I am a radio consolidator...

The following is an extremely loose and embellished transcription of the speech I delivered in my Music, Broadcasting and the Internet class at USC on Wednesday, February 28, 2007.

I am a radio consolidator and I would like to talk to you briefly about the future of radio as I see it and how we are going to get the "new generation" back to terrestrial radio. As you all know, we have lost a significant amount of listeners in the last five years and this is how I think we are going to get them back.

Let's talk about the new generation briefly. According to Christine Makris in a 2005 Boston Globe marketing report called "On Demand Killed the Radio Star," the age segment that owns the most MP3 players and iPods are from 12 to 17 years old. And that was two years ago, so I can bet those numbers have grown. The "new generation" has never lived without on-demand media, like TiVo, on-demand Pay-Per-View and broadband Internet, so radio just does not fulfill that on-demand need. To get the new generation to come to us, we need to go to them. We need to go to the Internet. With the prospect of a universal WiFi network for everyone to tap into in the next few years, everyone will be connected constantly and the radio industry needs to catch up with the times.

Simulcasting, while already in existence, is projected to take over 40% of all Internet radio listening in the United States by 2020, according to a Bridge Ratings Digital Media Growth Projections report from February 19, 2007. I think this is a pretty modest number because it does not take into consideration population growth, which is at an unprecedented rate, and the rapid improvement of technology. I think the future of terrestrial radio is a compromise with the Internet: consolidated companies like my own need to bite the bullet, pay the licensing fees and simulcast their content in order to reach the new generation and possibly capture the older ones when they are in their cars, or at work, or when the universal WiFi network goes down.

The other major element to attracting the listenership of the new generation and the listenership that we have lost in the past years is content. There are has been an enormous breakdown in the relationship between the record companies and the radio groups. Radio is no longer a "hitmaker" because of the availability of music to the consumer via the Internet and the straightening of the "long tail." Radio needs to be a service to the consumer for local and national information and for the discovery and acquisition of music. I do not believe people should have to search MySpace and other social networks for new music; that is our job.

Localization and diversification is the name of the game for the future of radio content. We need to bring back disc jockeys and local personalities who create playlists not dictated by the record companies but by their personal taste. We need new formats like the Pandora model of create-you-own-radio-station based on songs, artists and genres the listener already likes. Also using the digital technology, there can be formats where the playlists are completely determined by the listeners' votes. Created geographic and genre formats featuring unsigned and local music along with the majors will appeal to so many more of the new generation and the population in general.

Radio can also get in the retail business via simulcasting. If someone is listening on terrestrial or Internet radio and hears something they like, they should be able to get on the computer and purchase that song or album as they hear it. They should have a choice between the digital copy (MP3, AAC, etc.) or the physical copy sent to them in the mail, or both! My company could make a deal with Amazon or iTunes, or start our own retailer. This would be a great means of revenue for radio as a replacement for the overabundance of advertising that also drove our listeners away.

To summarize, simulcasting and diverse content models are the future for terrestrial radio and will bring our listenership back as well as help us acquire the listenership of the new, on-demand generation.

In the same report by Bridge Ratings, it said that there will 150 million average weekly Internet radio listeners by 2010. In just three years, half of the American population will be listening online. That's where we need to go and I believe we will gain back what we have lost and then some.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Del Colliano, Jerry. “Satellite vs. Radio vs. WiFi.” Inside Music Media. 26 Feb 2007.

Kusek, David and Gerd Leonhard. The Future of Music. Boston: Berklee Press, 2005. pp 148-152.

Makris, Christine. “On Demand Killed the Radio Star.” The Boston Globe. Nov 2005.

Spar, Debora L. Ruling the Waves. New York: Harcourt Inc., 2001. pp 362.

Van Dyke, Dave. “Digital Media Growth Projections.” Bridge Ratings LLC. 19 Feb 2007.