henry
Silver Level Member
Posts: 316
|
Post by henry on Dec 5, 2013 12:48:46 GMT -6
CA, radio is still hung up over medium.
Medium doesn't matter anymore. Smartphones and tablets are the new transistor radio. Remember hearing how kids in the 70s would tune into KNAK and dance to their radios? Kids today do that: with Grooveshark's app on their phones.
Radio has nothing to offer except as a highly-efficient conduit (one-to-many) for a very limited selection of content. Consumers are picky now and limited selection doesn't cut mustard. The other free alternatives simply work better. The cellular (one-to-one) model has limitations, but the roll out of LTE (and better stuff down the road) is quickly erasing that limitation.
What does radio have left? It's ability to live stream. Which can also happen via smartphone/tablet apps. Sports play-by-play. That's about it.
And we haven't had the live stream revolution yet. YouTube is sitting on technology (which I'm not sure why they have delayed launching) which would allow users to not only post recorded videos, but live stream, and allow those videos to be played back later on-demand. It's what radio dreams of doing, but with a lot less equipment and overhead --- and AWESOME monetization data on the back end (exact user counts instead of rating estimations, log-ins/log-outs data down to the second, easily sharable on social media).
Radio could survive if it turned from a "radio business" into a "content business" (a strategy Bruce Reese of Bonneville/Hubbard has advocated for years). But so little of radio is a content generating business. So there's no business to evolve into. A few exceptions: NPR, local news, and big news talkers like KFI (which is going MORE local and gradually pushing onto iHeartRadio and YouTube, following the "content first" strategy). But even that has its flaw: MONEY. It's much easier to grow new content from the ground up on the web and monetize as you grow -- rather than taking expensive content like "John and Ken" and trying to figure out how to make it profitable on iHeartRadio.
99% of radio is D.O.A. There's no future for music radio, unless it's a big station in L.A. that can get tons of in-studio interviews with big artists. As much as it pains me to say it, CC has the right strategy with their "premium choice" model. Create a few national formats, and chew it up into local flavors. Use that as hospice to keep FM alive an extra decade and gradually shift everyone over to iHeartRadio. Then sell off the towers to religious broadcasters.
It happened to AM. FM is next. Only a decade away.
|
|
|
Post by CAwasinNJ on Dec 6, 2013 4:29:41 GMT -6
In theory the medium is not important. I agree with that. The problem is that wireless broadband streaming doesn't scale. Yes there are improvements being made to increase capacity, but it's still not going to be anything close to what we would need to move more than a tiny fraction of radio listeners to online streaming. It's plain old physics.
But really that's all irrelevant. The reason I see online services becoming more popular is because it's perceived to be better. In a lot of cases it is. That's radio's fault. The pointy-haired bosses of radio have cost cut in every way imaginable to try to increase their short term bottom line. That comes back to what I was saying about boring radio. If radio were more innovative and payed attention to being personality driven instead of voice tracking the same playlist to 20 different cities, radio would be in better shape. Some of the most successful stations in the country are doing exactly that, but there aren't that many of them. There used to be a lot more. When people are engaged with their audio source (regardless of the way they get it), that's going to result in more listening, more profits and a domino effect of more and more people listening to it. Streams are in a lot of cases not that much more compelling than radio, but radio has done such an awful job of engagement that the bar is insanely low. Radio can start doing this again. It does take money to start with, but if you execute it well you'll make up the money in relatively short order. The PHB's don't see that though. That's where they're failing.
I see streaming as becoming more important, but radio isn't going away. The naysayers have been predicting the death of radio since the 50's. It's still not going anywhere. What it is going to do is adapt. It has to, or else it will die. Fortunately for the radio business the system is self correcting. Those that don't adapt will go under. Then the stations will be taken over by those who see how it can work and will do it, and those people will make the adaptations instead. The same is true for the online streaming services. There's a certain advantage that streaming has that it's something different. Even listening to the same content but in a novel way can make it more interesting. Once the novelty wears off, there's going to have to be some real substance there or people will lose interest in that too. That's a danger I don't think the streaming services are taking seriously.
I also disagree that AM is already dead. Some of the highest rated stations in the country are AM's. But what they have is compelling content. The 1kw graveyarders running off the bird 24/7 are pretty much goners. The stations that have content (ie KFI, KNX, WCBS, WBBM etc.) are doing quite well. I would love to see what would happen if KSL went back to AM only. I'd bet that their ratings would suffer little to none.
|
|
|
Post by egnlsn on Dec 7, 2013 16:13:55 GMT -6
I agree that the demise of radio is greatly exaggerated. I'll take a good, local station (AM or FM) over an iPod playlist or streamed service anyday. (The only exception is RetroMediaAllstars, and that's because it is local to me and I've listened to the people behind the mic for years.) Two reasons: I like to get a feel of the local area and support it; and what is liked/listened to in one area of the country may not be what is listened to in another area. Occasionally, I'll listen to Music Choice (music service carried by DirecTV) and I've done the XM Radio thing. I've also listened to (streamed) various stations from around the country I've always found it interesting that stations that purport to play the same music as stations in my area have a very different playlist than what I hear on the radio. Sure, it falls into the same genre, but much of it I have never heard before.
|
|
|
Post by David on Dec 11, 2013 21:40:12 GMT -6
Let's not forget that there are millions of low-income people and seniors in this country who simply can't afford to buy all (or any) of the new electronic gadgets, but they can afford to buy an AM/FM radio or two. You can buy an excellent Sony AM/FM radio on Amazon or eBay for around $20.00, and for many people that's all they can afford to spend on entertainment. As long as there continues to be such a wide income gap and an increasing number of low-income people in the U.S., I sincerely doubt that terrestrial radio will be dead within the next 10-20 years.
|
|
|
Post by CAwasinNJ on Dec 12, 2013 0:40:34 GMT -6
David has an excellent point. I'd take it a little further and say that you can buy a really cheap FM radio at a dollar store for a buck. Try getting anything from the internet for a buck.
|
|
henry
Silver Level Member
Posts: 316
|
Post by henry on Dec 12, 2013 15:20:03 GMT -6
What does radio have left? It's ability to live stream. Which can also happen via smartphone/tablet apps. Sports play-by-play. That's about it. And we haven't had the live stream revolution yet. YouTube is sitting on technology (which I'm not sure why they have delayed launching) I couldn't have spoken sooner. Out today: thenextweb.com/google/2013/12/12/youtube-expands-live-streaming-channels-still-requires-accounts-verified-good-standing/You can buy an excellent Sony AM/FM radio on Amazon or eBay for around $20.00, and for many people that's all they can afford to spend on entertainment. Or a used tablet on eBay for $50. Tablet computer is super, super, super cheap. The hardware only costs a few bucks. Most of what consumers pay for is R&D. And it's mostly paid off now. www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-10-31/a-cheap-tablet-surge-for-the-holidaysCNET has this great video: www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Ja9qzgxOQINow that phones have hit a "feature plateau" (there's nothing new they can really add), the next big war is for the "budget phone." The under-$100 crowd. My LTE-enabled phone is $125.00 out of contract. There are plenty for around $50 (that's flip-phone territory). In fact, almost no flip phones are made anymore. Low-income consumers are the first to go CPO (cell phone only household). The U.S. hit 30% two years ago: www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nhis/earlyrelease/wireless201112.pdfThe denial on this thread is the very reason radio is so super-duper hosed. The very fans of the medium who have the ability to evolve it into a multi-outlet platform are the very first people to shut their eyes and scream "no radio's been here forever. And it will be here forever. Forever!" Here's what's going for us (now): - Cellular is expensive. But the costs are collapsing. LTE doesn't make data more expensive, it makes it cheaper. Time is expensive and faster-speed data means less time per gigabyte. This opens up data accessibility to more customers for lower and lower prices.
- Radio is native to cars. It's true. I drove a friend's 1994 Camry today and ZHT was blasting. But it won't be long before those cars are off the road, and the newer cars with headphone jack inputs will become ubiquitous. And everyone carries their phone.
- Bluetooth isn't in every car. But bluetooth handsfree will become a law. A national hands-free law is as inevitable at the 0.08 BAC law a decade ago. And when it does, a huge aftermarket for bluetooth streaming and phone interface connectivity will make using apps a breeze.
- The ad dollars go to radio. But the shift is coming: Pandora (and other apps which haven't even been invented yet) allow super-targeted ads. I was walking in a neighborhood near a Brick Oven pizza when Pandora gave me an ad for MY location. We're just at the beginning of a marketer's dream: Super-targeted ads.
- Radio gets big buys. But smaller buys will mean more money for apps: Apps allow an advertiser to buy as many or as few impressions as they want (opposed to KSL where logistics not only require you to buy the entire listening audience, including those you don't want to target, but you also have to buy a long duration of spot time, often a campaign that runs for weeks). Breaking this media ad monopoly is a 'win' for the ad buyer, because she has choices now. It opens the list of prospective ad buyers to a larger pool of potential buyers.
- Radio ownership is crippled under huge debt, while new apps are relatively cash-flow friendly. Both Cumulus and Clear Channel have massive multi-billion-dollar balloon payments they are trying to kick down the road. In fact, Clear Channel's entire income won't cover the interest on their loans. The empire will collapse ... in 10-20 years (they'll keep kicking the can) which means very little investment into the old product to keep it attractive.
www.allaccess.com/net-news/archive/story/118970/clear-channel-arranges-more-time-to-pay-off-debtwww.allaccess.com/net-news/archive/story/124881/cumulus-refinances-2-23-billion-of-debtI'm sorry, but from all sides, radio is pretty much hosed. The transmitters will stay on. But the air staff will continue to shrink and shrink until there is pretty much nothing left. A few big players (KSL shows, or Premier Talk talent) will find ways to migrate over to apps in the next 5 years, and work both angles. But the days of playing music and selling ads is really kind of over. I give it a decade at best. In theory the medium is not important. I agree with that. The problem is that wireless broadband streaming doesn't scale. Yes there are improvements being made to increase capacity, but it's still not going to be anything close to what we would need to move more than a tiny fraction of radio listeners to online streaming. It's plain old physics. But you aren't moving them to streaming. A few will. You're moving them to a chopped-up approach, where you send entire files, and its played out of a cache on demand. Radio's biggest competitor isn't even iHeart or Pandora. It's the YouTube app. Do you know how often I pull up a YouTube video as I get in my car, and listen to the song? Nearly every day. And then I flip back to radio or MP3s when it ends because there isn't a safe interface to select the next song. But that won't last long. The car interface is the next big area tech will be hungry to attack. 9to5mac.com/2013/07/09/apple-picks-up-digital-dash-touch-screen-dashboard-patent-that-could-improve-ios-in-the-car/I agree that the demise of radio is greatly exaggerated. I'll take a good, local station (AM or FM) over an iPod playlist or streamed service anyday. I miss the neighborhood fruit stand, too. But Smith's ran 'em out of town decades ago. And now Walmart is putting a dent in Smith's (which is actually Kroger). It's ad dollars. Baby boomers are making the ad buys right now. Guys and gals under 35 don't give a ratt's butt about old media. They'll do new media ad buys. And there won't be any money left funding local content (what little is left of it).
|
|
|
Post by CAwasinNJ on Dec 13, 2013 0:12:55 GMT -6
What you're saying is true, but the biggest problem is still the bandwidth. As you said, it's improving. That said, live streaming in bumper to bumper traffic isn't happening with the technology we have now. If we can gets streams to run over multicast (good luck with that) then maybe we can talk.
There is an answer though, but as far as I know it's not being done. You set up an account with Pandora or Iheartradio or whatever and tell it the kinds of stuff you want to listen to. The app on your mobile device sucks up 5 or 10 or 15 hours worth of whatever you've programmed into it at home every night when it's connected to your home WiFi. Then when you're out and about, you can listen to or skip or move around through your personal playlist, but you never have to worry about bandwidth bills, buffering, dropouts, deadzones and all that other stuff because you already have all of it in the device. But that's not without problems either. The music industry probably isn't going to be too happy about that, since there are DRM issues. That it doable, but it does hamper the use a bit. I think this could really work well, but I'm not aware of anyone who offers a service like that. (I've been rolling my own version of this for years and yes it works.)
|
|
|
Post by David on Dec 13, 2013 14:44:07 GMT -6
Ya know, I remember about 20 years ago when the so-called industry experts were predicting that the compact disc would make vinyl LP's obsolete by the end of the 20th century. That prediction never came to pass; in fact, many of those same industry experts that predicted the death of vinyl are now writing articles trumpeting about the "comeback" of the LP. (Of course, for some of us, vinyl never died.) I think I'm going to put all my radios into mothballs for about 20 years so that when terrestrial radio makes a comeback, I can make a fortune selling off my collection on eBay and finance my retirement.
|
|
dolt
Member
hopping thither and yon
Posts: 89
|
Post by dolt on Dec 13, 2013 23:30:25 GMT -6
Radio still has utility for sponsors reaching a shrinking aging demographic. Other technologies will clamor for and eventually get some of the spectrum. Perhaps after radio properties plummet in value, there will be a window for live local creativity.
|
|
|
Post by David on Dec 14, 2013 12:53:26 GMT -6
As much as I love listening to radio stations on line, I wouldn't want to rely on internet streaming and a cell phone in the event of a major disaster like an earthquake. More than likely, the first things to go down or be overloaded in a major emergency will be the net and cell phone service, and broadcast radio and land lines will most likely continue to function. There have been several documented cases of this scenario that have played out in the U.S. over the last 10-15 years, which is reason enough for me to continue to rely on AM/FM radio for local information and keep my land line for now.
|
|
|
Post by egnlsn on Dec 14, 2013 22:59:21 GMT -6
Not to mention that not all areas have reliable internet or cell coverage. Most service providers offer data packages with X amount of data usage, and most cell service providers packages are relatively small. Too much data transfer could cause one to go over their plan's allotment, thereby incurring overage charges. Streaming could end up costing one quite a bit more than a one-time $20 purchase of an AM/FM radio.
Not saying anything against streaming, but I really don't think it's going to take over the world and totally obliterate everything else.
|
|