Be glad? As the fragmentation continues, no one will make any money. The advertiser pie will be spread into smaller and smaller slices. I don't keep in touch with a lot of old radio guys, but those I know who still do it are making similar money to what I made in 1985. I question if they do it for love or stupidity, but it's their personal choice. So forgive me if I complain too much about what once was. If you can't make a living, it's no longer a viable business. I quit the buggy whip factory decades ago to move on to a viable industry, and as I retired on my corporate welfare pension, I'm glad that I did. I don't miss working on the radio at all, although I do miss it being entertaining by it. Or maybe I'm wrong and radio is still wonderful but I just have lost any interest in current pop culture. Or maybe I don't understand the newspeak that drips out of the podcasts. I've realized, it's not you---it's me. Sorry radio.
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Declining radio audiences
- Thread starter TexasTom
- Start date
Reality is reality. If you worked in the industry for 20-30 years, as you said you did, and care at all about radio (enough to post here about it), you should be glad that when you switch on the radio you're not just hearing hiss, RFI, and static. It's just basic appreciation that the industry that we worked in and still love still exists, despite its flaws.
None of us who worked in the industry (I put in 20 years) can ever change what's going on. I also don't think anyone in the industry today can change the trend of younger demos and other listeners migrating to online streams. It's because of tech advances (the smartphone) and demographic tastes.
Tech is changing every field of information and communication. 35 years ago, you and I talking like this would be relegated to a computer BBS, and they don't exist anymore. There used to be three or four local newspapers in my region, the remaining ones are struggling, and the online ones are maybe one person operations. It's sad, in a way, but it's progress. We can't change it. It sounds like you understand that, though, just as the rest of us here do.
I have nothing against your complaining, personally. I even said, upthread, that you made some valid points. But at the same time, we all need to accept the reality.
And of course, in my view, one of the realities that Radio needs to accept is that some of its old, tried and true, accepted-by-everyone business practices (flipping formats every six months, firing popular airstaff abruptly without warning and leaving listeners in the lurch, 4 stations with several different flavors of the same 2 formats etc.) need to change if Radio wants to survive in the online world, because -- as you yourself point out -- fragmentation is a thing, and with the Internet, there is infinite competition for your content. Listeners like stuff to be interesting, but they don't like it when the content provider pulls the plug on them. They'll go elsewhere. And there are plenty of places elsewhere for them to go.
And the elephant in the room that hasn't been mentioned in this thread yet is the driver of the business side of these changes: the Advertising industry. It's the Advertising industry that says 'if you're 50, take a hike!', leaving a lot of radio-friendly, loyal radio listeners in the lurch. The Advertising industry has also been going through some flat revenue issues and consolidation over the past couple decades, and they're dealing with changes in tech, and adapting to the internet, including the use of apps on your phone to slam you with unwanted ads. They're shooting themselves in the foot in a different way, but that's not Radio, so I'll just leave it there.
They have less reach, less importance, relatively, because there is so much more competition. You used to have to get the paper delivered to your door, or -- if you wanted a national one, like the NYT, WA Post or WSJ, you had to find a kiosk where those papers were sold. Now you have access to all sorts of news on your phone.
In 1985, I had to go to a kiosk downtown (approx 15 miles from where I live) to get either a WA Post or NY Times.
Now I have access (to the headlines, at least) to nearly every paper in the world, via the internet. And 1000's of news sites. And news stories from everywhere via aggregators.
And still, most major papers in the US are floundering. Even the WA Post laid off 240 people last year. WSJ got rid of 20 people. LA Times is losing money and got rid of over 100 people last year. Since 2000 the news industry lost 30% of its remaining journalists. Two papers a week folded last year, nationwide.
And my greater point is still valid. No one news provider has the importance that they did even 20 years ago. It's all internet, all fragmentation.
Over Tacos and Beer, Journalists Mourn Their Lost Jobs
Hundreds of newsroom staff have been laid off in the last month. On Friday, they gathered to commiserate at the National Press Club.
I think Andy Warhol once said something like that.
The reality is getting whittled down to around 15 seconds.
Then why are we having this conversation?
What happens when music taste changes (which it has) and when the popular airstaff dies? Nothing is forever. Change is a constant. You can't stay with what worked, and now you're saying that you can't change every six months. Which is it?
Here's a fact: Having 4 stations with different flavors of the same 2 formats gets better ratings in demo that trying something completely different. Ask the folks at KPNW Seattle.
The decline will continue.
The shift from radio to personal devices with endless choices is as profound as they come.
Vaudeville was huge. Then movies came along.
K.M. Richards
Program Director, The Eighties Channel™
This.
The sheer volume of rants by @Hyrum are starting to take on a feel of "you kids stay off my lawn".
But things are what they are. We've tried to answer all of the questions and concerns, and in response we only get more of the same, with different verbiage. My take on this is that Hyrum has a dislike for consultants and research and has somehow come to the conclusion that he is right even though this is what radio has had to do to survive.
I have been in the business for more than a half-century (I started with a weekend shift during my senior year of high school) and it became obvious right away that I had programming skills. I got my first PD gig only five years into my career. I've had to adapt to a changing landscape of the business several times over 50+ years. And, like it or not, research is a necessity in the face of competition not only from other radio stations but from other platforms.
This is the truth. Mr. Hyrum, I suggest -- in the words of Jack Nicholson in "A Few Good Men" -- you can't handle the truth.
I don't think it's that shortI think Andy Warhol once said something like that.
The reality is getting whittled down to around 15 seconds.
Once again there is nothing a radio station can do that will make people throw away their phones and laptops and buy transistor radios.
So you budget for who you have. You program to the people who listen. You love the one you're with.
Then you start building the next phase, which is not on broadcast radio. Everything that I talk about here every day.
Yesterday SummitMedia joined forces with Townsquare to build a new platform.
SummitMedia And Townsquare Media Enter Into A Digital Ad Partnership.
Townsquare Media enters into a strategic digital advertising partnership with SummitMedia. Under Townsquare Media’s Ignite Media Partnerships division, formed earlier this year, SummitMedia gains expertise and resources focused on customized,
The future won't look like the past. Those who are waiting for the past to come back will be waiting a long time.
I was walking for exercise today in a historic neighborhood with nice houses and I saw a Wall Street Journal thrown into the yard wrapped in plastic.
Which is why I keep saying the power will be with those who can find revenue streams beyond traditional advertising.
There is where your premise is wrong.
First, the prime demo in radio ad buys is 25-54 for general market and 18-49 for ethnic markets. The 25-54 usage of radio is about 85% weekly cume. That is not "abandonment" but we do have to recognize that usage is much lower than 15 years ago; when PPM began in the "big" markets, usage was about 12% average persons using radio 6 AM to Midnight, Mon-Sun. Now it is half that.
The real issue to resolve is not programming. It is commercial load. Unless we find a way to decrease that to tolerable levels... perhaps around 6 minutes an hour... radio will decline as young people cease using radio and older people learn now sources of music.
There is a decided shift in preferences where deejays talking up intros is now not wanted by nearly everyone. So the right combination of entertaining "hosts" or, as the Brits say, "presenters" and unobstructed mass appeal music with fewer commercials is the only answer. There are many people who want a curated playlist and who do not have time to waste creating their own playlists who will listen.
My personal choice is one of the Sirius country channels, but when the DJ starts chattering, I am gone... as I am with some of the deep cuts and the absolutely lousy horizontal rotations.
The WSJ has had delivery by carrier for quite a few years.
As a side note, at one time the company that delivered the WSJ also delivered other publications in at least some areas -- back in the nineties, I got home delivery of "Broadcasting" Magazine (or maybe it was already "Broadcasting & Cable" by then; I'm not sure). It would show up on my front lawn on Monday morning, rolled up and wrapped in plastic. It was delivered by the same people who delivered the WSJ.
Of course that's back when the print edition of "Broadcasting" contained actual industry news.
I knew that but I was surprised they were still doing it.
When did it stop?
K.M. Richards
Program Director, The Eighties Channel™
That's something of a subjective question, since people would have their own reasons for deciding which editorial moves in the final quarter century was the tipping point for them.
For me, it was August 23, 1993, after which they discontinued the "For The Record" listings of all broadcast applications, grants, and dismissals in favor of only reporting on station ownership changes.
I agree. It was already becoming a publication filled with ads for syndicated TV shows and movie collections, so the discontinuation of "For The Record" was just the period at the end of the sentence.
Wow. Stunning numbers.
I had suspected radio had lost a gigantic chunk of listeners, but it isn't that surprising, given its poor state of programming, constant canning deejays and news people, lack of creative programming (radio sounds the same in most markets, "cookie cutter") and overall directionless and lack of creativity and vision ("the bottom line is the only thing that matters").
I use to work in radio (news) in the 80s before moving to TV news. Overall, the medium was much better then.
The declines in listenership actually started to happen BEFORE all those things. The other thing that affected radio listenership was the big change in the music industry that's happened since the 90s. Record labels no longer make music for radio, because they now receive royalties from streaming. They don't from radio. So their entire business model has changed. They used to have small artist rosters who released music in measured ways to fit radio. Now they have unlimited artist rosters who release music all the time, completely ignoring music charts and radio airplay. There aren't enough radio stations in a city to cover all the music being released.
As I've said, there's nothing radio can do, no amount of local staff, no addition of creative programming, that will change the fact that people now get music from streaming. It's by design. It's how the artists and labels work. Completely outside of anything in radio.
This.
Listeners do notice when their favorite announcers or news people are suddenly axed and, if there is any news left, it's some weaker individual doing "generic" and "statewide" news in major markets like Tampa and Orlando with little local content. This happened in the major iHeart owned WFLA... The talk station is a shell of what it use to be.
When a longtime radio host was let go from a leading "Magic 108" AC, it was in the local papers and listeners complained online about her sudden axing.
It's always galled me how radio couldn't find ways to serve these older, highly loyal listeners.
Of course, ownership wouldn't make all their nut with them, and it might be a small part, but putting programming on underused AM sticks, say formats not widely heard anymore, like Top 40 50s-60s-70s oldies, smooth jazz, classical, etc., could be a way of showing interest in this audience.
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