Colorado Media Newsroom
July 13th, 2023, 12:40 PM
From Radio Insight:
https://i0.wp.com/radioinsight.com/wp-content/images/2023/07/question.jpg?resize=200%2C200&ssl=1Throughout the digital age, radio has been looking for its irresistible object ? the app or function that non-radio users will eagerly share with each other. Broadcasters have given their airtime to HDRadio, to NextRadio, to streaming apps, just to watch as Pandora or Spotify or TikTok or Wordle exploded without them.*
When Pandora was radio?s biggest concern, I once heard it characterized as a product that was too innovative to have been developed by broadcasters, especially at a time when radio people were more focused on programming to PPM and figuring out where to place stopsets. As it happened, Pandora ended up encroaching on radio?s most basic function ? ?more music, less talk.? But its ?music genome? origins gave Pandora extra cachet. Users mostly listened to the hits; users were happy to have an option behind the hits, not unlike having far more satellite radio channels than they actually used.
These days, the radio app I most hear about from non-industry friends is the map-based Radio Garden, (https://radio.garden/) with its unusual radio worldview (literally). Every few years, Radio Garden will capture the fancy of a New York Times or Guardian. When it does, friends will forward me the article for months afterwards. (Now there?s TuneIn Explorer, (https://help.tunein.com/en_us/categories/tunein-explorer-r1w1pzQ6i)with similar functionality, but more-mainstream station offerings.) Radio Garden’s best feature is how rekindles the romance of radio (and listening to far away places) that has been dormant for years with most listeners. It also came from outside the mainstream-radio world.
When broadcasters gathered in Toronto last month for the first Radiodays North America, one of the key panels asked ?Radio: Can You Handle the Truth?? ?Radio is going to have to evolve into something more and greater to compete and stay relevant,? said the panel blurb. ?Can the industry do it? Does it have the imagination to make it happen? Where will talent come from? How will it be distributed??
Any of those existential questions could have been a separate session, making it hard for the panel to make headway on any of them. Panelists also defaulted often to ?radio will be fine; we survived the eight-track tape in the car dash?-style arguments. It?s hard for broadcasters not to do that, but that defensiveness overlooks the need for any successful business to constantly reinvent or at least freshen the product. Part of the reason broadcasters will now sweat out their inclusion in each model year?s Ford is because we don?t have our own new features each fall.
But over the last few months, I?ve seen an opportunity, equally obvious and unimaginable.
No matter who you are or what your beliefs in our divided America, you are probably dismayed by either TikTok or Twitter.*
Maybe both.*
When I wrote this column yesterday, there was an opportunity to be a competitor to either service. Today is the first full day of Meta Threads, and based on the response so far, one of those holes may have been filled already. But there’s always the opportunity for an app that competes with both. What if you could come up with one app that had both conversations about #AT40 reruns on Saturday*and videos of users lying in a puddle of purple milkshake?
What if that app came from broadcasters?*
Could radio do it? Could the oft-proclaimed ?original social network? help create the next social network?
I am in no way unaware of the seeming naivete of this question. But digital is where radio has put its emphasis in recent years. We have talent who have pivoted toward digital content. Broadcasters helped drive podcasting?s first hit in Serial, and are behind two of its three biggest networks.*
If radio doesn?t create the next irresistible app ? whether a competitor for TikTok, Twitter, or something else, could it form a partnership with whomever does? An alliance that makes an easy-to-use radio dial part of an app that isn?t focused on radio? iHeartLand on Roblox is a move in this direction. So is the availability of streaming radio at Apple Music, something I?ve never heard mentioned in radio?s constant device promos.*
Radio would benefit from the cachet of non-radio apps. Some in the digital space would be unwilling to embrace radio. Others would appreciate radio?s reach, and its marketing lists.
Radio still has a lot of work to do on its existing digital experience, (https://radioinsight.com/blogs/254200/its-time-for-radio-to-take-control-of-tech/) both in terms of organizing its choices for listeners and in terms of spotload and stopset replacement. With the former, I?ve been encouraged by the return of the Audacy stations to TuneIn in recent weeks, as well as TuneIn?s expansion of its own offerings. Just making streaming better could certainly keep digital divisions busy indefinitely. Plus, both the “new toy” and cost-savings potential of AI could easily shift their focus away from anything else.*
That said, part of the issue with radio?s transition to new platforms has been its reliance on a post-radio generation. If not everybody tasked with moving radio forward grew up with radio, is enamored of radio, or even really understands its strength, let them create the products they are passionate for. Perhaps that is how we?ll find a next Pandora ? something that stumbles into its mainstream-radio functionality. Or maybe we?ll just find the next irresistible object and use that leverage to move radio forward.
more (https://radioinsight.com/blogs/254391/the-app-that-will-carry-radio-into-the-future/)
https://i0.wp.com/radioinsight.com/wp-content/images/2023/07/question.jpg?resize=200%2C200&ssl=1Throughout the digital age, radio has been looking for its irresistible object ? the app or function that non-radio users will eagerly share with each other. Broadcasters have given their airtime to HDRadio, to NextRadio, to streaming apps, just to watch as Pandora or Spotify or TikTok or Wordle exploded without them.*
When Pandora was radio?s biggest concern, I once heard it characterized as a product that was too innovative to have been developed by broadcasters, especially at a time when radio people were more focused on programming to PPM and figuring out where to place stopsets. As it happened, Pandora ended up encroaching on radio?s most basic function ? ?more music, less talk.? But its ?music genome? origins gave Pandora extra cachet. Users mostly listened to the hits; users were happy to have an option behind the hits, not unlike having far more satellite radio channels than they actually used.
These days, the radio app I most hear about from non-industry friends is the map-based Radio Garden, (https://radio.garden/) with its unusual radio worldview (literally). Every few years, Radio Garden will capture the fancy of a New York Times or Guardian. When it does, friends will forward me the article for months afterwards. (Now there?s TuneIn Explorer, (https://help.tunein.com/en_us/categories/tunein-explorer-r1w1pzQ6i)with similar functionality, but more-mainstream station offerings.) Radio Garden’s best feature is how rekindles the romance of radio (and listening to far away places) that has been dormant for years with most listeners. It also came from outside the mainstream-radio world.
When broadcasters gathered in Toronto last month for the first Radiodays North America, one of the key panels asked ?Radio: Can You Handle the Truth?? ?Radio is going to have to evolve into something more and greater to compete and stay relevant,? said the panel blurb. ?Can the industry do it? Does it have the imagination to make it happen? Where will talent come from? How will it be distributed??
Any of those existential questions could have been a separate session, making it hard for the panel to make headway on any of them. Panelists also defaulted often to ?radio will be fine; we survived the eight-track tape in the car dash?-style arguments. It?s hard for broadcasters not to do that, but that defensiveness overlooks the need for any successful business to constantly reinvent or at least freshen the product. Part of the reason broadcasters will now sweat out their inclusion in each model year?s Ford is because we don?t have our own new features each fall.
But over the last few months, I?ve seen an opportunity, equally obvious and unimaginable.
No matter who you are or what your beliefs in our divided America, you are probably dismayed by either TikTok or Twitter.*
Maybe both.*
When I wrote this column yesterday, there was an opportunity to be a competitor to either service. Today is the first full day of Meta Threads, and based on the response so far, one of those holes may have been filled already. But there’s always the opportunity for an app that competes with both. What if you could come up with one app that had both conversations about #AT40 reruns on Saturday*and videos of users lying in a puddle of purple milkshake?
What if that app came from broadcasters?*
Could radio do it? Could the oft-proclaimed ?original social network? help create the next social network?
I am in no way unaware of the seeming naivete of this question. But digital is where radio has put its emphasis in recent years. We have talent who have pivoted toward digital content. Broadcasters helped drive podcasting?s first hit in Serial, and are behind two of its three biggest networks.*
If radio doesn?t create the next irresistible app ? whether a competitor for TikTok, Twitter, or something else, could it form a partnership with whomever does? An alliance that makes an easy-to-use radio dial part of an app that isn?t focused on radio? iHeartLand on Roblox is a move in this direction. So is the availability of streaming radio at Apple Music, something I?ve never heard mentioned in radio?s constant device promos.*
Radio would benefit from the cachet of non-radio apps. Some in the digital space would be unwilling to embrace radio. Others would appreciate radio?s reach, and its marketing lists.
Radio still has a lot of work to do on its existing digital experience, (https://radioinsight.com/blogs/254200/its-time-for-radio-to-take-control-of-tech/) both in terms of organizing its choices for listeners and in terms of spotload and stopset replacement. With the former, I?ve been encouraged by the return of the Audacy stations to TuneIn in recent weeks, as well as TuneIn?s expansion of its own offerings. Just making streaming better could certainly keep digital divisions busy indefinitely. Plus, both the “new toy” and cost-savings potential of AI could easily shift their focus away from anything else.*
That said, part of the issue with radio?s transition to new platforms has been its reliance on a post-radio generation. If not everybody tasked with moving radio forward grew up with radio, is enamored of radio, or even really understands its strength, let them create the products they are passionate for. Perhaps that is how we?ll find a next Pandora ? something that stumbles into its mainstream-radio functionality. Or maybe we?ll just find the next irresistible object and use that leverage to move radio forward.
more (https://radioinsight.com/blogs/254391/the-app-that-will-carry-radio-into-the-future/)