monopoly of the dashboard. On face value that might seem like a negative, but in reality all it means is that we need to continue to distribute entertainment that is unique and standouts on these more crowded and competitive dashboards. Content hierarchy is still valid no matter the proliferation of delivery systems or platforms.”
• The future:
In order to properly prepare for the future we need to make sure that we are not handcuffed by the present. It is not necessarily about what exactly we are going to do in say 5-10 years but we need to make sure we are at least free to think about that timespan without being held to today’s reality and especially economic constraints. If all potential “game changing” ideas are stifled because of the current reality then we have no shot to plant the seeds for tomorrow.”
Rick Cummings
Rick Cummings, President Programming, Emmis Communications
• Best Practices
We believe the radio content business is so dramatically changed as to not resemble what programmers were focused on a decade ago. Digital disruption has altered every facet of broadcasting. Why would programming be different?
We believe programmers have to develop the same information and entertainment that they have always fashioned for broadcast. But in our markets, it has to be PPM friendly; it has to ‘grab’ a listener in the first many seconds (the moment of truth); it has to be relevant and, in many cases, it has to be repurposed for multiple platforms.
At Emmis, that can include the website; mobile; station apps, and Nextradio. One of the things our operations grapple with is how to ‘create it once and put it out there in multiple ways.’ That often requires resources that are hard to come by in an industry that is relatively flat in revenue growth.
But our operations increasingly find ways to get that done. Today, a new hire at Emmis in radio is more likely to be a videographer or blogger or someone versed in SEO versus a traditional broadcaster. Increasingly, we see applications for radio jobs from people with digital skills and that’s a good thing.
We believe social platforms can and should be used by our brands and personalities for deeper and more meaningful engagement than ‘over the air’ would allow (remember PPM?). After all, the deeper the fan connection, the more likely we can drive those fans back to the mother ship for another occasion of listening, which is critical to ratings success.
We think the future will place greater emphasis on data analysis for better content. This will be a sea change from the days when I first got into the business. We already spend a lot of time looking at PPM data and searching for a meaningful lift (rating points bump in a very compacted group of stations). This will only intensify. Programmers will have more points of data to make decisions from than they might have dreamed of only a handful of years ago.
We’ve heard critics say this will ‘sterilize’ the entertainment level in radio. We disagree. By eliminating what audiences didn’t really want (after all) and re-emphasizing those things they do want; by having a deeper understanding of audience desires and a greater understanding of what drove ratings then we ever had not that many years ago, we think this leads to better and more relevant content.
Staying relevant is key. We have seen again recently that, while there is proliferation of choice out there, the vast majority of people who consume audio still love the ease and simplicity of radio’s ubiquitous proposition: “just let me turn it on and have it be good for ME!”
R Dub
R Dub! PD, XHTZ (Jammin’ Z90) & XHRM (Magic 92.5)/San Diego
• Radio’s product:
Frankly, the industry as a whole just isn’t being honest with each other when it comes to listeners in the area of content. Too many people have their head down, out of fear. Today, more than ever, we need to invest and cultivate talent…more than ever in history! We are NOT going to succeed or even survive by cutting the talent out and keeping 15 minutes of spots in every hour. It’s just impossible! We need to reverse this train now. We have more competition than ever before yet we are investing the least we’ve ever invested. When your business is being threatened, you make a better product. Unfortunately, we’re just not doing that. For decades, radio was valuable because it could act as the listener’s “friend.” We have not been living up to that expectation lately.
• Delivery Systems:
It’s no secret we must adapt and continue to explore new use of current and new digital platforms, apps, streaming, the digital dash, etc. However the technology and delivery method is still only half of the picture. What good is any delivery method, if what you’re delivering just isn’t good? I think we have it backwards. We must have an exceptional product to deliver. Once you have the right product to push out, then it’s essential you are investing in digital. We, as an industry, must continue to work with, and be a voice on the digital side and never, ever let the industry skip over “us.” But again, we have to have a valuable product first. I want our product to be so important to our listeners that those same consumers wouldn’t dream of buying a car or listening device that doesn’t include a way to listen to us.
• Digital platforms and Social Networks:
I can speak for our digital department in San Diego, as I have witnessed such tremendous growth from them over the past two years. First, our local stations put out an exceptional product. A product put together by a passionate team of local professionals. A product that is well invested in, built and nurtured with care. That’s where it all starts. Then, that product is pushed through our digital department. Our websites, streaming and apps all truly offer something valuable to our consumers. We have invested in a very robust digital department who helps package and push out the content, and a sales force who understands both the terrestrial stations and its digital components, and how they work together. All three departments (programming, digital, sales) work together with amazing cohesiveness. The result is a stellar digital product and numbers (both audience and revenue) that perform. This success would not come if we were missing any of the three pieces. Programming, digital and sales are all on top of their respective games. It doesn’t work any other way. It’s like an engine; it will only run right when all of its parts of performing. Leave out just one piece, and it’s practically worthless.
• The future:
We must put the passion back into the product. Without pointing fingers, I can say that I have visited so many radio stations across the country, large and small, where the lights are off and the environment is sterile; big and small companies. It’s been a contagious virus that has spread to small and major markets alike and it’s a cancer. We will never win by offering music alone. We absolutely must provide great content. It’s the elephant in the room…the answer is glaring and obvious, but we’re not mad enough about it yet. We’re not standing up and saying, “Hey, we’re not going to survive this way!” Why aren’t we angry? We must start to again invest in talent and start looking long-term, because we’re certainly not doing that now.
I think a big part of our survival is also dependent on how we adjust our current spot loads. 15 minutes of commercials an hour just won’t work anymore. That whole model is flawed and outdated and it drives me crazy that we’re still using it. Someone has to budge first. Someone must be a leader and come up with a system to play less commercials without bankrupting the station. We need to come together as an industry to figure this out. Not to figure out how to squeeze out more money in the short term, but to have a real conversation and map out a plan to save our industry in the long term. It can absolutely be done. But the question remains, will it?
Pat Welsh
Pat Welsh, SVP Digital Content, Pollack Media Group
• Looking Ahead to 2014
People outside our business often express surprise when they find out how well radio listening has held up in the digital age. It’s something we can be proud of, but not cocky about. Entire industries have found out that change is often necessary at the very point where you feel you have the most to lose. Changing a winning formula may seem foolish, until it isn’t. Here are radio’s challenges for 2014 and beyond.
Never have another “Ah ha!” moment with social media. Insist that everyone be committed to it. We have a new generation of radio people who have grown up with the Internet and social media, and a couple of generations that remember when our business was completely (not just mostly) analog. Social media is not second nature to many of my generation. Interacting with users on Facebook, et al can’t just be the job of the interns. Everyone needs to learn how to use them effectively. And everyone has to be held accountable.
Owning beats renting. Some stations have gone overboard on Facebook and Twitter and neglected their own websites. We need to be where our listeners are, but let’s integrate our use of key social media platforms with our station websites…the real estate that we own. To get where we need to be, we need to be able to monetize our digital properties. BIA/Kelsey projects that ~30% of radio revenue will come from digital by 2017. Make sure you’re on the right side of 30.
Optimize websites for tablets. Web surfing on tablets surpassed smartphone web surfing earlier this year, even though tablets aren’t expected to reach 50% household penetration for a year or more. But do you create tablet-specific apps, or do you create HTML5 responsive design sites that look good on a tablet? Choose one now and make it easier for your listeners.
Get creative with native advertising and sponsorships. Let’s find new revenue streams. I’ve been reading lately that research shows that listeners have different expectation for commercials from terrestrial radio and from Internet-only services. I’m not confident that means a lot. Just because people say they expect more commercials on terrestrial radio, it doesn’t mean they’ll still listen as much, especially when Internet radio reaches the tipping point in cars.
Customize music programming. Streaming services are increasing in popularity and listeners are getting used to getting what they want when they want it. Terrestrial radio is still #1 for music discovery, but we need to combine that with on-demand convenience.
Emphasize personality, but do it in as few words as possible. Some stations still confuse talk with personality. Fortunately, in the biggest markets at least, the PPM is not letting us get away with that for long. Personalities are the big advantage that we have over digital platforms, but just because someone talks, it doesn’t make him/her a personality.
Make radio special again for teens. The fact that teens don’t use radio as much as other demos the dark cloud on the horizon. We need to find ways to appeal to the youngest demos and ensure the replenishment of our audience.
Fred Jacobs
Fred Jacobs, President, Jacobs Media
• Radio’s product:
We’ve reached the tipping point that many of us have been talking about for some time now and the era of simply competing with other stations in town for ratings and revenue is coming to an end. Broadcasters need to develop strategies and tactics that incorporate digital competitors in all the spaces and platforms where the audience has moved. That’s going to require research dollars to better understand the appeal of digital competitors as well as resources to create content that matters. Then it’s down to what radio knows how to do – position station’s strengths to maximize usage and brand loyalty. For a couple years now in our Techsurveys, we’ve identified key weaknesses of Pandora according to the consumers who use the service. This would be a good time to start paying attention to that data.
• Delivery systems:
First things first – radio’s brand managers need to know the platforms and gadgets their audiences are using. Companies used to quiz their managers about a station’s key ratings metrics (cume, turnover, TSL, etc.). Today, corporate bosses should be asking local programmers about the percentage of their audience that uses Pandora, that owns a smartphone (and what operating systems), and that uses social media (and which platforms). If you don’t know the answers to these questions for your own audience, how can you address the challenges and opportunities they present. You can’t achieve ubiquity and resonance in these spaces if you don’t even know which ones are meaningful to your audience.
This may seem like a shameless plug for stations to participate in Techsurvey10 which launches in January, but the invitation to all stations in all formats is open. For less money than you spend in a month on Fed Ex packages and coffee, you can have that all-important media usage profile of your audience. You can’t deploy dollars and resources strategically if you don’t know where your audience is and what they’re doing when they’re not listening to you.
• Digital platforms and Social Networks:
Most stations are using social and mobile in very rudimentary ways. Just because social media is free doesn’t make it easy. Lori Lewis is dedicating her career focus to studying key social platforms, working with stations to optimize their efforts, and to make better use of the tools. Google Hangouts, Instagram, and Vine are great assets, but only if programmers, brand managers and marketers know how to effectively use them.
Similarly in mobile, your station having its own branded app is now table stakes. The question is, where else can you take mobile to impact and enchant your audience (and to generate new revenue at the same time)? Our new app for WCSX has nothing to do with streaming – it’s a game app called “Deer Hunter,” designed to connect with a segment of the target audience’s lifestyle. After more than 25,000 downloads in just a few weeks and a happy sponsor, we know we’re clearly on the road to optimizing the mobile space. Brands need to think beyond the usual when you consider the millions and millions of apps available to every smartphone and tablet owner. There is a lot of money on the table and huge opportunities in the mobile space, but only for brands with a strong understanding of how consumers use their smartphones and tablets.
• The future:
We’ve talked about this for years, but if there’s an industry that is in need of the world’s biggest S.W.O.T. analysis, it’s this one. We can keep trumpeting our 93% cume numbers and happy Radar usage stats; we can keep debating whether or not Pandora or Spotify are “radio,” but the reality is that the audio space has never been more competitive – at home, at work, and of course, in cars. The industry needs to go to school on these new outlets and develop a viable game plan for intelligently competing in these spaces. What does radio bring to the table consumers can’t get anywhere else? That is the question.
The answers are out there, and while there’s still time left, I invite you to join us at www.jacobsmedia.com/techsurvey10and make the best investment in your brand you’ll make all year. Sign up for TS10 before the end of the year, and we’ll help you navigate these waters.
Buzz Knight
Buzz Knight, VP/Program Development, Greater Media
As the radio industry heads into 2014 we are faced with the growing challenges of reaching an audience that consumes media across multiple platforms. In Nielsen’s new Cross Platform Report which includes Audio for the first time “the average American consumes 60 hours of content each week across TV, online, radio and mobile.” With the staggering choices that are available for the consumer we have to completely obsess with a “good to great” content strategy.
Given the integration of Arbitron to the new Nielsen Audio we as programmers will gain new insight into the consumption patterns and how we can meet our audience where they are and when they want us.
Radio products must constantly touch the audience and get closer to cracking the DNA code of the audience we are trying to reach on a daily local basis. At Greater Media we continue to be engaged in the immensely enjoyable task of talent development and talent management. This is critical to the lifeblood of our future as we compete with multiple forces of entertainment.
Consumption across all platforms will evolve and grow at warp speed and we as an industry have to be thirsty for information on how that usage is developing. I applaud the work of Jacobs Media in enlightening us on the evolution within the Digital Dashboard and pushing us to be passionate about putting our audience first.
Programmers in 2014 need to grow in the manner they evaluate data of all type…from ratings analytics to metrics relating to social media engagement. From this data, as brand scientists they can grow in the understanding of not only meeting best practice standards but also imagining a new world of possibilities.
• So what do we need to boil down as great mantras for 2014:
1) Better and more impactful Talent Coaching that prompts creativity and audience engagement to grow and become more special.
2) Digital mastery and experimentation that can’t be easily duplicated by any “disruption”
3) A re-commitment to finding even more ways that radio brands can matter with causes and civic needs in a community.
4) Creating a new era of sales and programming integration that can yield great content, great events, great custom solutions and great revenue.
5) Ooze entertainment value both inside the walls and outside the walls of a brand.
Ezra Kucharz
Ezra Kucharz, President of CBS Local Digital Media
• Radio’s product:
Radio continues on its path of community based entertainment of over 100 years. Listeners want not only the best music, sports, news and personalities from across the country; they want something that is tied to their local communities. They don’t want to know just about sports at a national level, they want to know about their teams. Music isn’t enough, the content between songs is what allows consumers to identify and become part of a station’s community.
• Delivery systems:
The ubiquity of content delivered across any platform is key to the continued success of radio. The number one priority is great content. A bands’ music can be heard in many different places. The great station content is what sets it apart.
• Digital platforms and Social Networks:
Social media platforms are the pipes of the Internet and should not be looked at as a second Internet. Social media should be optimized for listeners to share content with their friends and followers, not drive listeners to social media destinations. Your own digital media platforms can be monetized very effectively whereas social media cannot.
• The future:
Video has become a very important piece in audience development. Thinking bigger with a greater mix of media type will lead to success.
Richard Harker
Richard Harker, President of Harker Research
• Radio’s Best Practices
It is time for radio to get its mojo back. We should today resolve to get radio’s priorities back in order. Local radio has succeeded by continual product innovation. Local radio has been a giant content laboratory with every station one of thousands of incubators of programming innovation.
Radio, once a swaggering self-confident industry, has been shaken by the realization that the greatest threats to success are no longer the other radio stations down the street, but rather a small group of new media start-ups that seem to play by a different set of rules.
Despite revenues that amount to little more than a rounding error for most local radio stations, these new media companies self-servingly managed to convince many that traditional radio was on the ropes. Mainstream media picked up the meme and soon a tsunami of “radio is dead” stories began flooding magazines, web sites, and blogs. New media’s relentless attack on traditional radio disoriented radio’s leadership and ownership.
This is radio’s milieu as we approach 2014. Radio’s swagger replaced by a disquieted fidgeting. Radio’s critics call Pandora a brilliant success, and claim that broadcast radio isn’t focused enough on digital opportunities. However, one could argue that radio has focused too much energy on digital.
In 2013 Q3 broadcast radio’s digital revenues alone were $244 million. Compare that to Pandora’s revenue of only $182 million. And let’s not dismiss the $3.6 trillion radio generated from traditional spot sales.
Triton Digital ratings suggest that digital listening has peaked. The momentum is slowing. The sky hasn’t fallen for broadcast radio.
Over the years, many innovations may have failed, but some succeeded and spread across the nation. Every radio format started with one daring station willing to try something new, beating the odds, creating the next Top 40, or Rock, or Talk format. The new media distraction ended much of that innovation. The focus shifted from programming to delivery systems. Money was diverted into web sites, streaming, and social network initiatives. New media managed to force radio to play a game they are very good at, and diverted our attention from the one game we play better than any new media company–product innovation.
The year 2013 may be unique in radio’s history. It is a year when radio failed to create a single successful new format. Compare the last few years to any similar period in radio’s history. It may be the least innovative ever.
Don’t get me wrong. Radio needs delivery systems. We need to be on smart phones (one way or another). We need to stream. But unless radio offers something that people really want to listen to, cutting edge delivery systems are worthless.
Yes, social media offers promotional opportunities, but broadcast radio success is driven by growth in measured audience, in other words ratings. There is a strong correlation between ratings and revenue. The better the ratings, the greater the revenue. There are plenty of highly rated stations with few Facebook fans, and there are stations with huge numbers of fans that have very low ratings.
Double digit revenue growth is a distant memory. Any gain, even 1% revenue growth, is now heralded as good news. Perhaps radio finds itself in this spot because we’re too concerned with shiny new things like social or smart phone apps. Perhaps radio has forgotten why people listen. People listen because of our unique content. They listen because radio entertains and informs, but lately we’ve been so distracted that we haven’t paid much attention to content. Too much radio is on autopilot.
Today radio has better research tools than ever to find the next big format. Real Time Analyzers can test new format ideas in real time, finding ways to better engage listeners. We have more research tools to determine what people want to listen to, but radio has stopped investing in the product.
Over 90% of people continue to listen to local radio. Isn’t it time to show them something new and different on the radio?
Bob Quick
Bob Quick, Chief Consulting Officer at Quick Radio Consulting
• Radio’s product:
Music can be found anywhere and everywhere, local radio’s point of differentiation will always be a local community voice. Supporting local business, charities and talking about the issues and events that affect your local community while being entertaining and engaging. Play the hits and be plugged in to the local scene.
• Delivery systems:
We need to be where the listeners are. Whether that’s our own app for streaming online, over the air, or within an aggregate radio streaming app, we need to be easily found by our listeners everywhere.
• Digital platforms and Social Networks:
These are no longer luxuries; the industry needs to invest now. Website content and social media cannot be left up to a mish-mash of staff posting at random. These extensions to our brands need to have a planned strategy just like the over the air programming does with a dedicated staff of individuals that are trained in their best practices with oversight by a brand manager who has the overall brand strategy in mind. Once we have that in place and show the value of that product, only then will we see true monetization from it.
• The future:
One of the things I feel has been ignored as much as an overall digital strategy is the ability to use those digital platforms to expand our brands. IE: Most programmers of a CHR station would never allow a High School Football game to be broadcast on the air. However, the age group who would be most interested in such a broadcast would be the teenagers which the station attracts. Why not use a secondary HD channel, or the Internet stream on the station’s website to broadcast the game taking advantage of the CHR’s brand while using the power of the over the air signal to promote it to its cume? We’re letting our future audiences go without a fight. We need to innovate and take chances at this point in our industry’s history before we become as irrelevant as a landline phone, or the phone book, or the newspaper…or…or…or…
[eQB Content By Fred Deane]
