dfwupallnight said:
But I think internet radio stations have developed a bad reputation (deserved or not) for poor quality and amateurish content,
True. But that is also true for pretty much any form of "new media." For example, the vast majority of blogs out there consist of utterly pointless nonsense of interest to no one besides the author's friends. On the other hand, there are also countless specialty blogs that provide high quality content that was next to impossible to find or even publish prior to the Internet. And there are a handful of blogs that are so influential as to have an impact on the mainstream media news cycle and on the fate of a great many politicians.
Yes, anybody can put crappy content on the Internet. But they are also going to have a very difficult time getting anybody to pay attention to it. Unless you have a promotional budget - which few do - the only way you can build an audience online is to have content compelling enough to inspire your listeners to recommend it to others.
The third issue is a combination of technological limitations and listening habits. These issues can, must, and will be mitigated as the industry shifts its model to the "new" medium of the future.
I don't think it necessarily has to shift all at once - and I think there will be a lengthy period of transition where each technology will have its proper place. Yes, there are technological limitations that can make listening to online stations a bit of an extra hassle at times. But for those who have niche tastes and have little interest in mainstream type content, the extra hassle is worth it. In fact, when I listen to music online, I don't even
think of the hassle. For me, the hassle was all the years when I was growing up when it was simply impossible to find any station at all on the AM or FM dial that played the sort of music I wanted to hear. On the other hand, I have zero desire to tune into WBAP, which I do listen to, through a live stream when I can do so with much less hassle by turning my radio to 820.
At this point in time, it makes more sense for some types of content to be online and for content that has more of a mass market appeal to be available on terrestrial radio. The final transition to online need not take place until either all existing mass market audiences splinter into countless directions or all of the technological limitations are overcome. So long as those two things haven't happened, there's a need and plenty of room for both.
not to mention the whole not making much, if any profit.
Or maybe the computers will put us all out of business, who knows? All I can say for certain is that change is, was, and will always be happening, and all we can do is try to roll with the punches.
My thought is that radio - meaning audio programming distributed on a real-time basis - will survive. But it is an open question as to whether today's radio
industry will survive.
The challenge for the radio industry is the same faced by all forms of "old media" which depend on an environment of large audiences made possible by limited competition. But in a world where people discover that they no longer have just a handful of options to choose from but rather many thousands of options, over time those large audiences will scatter to the wind.
In a mass media driven world one is under constant financial pressure to find ways to appeal to the widest possible common denominator. This has a tendency to result in the homogenization of people's tastes and interests - so much so that, for example, based on one's age and demographic background, a person is "supposed to" like one type of music over all others and those who don't, depending on what particular demographic they are from, tend to be regarded either as eccentric or outright freaks. And the public has always gone along with it because, first, they had no other option and, second, they had either limited exposure or zero exposure to content beyond that which received the official seal of approval by the gatekeepers at the RIAA labels and trend setting radio stations. Such an environment has a tendency to kill off people's curiosity to explore other areas of potential interest. It is not only a challenge to find alternative content in such an environment, if you are young, you do so at the risk of being branded as a freak and being regarded as a bit of a social outcast.
The Internet moves everything and everyone in the opposite direction. Suddenly all forms of content, all viewpoints, all eras and genres of music, all artists however obscure become just as easy to access as any other. So you discover some really cool music from a different era or neat genre from somewhere on the other side of the world or a talented but obscure band which only performs in a few clubs in a different state - now all you need do is share it to your network on facebook or twitter and instantly you have exposed it to dozens or even hundreds of others. Most of your network will probably either yawn or forget about it. But a few of them will like it and perhaps be inspired to go down their own path of discovery in a similar direction which they will end up sharing as well. Multiply that process across millions and millions of individuals over the course of several years and we will reach a point where there arises a generation that is far more culturally diverse than any we have ever seen. Their tastes and interests will no longer be chosen for them by the mass media and swallowed whole by default and without question. People will be aware that there is an entire world of stuff out there for them to choose from. In such an environment, "coolness" will be those who seek and find that which is interesting, unique and different - as opposed to past generations where "coolness" all too often meant mindlessly conforming to that which some professional trend setter told them was cool. The old media gatekeepers/trendsetters will be gone. The trendsetters of the future will be.....people like you and me. They will be people who discover something that they deem worthy of sharing with their network of friends - and if it is quality content, it has a chance of spreading beyond that initial network.
The media world of the future will be a world of countless ever-proliferating niches. That will make building audiences of the size that is necessary to support expensive old media corporate infrastructure very difficult if not impossible.
I was recently reading an article about how book publishing companies are doomed. Used to be if you were an aspiring author you were told to NEVER self-publish as it would be a permanent blight on your professional credibility. Things have now changed to the point that, unless you are an already established author capable of getting an advance, it no longer makes as much sense to try and sign with a publishing company. Today, there is only one book store chain left - and even if you are picked up by a publishing house, the odds of your book finding its way onto the very limited shelf space at Barnes & Noble may or may not be all that great. Chances are that your book's success will depend on how well it sells on Amazon.com. But you don't need a publisher to sell your book on Amazon. Anybody can sell there. If you want, you can offer it as an e-book. Or you can use a service that will print and ship a paper copy only when a book has actually been ordered. If you have an area of expertise and have built up a large enough following - especially through a social network such a facebook or twitter - your own promotional power to that network might very well be more effective than any promotional campaign a book publishing company can come up with for new author. And if you are an established author - if you self publish, you get to keep a lot more of the proceeds from sales. At some point, enough established authors will decide to strike out on their own - and that will be the end of the publishing business. All that will be left will be providers of various services that provide support to self-publishing authors.
Same with the music industry. It will soon get to the point that it makes no sense for an up-and-coming band to sign away their rights to their music to a record label. Instead, they will just sell it directly to their fans at performances and via their web page, facebook, itunes and amazon. And when established acts decide it makes more sense to go it alone, the record industry will die. All that will be left will be providers of various services to support musical acts in producing and marketing their own content.
And perhaps that is the direction radio will go as well. It may very well be that if you want to go into radio and have your own show or program a particular format, you will be your own boss in charge of your own content, distribution and promotion. If out of the hundreds of millions of people in the USA and the billions in the world, you can find 10,000 listeners who will each somehow send $1 per month your way, you will have a nice comfortable job earning $120,000 a year. If you are only able to find 1,000 such listeners, you will only bring in $12,000. But if you consider it as a part-time gig and a second income, you might regard that as being very lucrative. Which is better: having a passion for radio but spending your entire career enduring low pay and uncertain job security doing things not your way but the way someone else tells you to - or having your own part time gig doing things the way YOU want to do them but with a better paying, more secure "day job" doing something entirely different?
There will always be demand for high quality content. But my guess is that content producers of the future will be more likely to work as free agents for themselves rather than as employees of large companies. The way that corporations will likely fit in will be in terms of aggregating all of that content in a way that makes it easy for consumers to discover and access - they way that itunes does for music and Amazon does for books and tunein does for online streams.
Anyhow, I didn't mean to write a mini essay. But this is a subject I find fascinating - and exciting. As someone who has VERY niche tastes, the rise of the new media has had a powerful and profound impact for the better on my life. It is among the most exciting developments in my lifetime and has made my life more enjoyable in many, many ways.
