There are quite a big diversity of opinions about the future of radio even between professionals. I would like to present two contradicting points of views, hence, two different strategies.
Donna Halper, a respected radio historian and author who has spent over 40 years working in broadcasting, believes that:
“If radio is going to survive, which I believe it will and I believe it can, it’s got to get back to being live, local and getting involved in the community…Radio works best when it talks to me like it is my friend.”
From The future of radio: Is live and local content the key to its success?
However, John Gehron, the COO of AccuRadio (Internet radio), thinks that, despite the fact, that local radio can suggest "Live and Local", today's listeners want "Control and Variety". This can be suggested by Internet radio, which is presented by only four companies: Pandora, Last.fm, Slacker Personal Radio and AccuRadio.
In John Gehron opinion, due to the Internet, radio is going through the 4th Golden Age that could be characterized by following characteristics:
1. Personalization: the reason why people listen to the Internet radio. It gives control: to stop, to pause, to skip, to Like or Dislike.
2. Variety: due to frequency limitations, FM radio has just "Hit" format, where the most listeners are, but tastes of listeners are more diverse, and Internet radio can suggest much more channels (e.g. 500 channels by AccuRadio), classifying music by era, by composer… etc.
3. Low spot load: Internet radio has less commercials (4-5 per hour), that is one more reason why people migrate to the internet.
4. Ubiquity: "you don't need the radio to play the radio".
5. Global: the Internet radio is available worldwide.
Currently, the share of the Internet radio is small (3.8-4.0%), but success of the Internet radio could be illustrated by Pandora's audience growth by 10% during one month (from November to December, 2010, so do other Internet radios), while FM radio's popularity constantly goes down.
From presentation Future of Radio Conference 2011, 4th Golden Age of Radio.
Another tension is between talk and music. Perhaps Donna talks about talk show, documentaries etc. "Radio works best when it talks to me like it is my friend".
ReplyDeletePandore, Last.fm sounds more like John is talking about music...