wrote:
"New Technology Is Already Replacing Radio"

By Jerry Del Colliano

My longtime friend Dan Mason, the CBS Radio President who is leading
the dramatic turnaround of the company made a statement the other day
about technology and radio.

Dan reportedly told his new media road show in New York that "$1
billion in ad dollars were telling you that the iPod or satellite
radio will lead to the death of radio. That's a myth. To say that an
iPod or satellite radio, with little or no human connection, will ever
replace radio is absurd." (from PaidContent.org).

Well, maybe not satellite radio, but iPods have already changed the
dynamic for radio. Just ask a young person who is not listening to a
Walkman and is listening to an iPod. Not radio. But an MP3 player.

CBS is moving in the direction of trying to get radio into new
technology. It revealed a new media player that will feature several
radio stations at once including Internet brands. They've jumped into
the personalized radio business with Last.FM. Have a deal with AOL.
Their own individual station streams and so on.

My experience with the next generation does not bode well for any
strategy that proliferates traditional radio onto new delivery
systems.

The next generation doesn't like radio.

Not the stations. Not the concept. There's simply less need for it in
their lives.

New technologies will not only replace radio among the next
generation, they already have. And this generation is huge -- with as
many Gen Y'ers as there are baby boomers.

I agree with Dan that the idea that new technologies will replace
radio is -- to use his word -- "absurd" if you're talking about older
Gen X'ers and baby boomers. This group loves radio and will appreciate
receiving something they already like on their computers or mobile
devices.

But that's as far as you can go.

Without the next generation the radio business will continue to hit
the wall. Once the present economic downturn ends -- still a long way
off -- there won't be enough new young listeners to help radio
continue to grow. It becomes a losing proposition. More radio
listeners die and fewer new radio listeners use traditional radio.

The next generation wants to stop, start, time-delay and delete its
programming.

This generation wants to mash it up -- have a say in what it sounds
like or how it is used.

They want to deliver it to each other -- share it -- at will.

They want community (what we used to call local radio) through social
networking online.

One of the hardest things for me to deal with in my years of working
with the next generation is that they don't like radio and don't
understand what I like about it.

When I describe it, they say what I am describing is not what they
hear on the radio.

We're an industry in denial that technology has changed the game. But
only radio people have the power to adapt and create new content for a
new generation and on the devices they use.

But to begin, we have to understand that more has changed than how to
deliver radio programming.

It's not about the technology.

It's the sociology.

http://insidemusicmedia.blogspot.com...replacing.html

Hey, Eduardo - dah ya think HD Radio will save terrestrial radio?



I had lunch with Kipper McGee, the Program Director at WLS, about a
month ago. We caught up on old times, talked about new technology, the
future of HD, the future of Radio, and generally solved the world's
ills. Most everything we discussed would be debatable ad nauseum, but
there was one comment that came out and laid on the table that caught
both of us off guard, and even silenced the table next to us...also
radio people. The comment:

"When you're in the car and reach for a remote to rewind Rush
Limbaugh, you realize just how much TiVo has impacted our lives."

That was an 'Ah-HAH!'moment.

Now, I don't use TiVo. But I did build my own DVR, and with an
outboard ATSC tuner, I do get to record, pause, and rewind live TV.
Something I can also do with satellite radio. And more than once I've
caught myself trying to rewind WBBM, or WGN (IBOC noise has made it
impossible to get WLS most of the time, now, in Grayslake).

The author, here, makes a good point...the younger generation has no
use for low tech entertainment like radio, anymore.

No, it's not going away anytime soon. And Dan Mason is
right...technology with no human connection will never replace radio.
However, with radio moving to more and more automation, voice tracking,
or just tracking songs one after the other on weekends, the difference
between terrestrial radio and some satellite channels is often times no
more than the number and frequency of the commercials. And the
difference between Radio and the iPod content is dramatic. Audio
programming is now available through many sources, not just Radio. With
content delivery through cellphones staged to become the most
convenient, and the most practical. But the emphasis is on the
content...not the technology. Radio has always done what is best for
Radio...broadcasting for themselves. Room cume. And the listeners,
often, be damned. Take what we offer and like it. And, oh yes,
alternative choices...we'll just render those unlistenable.

This thinking will render terrestrial radio stations, eventually,
unnecessary.

What is driving new media listening is content. Unless Radio focusses
on content, and not just new and impressive ways of cluttering up the
air with sales gimmicks, listening will move to where the desireable
content is. That could be podcasts, Wi-Fi radio, cell phones...pick a
path. But it certainly won't be HD radio. And it may not, in the long
haul, be Radio at all.

That will be up to Radio to decide. It's Radio's game to lose. But
it'd better move quickly. The public taste landscape is shifting. And
it's not toward terrestrial radio.

As for IBOC....IBOC is to radio what DAT was to audiophilia. It is a
technology that at the time conceived was a great idea. But wrangling
and maneuvering, like what happend to DAT, or AM Stereo for that matter,
delayed IBOC into the marketplace when there were already developing
alternatives. IBOC was leapfrogged into irrelevance. IBOC brought
interference to the bands, and orphaned enough listeners to move them to
alternatives. Here in suburban Chicago, my $1200 tuner sits idle,
because there is so much noise, both AM and FM, now, on my favorite
stations that it's no longer enjoyable to listen. So, I do with
Satellite. Podcasts. And the occasional webfeed.

I'm certainly not alone.

That's not to say that Radio is dead. Nor, for that matter is IBOC.
There's just too damned much money invested for either to simply go
away. There will be a fight to keep alive until the last drop of
everyone's blood. And that includes appeals to the courts, the Congress,
the FCC for laws, rulings, regulations and mandates to create a 'level
playing field.' for HD/IBOC in particular, and Radio in general, against
alternative media.

And that's happening already. Radio, and iBiquity, have appealed to
FCC to mandate inclusion of AM/FM and HD into new satellite receivers.
Radio has appealed to FCC to slap satellite radio with content
restrictions. Radio has appealed to FCC to mandate Radio companies to
satellite Access. And put heavy restrictions on satellite broadcast
operations.

Hmmmmm....Odd behaviour for a market driven medium claiming to be in
such fine health.

The truth is, that the listeners will decide which way they wish to
go. Which techologies they wish to support. And they'll do it on the
basis of CONTENT. They'll go where they get to hear what they want to
hear. It's time for Radio, and especially HD Radio, to start embracing
that reality and put some effort into content.

Before they really are broadcasting only to themselves.