I'm hearing a lot of radio stations using a short announcement that says "Alexa, Play" --- whatever the station's name is. WBFO has an announcement that says "tell your smart speaker to play WBFO." WGR and WBEN also play similar announcements. Is this going to make a bit of difference? After all, listeners can tell Alexa or Google to play the actual song or the listener's entire playlist. A listener can tell Google or Alexa to play the winning goal from last night's hockey game or hear the latest sports scores. Most listeners know that radio stations don't play requests. Some stations even use that as a slogan. If a listener wanted to hear a particular song, why would he or she tell Alexa to play a radio station? "Alex play" seems counter intuitive, but if one station uses the saying, it's easy to understand why other competing stations would follow.
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Alexa, Play...
- Thread starter Rusty Bridges
- Start date
It isn't about a song, it's about a style of programming an audio outlet offers, whether that's music or the spoken word. Sometimes you want a passive experience as opposed to finding a song or podcast to stream on demand.
What I'd like to know is why would a music station want to encourage people to listen online (are there voice command operated radios...I don't know...) and subject themselves to dramatically higher music royalties? I'm probably missing something here, because I'm not on top of developments in online music streaming the same way I was when I was running my friend's old online radio station a few years ago.
Suspect that radio stations have no choice but to board the smart speaker express.
One thing for sure, nothing is forever. Eventually the industry will find a middle ground for online music streaming royalties where music streaming will be a viable business. When that happens, music-intensive broadcast radio is toast.
What I'd like to know is why would a music station want to encourage people to listen online (are there voice command operated radios...I don't know...) and subject themselves to dramatically higher music royalties? I'm probably missing something here, because I'm not on top of developments in online music streaming the same way I was when I was running my friend's old online radio station a few years ago.
Suspect that radio stations have no choice but to board the smart speaker express.
One thing for sure, nothing is forever. Eventually the industry will find a middle ground for online music streaming royalties where music streaming will be a viable business. When that happens, music-intensive broadcast radio is toast.
Just like radio boarded the streaming express 20 years ago. I mean, who would want to listen to a station on tinny-tone speakers while sitting at a computer when you could listen in full fidelity on a regular radio?
It would be pretty dumb for radio to not be in the Amazon Echo ecosystem. Echo is the first popular audio entertainment device in many many years, and it is probably replacing traditional radios in many homes.
Avoiding the Echo would effectively be ceding time spent listening from those who have an Echo and like to use it, to vendors who offer streaming music and podcasts.
Avoiding the Echo would effectively be ceding time spent listening from those who have an Echo and like to use it, to vendors who offer streaming music and podcasts.
a Radio station is more than just AM or FM these days,, its wherever your listeners are. Some people dont have/own radios or spend much time near them, but will stream you.
Just about every day on my afternoon drive show, i promote how listeners can hear us if not near a radio... our website stream, our smartphone app and an alexa enabled device
Just about every day on my afternoon drive show, i promote how listeners can hear us if not near a radio... our website stream, our smartphone app and an alexa enabled device
That kind of explains it, but how much sense does it make for radio stations to play commercials that promote Alexa and Echo. I hear those commercials on every station aletely, including talk stations. About two hours ago I heard a commercial with a woman singing I Wanna Dance With Somebody, then saying, "Alexa, play Whitney Houston." That was followed by an announcer hawking the advantages of listening to Alexa. It was the second or third commercial, but I changed the station in the middle of the next commercial and went to Sirius for the rest of the drive. Not that I'm crazy for Sirius. It's complimentary. I'm on it until the subscription runs out.
I remember how some stations in the 60's and 70's would be critical of colleagues who gave away TV sets or morning shows that talked about last nights episode of some very popular show.
Or newspapers in the 30's and 40's that did not like covering radio.
The reasoning was that doing so promoted the competition.
I always thought that ignoring what people will do anyway is not reasonable.
Today, many are replacing kitchen and bedroom radios with smart speakers. If a station does not want to lose all opportunity to be heard in the home, they had better make sure that there is an Echo skill that allows their station to be easily used. Sure, Echos and other smart speakers will be used to play individual songs or playlists or styles of music, just as record players and 8 tracks and cassette players and Walkman devices and iPods were used in the past. But if a station has compelling content and good music flow, they need to fully capture any available smart speaker audience they can.
Sure, and you can play your own personal CD collection too. Yet people still listen to the radio. A radio station provides a very specific curated music list, as opposed to your own personal play list or one specific song. Some people like that. Why WBFO is on Alexa should be obvious.
Why should radio be on Alexa? For the same reason various TV channels are available on multiple platforms. It's all about access to your content.
B
Buddy Shula
Guest
This is a huge opportunity with stations that have signal deficiencies. The station is now on the same playing field as a 50,000 watt station where nobody was complaining about the signal. As for content, I don't think it will help stations that already have vanilla content, but if there is an experience, and the station is hard to get, the smart speakers, Apple play in dash, etc have a huge opportunity
It's becoming clearer. My dentist streams a Classical station from the west coast. I don't know how he gets it. The app on his iPad or smart speaker. Does listening to a station in California on line hurt Buffalo's classical station? Seems it would. Ironic, sitting in the chair, hearing "an unusual amount of rain with a cooling to the lower 60s tonight---" in Buffalo during February. Why not just listen to WNED-FM?
Ever heard of the internet? Most stations have been streaming their content for at least a decade or more. People can listen from anywhere. Maybe your dentist likes the California station. Maybe someone in Florida likes WNED or WBFO. Your options are no longer limited by geography...
As some of the others here have pointed out, being on the Amazon Echo and streaming apps for smartphones is about being where your listeners want you. It’s also about being where potential listeners can find you. Radio's biggest strength is that it’s everywhere. Few people buy radios anymore, but most of us buy other devices that have radios with them.
As for whether or not your dentist streaming a classical station from California hurts WNED-FM, it certainly would seem to, but that assumes he'd listen to WNED-FM if he didn’t have streaming as an option. He may have a specific reason he doesn’t listen to WNED-FM. More than likely, it’s about availability. There’s a good chance he subscribes to iHeartRadio for business, and, last time I checked, WNED wasn’t an option there.
As for whether or not your dentist streaming a classical station from California hurts WNED-FM, it certainly would seem to, but that assumes he'd listen to WNED-FM if he didn’t have streaming as an option. He may have a specific reason he doesn’t listen to WNED-FM. More than likely, it’s about availability. There’s a good chance he subscribes to iHeartRadio for business, and, last time I checked, WNED wasn’t an option there.
And part of the issue is that radios are being replaced by Echo devices. A month or so we took some donations to Goodwill, and among them was our former kitchen radio, replaced in 2017 with an Echo. As we left the items, i chatted with the Goodwill staffer who assisted us and asked if the got "a lot of radios". He said that they did, and that unless they were in nearly new condition, they went to be recycled as "nobody buys them any more".
Granted, a sample size of one, but an indication of where consumers are headed.
Part of the problem is electronics manufacturers haven't done anything to make them different, better, cooler than they were in the last century.
Although I'd like to get my hands on a big-ass 80s era Aiwa, Sanyo or JVC boombox with AM-FM stereo and mono, EQ and double cassettes. You know... the kind that makes the lights in the neighborhood dim when you turn it up to 11... one of those bad boys you have to rent a trailer for. Sure, the THD was brutal and the flutter specs above 1 kHz were dreary, but many of those boxes had an AM section that sounded decent and FM selectivity that pulled in signals from Saskatoon. Can't roller skate without one, dude.
For example, where is that radio that has a tuner that interfaces with a smart speaker? It couldn't be that hard, but I don't think broadcasters have the market power to make it happen, and consumers could care less how their content is delivered.
Talk stations are good to go in a streaming-only future. Music stations' big hang-up to streaming only is the digital royalties dilemma. Hard to think this, but broadcasters may want relief from from the per-listener-per-performance streaming royalties structure as much as Spotify, Pandora and the rest of the streaming-only music providers.
It depends. Some see it as the cost of doing business. iHeart has made a good business with it. Entercom seems to want to go that route too.
My millennial kids did not even OWN radios (until Dad went out and bought them hand-cranked sets for emergencies). My older child streams all of her music on Pandora via Alexa. Stations likely feel that they have to do this to have a shot with the younger demographic.
Personally I would not have one of those things in my home. Too creepy!
Personally I would not have one of those things in my home. Too creepy!
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Of course they don't. They instead own things WITH radios. Like cars for example.
I think there's a danger of radio stations overloading us with different ways to listen. Sometimes, it feels almost as if all the DJ has to say is "you can listen on your phone, on your tablet, online, on your smart speaker, get our app from the App Store or Google Play store... oh and we're on 95.7 FM too."
I'm amazed how often I have a conversation like the following:
"I don't listen to radio."
"What do you listen to in the car?"
"Bob and Dave in the Morning on the app."
"Er, that's radio."
I'm amazed how often I have a conversation like the following:
"I don't listen to radio."
"What do you listen to in the car?"
"Bob and Dave in the Morning on the app."
"Er, that's radio."
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