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THE FUTURE OF RADIO Chris Byrnes The February issue of Technology Review ran a feature article on "the ten technologies that refuse to die." At #8 was Broadcast Radio. Others on the list included analog watches, fax machines and dot matrix printers. The article mentioned that radio was declared D.O.A. after commercial television stormed on the scene in the 1940's stealing the national advertisers and taking pride of place in the home. As we know radio survived just fine, helped by the development of the transistor and portability, which made it the perfect medium for those on the go. But this article also sounded a warning and pointed out that recent ownership consolidation and cookie cutter programming, combined with the proliferation of mobile-internet games, MP3s and instant messaging all threaten radio's franchise as the real-time, go-anywhere companion today. This article played heavily on my mind as I was recently invited to offer some thoughts on the future of radio, and what broadcasters need to do today to keep the medium healthy for tomorrow.
Firstly, I am 100% confident that the next 20 years of radio will be more exciting than the last 20. And the last 20 years have been the most exciting time to be working in this amazing industry. We've gone from 45 RPM records, to reel to reel, to all digital audio on hard drive, voice-tracking, and of course the internet. It's been quite the ride, but we are on just starting. Here are some of the things coming to a radio station near you in the next few years
Voice Activated Seeking: We can shout a name into our cell phone and it dials the number instantly without taking our hands off the wheel. There are high-end radios that now allow you to search the radio dial based on format. This means that you can say "Rock" and the radio will find all the radio stations playing this type of music and offer you a five second sample. This will become standard on all radios within the next few years, so it's critical that your radio station owns the one word that best describes your radio station.
Convergence: Samsung already sells a domestic refrigerator that has a flat screen computer built right into the door. You can surf the net, check e-mail and leave electronic messages for your family. The goal is to create a "smart scan centre" and when you take a can of pears out of the cupboard or an apple out of the cooler you will scan it and the computer will create a weekly shopping list, and in time the groceries will be delivered right to your door. While no one really knows which device will become king in the average house, the feeling is that the radio will be incorporated right into this centre. It will have the ability to pipe the radio station of choice into any room in the house. It will wake each member of the family with their favourite radio station, and of course be able to record any program at any time.
Consolidation: Expect this to accelerate in the next few years, as the big companies continue to gobble up media in order to find the magic economies of scale. But also expect TSL to continue to fall as radio loses the "live and local" advantage. This requires that today's broadcasters invest in the future.
Satellite Radio: Expect to see this become more prevalent, and less transparent. Right now, many new cars in the U.S. are fitted with the service and the monthly fee is hidden in the lease cost, so the average consumer doesn't feel like he's paying $9.95 a month for the benefit. XM has over a million subscribers in the USA and Sirius says it has 150,000. The alarming statistic is that over 800,000 subscribers signed up in 2003, so if this trend continues it will really impact terrestrial radio. There is a feeling that the next generation of satellite operators will figure out how to provide the service using a different cost model. They may even offer a limited number of channels for free as a means of getting market share. Of course all car radios will soon have the satellite service as standard.
In-Car Competition: As commute times become even longer, car manufactures will offer more "toys" on the dashboard. GPS and navigation systems will become standard, always-on internet will be in the car somewhere and commuters will be able to check their e-mail, and perhaps even conduct live video conferences while stuck in traffic. All this will erode the time spent listening to radio, unless radio continues to invest in the future. We will see the continued development of "smart radios" that can push real time data in the car. The latest traffic information, the names of songs and the ability to purchase the music you are listening to will all become standard.
Instant Gratification: People are impatient. Now, products like iPod and TiVo are raising the level of listeners' expectations about "getting what they want... NOW." With iPod, music lovers can download their favourite songs encoded in digital files. They no longer have to wait through twenty minutes of commercials to hear their favourite songs. It will be more difficult for radio to compete by leveraging "music quantity" and "instant gratification" images. The pressure is on RIGHT NOW to build equity for our stations with non-music elements. Of course the music should be right... but what else keeps people on your station besides the music?
PPM: The way we measure listening will dramatically change. We'll no longer have to depend on the adequacy of our listeners' temporal lobes (that's smart sounding medical jargon for long-term memory) to find out how many quarter-hours we pull in the market in an average week. With PPM and other "electronic ears" we'll be able to measure exactly how much time listeners share with any given station. Obviously, there are still a lot of kinks to work out such as how we get credit for the time that listeners use the radio outside of what the electronic ears of a PPM-like-device detect. This will force radio to change the way it markets itself to consumers.
Universal Translation: Yuqing Gao and a development team at IBM's research center in Yorktown Height, NY are testing software that gleans meaning from phrases in one language and translates them into another, allowing people from different cultures to communicate. This could create an opportunity for radio to become truly global. Imagine Howard Stern or Larry King being beamed all over the world, thus potentially reaching a global audience. Unlike speech recognition technology, this system uses semantic analysis, extracting the most likely meaning or text and then instantly translating it into the language of choice. The software is likely to be "robust and ready" by late 2004 and IBM predicts within 10 years, it will be a standard feature on cell phones and PDA's making communicating in any language as simple as plug and play.
Distributed Storage: Another emerging technology builds on the concept of music services such as KaZaA, which lets people download and trade songs on the internet. Hari Balakrishan, an MIT computer scientist, believes the future centers around distributed hash tables, which will turn the internet into a series of automatically searchable filing cabinets. This could allow radio groups to store music or audio on the internet to be instantly accessed by radio stations anywhere on the planet. Complete format changes would be painless; it would lower program distribution costs for syndicators, and allow ad agencies to post one copy of their national spot to be instantly accessed by any radio station with the appropriate access.
Conclusion: Radio can and will remain a powerful medium tomorrow, providing the broadcasters of today invest in the future. We cannot keep "dumbing down" the product, treating listeners like they don't matter and reducing critical local information. It's what comes out of the speakers that matters and we all need to get back to creating the "fun" and local feel to this amazing medium.
Thanks to McVay Media's New Media Specialist, Daniel Anstandig, who also contributed to this article. Daniel can be reached at (440) 892-1910 or dan@daer.com. |
