I don’t know if you know about WFUV. Based in New York, at Fordham University in the Bronx, ‘FUV is a college station that just happens to kick serious butt in New York City. Why? because they offer an individual voice in a stultifying conservative market. It’s ironic that a town as vibrant and stimulating as New York should produce such formulaic radio, but that is radio market economics these days. WFUV spotted a gap and charged right through. Now, though, there’s another reason to cheer them on, beyond their inventive programming, impressive audience figures and invaluable training and development work.

WFUV have launched a new internet-only service – the alternate side - with a statement of intent that cheers me enormously: ‘New Music. New York. Now.’ This is a public radio service, and the station is supported by the New York State Music Fund. That said, what we now have is a New York-based station that is proud to reflect and champion musical activity in its own community. And because it’s from New York, I’m hearing a slew of fiery attitude-laden inventive new stuff. I’m thrilled. Of course, local radio playing local music is not a novel idea, but in truth, its implementation is tragically rare.

Of course, The Alternate Side is by no means the first such operation on the net. There are hundreds of interesting and alternative radio streams to discover. A sterling local initiative in my neck of the woods is the excellent Rhubarb Radio. But to see something as intelligently assembled and as engaging as The Alternative Side emerge in an area which is a hotbed of creativity, but where mainstream radio has long since abandoned any ideas of localness and adventurousness… just gladdens my heart. I’m excited. Maybe others will be too.

There are many challenges involved in thinking about adapting traditional radio practices to distribution via the internet, but I wanted to focus on one in my first post. Understanding the economics of sound broadcasting is, I believe, as important as understanding how the technology opens up the possibility of linking sound to other forms of media communication, and how audience may shift the way they listen. My central point is that the current idea of radio as a mass medium is based upon the economics of over-the-air broadcasting, that the use of the internet as a broadcast medium radically alters these economics, and so implies that we need new models of radio practice.

In essence, while over-the-air radio is largely a high fixed cost / zero marginal cost activity, internet radio has far lower fixed costs, but relatively high marginal costs. This should be apparent if we compare the costs involved in setting up a significant over-the air station with studio, production and broadcast staff, and transmitters with those required for internet broadcasting. The general observation is backed up by some academic research (Ting and Wildman 2002). Of course, with the regulatory directions faced by licensed broadcasters, and the attention to higher production values amongst over-the-air station managers, contrasting with the desire amongst online providers to automate as much as possible, this isn’t surprising. It is, though, the marginal cost profile which is most important. An over-the-air station with 500 listeners incurs the same costs even if its listenership goes up to 500 000 listeners. That’s not to say that the station won’t improve its production values (and so costs) if the larger listenership raises more revenue, but to make the point that there aren’t any direct costs involved in the extra listeners: the stations still has to pay the same station, labour and transmitter costs regardless of the number of listeners in the geographical area in which it broadcasts. By contrast, the costs of adding the additional bandwidth to service extra listeners faced by internet broadcasters adds significantly to its costs. Even though in the years since Ting and Wildman undertook their study bandwidth costs have fallen, it will always drive up costs to add listeners online when compared with the zero marginal costs of the FM broadcaster.

The ordering of costs in traditional over-the-air radio has always pushed stations to attempt to maximise their audiences within their broadcast footprint. There are again qualifications – stations target wealthy, or less well-served, groups in competitive commercial markets – but mass audiences and spot advertising-based funding characterised the main business model for late twentieth century radio. Each station will have a breakeven point where advertising revenue covers the fixed costs. After this point the revenue from each additional listener is all profit, so even if the marginal revenue falls as the scale increases (as is often the case with broader market groups) potential profits can be considerable.

In online radio, the higher marginal costs of the extra bandwidth may be greater than the additional revenue, especially if marginal revenue falls as scale of listenership increases. It may well be worth having smaller, more tightly-focused listenerships. This may well be even more the case when you start to add additional gains that online distribution presents. I’ll return to some of these gains in future posts, but just to pick a few makes the point well: the ease with which the listeners can be profiled suggests tighter marketing is likely; the ability to charge for listening rights means subscription charges are possible; and the ability to construct bespoke services with computer compiled programmes responding to listener preferences, all make new sorts of radio service more likely.

This all suggests to me that radio formatters and programmers can start to think in radically different ways about how we design radio services for listeners. This opens up considerable possibilities for public service and community broadcasters, and certainly in the commercial field it looks like a business imperative.

References
Carol Ting and Steven S. Wildman ‘The Economics of Internet Radio’ at intel.si.umich.edu/tprc/papers/2002/89/InternetRadio.pdf

Audio slideshow producer Ben Chesterton on location in Africa

There was a television show back in the eighties called “Radio with Pictures” which played music videos from around the world. The name was nothing more than a snappy oxymoron at the time – but it’s turned out to be rather prescient. The future of radio would seem destined to include pictures of some description…

It stands to reason really. Many of the platforms on which we consume radio now feature a screen: DAB, mobile phone, ipod, computer monitor etc. Which is why the BBC has employed a team of young boffins to investigate the visualisation radio – and ask themselves the pertinent question “What exactly does radio look like?”

Even radio advertising is in on the act… The search for fresh revenue streams has inspired the creative arm of Global Radio to produce audio/visual commercials for clients which are displayed on their stations websites. Simon Forster, the Creative Services Manager for Global’s UK branch in the West Midlands, says the service is proving increasingly popular. They’ve produced over 30 of these “hybrid commercials” this year alone, at very lucrative rates.

“Enhanced podcasts”, such as the ones produced for the Chris Moyles breakfast show, have been around for a while now and have proven their success on the BBC website. (Although these types of files are not universally supported and can cause play-back issues.)

Although mainstream radio may have picked up on the trend towards “visual radio” – more could certainly be made of the opportunity. Switch on any radio station available via freeview, satellite or cable in the UK – and pretty much all you’ll see is a large blank screen staring back at you…

Another form of audio/visual narrative that’s gathering on-line momentum is the “audio-slideshow”. These differ from traditional vodcasts as they utilise still images instead of video and are therefore far easier to produce – and quicker to download.

As the name suggests, viewers/listeners see a series of still images while hearing a complimentary audio documentary. These pictures can be manipulated by cropping, dissolving the image, fading in or out, or directing the viewer’s eye with the “Ken Burns” technique – the name given to the act of moving a still image across the screen. But why try to explain it – when you can, quite literally, see for yourself…

This example comes from photographer David White and producer Ben Chesterton. I first got to know Ben and his family while working on a project in Ethiopia. He was in charge of a BBC World Service Trust project, training journalists to create innovative, often provocative programmes for Radio Ethiopia.

Before his involvement in development radio, Ben had enjoyed an award winning career as a documentary producer for the BBC. I was therefore surprised when he turned his back on traditional radio to start “duckrabbit.info” – a company specialising in bespoke audio-slideshows. I was curious to find out why and invited him answer a series of questions for New Radio Strategies…

As a former producer of traditional documentaries for Radio Four, what was it that attracted you to audio slideshows?

I used them as a training tool for journalists in Kenya. To shake and wake them up and force them out of the studio by confronting them with what was going on in the refugee camps. Apart from that, I love photos and I was becoming creatively frustrated with my work – so I thought I’d have a crack at something different.

Are audio slideshows more closely aligned to visual or audio documentaries?

I think it all depends on the use of the audio slideshow. I mean, at times it might have more in common with the language of art or poetry then documentary. I don’t think it’s got too much to do with radio in the sense that a good slideshow is completely dependent on the visuals to make sense, whereas it might not be so dependant on the audio.

So can they truly be considered a new form of “radio”?

They can be a great way of promoting radio but to call audio slideshows a new form of radio isn’t something I’d agree with. In fact there’s nothing really new about them. What’s new is the publishing platform, the web, which makes them worthwhile because there’s a potentially massive audience.

What are the differences between producing an audio slideshow – compared to producing a purely audio based project?

The major difference is that peoples attention span on the web is very limited so you are looking to contain an audio slideshow to usually around three minutes. For someone who is used to producing half hour docos this is really challenging! The other thing is learning to let the photos lead. At the end of the day it’s the photos that will keep people hooked, or otherwise.

What is the future of audio-slideshows as you see it?

It’s hard to say. I think they will have a limited use on news websites like the BBC. I think that radio people will start to use them to promote radio documentaries, if they can pull some budget together for this. Certainly Radio 4 could do really well promoting some of their stand out documentaries on the BBC website by using audio slideshows. I think commercially they offer a lot of possibilities for organisations to get stories out about themselves. I also think they offer plenty of possibilities for citizen journalism, for the way that everyday life is chronicled. They are also a great way of making art available to many more people on the web, in a way that is engaging and memorable.

Do you have any recommendations for people wanting to make their own slideshows – and where can people go to discover more about audio-slideshows?

Just come to our blog www.duckrabbit.info/blog where we showcase loads of great examples and also links to other great websites doing a similar thing. I recommend the software Soundslides, which is simple and produces great looking slideshows.

You can have all the kit in the world but at the end of the day it’s all about how you tell the story.

On the agenda were the challenges of the current economic climate, the opportunities arising from new media and new technology and creativity. Topics that are very relevant to the readers of this blog too….

The general perspective is that the overall economic climate will remain bad for some time to come. This will have a severe impact on the advertising income, traditional the main source of income for radio-stations. Advertising will move more and more to digital and on-line media, as those are relatively cheap and have very good accountability.

On the other hand for music radio stations, these new media and distribution challenges have some serious issues that comes with those:

• The recession will put pressure on advertising income in the ‘core’ business…
• New media and on-line distribution rights for music are still in the infancy phase and the music industry and rights organisations are developing the models as those happen. This creates a challenge for commercial radio station owners as it is difficult to plan the business around uncertainty…
• Advertisers and media agencies are not that familiar yet with new media and tend to stick with traditional mass media and the advertising models around those…
• New media and on-line distribution adds additional cost to a radio station and the limited revenue that comes from those is not immediately covering these cost…

In my upcoming posts I will share more on these individual challenges and how those impact the business and what might be ways around those issues.

The advantage of a recession sometimes is that you will have to think smarter and smarter to make your business work and innovation and creativity are key…

That makes Pandora’s new app the third most successful in the iPhoneverse. Pandora can sadly not now be received in the UK because of our obscenely restrictive copyright restrictions, and I truly regret not being able to listen to them any more. They are, for me, the best webstreamers by far. The iPhone hookup got them 180,000 new users in three days. They claim a new user every two seconds. This is BIG stuff.

So what do we take from this? I think we are finally seeing another conjunction of new technology, audience, demographics and circumstance. You need ease of use; you need attractive programming; you need affordability; and you need someone to spot the gap and fill it. This is uncannily similar to events in the 50s when Rock and Roll and Top 40 Radio came together.

This may be a huge step forward. I hope so; Pandora deserve it. I still won’t call it radio, though. In my luddite book, radio still involves someone communicating with you. I’m sure Pandora have an adorable detailed and fantastically well-connected database, the fruit of their very savvy staff. I’d kill to be able to play around with it. But I can’t relate to databases. I still want to hear from real people. But if I was living permanently in the US, Pandora’s app would be enough to make me get an iPhone.

I’ve written about these satellite radio micro-channels before here and here and I hate to sound like a broken record, but I will.

Investing in creative, compelling programming pays off.

Sirius just announced that Coldplay will take over one of their channels (Alt Nation) for ten days beginning Friday, June 13th. The launch of the channel, Coldplay Nation, coincides (shockingly!) with the release of the band’s “Viva La Vida” album which will be during the channel’s 10-day run. As is stated on the Sirius website, Coldplay Nation “celebrates the June 17 release of Coldplay’s new Viva La Vida with Chris Martin and the band’s personal introductions to songs from the new album. You’ll also hear music from throughout their career, artists who influenced the Coldplay sound and current favorites.”

This cuts to the heart of what radio has to do to succeed – create programming that is unique, compelling and exclusive. If listeners are given a compelling reason, they will listen and become fans of a radio station or in the case of the satellite radio providers, subscribe to their service.

Coldplay is one of the biggest bands today with one of the most anticipated new releases on the horizon. If you’re a Coldplay fan, the channel is great news for you because you get to listen to a channel that is running what you consider compelling content. Those who aren’t Coldplay fans may not listen, but they will hear about it (thanks to cross-promotion) and they will get the message. The message being that one of the globe’s biggest artists is doing something big and something exclusive for the service that they subscribe to. Sure, it may not be an artist that they’re particularly interested in, but nonetheless they are once again reminded of the fact that “cool things are always happening here” thus subtly giving them additional justification for subscribing to Sirius – which is critical during this time where every cent of discretionary household spending is analyzed for potential reductions.

With Viva La Vida being their 4th studio album, Coldplay doesn’t have the catalog to support a channel for an extended period of time like Sirius’ other micro-channels, such as Springsteen’s E Street Radio, Jimmy Buffett’s Radio Margariville, Elvis Radio, Siriusly Sinatra or The Grateful Dead channel, but that’s hardly the point. With the announcement and imminent launch of Coldplay Nation, Sirius has scored a coup and like George Bush can proudly say “Mission Accomplished,” although without the irony. They’ve sent the message to fans of Coldplay, to non-fans of Coldplay, to subscribers of Sirius and to potential subscribers of Sirius.

This is nothing earth shattering, in fact it’s extraordinarily simple. But then again, most things are. Invest in programming. Be creative in the programming. Offer something compelling and unique and people will respond, even in this day and age of changing consumer habits, declining radio listenership and of serious questions regarding the relevance of radio to people’s lives.

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But the new bosses appear to be – bloggers? Not only that – but bosses that give presentations at the Skype offices and then upload them to Slideshare. Don’t they realise they’re running an old media firm and that they’re not supposed to understand – let alone be ahead of the curve on – this whole interweb thing?

Still stranger, these are not just bosses posing as bloggers for the sake of appearing hip. They actually say things to their staff like:

We know some of you write blogs – we enjoy reading them… We want to reassure you all that you can speak your minds about what’s going on. We’re serious when we say we want your input, and you don’t have anything to fear about expressing doubts or concerns

And what is One Golden Square anyway? Just a blog? A street address (my London geography knowledge is near nil, other than the odd round of Mornington Crescent)? A hint at the new name for the radio station?

The team: Donnach (silent ‘ch’), Clive and Adrian are Absolute Radio – essentially a consultancy firm who have been given the reins of one of the UK’s leading commercial radio brands. And their mission, as they see it, is to remind people how much they’ve always loved it.

The weird thing (for me, anyway) is the chatty, approachable, ‘call me Donna’ feel to the blog. It’s immensely encouraging and great to see this sort of open, communicative, new-era thinking applied to station management.

Commercial radio will no doubt find it very confusing. And, for the moment, so do I. But regardless of what will end up coming out of the speakers, I think I like this new station.

I suspect that this will only work in the UK – but I’d be keen to hear your thoughts on it.

As he pointed out, now that social engagement is moving from being a destination to a feature, it’s a big opportunity for radio.

Indeed.

Terrestrial radio has done a lot of things wrong in recent years but a way for them to get back in the game and re-establish their relevance is to make sure this is not an opportunity lost. Radio ain’t dead, but it’s broken. It’s critical for radio to re-engage listeners in new (and old!) ways.

And the whole ‘social thing’ is a big opportunity to re-engage.

Back in the day, the great state of New Jersey had an advertising campaign designed to promote tourism (and if there was any U.S. State that needed a campaign to promote tourism, it was New Jersey – Bruce Springsteen and the Jersey Shore not withstanding). The tagline of the campaign was New Jersey and You – Perfect Together! Taking creative license from the Garden State, I propose a slogan which applies to the topic at hand: Radio and Social Networks – Perfect Together!

So let’s get right to it – why are they perfect together? The fact is, at their core radio stations are and have always been social networks. In fact, they are the oldest mass-media social networks. (I’m sure the cavemen had their own version of a social network, but it probably involved cave drawings or something and sure wasn’t powered by technology!). Bound by music, lifestyle or point of view, a good radio station identifies, captures, becomes a source of entertainment and information for, and provides a voice and identity for specific communities of people. They do this by providing these communities of people with content that is important to them. Content that is relevant, interesting and exciting. Listeners to a great radio station feel like they are part of something – something bigger than themselves. They feel like they are part of a larger community of people who like what they like, who feel what they feel and who have similar experiences as they do. They feel connected.

It is about the power of the collective experience.

You know how a song always sounds better when you hear it on the radio as opposed to hearing it off a CD? There are a number of reasons for this, one being due to the serendipitous nature of it; but another is because of that sense of having a common or collective experience. It’s because as you sit there in your car listening to the song, you know that thousands of others – other members of this community – are hearing the exact same thing at the exact same time.

The sense of community is a powerful thing.

Great radio stations are community builders and community leaders. The essence of a station’s community (assuming the station is a music-oriented one) is the music, but it’s more than that. It’s the lifestyle the station portrays, it’s the language, it’s the imaging, and it’s the jocks – their attitude, the things they talk about, the way they talk about them and the points of reference they provide. It’s the whole deal.

Radio stations ain’t supposed to be jukeboxes. In fact there is probably an inverse relationship between the “jukebox-iness” of a station and its relevance and importance to people and how much “connection” they feel towards it. Call it the “sucky” equation.

Great radio stations – those with a low “sucky quotient” – get members of their target communities to place their trust in them by holding up their end of the bargain. Among other things, their end of the bargain consists of the following: providing creative and compelling programming; hiring jocks who know how to relate to and connect with people; creating ways for the listeners to directly interact with the radio station and by becoming vibrant members of the community. The members of the community look towards the great radio stations to be a guide for the community – a guide on musical tastes, on lifestyle on opinions, on trends.

When I think of great radio stations, I think of KROQ in Los Angeles. KROQ plays what would generally be termed as ‘alternative rock’ music, but defining them as purely an ‘alternative rock’ radio station doesn’t do them justice. They’re bigger than that. They’re the self-proclaimed “World Famous KROQ.” KROQ sets trends. KROQ oozes a lifestyle. They reflect the interests of the KROQ community while at the same time leading it. They have street cred. If KROQ says it’s so, it’s so. I remember a day back in the late 90’s when the Kevin and Bean morning show had Snoop on as an in-studio guest. Snoop? On an ‘alternative’ station? Yeah. The thing is, KROQ defines itself by a lifestyle rather than by a ‘format’. There’s a difference. A big one. KROQ understands who their core listeners are and then creates programming that group would appreciate, regardless of any traditional format boundary. That pertains to the music; it pertains to the jocks; it pertains to the imaging and it pertains to the guests they have on the air. Simple. Would the skateboarder kids in Huntington Beach think having Snoop on was cool? Yeah.

The point is, KROQ has made themselves the center of a vibrant community. They have served, led and engaged this community of people remarkably well. Sadly, most terrestrial radio stations aren’t doing this. But they can start. And for their own sake, they better start. The online social media revolution can serve as their wake-up call. The power of the online social networks is undeniable – and as pointed out by Dubber, it’s still evolving. So for radio stations to regain their relevance and importance to people’s lives, they have to figure out their strategy for riding this new media wave. First and foremost they can start by realizing that by having an existing broadcast signal and presumably a great deal of listeners, they already are social networks. Maybe they’re not strong, effective ones at this point, but that’s because their on-air product isn’t engaging their listener base. To improve the strength of the network they have to fix their on-air product. Invest in it, be creative in the programming, and all the rest. Once that is done and the station has an engaged listener base, they can further engage them by utilizing the web. This will require a lot of thinking. And a lot of work. But it has to be done. It’s show time.

What Paul wrote made me think of what Pandora CEO Joe Kennedy recently said about Internet radio. Speaking at the RAIN Las Vegas Summit Kennedy said, “All of us recognize that over the next 3 to 5 years, transitioning Internet radio from a mostly ‘at work in front of the computer’ experience is the single most important thing…other than getting a royalty structure that enables us to survive.” He then added, “we’ve always thought the home is really the best near-term opportunity to get off the PC and get into the living room and kitchen.”

What Kennedy said about the best near-term opportunity being to get into the living room and kitchen may be true, but I think getting Internet Radio into the cars is going to be even more important.

I listen to Internet radio in the car right now. I know there are not a lot of people who do this – in fact I don’t know of anyone else who does this. But I do. And I do it because I want to be able to listen to what I want to listen to wherever I want to listen to it. Granted the way I do it is a bit clumsy. And it doesn’t provide a sound quality that is anything close to optimum. But at this point none of that really matters. The only thing that matters to me is that even though I live in the Washington D.C. area I can still listen to one of my favorite radio stations, which just so happens to be located 200 miles away in New York City, in my car! The station (sports talker WFAN) provides me with content that I really want rather than content that is just the best choice amongst limited available choices. Listening to ‘the FAN’ keeps me plugged in to the sports teams that are important to me (the New York Yankees, Giants, Rangers and Knicks) and it keeps me plugged into the whole ‘New York sports community’.

The clumsiness of my Internet radio in-car solution stems from the fact that I am listening thru my laptop, which I have propped up on the passenger seat with my Internet connectivity being provided via my data card and the Verizon mobile phone network. I’m listening through the little laptop speakers and yes, there are hiccups and some buffering issues – but again, none of that matters because I get to listen to WFAN in the place where I do most of my radio listening – my car.

So while the next step for Internet radio maybe getting it unchained from the PC into the home, the more important step is to get it into the cars.