New Radio Strategies

Following on from Billy Sabbatini’s excellent post on the death or otherwise of Radio, I thought I’d post on something that’s been bothering me for a while.

What, exactly, do we mean by ‘Radio’?

Is it a stream of music on the net, with no segues, links or context? You can call it that; many excellent net providers do, but I don’t really think that’s it. Is it terrestrial radio streaming? Maybe… but that’s not new, it’s just brand extension, surely. Is it podcasts? Well, for me that’s closer, but I’ve got issues there, to do with timing, spontaneity, and the shared experience, so probably not.

So what is it? Something else, something new?

Here’s a definition I pulled off the web two minutes ago: “The sending or receiving of messages or effects, and especially of sound, by means of electromagnetic waves without a connecting wire” Now, that’s very literal, and very accurate. But that’s not it either, for me.

‘Radio’ has been going since the 20s (here’s details of the first US and the first UK stations, from 1920 ands 1922 repectively). It’s a perfect example of technology enabling a new medium, something we’ve seen a lot of recently. But what started nearly 90 years ago has never stopped evolving. We need to dig a little deeper.

I think a narrower definition most people might generally accept is one centred on music output, with or without speech-based radio for Sport, News, comment and ranting/informed discussion. Implicit in that concept is a relationship, as Billy pointed out. For the most part, it centres on some communication flowing from station to listener. This is almost always passive on the listener’s part, and almost always one-way.

Until now. Here’s where the technology of the web aces the 20th century model. The web has weakened the power of all the traditional media powerhouses of the 20th century.

The web gives you lots of ways to access hot new music – so Radio is no longer the go-to place for hot new songs.

The web allows feedback. Smart cookies like last-FM and Pandora spotted the possibilities of user feedback, and they are reaping the benefits.

Terrestrial Radio is looking hard at ways to fight back, and to offer what they still have – the listener relationship – across multiple platforms.

Radio has one more powerful USP, and Bill spotted that as well. Not everyone wants to spend time messing with configuration settings and preferences. We do enough of that stupid computer stuff already, right? Even geeks like me just want to be blown away by something fresh and new. Asking us to invent, quantify or define that for a Radio service provider is plain stupid. We like stuff, or we don’t. Maybe we can be persuaded something is good. That’s the battleground.

That’s where Radio – on whatever platform it adopts – has the upper hand. It’s a question of offering the listener something they can relate to. It’s a question of trust, dammit. And it should involve feedback. Now if I could put my finger on the way to combine all this stuff, I’d be a very rich man.