Never really thought I would end up in radio growing up. Dunno, never really considered it as an option for a job, let alone a career. I wasn’t one of those guys who slept with the radio under his pillow and trying to get the distant radio signals from other far-away cities. Or pretending I was the next Wolfman Jack. But yet, here I am. Started my radio life as an intern at a legendary New York City radio station in 1984 and ended up working at various stations in New York City and Los Angeles with some of the biggest names in the business before coming to Washington D.C.-based WorldSpace Satellite Radio, where I’ve spent the last 10 years.
My time at WorldSpace has been nothing if not interesting. A lot has changed in those ten years – not only with technology but also with the way people choose to consume various forms of content and their attitudes about having to pay for that content.
At WorldSpace I spend my time strategizing, building, creating, developing relationships and leading. I am passionate about developing unique, compelling and exclusive content for various markets around the world and distributing it across various platforms. And even though the devices are extremely important and there are seemingly endless places to distribute content these days, it’s not about the device or platform, it’s about the content. As I’m fond of saying (and paraphrasing James Carville), it’s the content, stupid!
So at WorldSpace we focus is on creating content that is unique, compelling, exclusive and targeted to the specific needs of the listeners in each of the markets we serve – including India, the Middle East, South Africa and Europe. Once we understand the different needs in each of the markets we can then design a content strategy and lineup that is powerful enough to break through the clutter. The content has to be “bigger, faster, stronger” than what they’re already getting. If not, they don’t see the value proposition to purchase a subscription and pay for something that in their mind they can get for free.
In this space watch for my incoherent ramblings on all-things content related and especially how they apply to the satellite radio universe. I am a subscriber to both XM and Sirius (disclosure: WorldSpace produces some content for XM and XM is a small investor in WorldSpace) and have numerous opinions on both services as they currently stand as well as where I think they should be or should be headed. Stay tuned to this space!