The digital revolution has had an impact on most every facet
of modern media: we read newspapers on tablets and Kindles, watch television on
our phones and make video telephone calls with our laptop computer. Absent from this list is radio. Sure there are some apps for radio stations
but up until now radio stations and our consumption of radio programming today
is not all that different from our great grandparents. In fact, if you found an old radio in the
attic dating back to the 1930s and you could get it to turn on, that radio
could receive most every local radio station now operating today.
We are likely to soon witness a change in how and where we
receive radio programming and that change might well be more revolutionary than
what we all experienced with television.
This revolution could change forever the economic model of radio
broadcasting.
Radio stations have operated in such a way as to cover a
specific geographic area. Anyone driving
cross country has experienced the frustration of listening to a baseball game
or interesting talk program only to lose the signal as you drove further away
from the station’s tower. Radio stations
based the cost of their advertising spots on the coverage area and the number
of people who listen.
Most stations have for several years streamed their
programming on the internet and those with an internet connection could receive
the station no matter where they were.
There are even internet radios that can receive most any streamed
station in the world. The popularity of
these devices and services has been modest since most people listen to radio in
their automobile and, up until now, internet access while driving down the
highway has been elusive.
Close attention to advertisements for new cars will show
that this is changing and changing fast.
The dashboard now is becoming a multimedia center for getting email, instant
messages, map direction and, yes, internet radio. A driver on the Santa Freeway will be able to
listen to a station in Cincinnati as effortlessly as a commuter on I-75. Services like iTunes radio, Prodigy, Spotify
and iHeart Radio will show up on the dial along with WLW and WKRC.
In essence it makes every radio station a potential global
station. What it will do for the
advertisers is uncertain. Will Mr.
Gilkey want to spend money to advertise his windows to thousands of homeowners
who can’t buy them? How about local news
and weather?
Managers of radio stations have a lot to think about as
another facet of our media faces extraordinary change. Stay tuned.
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