Is Terrestrial Radio Facing Its Judgment Day With Fierce Digital Competition?

[TheBigA]

Why the writer picked only the most negative comments of the most negative speakers is beyond me. But journalism long ago became a profession where getting a second opinion is often enlightening.

Mainly because these days, the goal of writing is to attract clicks and placement in a search engine. Not actual facts or information. Mission accomplished here.

I was wondering if this was actually a new article, or simply a rehash of numerous similar articles written ten years ago. In other words, did they speak with John Gorman, or is this simply an old quote of his from ten years ago? Because he's been saying the same thing since he left WMMS. Like Chicken Little, they keep predicting that the sky is falling.

 

[davideduardo]

Mainly because these days, the goal of writing is to attract clicks and placement in a search engine. Not actual facts or information. Mission accomplished here.

I was wondering if this was actually a new article, or simply a rehash of numerous similar articles written ten years ago. In other words, did they speak with John Gorman, or is this simply an old quote of his from ten years ago? Because he's been saying the same thing since he left WMMS. Like Chicken Little, they keep predicting that the sky is falling.

The Buzzard was a great station during its finite shelf life. All of us who have survived radio for more than a few milliseconds have seen formats and stations go through life cycles. If we are smart, we move on or allow the station to morph into something new. If we are not-so-smart, we ruminate about the good old days.

What surprised you regarding errors of fact is worth emphasizing. For example, the "21% of Americans don't own a radio" is actually "21% of Americans don't have a home radio". But, statistically, they all have one in the car. And many have them at work. And if you are less concerned about platforms than about content, then those that don't have home AM-FM radios have smartphones that can stream radio. In other words, just bad, bad reporting.

 

[Oscar Madison]

Sometimes - even often - the correct answer is "nay."

Second opinions in journalism are often "he said - she said" or "false equivalency."

Will radio die? Maybe not. But it will almost certainly be marginalized (even more than now). Yes, there are a lot more choices and those choices are winning. Rail travel is marginalized; it's called Amtrak. It's not what it was. Movies are still around but 70 per cent of the population is not going to the movies every week like before. The number of daily newspapers is a fraction of what it was a hundred years ago, as is readership. Same for magazines. Preachers will keep radio alive but marginalized. As will bottom-feeder advertisers with brokered programming for the under class.

 

[TheBigA]

Preachers will keep radio alive but marginalized. As will bottom-feeder advertisers with brokered programming for the under class.

Or to be more specific, "will keep AM radio alive." But FM is doing just fine. The thing killing iHeart and Cumulus is the number of AM stations they still own, eating up any possible profits they're making from FM.

 

[gr8oldies]

Radio seems to have had its own version of the guys sitting around waiting for the factory to reopen. Never mind the fact it's been torn down and the local union office has been turned into a check cashing store, those jobs are coming back. In message boards like this one, somehow the FCC is going to reverse consolidation, or the top 2 companies debt problems are going to result in a fire sale, mom and pop owners will get them for pennies on the dollar, and we'll get the jock jobs we had 20 years ago back....all with stations playing big playlists of unfamiliar music.

There has always been the crowd that doesn't like anything on the radio. In past generations they carried cases full of cassettes in the car. Now it's the internet. There is just absolutely no credible evidence that a large majority of people are abandoning radio in droves because they don't want to hear the hits and only want to hear obscure indie band music, deep album cuts or oldies that haven't been played since they were current in the 60s. Niche audiences, sure. A mainstream audience, no.

 

[Bongwater]

I walk into my local gas station/convenience store and the clerk has the radio on. I'm just not imagining the universe where this clerk is self-programming 8 hours of tunes to play on his/her smartphone (on a pre-paid plan). There would be a lot to overcome to replace OTA with digital.

And it's being overcome in higher-tech areas such as the Seattle/Puget Sound area by wi-fi.

Many stores already have broadband internet connections. It may be a convenience store. But seriously, who uses the phone and paper to re-up on inventory and cleaning supplies anymore? And fast moving products like say, fountain soda or a nationally advertised hot dog and chips lunch special tend to require fast ordering and delivery of said hot dogs, buns, chips, container boxes for the hot dogs and fountain syrup and cups from the distributor (the storerooms and back coolers are usually cramped enough with other things.)

The more modern convenience stores even have rotating advertising delivered on screens by internet. Every purchase is recorded and tabulated instantly in real time for HQ at each location of a newer/upgraded 7-Eleven in a high traffic area, thus automating the inventory process. And a few even have free customer wi-fi if they have a dedicated eating area for customers.

And I've heard everything from KIRN to Beats 1 as well what sounds like playlists behind the counters in some independent convenience stores up here on phone charging stations with speakers or wi-fi radios. Regardless, it's here.

It's a growing trend. Maybe not in Knoxville yet, but it's on it's way there. Just remember who told you first.

 

[davideduardo]

Second opinions in journalism are often "he said - she said" or "false equivalency."

Not really.

Differences in reporting have more to do with the reality and culture of the reporter than the facts as we tend to see things based on our own reactions.

When I owned a news based station in Ecuador, we'd do training sessions using "Time" magazine's reports on anything they covered on our local scene. Often the "Time" reports were so far from the truth that it seemed the reporter had been, perhaps, in a different country. We'd analyze why the reporter saw a different story based on the same incidents we, as locals, had also seen. Our objective was to understand how to present our own news coverage without falling victim to personal agendas, stereotyping and other ailments.

One of the practices that we did was to take a story and write it purposely from an agenda-driven perspective. In one case, a citizens protest over officially sanctioned price increases in staples, participated in by many indigenous persons, was turned by one of us into a story a foreigner might write about which claimed there was an "Indian revolt over government policies", while another wrote that "Oligarchy benefits from price gouging of the poor". This kind of exercise allowed us to see how one event could be seen in many different ways.

 

[TheBigA]

And it's being overcome in higher-tech areas such as the Seattle/Puget Sound area by wi-fi.

And yet in that same community, residents have raised $15 million for an alternative rock FM station and $7 million for an NPR news FM station. Yes I know the area is home to Microsoft and a lot of high tech people. But those folks have invested their own personal money into area FM radio stations when they could have easily kept the money and listened online. That says a lot to me about the relationship they have with FM radio.

 

[gr8oldies]

The 2 biggest convenience store chains in the Knoxville area have a terrestrial radio station on the speakers.

Why didn't absolutely everyone sign up for XM and Sirius 15 years ago so they could listen to the Deep Cuts channel? I still haven't heard any solutions to the royalty expense problem, I'm just hearing, "radio sucks, everybody wants to listen to non-hits" without anything to back it up.

 

[davideduardo]

Will radio die? Maybe not. But it will almost certainly be marginalized (even more than now). Yes, there are a lot more choices and those choices are winning. Rail travel is marginalized; it's called Amtrak. It's not what it was. Movies are still around but 70 per cent of the population is not going to the movies every week like before. The number of daily newspapers is a fraction of what it was a hundred years ago, as is readership. Same for magazines. Preachers will keep radio alive but marginalized. As will bottom-feeder advertisers with brokered programming for the under class.

Rail travel became marginalized because it did not modernize. If the railroads had built their own airlines as a complement to rail travel, we might have a nation that moved shorter distances by rail, and longer ones by air out of hubs.

Radio is adopting new platforms. But unlike early airlines, those new platforms are not profitable for anyone. But when we look at total radio listening across platforms, it has not declined. This involves accepting that Sirius/XM is radio, and Pandora is radio.

Radio companies that don't explore all platforms will be marginalized. Those that use the preferred platform of their listeners won't.

 

[gr8oldies]

Here in town, when Midwest bought out South Central and blew up the alternative format, there were howls of protest. A Facebook page was started called "Bring back our beloved station and DJs". Listeners even organized a going away party and concert. It didn't reverse the format change, but this station had a passionate audience. What? But absolutely NOBODY listens to radio! These folks could very easily get their alternative fix online but they wanted their OTA station. Another station in town did change format to alternative.

And yet in that same community, residents have raised $15 million for an alternative rock FM station and $7 million for an NPR news FM station. Yes I know the area is home to Microsoft and a lot of high tech people. But those folks have invested their own personal money into area FM radio stations when they could have easily kept the money and listened online. That says a lot to me about the relationship they have with FM radio.

 

[tbolt909]

Here's an example of absurd content. WBEN Buffalo reads a laundry list
of school closings during bad weather. Why?
The school probably sends a text directly to its students/parents.

Of course, many people still use Radio -(even though it is and always
has been just a small part of their lives)
It's also naive to deny the fact that times & technology have changed...

 

[Oscar Madison]

Rail travel became marginalized because it did not modernize. If the railroads had built their own airlines as a complement to rail travel, we might have a nation that moved shorter distances by rail, and longer ones by air out of hubs.

Radio is adopting new platforms. But unlike early airlines, those new platforms are not profitable for anyone. But when we look at total radio listening across platforms, it has not declined. This involves accepting that Sirius/XM is radio, and Pandora is radio.

Radio companies that don't explore all platforms will be marginalized. Those that use the preferred platform of their listeners won't.

Absolutely. A Harvard marketing professor wrote the railroads' problem was they thought they were in train business, not the transportation business. Movie studios thought they were in the business of selling tickets to movie theaters, until the government made them change their way of thinking by forcing divestiture of their theaters. Radio owners and operators who think they are in the broadcasting business will perish. Any of who realize they are in the audio entertainment and information business will continue.

In my area there's a company that started operating a dairy farm almost 200 years ago. Up until 50 years ago, they had a fleet of trucks (first horse drawn and then motorized) and delivered milk and other dairy products to people's homes. They realized the world is changing. Now they have a chain of convenience store - and they still have a dairy farm and sell dairy products. But no home delivery.

 

[gr8oldies]

My wife is a school bus driver and she'll be the first to tell you how hard it is to get ahold of parents from low income neighborhoods. You can't assume everyone is going to get the texts. People change numbers, run out of minutes and texts before the first of the month or payday, boyfriend/girlfriend changes and so do the phones. The kid stayed with grandma last night. Sometimes my wife has a more up to date phone numbers than the school system does. Don't assume everyone is middle class like you. You still need to have the closings (at least major ones) on radio and TV. A lot of parents/guardians miss the texts.

Here's an example of absurd content. WBEN Buffalo reads a laundry list
of school closings during bad weather. Why?
The school probably sends a text directly to its students/parents.

Of course, many people still use Radio -(even though it is and always
has been just a small part of their lives)
It's also naive to deny the fact that times & technology have changed...

 

[hamster]

Here's an example of absurd content. WBEN Buffalo reads a laundry list
of school closings during bad weather. Why?
The school probably sends a text directly to its students/parents.

Can't speak for WBEN but one of my old radio stations still does the laundry list of school closings during bad weather thing. Why ?? It's sponsored by a local car dealership and they had been doing this sort of thing for generations. Even though the local school districts do send out texts which BTW they had started to do ten years ago the business still wants to sponsor such things and my old station will not say no to them even though they will probably agree that such things are waste a time but money is money.

The same station also does church closings too even though that is not sponsored. From what I was told some years back they decided to no longer do church closings since so many of the churches who paid for airtime already have their own websites and yes whenever services are cancelled its right there on their website. Apparently some of the churches threatened to drop their radio services if the station would drop church closings so the laundry list of church cancellations continues. They probably have visions of some members of the flock who still don't have access to the internet which may be true but OTOH there is the telephone it would be just as easy to call up another member of the church to see whether or not services are cancelled in the event of bad weather. Guess they don't see it that way.

 

[gr8oldies]

Most seem to do the major closings on-air and refer folks to websites for the ones that aren't crucial.

Can't speak for WBEN but one of my old radio stations still does the laundry list of school closings during bad weather thing. Why ?? It's sponsored by a local car dealership and they had been doing this sort of thing for generations. Even though the local school districts do send out texts which BTW they had started to do ten years ago the business still wants to sponsor such things and my old station will not say no to them even though they will probably agree that such things are waste a time but money is money.

The same station also does church closings too even though that is not sponsored. From what I was told some years back they decided to no longer do church closings since so many of the churches who paid for airtime already have their own websites and yes whenever services are cancelled its right there on their website. Apparently some of the churches threatened to drop their radio services if the station would drop church closings so the laundry list of church cancellations continues. They probably have visions of some members of the flock who still don't have access to the internet which may be true but OTOH there is the telephone it would be just as easy to call up another member of the church to see whether or not services are cancelled in the event of bad weather. Guess they don't see it that way.

 

[tbolt909]

If they don't get the text message from the school, then I doubt they
are listening to a Right Wing crazy talk AM station for closing info...

 

[gr8oldies]

I was referring to radio in general, though it's not far-fetched to think they might listen to the morning news. This proves the towers are all going to be chopped down within the next year how?

 

[Bongwater]

My wife is a school bus driver and she'll be the first to tell you how hard it is to get ahold of parents from low income neighborhoods. You can't assume everyone is going to get the texts. People change numbers, run out of minutes and texts before the first of the month or payday, boyfriend/girlfriend changes and so do the phones. The kid stayed with grandma last night. Sometimes my wife has a more up to date phone numbers than the school system does. Don't assume everyone is middle class like you. You still need to have the closings (at least major ones) on radio and TV. A lot of parents/guardians miss the texts.

And even that will change in a few years: http://www.computerworld.com/articl...ine-program-to-include-broadband-subsidy.html

 

[gr8oldies]

Getting text messages has nothing to do with internet access. You think that's going to be unlimited data to stream your favorite obscure hip-hop stream.?
There is a lot to overcome if you really think the towers are going to be chopped down by next year at this time. Mainly royalty payments for all those obscure music streams you claim everyone is going to listen to.
If you don't like corporate radio, it makes no sense to me that you're waiting with baited breath for ALL audio content to be delivered by corporations named Comcast, Verizon and AT&T.
Every time I hear about big playlists, and claims that people will abandon the hits for 10,000 strong playlists of unfamiliars, I notice it's always a man and almost never a woman who's making that claim.