NY Times: Radio Audience Drifting Away (Contrary to What You May Have Read)

[fred flintstone]

RadioDailyNews.com

While more than 9 out of 10 Americans still listen to traditional radio each week, they are listening less. And the industry is having to confront many challenges like those that have enticed Mr. Costa, including streaming audio, podcasting, iPods and Howard Stern on satellite radio. As a result, the prospects of radio companies have dimmed significantly since the late 1990’s, when broadcast barons were tripping over themselves to buy more stations (read more - Richard Siklos-NY Times)

I've been watching for somebody to post this. Nobody has. Very curious. Maybe people only want to read the head-in-the-sand stories about how great it's going in radio and the future is rosy.

Main points:
People are listening less - especially the young (the future of radio).
Radio companies' stock prices are dropping like it's 1929.
Major operators, like Clear Channel looking to start selling off stations; look for station prices to plummet.
Radio's attempts to get in on HD and the Internet may be too little, too late.
The party's over.

IMHO - Major cause of radio's fall: It's insistance when something's not working of doing more of it.

 

[radionut925]

RadioDailyNews.com

While more than 9 out of 10 Americans still listen to traditional radio each week, they are listening less. And the industry is having to confront many challenges like those that have enticed Mr. Costa, including streaming audio, podcasting, iPods and Howard Stern on satellite radio. As a result, the prospects of radio companies have dimmed significantly since the late 1990’s, when broadcast barons were tripping over themselves to buy more stations (read more - Richard Siklos-NY Times)

I've been watching for somebody to post this. Nobody has. Very curious. Maybe people only want to read the head-in-the-sand stories about how great it's going in radio and the future is rosy.

Main points:
People are listening less - especially the young (the future of radio).
Radio companies' stock prices are dropping like it's 1929.
Major operators, like Clear Channel looking to start selling off stations; look for station prices to plummet.
Radio's attempts to get in on HD and the Internet may be too little, too late.
The party's over.

IMHO - Major cause of radio's fall: It's insistance when something's not working of doing more of it.

Nice observation. It seems like many of the people who manage and operate radio stations just don't get it. It appears that most stations and companies are fixated with trying impress everyone on Wall Street that they're ignoring their primary customer: the listener. It's no wonder why not only the young audience is turning away from terrestrial radio, but adults 50 and older as well. That leaves the real question: What will it take for terrestrial radio (AM/FM) to remain competitive in this era of digital media?

 

[gr8oldies]

The listener is not the customer. The advertiser is the customer. As long as radio can deliver audiences for advertisers, there will be radio. Every time a story like this comes out, the hue and cry on this board is "See, radio needs to play 50,000 songs, all unfamiliar to survive!". Which is untrue.

 

[radionut925]

The listener is not the customer. The advertiser is the customer. As long as radio can deliver audiences for advertisers, there will be radio. Every time a story like this comes out, the hue and cry on this board is "See, radio needs to play 50,000 songs, all unfamiliar to survive!". Which is untrue.

Still, there's somebody out there that has to listen to that particular station. The theory of the advertiser being the "customer" is meaningless if nobody's listening.

 

[AKLes]

Could it be that the NYT editorial board confused their rapidly declining circulation figures with what's happening with radio?

 

[radiofriend1]

not so fast...............arbs just released RADAR number:

Radio reaches 93% of all people every week.
230,308,000 people age 12 and older listen to the radio in a typical week according to initial findings of Arbitron's RADAR 90. And despite new threats like satellite radio and iPods - 81% of adults 18+ listen to the radio while in their cars and 24% listen while at work. Arbitron releases RADAR 90 next week. It's based on 112,000 diaries - the most ever for RADAR.

 

[SirRoxalot]

The NY Times says that "more than 9 out of 10" (93%) of adults listen to the radio.

They're not listening as much, however. That was their point. Radio is losing shares, not cumes.

 

[radiofriend1]

The NY Times says that "more than 9 out of 10" (93%) of adults listen to the radio.

They're not listening as much, however. That was their point. Radio is losing shares, not cumes.

well duh no kidding..........but why take the red-headed stepchild mindset with our craft?????

as choices multiply (and hours in the day don't), of course it won't stay where it was ... neither is TV or newspaper

that doesn't mean radio sucks

 

[SirRoxalot]

Drift Away - Dobie or UK?

Having been in radio since the last century - which means I have years of experience - one thing is evident. Radio will react to the marketplace. When the current formats cease to attract enough of the listeners that advertisers covet, new formats will evolve.

Radio has faced competition before. Heck, a cassette player was portable, and the audio was comparable to an average MP3 or satellite audio. People "downloaded" albums onto cassettes and traded them. CDs came along, and CD burners allowed high-quality audio to be copied over and over and over.

Radio has survived because it has provided content that was unavailable on cassette or CD. Entertainment and information added value to the music. Local information that you couldn't get easily anywhere else was gold. The Internet has made that information more readily accessible, but it takes somebody who's "cool" to sort out what's really worth knowing.

The biggest problem with radio right now are short-sighted corporations who are beholding to shareholders who were told that they could expect ever-increasing profits from radio stations that were purchased for inflated prices. The CBS/Infinity sell-off may be the beginning of the next phase for corporate radio. Somebody at "corporate" is beginning to see that radio may not be like producing widgets. Having a monopoly on widget manufacturing doesn't mean that consumers will buy inferior quality widgets. You see, widgets are not a necessity, they are a luxury. If you don't give the widget-buyers what they want, they just won't buy widgets. They'll buy gidgets, or midgets, or fidgets instead, until they can get the widgets that they want.