Declining radio audiences

[TheBigA]

So, here we are today; for the most part, still station saturation, but more competition now from subscription or ad-supported streaming.

That also hurts broadcast and cable TV. And the increased costs for streaming video options means less willingness to spend money on audio options.

Then we have the ''donor fatigue'' syndrome we've discussed earlier. I know I'm tired of all the monthly bills.

 

[boombox4]

According to Pew Research, the radio audience dropped around 10% between 2012 and 2022, so all the figures bandied about in this thread seem to indicate the same trend.

 

[boombox4]

So, here we are today; for the most part, still station saturation, but more competition now from subscription or ad-supported streaming.

Exactly, when it comes to content, the internet is almost the definition of saturation. Apps too, really. How many apps can a smartphone user actually use in a day?

 

[TheBigA]

How many apps can a smartphone user actually use in a day?

You don't have to use them. If your phone has app clutter, you can delete them. But once again, the onus is on you, the user.

 

[boombox4]

You don't have to use them. If your phone has app clutter, you can delete them. But once again, the onus is on you, the user.

My point was more from the perspective of the content creator -- in this case, radio stations and companies -- as opposed to the end user, in reference to content saturation.

Content businesses like radio stations and radio companies offer apps. Nearly every station -- or radio show -- I hear promotes an app of some sort. Yet each one of those apps is competing with every other app or process that the user is using - increasingly on the same screen (the smartphone screen). And I would wager that a lot of apps that get downloaded probably never see use.

The point being that even with content / radio apps, the saturation is already pretty massive.

 

[TheBigA]

The point being that even with content / radio apps, the saturation is already pretty massive.

But the interests of the users are limited. The listener can only listen to one thing at a time. Same with broadcast radio stations. You may live in a town with 75 broadcast radio stations, but how many do you listen to? I was at a bar last night that had 75 beers on tap. I can't drink them all. I don't like most of them. So it becomes a decision-making process on the part of the user. On the radio side, a content provider wants to own more of those options so he has a better chance of being chosen. If I choose among several options, and iHeart or Audacy owns five of them, they have a better chance of being selected. In addition to a broadcast signal, there's also a podcast and various other branded options. So as a creator, I want to have more product on the market. Record labels want to have more artists releasing more music, and it puts all of the onus on the user. Then the decision becomes which choice is easiest or cheapest or more pleasurable? That's what we call competition.

Listeners aren't aware of all the options they have...just the ones they're interested in. So that limits the universe already. The only thing the radio app does is make that option more convenient.

 

[Kelly A]

That also hurts broadcast and cable TV. And the increased costs for streaming video options means less willingness to spend money on audio options.

While in the middle of the pandemic, our head of sales at work and I were having that conversation. My question was; is pushing viewers to streaming, whether ad-supported or subscription, essentially cannibalizing other divisions that includes network or local stations? His response made sense; 'the company needs to go where the viewers either are, or we gamble that's where they might be going.'

 

[secondchoice]

That's because consumers don't go to station websites to see stuff. There maybe is a place to register for a contest, see an event calendar, or a link to their stream, and the requirement with a link to their public file. But websites stopped being a thing about 2010. We live in a much more mobile society, so apps have replaced websites as any sort of regular destination.

Radio made the mistake years ago of 'comping' ads on their website for buying ads over the radio. Once you give stuff away, it's very hard to turn 180 and charge for it.

That is why I said they missed the boat. Had radio "embraced and monetized" the digital world early in this century, IMHO things would different. Apps and webpages are not that much different. It's the content that matters.

If you comp something to get a sale so be it. You got the sale. Of course somehow you have to make money on the deal. Las Vegas figured out how to comp rooms and still make money.

 

[TheBigA]

That is why I said they missed the boat. Had radio "embraced and monetized" the digital world early in this century, IMHO things would different. Apps and webpages are not that much different. It's the content that matters.

Once again, radio is not one thing. Some companies embraced digital early, some didn't. Some still haven't.

Some radio companies viewed HD as a digital option, and the public rejected it. That's not radio's fault. They invested in it, and the public didn't want to buy the radios. Some radio companies (like Emmis) invested in FM in phones. The phone companies rejected it. So it wasn't like radio companies were just sitting on their hands. They were investing in new technologies to assess public reaction. The whole thing was a moving target. The first iPhone came out in 2007. By 2008, iHeart recognized that streaming was the future and invested in their own platform. Pandora was one of the first music streaming sites. Did being among the first make a difference?

 

[boombox4]

That is why I said they missed the boat. Had radio "embraced and monetized" the digital world early in this century, IMHO things would different. Apps and webpages are not that much different. It's the content that matters.

If you comp something to get a sale so be it. You got the sale. Of course somehow you have to make money on the deal. Las Vegas figured out how to comp rooms and still make money.

Streaming was more like a novelty in the early 2000's. You had a lot of buffering, dodgy connections, and the like. And it was two recessions ago, too. Three, if you include the dot-com bust in 2000.

When I was working in radio until Dec. 2006 when I got laid off, the bigwigs at the company talked about radio advertising taking a hit after the dot-com bust (our wages were frozen for several years because of it), and then came the 2008 crash as soon as the 2000 crash faded. The Great Recession wasn't kind to traditional media. Some here have said that radio never recovered from 2008 adequately.

As for radio and digital, most local stations here in Seattle had a website, and many of the stations had streaming options, but it wasn't convenient to stream radio until smartphones hit. I'm sure it was similar in other parts of the US and Canada. The little flip phones weren't cutting it for anything but phonecalls, texts, and grainy photographs. You could stream radio at home on your desktop or laptop, or at work, but anywhere else it just wasn't convenient for most people.

So a lot of what happened with radio and online radio streaming would have turned out the way it did regardless.

And really, it's not so much what radio should have done, it's what they need to do now. I think BigA mentioned a month or more ago that smart radio companies have a digital strategy. That's probably the best way to ensure survival of radio -- whichever form it takes. The phone has replaced the radio. So the emphasis is probably how to get your radio company's content onto that phone -- that's how it looks to me.

 

[K.M. Richards]

Some radio companies viewed HD as a digital option, and the public rejected it. That's not radio's fault. They invested in it, and the public didn't want to buy the radios. Some radio companies (like Emmis) invested in FM in phones. The phone companies rejected it. So it wasn't like radio companies were just sitting on their hands. They were investing in new technologies to assess public reaction. The whole thing was a moving target.

Plus, if I may add, no one knew what was going to catch on with the public and endure. No one.

And it wouldn't be the first time that technologies were rejected by the public. Beta video recorders? Mini-discs? DAT? AM Stereo? (And, if you want to go back far enough, the CBS "color wheel" system?)

The whole process of figuring out what was going to be a workable digital strategy was akin to the old "throw a plate of spaghetti against the wall and see what sticks" trope.

 

[TheBigA]

As for radio and digital, most local stations here in Seattle had a website,

In fact I would say Seattle was really on the front end of radio and digital, probably helped by having Microsoft as a local business.

Plus, if I may add, no one knew what was going to catch on with the public and endure. No one.

You want to talk about an industry that had no clue about digital: The music business. Their brilliant idea of dealing with file downloads and Napster was to sue their customers. They were so wedded to the physical product business, they just sat and watched their profits tumble. I asked one label head about this as it was happening. I asked him if there was a thought about getting into the streaming business, rather than dealing with middlemen. He said 'No, we're not in the distribution business.' So they sat and watched retail completely disappear in front of their eyes.

 

[kfbkfb]

Although - the 'creating your own playlist' concept (using the compact cassette system, i. e. mix tapes) + a portable cassette playback device became practical with the into of the Sony Walkman 45 years ago this month.

Music listeners demonstrated what they wanted - they spent money on cassette recorders, blank tapes, albums & singles (or waited by a radio to record certain songs) and made themselves mix tapes + bought a portable cassette player + headphones so they could have their own custom playlist(s) with them (conveniently, given the prevalence of cassette players in vehicles, could also be played in vehicles).


Kirk Bayne

 

[TexasTom]

I just wish we still had something like M Street Radio Directory.

Also, radio listenership might be down to less than one-fifth of what it was. Nobody can remember what a station that currently has a 10 share was doing just yesterday, yet people can remember what a station that had a 0 share in 1985 was doing back then.

In major markets, I'm not sure that there are any 10 share stations left.

That said, the reason why no one remembers what a top radio station did yesterday is because it's just background noise for most listeners -- there really isn't any passion for radio on the part of listeners today that once existed. Today, people listen, but they odn't particularly care about the stations that they're listening to. As for that station with a 0 share 40 years ago -- it may have only had five listeners, but those five listeners actually cared about what was on that station.

It's sad to see that decline and to see radio reduced to what it has become today. And, no, I'm not going to suggest that there is some magic bullet that the radio industry could use to go back to the way it once was. While I suspect that consolidation helped accelerate the decline to some degree, it is increasingly clear that it is no more than a contributor and not the primary cause of the decline. It's just hard to elicit the same passion from listeners when they have thousands of choices as when they have a handful of choices.

 

[TheBigA]

That said, the reason why no one remembers what a top radio station did yesterday is because it's just background noise for most listeners -- there really isn't any passion for radio on the part of listeners today that once existed.

My view on that is the passion was for the music, and maybe the lifestyle. The radio station was the means to the end. Those who were IN radio might view it differently. But we have to be realistic. We aren't the ones the people were tuning in to hear. The exceptions were the DJs with connections to the music, such as Jim Ladd or Kid Leo. But again it was about the music. So now that people have other ways to get the music, they aren't in love with radio as much. They're not in love with Spotify or Pandora either. It just the means to the end. It's an appliance. Even with talk or sports radio, the passion is for the politics or the team, not as much for the platform they hear it on.

 

[TexasTom]

My view on that is the passion was for the music, and maybe the lifestyle. The radio station was the means to the end. Those who were IN radio might view it differently. But we have to be realistic. We aren't the ones the people were tuning in to hear. So now that people have other ways to get the music, they aren't in love with radio as much. They're not in love with Spotify or Pandora either. It just the means to the end. It's an appliance. Even with talk or sports radio, the passion is for the politics or the team, not as much for the platform they hear it on.

While I think that there is a lot of truth in what you say, I don't think that passion for the music was the full story.

Until sometime in the nineties, radio station bumper stickers were everywhere, and that implies that the listeners felt passion for those radio stations or at least liked them enough to be willing to display the bumper stickers that were part of radio station contests.

 

[K.M. Richards]

Until sometime in the nineties, radio station bumper stickers were everywhere, and that implies that the listeners felt passion for those radio stations or at least liked them enough to be willing to display the bumper stickers that were part of radio station contests.

Trust me, Tom, bumper stickers were not just "part of contests". They were considered to be an essential promotional/marketing tool at all times.

At every station that I worked at that had bumper stickers, several boxes of same would accompany us to every remote, and were on a table next to where we were broadcasting from for listeners to take. Hell, if someone wrote in wanting our stickers, we'd eat the postage to mail some to them!

 

[TheBigA]

Until sometime in the nineties, radio station bumper stickers were everywhere, and that implies that the listeners felt passion for those radio stations or at least liked them enough to be willing to display the bumper stickers that were part of radio station contests.

OK, they loved the radio station because they could win stuff. WNBC's Gonna Make Me Rich. Or free tickets to the music I want to see.

That still happens, but the object still is the music. Look when I got my first iPhone, I loved it. But ten years later, it's an appliance.

 

[boombox4]

FWIW, I recall people being passionate about a radio station. Maybe it was mostly a local Seattle thing, but KISW had a fairly passionate audience, and it wasn't just the music, the station also had a following.

There were T-shirts, bumper stickers, and maybe even KISW baseball caps -- they were everywhere. Who wears a radio station T-shirt or jersey today? One could go back even further in KISW's history, and see how locals identified with KJR (Les Smith owned both). The music may have drawn the listeners to the stations, but the listeners enthusiasm towards the presentation -- the personalities, as well as the image that the station projected -- was something that is rare today.

Like BigA says, everything is another appliance now. I think the only modern day equivalent is podcasters. I watch Rick Beato from time to time, and he seems to have a lot of 'followers', i.e. they seem to treat the podcast, and Rick himself, in a similar way that local rockers would treat Langen & West on KISW. Not like they're gung-ho followers, but they do look up to him and it seems that some never miss a podcast.

The difference between podcast influencers today and radio 40 years ago is probably that no one wears a podcast T-shirt or has a podcast bumper sticker. They're not particularly loyal to the podcast, either.

And that may be due to several generations of audio consumers holding all forms of media in a lower regard. Like BigA says, they're more like appliances. The internet, and the media saturation that goes with it, probably has aided that tendency.

 

[Kelly A]

FWIW, I recall people being passionate about a radio station. Maybe it was mostly a local Seattle thing, but KISW had a fairly passionate audience, and it wasn't just the music, the station also had a following.

There were T-shirts, bumper stickers, and maybe even KISW baseball caps -- they were everywhere. Who wears a radio station T-shirt or jersey today? One could go back even further in KISW's history, and see how locals identified with KJR (Les Smith owned both). The music may have drawn the listeners to the stations, but the listeners enthusiasm towards the presentation -- the personalities, as well as the image that the station projected -- was something that is rare today.

That public enthusiasm moved to following online influencers and TikTok stars. And there's a lot more of them than there were back in the day when radio was the only game in town.

The difference between podcast influencers today and radio 40 years ago is probably that no one wears a podcast T-shirt or has a podcast bumper sticker. They're not particularly loyal to the podcast, either.

I disagree. Podcasters like Joe Rogan have a massive loyal following. That's why he was paid one hundred million for the rights. Just because you don't see people walking around wearing his T-shirts, doesn't mean there's a lack of popularity. 1970's thinking.

And that may be due to several generations of audio consumers holding all forms of media in a lower regard. Like BigA says, they're more like appliances. The internet, and the media saturation that goes with it, probably has aided that tendency.

There's just so much media to consume now. I follow five different podcasters, and that's about all I can listen to in a given week. There aren't enough free time hours in a day. Because of the dedicated podcasts, I find that I don't bother searching for new ones lately. Not only is the volume of available podcasts kind of overwhelming, unless one is marketed as a standout to something I might be interested in, I'll probably never bother looking for it.