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2004 - The Year in Review and a Look Ahead
Last year, the biggest innovation in radio was a scrappy "liberal" network pasted together with little money, lots of passion and a potential audience of 53 million people. Air America radio debuted in the hottest political season on record. Today, it's on over 43 stations and growing. It is the most listened to "streaming" station in the nation.
This innovation was not generated by any of the consolidated groups. They were too busy defending themselves from Wall Street analysts (who turned on their iPods, checked out satellite radio and got a bit panicky).
And, while Wall Street got nervous, Internet radio grew even bigger, Sirius raided Infinity for talent (Howard Stern is a one man ad for Sirius), and Mel Karmazin crossed the street. It was a watershed year for terrestrial radio. The last two watersheds were TV in the '50s and FM in the '70s.
In the '50s and the '70s, radio re-invented itself by adopting new "content". While TV stole radio's programming line-up, radio re-invented as a jukebox. When FM took AM's music, it re-invented as an electronic newspaper, complete with editorials.
Radio is not dying. It's just not growing. It's like the newspaper business. For 40 years, we've heard about the "death" of newspapers as they land with a thud on the doorstep, stuffed with coupons, ads and bits of news.
And, there is some format innovation. Emmis's New York "chill" format and Bonneville's urban-leaning "love" format in Chicago are both signs that smaller companies are still willing to take chances.
So, what might we expect in 2005?
We will see a desparate talent search as the risk-averse, command and control radio groups realize there's very little on the bench -- Howard Stern was the top dog and he's defecting. As a result of the "proven talent" shortage, there will be even more focus on syndication and spreading the talent around.
There will be real opportunities for some "unknown" personalities to get heard. However with the FCC double standard (Oprah can say it, Howard can't), expect to see less lewdness and more focus on being genuinely funny. It's time for programmers to find the funny guy at the pizza parlor and teach him or her radio.
The core issues of 2005 will include....marketing upgrade (over 90% of PDs and GMs have no marketing credentials yet in many cases preside over big budgets)...talent search (is it time for radio's version of American Idol DJ?)...commercial loads (panic on this one)...burnout (people will get sick or doe from overwork)...smarter use of radio websites and a search for a way to get innovation into a business that is whipped by Wall Street.
Radio has crossed the digital divide. There's no turning back. However, there's a lot of opportunity on the other side.
posted by John Parikhal @ Saturday, January 29, 2005,
1 Comments:
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At 5:16 AM,
Unknown said...
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Of course, with the mass exodus of the Bush cabinet and the recently-announced departures within the FCC, will it same-old, same-old...tighter clamp-downs...or (hope of all hopes) new investments in real, creative, customer-centric innovation. Radio needs its next reinvention!
