Shimes,
Is it worth sacrificing the the quality and integrity of your content and not connect with listeners for some "non-traditional revenue?" Either people in radio are ignorant about how to connect with their audience or they don't care. If you don't have any loyal listeners, nobody's going to go to the website. The people making decisions have no clue about how to appeal to their listeners. The content sucks. Instead of using multiple stations in a group to appeal to niches and cultivate a loyal listeners, they are still trying to appeal to as many people as possible: in turn appealing to no one.
I still remember, about 5 years ago discussing this with a management person, siting XM and iPods as examples. He told me that satellite radio is a fad and doesn't affect local radio. He just shrugged me off when I told him of an plaque on the wall at Circuit City in Vestal congratulating them for being one of the top sellers of XM receivers in the country. Yes, Circuit City in Vestal was one of the top XM radio sellers IN THE COUNTRY! Coincidence?
BTW, my wife and I are in our low 30's with 2 kids, a house, good jobs, and two cars and both of us have satellite radios, iPods, and listen to Pandora or Slacker radio on our computers: all of which we can customize.
Don't blame Arbitron; blame the greedy salespeople. They have ruined radio. They know nothing about creativity and entertainment. They just regurgitate whatever corporate mantra is emailed to them in an effort to keep their job and then they whore out every aspect of their stations to try and gain any short-term buck they can get. When was the last time a programmer actually made a programming decision in this market?
I'm saying all this because I am sad that it has come to this.
Is it worth sacrificing the the quality and integrity of your content and not connect with listeners for some "non-traditional revenue?" Either people in radio are ignorant about how to connect with their audience or they don't care. If you don't have any loyal listeners, nobody's going to go to the website. The people making decisions have no clue about how to appeal to their listeners. The content sucks. Instead of using multiple stations in a group to appeal to niches and cultivate a loyal listeners, they are still trying to appeal to as many people as possible: in turn appealing to no one.
I still remember, about 5 years ago discussing this with a management person, siting XM and iPods as examples. He told me that satellite radio is a fad and doesn't affect local radio. He just shrugged me off when I told him of an plaque on the wall at Circuit City in Vestal congratulating them for being one of the top sellers of XM receivers in the country. Yes, Circuit City in Vestal was one of the top XM radio sellers IN THE COUNTRY! Coincidence?
BTW, my wife and I are in our low 30's with 2 kids, a house, good jobs, and two cars and both of us have satellite radios, iPods, and listen to Pandora or Slacker radio on our computers: all of which we can customize.
Don't blame Arbitron; blame the greedy salespeople. They have ruined radio. They know nothing about creativity and entertainment. They just regurgitate whatever corporate mantra is emailed to them in an effort to keep their job and then they whore out every aspect of their stations to try and gain any short-term buck they can get. When was the last time a programmer actually made a programming decision in this market?
I'm saying all this because I am sad that it has come to this.