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In yesterday’s post, we discussed how the evolution of digital media and technology may be altering the role that broadcast radio plays in the music discovery hierarchy.
The spate of new options for consumers points to a familiar theme for this blog: the media environment has been repopulated with many new digital channels that play a growing role in shaping consumer tastes and broadcast radio’s competitive landscape.
Yet, radio continues to operate like it’s still in the ‘80s, as Station A continues to battle with Station B for ratings in the zero sum game known as audience share. As the Nielsen weeklies roll out, closely covered by the industry trades, they foster the illusion that broadcast radio operates in a competitive vacuum, competing for cume, AQH, and dollars in what has traditionally been an insular audio media world. Not anymore.
Back in those “good old days,” most people discovered new music and breakout artists the same way – on the radio, from friends, or a combination of the two. People’s tastes have always been diverse, of course, but the discovery paths were very similar and linear.
But as yesterday’s study of the impact of Spotify and Shazam on new music clearly shows, other dynamics are very much in play that are impacting radio’s relationship with audiences and how interface with media to enhance music discovery.
In many ways, radio has been here before. As a programmer of a rock station in 1981 when MTV debuted, it was clear to many of us in just a few short months that music videos were the new currency, changing the discovery/consumption equation.
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MTV rapidly became a go-to destination for artists and labels, providing a high-profile launching pad for new music. For FM music stations, MTV’s influence and power became a challenge. It forced stations to rethink how a song debuted, how it was perceived, and how the options available to local radio brands for exposure, concert support, and special programming had changed.
In some ways, MTV was the Pandora of the ’80s. But back in those days, MTV was really the only real change agent.
But today’s multi=media digital superstore is more analogous to the simplicity of World War II where America could clearly focus on three common enemies known as the Axis versus the complexity of the War on Terrorism or cyber-attacks, where it isn’t always easy to pinpoint the precise source of the disruption. trouble.
To a great degree, it’s the difference between what radio faced in the ‘50s with television versus the explosion of a seemingly infinite number of options today.
In many ways, “connected cars” symbolize the challenges facing broadcast radio today. Paul just leased a new Toyota RAV4 – not a luxury vehicle by any means. But in that dashboard is easy access to every local HD radio channel, embedded apps for iHeartRadio, Pandora, and Facebook, as well as weather, maps, satellite radio, and Bluetooth access to a smartphone and all the content it contains.
As we saw at CES last week, both Apple’s Car Play and Google’s Android Auto will be in many dashboards soon, along with embedded apps and other sources that provide consumers with more and more options.
We often talk about the new rules of music discovery, but for radio to be “discovered” and regularly used in these new vehicles, it will demand a rethinking process that focuses on the jobs that consumers hire FM stations to do in 2015 in these “connected cars.”
The good news is that music matters a lot to consumers – in some ways more than at any time in the past. According to Nielsen’s Music 360 study from this past October, it’s their top form of entertainment. Overall, three-fourths of Americans make the music choice, with TV coming in a close second.
A key reason is that music integrates with people in a variety of their listening locations and lifestyle environments. On a weekly basis, the car, at work, and the home front (doing chores) are the three prime music locales on a weekly basis. This is all familiar to radio people who have historically programmed their stations to be compatible with these same listening environments.
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But the distribution outlets and their corresponding choices in these spaces are expanding, forcing radio to strategically rethink what it can deliver in each of these environments that is different and more desirable than the other available options.
This now means more than simply playing the high-performing hits, time-stamping listening appointments, and giving away $1,000 a day. It means radio needs to stop staring at the rearview mirror and the way things have always been, and instead, start looking out the windshield to redefine itself in this new, uncharted journey of audio entertainment and information. Radio needs to redefine its role in the audio ecosystem.
It’s time to get out from behind the curve.