Who will map out the future of radio?

Who will really map out the future of broadcast radio?

Radio is about to enter it’s most challenging and yet most exciting time for many decades. The future for radio is fantastic, if radio station executives get out of there ivory towers and start talking to their listeners, remember them they help pay the bills!

In the new digital age the listener will have a great deal more power than they have today as they will be able to share their views much easier than they have done in the past. Let’s start with research.

Traditional research is, whilst not openly acknowledged, flawed beyond belief. If a research company calls random numbers and then asks the listener if tracks are suitable or not, how do we know if the answers are correct? The real answer is we don’t. I for one have played games when contacted by research companies and claimed that a track I like would be a major turn off for me. I don’t consider myself any different to so many others who play games, you only have to look at the changes when it comes to political research results – they can often be widely wrong. So is there an answer? Yes. The empowered listener will soon be in a position, thanks to the digital age, of almost always voting for a station or track. Mark Dezzani recently quoted the levels of listenership to digital services. I am sure some were quaking in their boots when they saw the numbers. However, I was excited beyond belief. The chance to really know what the audience is listening to is a fantastic opportunity for both stations and even more so advertisers. Gone will be the days where huge advertising boards go up in the hope that someone driving home will remember RadioEric as opposed to the station they are really tuned into. Gone will be the days when people sit down trying to recall what was on the radio and/or being influenced by another in the home. The great news for sponsors and advertisers is that they will get real research based on fact not, as sometimes happens, fiction. So what will happen to some of the existing research companies? Many will adapt and some already are. However, it will be a tough time for all concerned and I can see that sector of the radio industry having to accept new players. Equally, media buyers will need to be more switched on – again a tough task for some as they are already under pressure from many areas. There will soon be new systems in place, famously one station started this process in the UK, and they will work. They will be based on digital information and more importantly if the listeners are still listening during the breaks and not surfing when the commercial break jingle hits the ears of the listener. My advice is look now, don’t assume that the world will stand still because one of your executives hasn’t told you about the digital age – get out of your ivory towers and look for yourself.

Whilst you are out of the office, start talking to people – real people the ones that are listening to your station. I appreciate this can sometimes be time consuming and could result in missing a few corporate lunches, but the weight loss will help. And can I offer you, at this stage, a major asset for your company – YOUR FORMAT! When I introduced the system of taking to listeners at RTI, there were looks of horror. I heard comments such as ‘we have a philosophy’. To which I replied, “which is”? I actually didn’t get a full reply. I often heard comments along the lines of ‘it’s done this way and always has been’. I also recall a senior person saying to me’ I know 99% about the countries radio and music’. All very dangerous comments I would suggest. The later was singularly the most dangerous I have ever heard – I would suggest a good radio person will claim they know about 30% and are trying every day to learn more and more and more. So how can the above give you an asset? The answer is simple, if YOU generate your own format/policy then that asset remains in your company, not the pocket of another. There are claims that audiences require huge rotation of the same, so-called, researched music. Why? We have already established that research can be flawed, but strangely when you speak to listeners you get a more, in my view, honest answer. I do agree that some minority groups will try to influence station(s) output. There was the fun time of a national station, a youth under 25-targeted service,  opening up a day solely to requests. It was great to hear how some groups managed to get tracks played that were obviously not from the normal audience, but hey it was fun. The above noted, we recently asked our daytime audience if they wanted to hear tracks more regularly during the week. The response we got was an emphatic no. The audience also cited that the RTI format was the reason why they left station A, B or C and now only listen to us. There were other comments about being less boring, which I’ll come to shortly. So just imagine what will happen at your next board meeting when you proudly announce you have a new format for your station that your audience really likes and HEY YOU OWN IT! The thing is to find out, you have to get out of your ivory towers and look for yourself.

In some ways I was a little disappointed to get the response, less boring from our audience, but we’ll work on that and drive towards exciting. Today, radio has a new competitor and it’s not the TV and/or any stupid disputes over analogue or digital. The new competitor is again the empowered listener. Whilst we could argue about music sharing, the fact is that if a listener buys a CD, due to hearing it on one of our stations, then they will maximise on their purchase. Why wouldn’t they? So the challenge for radio is to know how to empower the presenter/DJ/moderator to turn an MP3 player into a marketable product. If the station has no quality presentation then it truly is just another MP3 player - sponsors take note that MP3 players don’t need to have adverts, listeners can edit them out and/or change stations when your commercials start. For a station to be exciting, it has to have character delivered by professional presenters. Yes they need to work with, note I said work with, the audience to retain their interest and just ahead of the commercial break act as a marketing support person and pursued the audience not to surf away as the break starts. How you introduce this into your station is a question you need to answer yourself. I am happy to state you often won’t find the people you need via traditional methods, they will often not be the holder of diploma – they will often be good communicators who haven’t found their way into radio yet. I will also share with you that you will need to be brave, determined and very committed to make it work. To make sure it’s working, you have to get out of your ivory towers and look for yourself.

This brings me on to those that create music for music stations, all groups including those artists signed to major labels, those with smaller labels and the remainder who are for whatever reason unsigned. Anyone in radio who does not respect these people is living in cloud-cuckoo-land. However, respect is a two-way street. Gone are the days when record industry executives will dictate how many times and when a radio station plays tracks – I admire the ones that still try it on, as it were, but sorry guys the fact is we now have a symbiotic relationship. We are on an equal footing and both have two very distinct businesses’ to run. The music industry can no more dictate to station what stations play anymore than stations can dictate what music the music industry makes. Some tracks will work for a station and other tracks won’t, that decision has to be with the station. Equally, there is a huge demand for those often described as un-signed. Venues are often sold out because an unsigned band is playing – this is another joy of the digital age. For digital age you can now read the Internet, this has empowered both listeners and artists to an extent never seen before. Bands can market themselves and get huge returns on investment just via the Internet, if they are worthy of such rewards. Therefore, radio stations need to be aware of this and play tracks that are not always with the major labels. As it goes radio can be the A & R department for labels. So where does that leave the major labels and stations – quite simply it is a two-way street of respect. However, for both the music industry and the station execs to appreciate this, they both have to get out of the ivory towers and look for themselves.

The Internet is a very difficult prospect for many in the music business. I can understand that this is the case if you want to be negative about it. However, I feel the Internet is a fantastic positive opportunity for so many in this industry. For both musicians, artists and stations you cannot ignore the Internet and if you do it is at your peril. Let me again share an RTI story with you. Due to some really unexpected issues RTI wasn’t able to launch with its entire network – the way we wanted it. What happened was really difficult for me and I still don’t truly have the answer. I started receiving letters from people who claimed to be listening in areas where it wasn’t possible to listen, that service was not working. What I established was that an unauthorised person was taking one of our terrestrial signals, encoding it, sending it directly to a computer in another country and then onward to an unauthorised transmitter. A total nightmare! Eventually, a message must have got to the unauthorised outlet as it closed. However, there is a very important message to be had from this. We all have to think about how listeners are empowered and even if every P2P network is closed down, people will still get computers to speak with computers. Please don’t say it’s not possible because if you believe that you also believe that no anti-virus and/or anti-spyware are needed on your IT system. Also turn your firewall off. The fact is that listeners are empowered, the Internet Service Providers cannot control that which every subscriber does, therefore the better option is to embrace the technology available and work with it. How the music industry works with this issue is for that industry to establish. However, whatever is established please make sure it enables stations to stream unhindered and combat the people that may well be stealing your copyright and never will pay you anything. For radio stations I’ll look forward, maybe you could ask a teenager for help. Ask a teenager where a radio station comes from? Actually they don’t care. In the future they will receive radio via the bands used now, satellite and the Internet. The later will be a must as more people travel around the world, but they won’t even think about it coming via the Internet – it will just be on the digital tuner they use. If you are not sure about this technology being here today there are plenty of trade shows that will demonstrate this equipment to you, but you have to get out of your ivory towers and look for yourself.

Now to the lifeblood of commercial radio, advertisers and sponsors. Yes I appreciate that media buyers, as I have said before, are under increasing pressures. So let me ask you a few questions. Would you like to spend your marketing budget where:

1. The audience remains more than a few minutes

2. Stays tuned even when the commercials are being aired

3. And really listens to the radio If you answered yes to any or all of the above, so will advertisers and sponsors.

Yes I’ve seen the figures, yes I understand existing research. However, how quickly can you change? The growth of digital reception is massive, in the areas that are of greatest interest to sponsors. The future of research has to embrace those new listeners or you could find yourself on a very slippery slop without change.

In the last few years we have seen merger, merger and merger. Growth by acquisition and any other style of expansion known to accounting lady and gentleman. However, that can only continue for a little while longer. Then what? De-merger?

Our industry, both music and radio, has a vibrant future providing entertainment radio to huge numbers of people. However, it needs to embrace the empowered listener and the only way to do that is by YOU mapping out the future of broadcast radio. So who will be mapping out the future of your station, you or someone else? Do you still want to sit in your ivory tower?