The Future of 90 Second Commercials In Exchange For Downloading “Free” Music

The latest attempt by the record industry to swim upstream against Apple's iTunes appears destined to fail even before it ever gets started -- at least that's what the majority of my USC students think. Free music is a good thing. Being forced to watch a 90-second commercial every time you download that free music is a bad thing. Not being able to own the music is one thing. Having it all disappear within six months is quite another thing. This leads some Gen Y'ers to ask "What are these folks thinking?" Yesterday's announcement that Universal will take several million dollars in&hellip

Sirius Terrestrial Radio

I keep getting this gnawing feeling that some satellite radio channels are sounding more and more like the terrestrial radio from which it was supposed to save angry listeners fed up with hype and commercials. Today I heard Sirius Six -- the Sixties channel -- with a live jock promo (over an intro no less) for a Sirius promotion (buy an another subscription, get a Sirius radio for home included in the price). This, along with jocks who are trying to sound like terrestrial djs, seemingly endless promotion of other Sirius channels and modern Top 40 formatics tells me you've got to hate terrestrial radio commercials an awful lot to put&hellip

iPod Fatigue

My students at USC have begun to utter the "F" word in public. It's unthinkable, but it is happening. "Fatigue" like in i-Pod "Fatigue" is the buzz. There is no chance -- zero -- that these members of the next generation are angry with their iPods and ready to throw them away with traditional media. But what is significant, I think -- and would be worth monitoring -- is that they are looking for Apple's iPod to do more. The question of how much more is also up for debate. In our informal classroom polls, the students seem evenly divided on whether they want their iPods to be telephones or their telephones to be iPods. There is no&hellip

HD Will Not Save Radio

The radio industry is betting that high definition digital radio will make it more competitive against its perceived threat from satellite radio. Only one problem. The real threat to terrestrial radio is not from satellite radio, but from the next generation of listeners who spend their time listening to music interactively. This next generation -- Generation Y -- has been raised on the Internet and is not enamored of what terrestrial radio has to offer. It's more than whether radio stations cut their commercial loads or add more variety, it's about interactivity. Almost to a person the top executives who run the consolidated&hellip