I’ve never been very good at predicting the future. Witness all the failed lottery tickets for a start, never mind all the old technology and pieces of kit that litter the loft, supposedly both cutting edge and future proof.
But now I need some assistance in predicting life in 2012.
Over the next few months I will begin to re-appraise our current Media Production Professional Practice degree here at the University of Teesside. The current degree has served its purpose well with strands in radio and television, but it is coming to the end and a new one must be written for an autumn 2009 start.
The new degree will still have radio and television in it, but it’s the area where these two sometimes meet – we’ll call it new media for want of a better term – where I need help.
What skills will students graduating in 2012 need? Clearly they will need to know one end of a microphone from the other; they’ll have ideas on editing, packages, documentaries, news bulletins, music, podcasts, commercial production and all the other myriad programming and technical aspects of radio. But how will this interface with the internet? Will graduates seeking radio jobs need a variety of web skills? Will the software simply do it for them? Will there be new ways of listening to radio that will influence what they need to know in their undergraduate years? How will this connect with television?
Or, as some people have said to me, radio is radio is radio – why worry? The skills remain the same; it’s just the platforms that differ.
I’m not worried about programming and production styles that might go in and out of fashion – if you’ve observed the industry any length of time you’ll know what goes around comes around and this month’s flavour is last month’s bad taste. But that aside, it’s important to get this right for any number of reasons.
I was at a conference in January and in one of the workshops a senior BBC editor was asked what skills she wanted graduates to have. “Just give me people who can think,“ she replied. This was less than helpful. All our graduates can think. It’s impossible to graduate without being able to think, despite what you might read in the popular press.
So what do 2012’s graduates need to know?
Any ideas, anyone?
Lottery ticket, anyone?
No Trackbacks
You can leave a trackback using this URL: http://www.newradiostrategies.com/2008/03/28/2012-and-beyond%e2%80%a6%e2%80%a6/trackback/
One Comment
Paul,
I think it’s a GREAT question. And it’s something I’ve asked myself a lot and am dealing with here as the head of the content department at WorldSpace.
The message to the content folks here has been that the role of Program Director has changed from what it was 10 years ago, 5 years ago, hell, even 1 year ago. The parameters of the role has expanded tremendously over time and new skills are required in order to perform the same job. And on top of that, there are a whole bunch of new types of jobs that didn’t exist a few years ago – and all these types of jobs center around the understanding that consumer expectations regarding content have changed – what they get, when they get it, how they get it, and how much they’ll pay for it! I think that people expect their favorite content to be available (in various forms) across various platforms.
As a small example, over the last few years we embarked on an initiative to get the Program Directors of each of the channels to take control of their individual website, instead of having it managed by a the corporate web person. The reason being was that who better to represent and communicate the individual channel brand than the manager of the brand!
It was difficult going at first. Generally speaking, people saw the web extension of their brand/channel as “extra.” It was something that definitely took a back seat (even the third seat!) to everything else. But they “had” to do it, they at least attempted. But those who “got it” really got into it…And over time, everyone saw the importance of the integration of the web with the on-air and you could see the improvement in the various channel websites and in how they made it a priority.
To your specific question, agreed, the kids who graduate in 2012 will obviously need to know from one end of a mic to the other (programming, etc, etc). And regarding the internet, I think it would be most important for them to develop as many web skills as possible. Even though there is software that can do a lot of the coding and heavy-lifting, they should have an idea of how to do basic design (including graphics), but even more importantly this education is necessary so they have an understanding of the possibilities!!
Radio is becoming more “visual” – just like the lines between the Internet and television have blurred. There is an importance of utilizing video on the station’s website to add to the radio station listener’s experience; video of station events, remotes, etc, etc…And maybe there will be more people who “watch” radio than listen – i use Howard Stern as an example – i know of some people who don’t subscribe to his radio show on Sirius, but they do pay for his TV channel and “watch” his show!
And I think that there will be new ways of listening to radio – in addition to the Howard Stern example above, perhaps Podcasts will have a more important role – just like rss feeds have changed the way we can use the Internet, i think podcasts might do the same for radio. Maybe podcast will be how people “consume” radio – in short spurts, but very specific spurts.
my two cents!