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How much longer do music based formats on FM have?
- Thread starter tall_guy1
- Start date
What time is it now?
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Music fading from FM that sounds like it's going to happen sooner than we are considering given that there are auto manufacturers lining up to put their latest cars to include Android Auto and Apple Carplay on the dashboard and make that the standard. The big ones in radio like Iheart, Audacy, SiriusXM, Tunein are emphasizing their apps on the dashboards.
Were you not satisfied with the answers you got from your previous post?
Do you consider K-Love to be a music based format?
My answer is that there is no lifespan for the radio spectrum. It will always be there. How people use it will change. But that's a different question.
Nope, sure wasn't. Referring specifically to commercial radio formats that play music.
All commercial radio formats are not being used equally.
Were our answers not simple or specific enough for you? Do you honestly think any of us are capable of predicting the future?
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Music fading from FM that sounds like it's going to happen sooner than we are considering given that there are auto manufacturers lining up to put their latest cars to include Android Auto and Apple Carplay on the dashboard and make that the standard.
Lining up?
I'm trying to think of the last car I drove (and I drive 104 a year) that didn't have Apple CarPlay and Android Auto as standard equipment.
Tesla doesn't, and GM says its new EVs won't, but apart from that, it's a done deal.
Checking my archives, the first vehicle I drove with Apple CarPlay was in October of 2015---so, almost nine years ago.
That was the 2016 Honda Accord and by the 2018 model year (now that the '25s are arriving, that's seven years ago) it was in pretty much everything.
Not all of them play music. The premise of music formats is becoming obsolete. The idea that people are still interested in waiting through long commercial breaks just to get to a song they don't like is outdated. Younger demos want what they want immediately. They also may like multiple genres which is something that a "Format" cannot really deliver...
I am curious to hear other people's take. In 2019, I didn't think cord cutting in cable would be that big of a thing than it was then, but people's predictions were right. Some people have more insight than I do.
Some formats recognize that and are adapting.
Sure, did anyone in the 90's predict streaming would become so popular for video and audio? What about literal supercomputers that you could carry around in your pocket that does so much more than make a phone call? Did Henry Ford imagine that one day someone would build a car that could exceed the speed of sound?
In other words, predictions aren't worth the screen they're typed on.
If it makes money, it'll stay (generally speaking, current formats being played on "FM radio")
If it's dragging corporations to the poor house, it'll go.
We're simply watching 'dead men walking', aren't we?
What we don't know is what radio will become once the old definitions & uses go away. The first generation of radio was very different from what it became after TV. The latest disruption was every bit as big as when TV came along, and everyone predicted it would kill radio. They continued to say that when MTV came along, with "Video Killed The Radio Stars." Then the internet came along and killed MTV.
As I said, the spectrum is just a medium. People make it into something useful. We're in a transitional era right now. The old uses of radio are dropping away, and we're seeing new uses for it. We still have a while to go before we know what the next phase will be. But the future won't be like the past.
I expect FM will die faster than AM did.
AM started losing listeners in 1978 but its descent to earth was slowed by the parachute that was everybody still owning and using radios and being able to switch them from FM to AM mode when desired. (Popular stations on AM act as cume magnets for the lesser stations there. In that sense, it should be recognized that FM -- or in actuality, the mere desire to own radios in order to access the FM band -- has been acting as a cume magnet for the entire AM dial since 1978 and still is.) That said, FM has no such parachute. If any negative tipping point is reached that sours listeners' opinions of it, they could begin an evacuation of the FM band that's as rapid as cable's rate increases drained the linear cable television industry of its viewers.
Since I don't see anything other than sudden increases in advertising loads being capable of souring people on FM who've always listened to it, FM's future will probably be a slow decline followed by a sudden thermal runaway of decline. As in, advertising loads are holding steady now, but if revenue keeps dropping, a point will arrive where increasing commercials won't be avoidable any longer. Without yet another draw (like a third band) built into AM/FM radios to take over the role as parachute, FM will then begin a rapid fall to earth.
Unless radio can be re-invented somehow to appeal to the young, so revenues can start going back up again...
AM started losing listeners in 1978 but its descent to earth was slowed by the parachute that was everybody still owning and using radios and being able to switch them from FM to AM mode when desired. (Popular stations on AM act as cume magnets for the lesser stations there. In that sense, it should be recognized that FM -- or in actuality, the mere desire to own radios in order to access the FM band -- has been acting as a cume magnet for the entire AM dial since 1978 and still is.) That said, FM has no such parachute. If any negative tipping point is reached that sours listeners' opinions of it, they could begin an evacuation of the FM band that's as rapid as cable's rate increases drained the linear cable television industry of its viewers.
Since I don't see anything other than sudden increases in advertising loads being capable of souring people on FM who've always listened to it, FM's future will probably be a slow decline followed by a sudden thermal runaway of decline. As in, advertising loads are holding steady now, but if revenue keeps dropping, a point will arrive where increasing commercials won't be avoidable any longer. Without yet another draw (like a third band) built into AM/FM radios to take over the role as parachute, FM will then begin a rapid fall to earth.
Unless radio can be re-invented somehow to appeal to the young, so revenues can start going back up again...
People were saying newspapers were dead 30 years ago. Well, they are almost totally dead and buried but it took a good 20 to 25 years. I expect FM to last anywhere between 10 to 20 years in it's somewhat present form.
No, AM started losing listeners to FM in the early 1960's. The expiration of the key Armstrong patents and the creation of FM AFC made radios better. Solid state made them smaller. And scale made them cheaper.
By the middle of the decade, FMs were starting to show in ratings. What was missing was a change in mindset from "FM is only for 'good' music". When the prohibition or limitation of simulcasting with sister FMs happened later in the 60's, we got everything from researched and technified Beautiful Music to album rock on FM, and by around 1975 in many markets more than half of all music listening was on FM.
I saw a case in the 70's of an FM that went to a broad based format from all instrumentals; the band had a total of 13% FM listening before that. With the broad appeal format, that one station went to a 31 share and the band to over a 50 share in just 6 months. And that was a Top 20 market.
By 1977, half of all listening was to FM nationally. More than two-thirds of music listening was on FM.
Those who grew up on radio continue to use it extensively. Those who grew up on iPhones and streaming don't. This is not an immediate process, but one that increases incrementally each year.
Or stations will switch to different sponsorship models. Or we will end up with "national" stations made up of hundreds of FMs all simulcast... such as is working in Europe, Latin America or elsewhere.
People don't buy stand-alone radios. And it will over a decade for even half of car radios to have the new band unless it is software upgradable.
And people get one year older with each year that passes. So this is not an instant occurrence. What we will see first is the end of AM and FM and the move of all audio, whether curated or personalized, to new distribution channels.
And we have to remember that "radio" is not just "FM" and "AM" since we can put the same content on streams. While there are horrible issues based on government controlled royalties, we can see "traditional radio" in a new incarnation on streams. There will generally be opportunities for curated playlists that can be sustained by either sponsored or subscription based revenue concepts.
A fellow former station owner after selling his stations to religious broadcasters used the money to purchase a porta-potty franchise.
He said the business is more profitable and with less crap than radio ever was.
The other part of this that could change is the rising cost of digital music services. The music industry wants to end ad-supported free music channels. They have a campaign that is built on creating a monthly charge for music added to people's phone or internet bill. It's very similar to the blank tape tax they fought for and got in 1992. It would basically be a regular monthly music tax. People reach a point where all of these monthly bills just get to be too much. Right now, it's facing stiff opposition from telecom and ISPs, who don't want to become bill collectors for the music industry. But the music industry is very creative in getting what it wants.
So if a point comes where people are looking for a cheaper alternative to music on demand services, then radio may be seen as that cheap alternative. But for that to work, they have to get their costs down so they can cut the commercial loads. My point is there are lots of variables, and we never know how consumers will react, or what will be the thing that causes them to change.
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