Listeners are becoming bored with radio and even their much-valued streaming audio service Spotify which poses a modest opportunity for radio content creators.
- I recently asked my Music in Media class to bring videos to class of the radio industry – we spent one session on media consolidation and the effect it has had on the music industry.
- Among their submissions: clips of radio djs having fun – many of the students were fascinated by cameras capturing morning shows where personalities were joking and laughing, something they don’t hear on the rare occasion they listen to radio.
- BUT, they liked it – I noted the video clips that they brought to class were either from many years ago or from smaller market stations not adversely affected by consolidators, cost-cutting and corporate bankruptcies.
- Increasingly I hear young people complain about Spotify (not that they are tempted to give it up) because it is becoming “too predictable” and robotic.
- It’s important to keep eyes and ears fixed on younger demographics because they are the changemakers and because older listeners are later adopters to change.
The two vanishing breeds
- Station brokers – after all, the market to buy and sell radio stations is non-existent, radio has been dinged by hedge fund investors who are trying to find the exit and are trashing assets on the way out.
- Researchers – perhaps the worst mistake the industry tolerates is to cut research from the budget – you would be hard put to find money dedicated to audience research in most radio companies.
- In the 1990’s researchers were still hired but very often their recommendations were rejected – among the most common, fewer commercials, more variety and more music.
- Some stations slyly put sweepers and liners together to say they were addressing these issues but it didn’t take even a quarter hour to see that they were just words.
- Highly successful WBEB-FM, Philadelphia owner Jerry Lee was famous for saying he was looking to spend more money on research and he meant it – Bill Moyes was his researcher and the station remained the number one biller until Lee sold it to Entercom which proceeded to cut the research.
- Steve Butler, Tom Taylor and I commissioned a $30,000 yearly survey from Moyes when we ran Inside Radio (cash not trade) to expose openings to grow the publication which eventually became a daily even before the Internet.
What would the research say today
- It’s not fun to listen to radio – it’s too blah, too generic, too far away.
- Not enough music discovery (but Nielsen’s PPM discourages new music and rewards repetition), so read on.
- Too much repetition in music.
- Too many commercials (that one is never going away).
- Where are my favorite personalities?
- There’s no one on radio that sounds like me and talks about things I care about.
- Why are you shouting at me?
- Why do you repeat the same phrases (sweepers) over and over, it feels contrived not real.
- Not enough info on artists (this one is a head scratcher as to what programmers don’t get about the thirst for news about listeners’ favorite artists that they get on social media instead).
- Why is everything so predictable.
- Why no news? They love news but go to TikTok for it (half of one of my NYU classes said they listened to the last presidential debate mostly on TikTok so they can follow real people comments not professionals).
What it means
- Without spending on research, radio is at best flying without instruments and at worst letting hedge fund acolytes guess at what audiences want.
- Linear radio has lost touch with where they fit in to the overall digital world and operate without any type of roadmap other than cost cutting.
The bottom line: Radio without research leads to a guessing game that otherwise could have prevented podcasting and digital ads from distracting stations from the micro local radio audiences.
Jerry Del Colliano is a professor at NYU Steinhardt Department of Music and Performing Arts Professions Music Business Program. His background includes Clinical Professor of Music Industry at the University of Southern California, TV, radio, program management, publishing and digital media.
Reach me here.
New Musonomics Flash Episode: NYU Professor & Music Business Program Director Larry Miller and Lynn Gonzalez, partner at Granderson Des Rochers on DOJ v. Live Nation, Spotify’s low churn, $1B for Queen? here.
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