Attention radio friends...and especially a certain radio group head who thought I was an idiot 4 years ago when I predicted this and fired me. Pandora is killing radio and radio station streams arent the answer. Why? Because if you stream the same lame product you put over the air nobodys going to listen to it on the Internet, either. When your product sucks, distribution systems dont matter. Like I told Jeff Lieberman 4 years ago, compelling, local content is the only thing that will save you. From NOW Newsletter today... Digital radio is a fast-growing adolescent. Kurt Hanson founded the RAIN Newsletter in 1999, when a tiny fraction of Americans even knew what broadband could do. In Sunday’s “State of the Industry” update, he confidently predicts a day when “the lines will cross” between the number of hours a week we spend with online radio and the time with broadcast. In 1999, Americans age 12+ spent over 20 hours a week with AM/FM radio. By 2008 Internet listening had begun at the very bottom of the TSL chart at less than one hour a week. Now the AM/FM number is below 11 hours a week – and Hanson says that “the growth is modest for the streaming of the top five groups” like Clear Channel, CBS, etc. But “what has taken off is Pandora.” Hanson points to other factors – “monetization per hour is improving.” AM/FM listening derives about 7 cents an hour from each listener, while Pandora (on the wings of a better job converting its mobile listening is up to about 3.5 cents per hour. What should AM/FM broadcasters do to respond? Hanson’s analogy is to 1975, when FM first began to encroach on the turf of AM. He suggests broadcasters craft original content for the new medium – to claim some share of the “billions of dollars of value” being created. Hanson says broadcasters can see the situation as a threat – or an opportunity.
Posted on: Mon, 07 Apr 2014 12:11:10 +0000
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