Hear That? It's The Crunch. Will There Be A Crash?
To set the scene, a couple of factoids should be reported:
What connects these events? Greed, mostly. Grabbing hands in the early part of the decade looked at radio as a guaranteed money mill, without once considering that radio might have competition. That competition is thought to be the personal music player, represented most publicly by the iPod and its progeny.
This conventional wisdom is, at worst, wrong, and at best, an excuse for poor performance. The problem is that in competing against its perceived competition by trying to become more iPod-like, radio has become more automated and less personal - because, as it turns out, a less personal station is much cheaper to run, too. (Trust me, I know, though I'm doing it more out of necessity than desire, but it might be helpful to know that Altrok 90.5 HD2 is, by design, on a personalization upswing, not a downturn. I hope.)
Commercial radio is basically in the middle of a lengthy hara-kiri session. It's shedding every semblance of what makes it appealing in its quest to compete directly with iPods. And it'll lose that battle, because if it comes down to a "battle of the iPods"... well, on a real iPod, the listener has picked all the music. Advantage iPod.
How long can commercial radio be run solely by those for whom money trumps utility. Without utility, radio is nothing. Someone, eventually, will get that clue...and they will make money.
- Having gone completely belly-up, Atlantic Broadcasting's assets in South Jersey (several AM & FM radio stations whose profitability was consumed by alleged mismanagement and fraud) has been bought at auction by an Atlantic City businessman who assembled a coalition of buyers that wanted to keep the stations local. Total purchase price was just upwards of $4 million.
- Having neatly sliced their most successful station's listenership in half by choosing political sides, Millennium Radio is reportedly selling its assets (including WJLK, former home of the HD2 signal for Shore Alternative) as well.
What connects these events? Greed, mostly. Grabbing hands in the early part of the decade looked at radio as a guaranteed money mill, without once considering that radio might have competition. That competition is thought to be the personal music player, represented most publicly by the iPod and its progeny.
This conventional wisdom is, at worst, wrong, and at best, an excuse for poor performance. The problem is that in competing against its perceived competition by trying to become more iPod-like, radio has become more automated and less personal - because, as it turns out, a less personal station is much cheaper to run, too. (Trust me, I know, though I'm doing it more out of necessity than desire, but it might be helpful to know that Altrok 90.5 HD2 is, by design, on a personalization upswing, not a downturn. I hope.)
Commercial radio is basically in the middle of a lengthy hara-kiri session. It's shedding every semblance of what makes it appealing in its quest to compete directly with iPods. And it'll lose that battle, because if it comes down to a "battle of the iPods"... well, on a real iPod, the listener has picked all the music. Advantage iPod.
How long can commercial radio be run solely by those for whom money trumps utility. Without utility, radio is nothing. Someone, eventually, will get that clue...and they will make money.
posted 5/09/2011 10:42:00 AM
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