How will wi-fi impact radio, particularly AM?

[kinetic]

I don't have an answer to that question. The sense I get on these boards is that a lot of people who are passionate about radio think of radio as it is or as it was, and think that listeners use radio a certain way --perhaps even the way we use radio (which certainly isn't the case). My sense is that FM is in big trouble because kids don't listen to it and don't need to; they have multiple ways of accessing the music they want.

If you argue that AM can survive because it's providing unique content, what happens when wi-fi is available in your car and people can pick anything they want from the choices available on the internet? Other than the utility of a local traffic report or a local story that truly stands out, why would you listen to a talk show on your local station --even if it's syndicated from elsewhere-- when the same host will be available on a single wi-fi "station"? This board has talked about local radio in another thread --interesting discussion-- but local talk radio is almost a misnomer in most of the country, including mid-sized markets like a Kansas City, a Sacramento, or Columbus, OH (I'm just naming cities at random)

Maybe what I'm asking is, in 10 years, what will be the programming choices for the 80 percent of radio listening that's done in the car? Will it be radio personalities on the scale of big name talkers we have now? Will they be on radio stations or will you just tune them in on wi-fi, and how will that impact local radio?

Sorry this is is a rambling and vaguely laid out post; I'm not even sure what the question should be but I'm curious, especially after reading the "localism in radio" thread. I'm thinking that as people comment on this, we might be able to focus the precise questions and then get answers for them. Are we, who may have an "old school" idea about how radio is used or should be used able to tackle a question the answer to which is that the old school thinking, though noble, is obsolete? I don't know.

Thanks for your patience here and your thoughts in subsequent posts.

 

[trojanrabbit]

The top-of-my-head reply would be, as long as radio continues to be "free" it's going to have an advantage - because I don't see any chance of a "free" nationwide wi-fi network springing up.

I see satellite as "wi-fi lite" and we know how well they're doing - it's that pesky subscription fee.

 

[Goat Rodeo Cowboy]

I'm not even sure what the question should be but I'm curious, especially after reading the "localism in radio" thread. I'm thinking that as people comment on this, we might be able to focus the precise questions and then get answers for them. Are we, who may have an "old school" idea about how radio is used or should be used able to tackle a question the answer to which is that the old school thinking, though noble, is obsolete? I don't know.

I this activity you are grappling with: Organic Thinking.

My father lost his health rather early. Some of his ailments were food related. He focused on his garden. It got bigger and bigger. He would garden awhile; he would go inside and recover for a while. And he began to read and read and read. He became an "evangelist" of organic gardening back before it became cool like today.

I have been playing with "organic radio thinking" in recent years. Why do we put some things on the air? Why are other things NOT on the air? Who said it had to be this way?

Yesterday our fellow poster amfmxm hit a couple of home-runs out of the park with some posts on the San Diego Board. So I began "composting" what he had to say last night. And climbing out of the compost bin this morning this hairy little line of thinking:

I grew up in a strong evangelical/fundamentalist Christianity civilization, complete with evangelists wearing red neck-ties and red socks who knew all kinds of techniques to draw crowds to church events. And one of them invented what was called "Satan's Bible". Took the Christian Bible and reversed everything. What ever Jesus said, Satan said the opposite. The clue that Satan's Bible might not have historical authenticity was it's focus on 20th century social habits.

Okay, Okay, I'm getting to radio. We seem to fabricate a lot of our radio thinking right out of the polluted afternoon air. We look at the success of Conservative Talk Radio. Gee, we need a mirror image of that for the Liberal side. It doesn't work well so we come up with all kinds of explanations.... most of which turn out to be pretty light-weight when you turn them over to look at them. Talking with authority and case history has long been a mainstay of reaching people "who think with a conservative flavor"... even before it made it big on the radio. Has that been true of Liberals? Are there any radio programmers who attended liberal gathers 20 and 30 years ago who can tell us what made for a successful meeting, and what program content made for flat meetings?

We are to the "Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus" syndrome. They are just plain wired differently. Men (so I am told ;D ) enjoy viewing the images of attractive women (and live, in person attractive women). We are told that the reverse is not a strong effect. Other stimuli affect women.

Since some radio listeners go nuts over music, lots of music, wall to wall no-commercial-interruptions music, we come to the conclusion ALL people do, we just haven't discovered what music appeals to some people. Radio to a large extent does not accept the idea that maybe a significant number of people are not attracted to any kind of music.

We've got to try some Organic Gardening of developing programming content on the radio. In radio programming we are doing the equivalent of a shopper going to the grocery store, finding the frozen food aisle, and selecting enough frozen dinners to last for the next 5 to 7 days. What ever happened to browsing the produce department and looking at the radishes and the turnips and the Romaine lettuce and getting inspired to go as the butcher to cut a particular piece of meat to complete an inspired "cooked from scratch meal".

So, what would a liberal walk across the room to turn on the radio to listen to. I want to suggest that the answers is not a mirror-image satan's bible version of Rush Limbaugh.

What would cause a 22 year old Administrative Assistant to leave the iPod in her purse and actually turn on the radio while driving some errands during the lunch hour?

What kind of programming on the radio would cause an Illinois farmer, already catching hell from his wife for his decision to plunk down $275,000 for a new farm tractor, to say to the tractor salesman: "and add a radio to that."

And what do 38-year-old newly-minted MBA's out for their 5:30 A.M. jogging find compelling enough to track down their Walkman Radio before stepping out the door?

Every time I went to see my organic gardening Dad, he had to take me out to the garden to see his current experimental plot.... the place where he had planted something he had never grown before... just to see what the results would be. Some were never repeated, some became every year members of the garden.

Radio has become too space-stingy to set aside some experimental plots.

 

[listener-in]

Let me put in my two cents as a listener. I sprang for a WiFi radio at home when the only local station that carried progressive talk canned it. Since then, most of my listening at home – including the local NPR station – has been on the WiFi.

In my opinion, WiFi will fill a vacuum that AM station owners have created through their own refusal to cater to some audiences, through ignorance, laziness, misplaced greed or any combination thereof. I now have a choice of when to hear my favorite shows that are aired at different times by different stations. In other words, I have deserted my local stations to hear other people’s local stations – in which case, how do local stations change their business models to respond?

I can’t pretend to predict where all this will lead. Web-only stations getting a significant national audience share? More far-sighted AM stations building up sizeable national and international audiences on WiFi? LPFM stations filling the radio wasteland created by the current AM owners?

I see satellite as "wi-fi lite" and we know how well they're doing - it's that pesky subscription fee.

Satellite can’t be compared to WiFi. It requires a dedicated subscription fee, whereas WiFi involves no added cost to the many people who already have broadband – and WiFi offers more choice of stations by a factor of around 100.

When WiFi becomes the norm in automobiles, I can see satellite losing many of its subscribers. I know which way I would go. As for AM: unless you want wall-to-wall Limbaugh, forget it on a cross-country trip – it costs nothing but that’s about all it’s worth.

So, what would a liberal walk across the room to turn on the radio to listen to. I want to suggest that the answers is not a mirror-image satan's bible version of Rush Limbaugh.

You are quite correct; let me suggest that what liberals would listen to are shows with high information content, opinion backed up by reality, and a strong radio personality. For the most part, the liberal talk shows currently on offer match the first two criteria, and the better ones also match the last. What we don’t want are shows run by people who make up facts to match their opinions and rely on incendiary insults - as are all too common on the right.

One thing I do know as a left-of-center liberal is that I have been driven away from AM radio by corporate owners who refuse to air even the best progressive programming on anything like an equal footing with the Limbaughs and Hannitys (i.e, either nothing at all or only low-power stations with zero promotion). At the same time, they forgivingly air even the lowest-rated right-wing talkers. These owners who automatically snub half of their potential audience are too dumb to understand that my dollars are worth every bit as much as those of any of my conservative fellow-listeners.

Unless terrestrial spoken-word radio reinvents itself in response to WiFi – whether on the AM band or on FM frequencies that listeners to music desert in favor of the latest personal audio devices – I will not mourn its passing, free or not.

 

[elchupacabras]

One thing I do know as a left-of-center liberal is that I have been driven away from AM radio by corporate owners who refuse to air even the best progressive programming on anything like an equal footing with the Limbaughs and Hannitys (i.e, either nothing at all or only low-power stations with zero promotion). At the same time, they forgivingly air even the lowest-rated right-wing talkers. These owners who automatically snub half of their potential audience are too dumb to understand that my dollars are worth every bit as much as those of any of my conservative fellow-listeners.

Good point. You will never see Ed Schultz or Randi Rhodes on the same station as Rush and Hannity. It is too bad, because quite frankly, in my opinion, THAT makes good radio. I listen to both sides. Liberal, because I like it, and conservative, because I want to get riled up, damnit! I want to see how wrong they are.

 

[gr8oldies]

I question how long the wi-fi network will remain "free" (there already is a fee built in from your provider). One of the other big stories this weekend is a big station dropping it's streaming, and as royalty fees increase, there will be others following suit.

I find it hard to believe teh 22-year-old really won't turn on the radio for an errand run during lunch, and absolutely MUST have songs from her ipod. We have a disproportionate amount of "radio sucks and nobody listens" folks on this board.

There was a great post from a professor on the localism thread basically saying that though you might have 50 people in a college classroom not wanting toadmit to listening to radio, if you probe deeper you'd find they do.

 

[listener-in]

I question how long the wi-fi network will remain "free" (there already is a fee built in from your provider). One of the other big stories this weekend is a big station dropping it's streaming, and as royalty fees increase, there will be others following suit.

I'd be interested in the source.

I wrote that "WiFi involves no added cost to the many people who already have broadband", in other words I acknowledged the built-in provider fee.

It seems to me that royalties only come into play with music or other creative content, and I am also aware that broadcasters sometimes "black out" live sports commentaries because of rights issues. But I didn't think royalties or rights would be an issue with topical stuff like news and opinion. Is this correct? Anyway, I think stations that drop streaming will be ones with timid managements who think they are playing it safe and can't see beyond their noses. In today's "Globe and Mail" I came across a cautionary tale about the failure in print media to adapt to the internet:

http://business.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20090313.wfcover14/BNStory/Business/home

Newspapers share the culpability here. One misstep Mr. Bronstein can pinpoint was what happened in the mid-1990s when he arranged a meeting between the (San Fransisco) Examiner's tech department and a Bay Area computer whiz in his early 40s named Craig Newmark, who was brimming with ideas about the ways online media would transform traditional advertising models.

The tech department ultimately shrugged Mr. Newmark off, figuring it could do better itself. That spurned geek went on to create Craigslist, which would suck away one of newspapers' steadiest sources of income. It's a glaring example of how the industry has stumbled in the Internet age.

Also I'm reminded of how various interests in the entertainment business tried to fight off the VCR before learning there was no alternative but to coexist with personal video recording.

Whether radio managements like it or not, streaming is here; they have the choices of embracing it, tolerating it or fighting it. No guarantees, but I would bet on the ones that embrace it, even though it may not be clear yet how best to do so.

 

[ctkatz]

One thing I do know as a left-of-center liberal is that I have been driven away from AM radio by corporate owners who refuse to air even the best progressive programming on anything like an equal footing with the Limbaughs and Hannitys (i.e, either nothing at all or only low-power stations with zero promotion). At the same time, they forgivingly air even the lowest-rated right-wing talkers. These owners who automatically snub half of their potential audience are too dumb to understand that my dollars are worth every bit as much as those of any of my conservative fellow-listeners.

Good point. You will never see Ed Schultz or Randi Rhodes on the same station as Rush and Hannity. It is too bad, because quite frankly, in my opinion, THAT makes good radio. I listen to both sides. Liberal, because I like it, and conservative, because I want to get riled up, damnit! I want to see how wrong they are.

these are the reasons why i believe that inernet radio or even internet based radio stations are going to be the wave of the future. they have internet streaming capable car radios forgodsake. and i think that this has some radio execs worried. not scared yet, but worried. the nation does not have a nationwide wireless yet. the second that it does and is stable and reliable, that's game over for right wing radio. one of the major things keeping progressive radio down is just simply numbers of radio stations. i live in a traditionally progressive area with a progressive congressman but there is NO progressive radio near here. but there is rush limbaugh and michael "savage" weiner on the big stick station. and laura ingraham and michael medved and dennis prager on the smaller am station. and dave ramsey and business talk on the smaller am station. and two sports stations. and radio disney. and 4 religious stations. but no progressive talk.

the closest progtalk station is WCPT, and they are only a daytimer.

 

[NewsVet]

You will never see Ed Schultz or Randi Rhodes on the same station as Rush and Hannity.

Actually, until Rhodes left her now-defunct syndicator recently she had followed Rush (and was followed by Hannity) on WJNO in West Palm Beach for years. The station gets good ratings too.

 

[landtuna]

I think elchupacabras has a valid point.

TV puts on programs which are at the opposite ends of the political spectrum. Newspapers frequently print stories and columns from both liberal and conservative writers. Why are TV and newspapers different than radio in this regard? Where is it written that radio stations are either 'conservative' or 'liberal' and broadcast only one perspective?

'Professional' wrestling has made a good living by presenting the 'good' guy vs the 'bad' guy for decades now. I don't equate wrestling to journalism, broadcast or otherwise, but competing points of view would seem to me to attract a wider and larger audience than one view only.

 

[Don62]

You will never see Ed Schultz or Randi Rhodes on the same station as Rush and Hannity.

Actually, until Rhodes left her now-defunct syndicator recently she had followed Rush (and was followed by Hannity) on WJNO in West Palm Beach for years. The station gets good ratings too.

Ed Schultz was on late evenings on 630 AM in Savannah.

 

[Goat Rodeo Cowboy]

12 years ago, maybe 15, I had no concept what the Internet would become. I don't feel bad. The visionary Mr. Gates misjudged it also.

Our question is: Will wi-fi impact radio? I have about as much confidence in my ability to predict what will become of wi-fi in the coming months and years as I have in my ability of 12 years ago to see the future of the Internet.

I invite everyone to look around and see how parochial we all are. We see radio from our own little route in the maze and want to imprint that view on everyone and make our predictions. We see wi-fi from our own little route in the maze and want... you get the idea.

Like a pilot reaching over to enrich the fuel mixture... it would be good to see more people really turn loose of the hand-rail and step out to the edge of the bluff and say something creative, something visionary, something risky.

I'll jump in the pool first:

If, IF government at various levels decided to make wi-fi universal the way we did schools and libraries in the last 100 years, then the masses will have access and traditional broadcasting must be prepared for a rocky toboggan ride.

If those who yell most loudly against creeping socialism and most loudly for free enterprise stop the voices calling for universal coverage by tax based wi-fi distribution, radio has a much easier future to negotiate for there will be more potential listeners who find the cost of wi-fi just beyond their fingertips.