Radio's 5 Customers

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"Radio is at the tipping point, and it doesn’t want to know much about the way its customers are changing."

Joint Communications' John Parikhal tells Tom Taylor of Radio-Info.com in yesterday's daily newsletter he's worried about radio tuning out its listeners:

"Internet companies are checking out the customer six ways to Sunday. But radio will tell you they don't have the money to research their customer. I truly think we’re at the tipping point, because for any business, you have to know who your customers are.

For radio, it's 5 different customers:

#1 - Wall Street or another 'lender'.

#2 – The advertiser. And radio should focus a lot more on the advertiser, because it has given them very short shrift. The more innovative companies are trying to become the digital and media marketing experts for the local guy, to help them move more product. Their competition is Craigslist and emerging online city directories.

#3 - The FCC, and I sense that radio will be hearing from them within a year.

#4 - The employees. With a few notable exceptions, they have been treated the way no customer should ever be treated. This whirlwind of firings and layoffs has nothing to do with performance, and the message it sends is very negative. People are now very, very wary about making radio a career.

#5 - The listener. But radio thinks 'all we have to do is keep the listeners we’ve got.' That’s a fool's game. You have to grow the pie, and to do that, you need to know more about your listener than their favorite songs or that they like sports on the radio. The listener doesn't care that radio is in a recession and won't invest in understanding their changing needs."