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Premium Choice and radio's future

K

kinetic

This headline made the Fark main page: Clear Channel radio listeners in Boston, Memphis and Nashville will be getting their "local" news from Cincinnati
The link came from Ohio Media Watch: http://ohiomedia.blogspot.com/2009/04/local-news-and-premium-choice.html
I found the comments from Fark readers interesting. They tend to be younger demos and their remarks are as cynical as any on this website, the exception being, Farkers aren't in radio.
The comments (http://www.fark.com/cgi/comments.pl?IDLink=4364934) are not anything new; the cynicism has been expressed before on Fark when similar articles are post, particularly at Clear Channel. Essentially, what I inferred in the comments is that among this younger, under 40 demographic, radio is largely useless to them. I was reminded of people who have abandoned music radio in favor of other platforms. I know the comments are only a sampling, but it's a familiar one and it makes me wonder how much future radio has, if any, under its current business model.
 
I think you're reading way to much into those comments. Those are people who don't get their local news from the radio. They never did. They're CC haters mainly. They don't listen to the radio anyway, and retaining local news on mainly AM stations was not going to attract them or keep them anyway. It's really a fake concern. They will continue to get their news from wherever, and it really doesn't matter if they are actually local sources or not. I mean, how many people actually know that their local weather forecast doesn't come from a local source. Most weather reports come from a NOAA office, or Accu-Weather, or the Weather Channel, or some place like that. No one knows or cares.

I think that cynicism is destructive, or at least non-productive. This is a generation for which free is the main economy. It's almost like it's an entitlement generation. They want jobs and want to get paid, but they don't want to pay for anything, and they can't understand why the economy is in the dumpster. It'll be a whole lot harder when they're faced with real decisions about how to pay for these services.
 
TheBigA said:
I think you're reading way to much into those comments. Those are people who don't get their local news from the radio. They never did. They're CC haters mainly. They don't listen to the radio anyway, and retaining local news on mainly AM stations was not going to attract them or keep them anyway. It's really a fake concern. They will continue to get their news from wherever, and it really doesn't matter if they are actually local sources or not. I mean, how many people actually know that their local weather forecast doesn't come from a local source. Most weather reports come from a NOAA office, or Accu-Weather, or the Weather Channel, or some place like that. No one knows or cares.

I think that cynicism is destructive, or at least non-productive. This is a generation for which free is the main economy. It's almost like it's an entitlement generation. They want jobs and want to get paid, but they don't want to pay for anything, and they can't understand why the economy is in the dumpster. It'll be a whole lot harder when they're faced with real decisions about how to pay for these services.
Click to expand...

You sound like an old person. I'm only half kidding, but you do seem to be making a lot of assumptions about "these people."

"They don't listen to the radio anyway"
How many previous generations DID listen? How many more won't? The cynic will say corporate radio doesn't care about the listener. Will it care if or when it doesn't have enough of them to sustain its business model? Perhaps radio's problem is generational, not economic.
 
kinetic said:
I'm only half kidding, but you do seem to be making a lot of assumptions about "these people."
Click to expand...

You're obviously familiar with the generational profile of Gen Ys. Anyone who deals with generational media knows what I'm talking about. The profile, for the most part, is pretty true.

kinetic said:
How many previous generations DID listen? How many more won't? The cynic will say corporate radio doesn't care about the listener. Will it care if or when it doesn't have enough of them to sustain its business model? Perhaps radio's problem is generational, not economic.
Click to expand...

In any case, it HAS to change. Staying the same obviously isn't working, and won't attract future generations. Radio has lots of problems. Most are economic, but some are generational. Every day I see pictures of radio DJs, and am shocked at how old they all look. No wonder young people don't listen to radio. It's all filled with old people! Young people aren't going to listen to old guys reading the news. It doesn't matter where they are. The connection needs to be more than geographic. They need to be at the same point in life, talking about issues the audience is interested in. That's not going to happen when the person on the air is old enough to be their parents! When I was there age, I refused to listen to anyone more than ten years older than me. I wouldn't be surprised if this generation feels the same way.
 
TheBigA said:
In any case, it HAS to change. Staying the same obviously isn't working, and won't attract future generations. Radio has lots of problems. Most are economic, but some are generational. Every day I see pictures of radio DJs, and am shocked at how old they all look. No wonder young people don't listen to radio. It's all filled with old people! Young people aren't going to listen to old guys reading the news. It doesn't matter where they are. The connection needs to be more than geographic. They need to be at the same point in life, talking about issues the audience is interested in. That's not going to happen when the person on the air is old enough to be their parents! When I was there age, I refused to listen to anyone more than ten years older than me. I wouldn't be surprised if this generation feels the same way.
Click to expand...

My sense is that they don't need what radio offers because they can go elsewhere to get what they want. I've often felt that the current business model is losing two farm systems: listeners and employers. There aren't as many places for apprenticeship, which reduces the talent pool, which in turn, diminishes the product, which in turn, turns off listeners and/or fails to develop new listeners. So not only doesn't radio hire new (younger) broadcasters, it isn't developing new (younger) listeners, either, or at least not to the degree it needs to in order to maintain its viability. That sounds like a problem that's both economic and generational.
 
kinetic said:
the current business model is losing two farm systems: listeners and employers. There aren't as many places for apprenticeship, which reduces the talent pool, which in turn, diminishes the product, e it needs to in order to maintain its viability. That sounds like a problem that's both economic and generational.
Click to expand...

Farm systems are very expensive to maintain, which is why they don't exist anymore in most places. The Hollywood star system died a long time ago. Even pro sports is killing it off. It's only really in baseball. College is the farm team for football and basketball. Other sports go to Europe or Canada.

On the contrary though, I think there are lots of places for talent to develop, just not for money. They can do their own podcasts or online broadcasts. As I suggest in another thread, they can build their own fan bases as artists today are doing. In fact I see lots of similarities between musicians and on-air talent. In the future, a radio station won't be a place for a job, but a place for distribution. That's kind of what it was in the 1920s.
 
Ultimately, if you are supposed to be serving the public but the public isn't paying you, then you cave into the needs if the sponsors who are paying you. That's business!

You can't have two full time bosses, it doesn't work.

If you complicate the equation with a third boss, like the major labes who are also indirectly acting like sponsors and are serving up a health plate of daily spam for breakfast, lunch and dinner then the audience is alienated ever more and you can't hide massive repetition with more commercials disguised as contests and give-aways.

It's a gigantic Catch 22 - as valuations go up, so goes the cost of commercials and the need to pay close attention to the commercial sponsor because, pissed off sponsors won't continue to help you pay your bills. Therefore, while radio focuses on the needs of the paying customer, the listener gets inundated with more breaks in programming to the point where the programming is just boring and bingo; they do arapid channel change, insert CD or turn on the iPod.
 
TheBigA said:
I think you're reading way to much into those comments. Those are people who don't get their local news from the radio. They never did. They're CC haters mainly. They don't listen to the radio anyway, and retaining local news on mainly AM stations was not going to attract them or keep them anyway. It's really a fake concern. They will continue to get their news from wherever, and it really doesn't matter if they are actually local sources or not. I mean, how many people actually know that their local weather forecast doesn't come from a local source. Most weather reports come from a NOAA office, or Accu-Weather, or the Weather Channel, or some place like that. No one knows or cares.

I think that cynicism is destructive, or at least non-productive. This is a generation for which free is the main economy. It's almost like it's an entitlement generation. They want jobs and want to get paid, but they don't want to pay for anything, and they can't understand why the economy is in the dumpster. It'll be a whole lot harder when they're faced with real decisions about how to pay for these services.
Click to expand...


Actually, you'd be surprised at how many Total Farkers are actually IN radio. Radio has already made your mistake a hundred times over, by dismissing vast segments of the population (and their unhappiness with your product) as unimportant. Once they're gone, they never come back. But then, as long as you get your paycheck, who cares about listeners, anyway?
 
aunti-terrestrial said:
Actually, you'd be surprised at how many Total Farkers are actually IN radio.
Click to expand...

Actually I'm not surprised because most of those comments read like the typical ex-radio folks I see here. More concerned with the change that hit their own personal life than what the listeners actually want.

Once again, it's pretty obvious that real listeners are more interested in finding out the weather or the news rather than where it comes from. The obsession over accents or street names is inside baseball. None of this has affected the cable news channels.
 
TheBigA said:
aunti-terrestrial said:
Actually, you'd be surprised at how many Total Farkers are actually IN radio.
Click to expand...

Actually I'm not surprised because most of those comments read like the typical ex-radio folks I see here. More concerned with the change that hit their own personal life than what the listeners actually want.

Once again, it's pretty obvious that real listeners are more interested in finding out the weather or the news rather than where it comes from. The obsession over accents or street names is inside baseball. None of this has affected the cable news channels.
Click to expand...

Did you mean the cable news stations that actually spend money on their products while they co-exist with local stations, or the 230 million weekly radio listeners who are spending less time with the medium (because they can get what they want elsewhere)?
 
kinetic said:
Did you mean the cable news stations that actually spend money on their products while they co-exist with local stations, or the 230 million weekly radio listeners who are spending less time with the medium (because they can get what they want elsewhere)?
Click to expand...

That's a loaded question. You're assuming they're spending less time with radio because they can get what they want elsewhere. Which leaves out the fact that they may be spending less time with radio in order to spend more time at work, more time with their family, more time with non-media like video games, or more time on the phone. For some people, they spend less time in the car commuting, which means they spend less time listening to drive time radio. And you also assume that if radio spent more on news content, that those listeners would change their habits and come back to radio. There needs to be a cause and effect. The decline in TSL didn't just start last month or last year. It's been going on for 25 years, despite local news, despite local DJs, and despite any content incentive that may have existed before consolidation.
 
TheBigA said:
kinetic said:
Did you mean the cable news stations that actually spend money on their products while they co-exist with local stations, or the 230 million weekly radio listeners who are spending less time with the medium (because they can get what they want elsewhere)?
Click to expand...

That's a loaded question. You're assuming they're spending less time with radio because they can get what they want elsewhere. Which leaves out the fact that they may be spending less time with radio in order to spend more time at work, more time with their family, more time with non-media like video games, or more time on the phone. For some people, they spend less time in the car commuting, which means they spend less time listening to drive time radio. And you also assume that if radio spent more on news content, that those listeners would change their habits and come back to radio. There needs to be a cause and effect. The decline in TSL didn't just start last month or last year. It's been going on for 25 years, despite local news, despite local DJs, and despite any content incentive that may have existed before consolidation.
Click to expand...

Considering some of the posts you've made here, I wouldn't be so quick to accuse anyone of making assumptions.

As for radio's future, I'm happy to wait five years and see what you have to say then.
 
kinetic said:
Considering some of the posts you've made here, I wouldn't be so quick to accuse anyone of making assumptions.

As for radio's future, I'm happy to wait five years and see what you have to say then.
Click to expand...

It's not an accusation. Especially since you didn't address any of the possibilities I posed.

A lot of people really think that the audience all wants the same thing. It's pretty obvious that they don't.

The Balkinization of the radio audience leaves two choices: Either provide lots of small, cheap choices to attempt to reach a lot of narrow interests. Or focus the remaining resources to serve those few large groups that still remain. But they can't spend lots of money and devote lots of resources to each of the small groups who use media. There simply isn't enough money to do that.
 
TheBigA said:
kinetic said:
Considering some of the posts you've made here, I wouldn't be so quick to accuse anyone of making assumptions.

As for radio's future, I'm happy to wait five years and see what you have to say then.
Click to expand...

It's not an accusation. Especially since you didn't address any of the possibilities I posed.

A lot of people really think that the audience all wants the same thing. It's pretty obvious that they don't.

The Balkinization of the radio audience leaves two choices: Either provide lots of small, cheap choices to attempt to reach a lot of narrow interests. Or focus the remaining resources to serve those few large groups that still remain. But they can't spend lots of money and devote lots of resources to each of the small groups who use media. There simply isn't enough money to do that.
Click to expand...

So do those stations (or owners) go away, and would that be a good or a bad thing?
 
kinetic said:
So do those stations (or owners) go away, and would that be a good or a bad thing?
Click to expand...


One thing I've learned: Life is not a reality TV show, where you can vote owners you don't like off the show.

So you should assume they don't go away, and if they do, they will probably get replaced by people who as bad or worse.
 
TheBigA said:
kinetic said:
Considering some of the posts you've made here, I wouldn't be so quick to accuse anyone of making assumptions.

As for radio's future, I'm happy to wait five years and see what you have to say then.
Click to expand...

It's not an accusation. Especially since you didn't address any of the possibilities I posed.

A lot of people really think that the audience all wants the same thing. It's pretty obvious that they don't.

The Balkinization of the radio audience leaves two choices: Either provide lots of small, cheap choices to attempt to reach a lot of narrow interests. Or focus the remaining resources to serve those few large groups that still remain. But they can't spend lots of money and devote lots of resources to each of the small groups who use media. There simply isn't enough money to do that.
Click to expand...


Wait, wait, wait, didn't you guys tell us that niche' formatting would superserve those many narrow interests? And you're telling us now that isn't possible? If it's just as impossible now as it was when ownership group lobbyists were pushing for more signals in order to superserve the cores in those niche audiences, then wasn't the whole premise fraudulent?
 
I'm curious. What's worse than a bunch of soulless corporate mooks who want to put syndicated radio on hundreds of stations nationwide, 24/7 (OK, maybe 20/7)?
 
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