Radio is dead....
Radio is dead.
It died the day that the creative people were forced out and replaced with bean counters. See, radio was always an ART based upon science. Now it's strictly a science. The art is gone. The creativity is gone.
Sure, it has 10-20 years more life left in it before its current listeners die off. But there are few new listeners joining radio. It's been this way for over a decade. New media like the Internet has only sped up the decline that goes back to the days of the music cassette.
The sad thing is that it didn't have to be this way. Radio committed suicide. It killed itself off. Except for listening to the ball game or catching up on news or traffic, few under 30 even listen to radio. If you own a Chrysler product, you already can have Internet in your car. Actually, you probably have it in your car already via your cell phone. Cell phones will soon be the new car radios. You'll plug your cell phone into a socket on your dash and it will become the vehicles' entertainment and communications center. The car radio will be an afterthought. They're working on the standard connector as you read this.
Did any of you ever own a phone with a radio built in? I did six years ago. I NEVER USED the radio function. Not once. I don't even know if it even worked.
Putting radios in cell phones was such a bomb that no one does it at all today. Yet millions do listen to music on their phones.
Does anyone remember over the air pay TV? It was called Preview in Boston. IMHO, satellite radio is the pay TV of this decade. Chris is 100% correct; it will not survive another ten years. It will be replaced by Interactive and Internet radio.
Have any of you heard of Slacker (
www.slacker.com)? It's a service that offers music content for free. You pick the kind of music you like either by genre or artist. It gives YOU the option of either listening to one or more of its hundreds of great pre-programmed radio stations-or it builds a station especially for YOU!
You have the option of rating each song-and based upon what you like of don't like it makes subtle changes in your personal playlist. Even better, they have a portable player that wirelessly downloads songs and playlists to itself whenever it's in range of a hotspot. In simpler terms, you can have this player fill itself with music you like for your ride into work and then while at work it fills itself with a NEW playlist for the drive home! The free version of Slacker plays about 3 spots and hour; for $3.99 a month you can have no commercials.
I bought my player for 70 dollars shipped. For this price why would I WANT to listen to a radio station that plays 35 minutes of music an hour and the same 500 songs?
Trust me, radio is dead. Those who say otherwise are in denial.
