Goodbye Commercial Radio

mbur

"The power of commercial radio is already diminishing, listenership for music-programmed stations is down. Stations that used to play music have flipped to talk radio formats (news, sports, commentary) and advertising revenue is not what it used to be. The final nail in the coffin will be when cars come with built in connectivity to the Net. At the moment, there are over 200 million cars in the U.S. with just about none of them wired to connect to Net. But that’s changing. And as soon as “connectivity” becomes as common as air conditioning, commercial radio as we know it will be dead. This is not a matter of “if,” it’s a matter of “when.”

Taken from an article about music publishing in the US:
http://blog.tunecore.com/2011/09/the-hidden-money-in-radio-except-radio-is-dying.html

mike65

Commercial music radio has only itself to blame. Dunno about the States but I'll assume its airwaves are as filled with clutter and prattle as is the case here so they can pay the bare minimum in performance fees.

Meanwhile the listeners tire of the nonsense and switch to web based music stations.

NIMAN

I would listen to the radio a lot as opposed to CDs/MP3s at home, but I have begun to notice over the years how little music is actually played these days.

Some of the commercial stations are too much talk and spending half the shows telling you about competitions, or asking you to text in and tell them what you think. Who cares what we think, play some music!

BrianD

All that will happen is that you'll say goodbye to commercial radio on FM and hello commercial radio on the net.

What will people start streaming when they get "net radios"? The same commercial radio (and publicly owned) radio stations.

Sure, people will listen to bespoke and customised streams of music but will drift back to traditional radio programmes.

Commercial radio is alive and well and will continue to endure and evolve as there's a move from aerials to routers.

NIMAN

BrianD wrote: »

All that will happen is that you'll say goodbye to commercial radio on FM and hello commercial radio on the net.

What will people start streaming when they get "net radios"? The same commercial radio (and publicly owned) radio stations.

Sure, people will listen to bespoke and customised streams of music but will drift back to traditional radio programmes.

Commercial radio is alive and well and will continue to endure and evolve as there's a move from aerials to routers.

You're probably right.

Last year I had an internet radio, which was able to access 5000+ stations from all around the world. So for a day or so I experimented and listened to rock stations from the US, reggae from Jamaica and Blues stations from the South of the USA.

The radio had 5 presets, and in numbers 1 --> 3 I had 2FM, RTE1, Today FM !!
:rolleyes:

mbur

BrianD wrote: »

All that will happen is that you'll say goodbye to commercial radio on FM and hello commercial radio on the net.

What will people start streaming when they get "net radios"? The same commercial radio (and publicly owned) radio stations.

Sure, people will listen to bespoke and customised streams of music but will drift back to traditional radio programmes.

Commercial radio is alive and well and will continue to endure and evolve as there's a move from aerials to routers.

Evolution or revolution? Radio, as we know it, is already changing in response to the 'move to routers'. Commercial radio is alive but I'm afraid the patient looks to be in terminal decline.

The key issue here is that the natural monopoly element gifted by the old technology will be gone. It will be a lot harder to make it pay, if at all. The glory days of a few well healed broadcasters monopolising the airwaves are gone.

Given time I'm sure a new breed of entrepreneurs will figure out a way of getting paid to be listened to. Maybe someone like the late Gerry Ryan (who was a master of drawing people into his world) may be able to make a decent enough living. But it won't be easy and it won't be filled with overt advertising. It is also a good bet that it won't be just an outlet for a few large music publishing houses like it is today.

The commercial radio business today is like a big crowd trying to get through a very small doorway. Sadly for them, on the other side is a very big field where most of them will perish.

BrianD

mbur wrote: »

Evolution or revolution? Radio, as we know it, is already changing in response to the 'move to routers'. Commercial radio is alive but I'm afraid the patient looks to be in terminal decline.

There's no evidence to support this assertion.

The key issue here is that the natural monopoly element gifted by the old technology will be gone. It will be a lot harder to make it pay, if at all. The glory days of a few well healed broadcasters monopolising the airwaves are gone.

It is true that the technology and regulation both acted as barriers to entry but there is still plenty of choice in many markets. US has over 10,000 commercial radio stations and Dublin has 14 on air. It's hardly a few healed broadcasters.

Furthermore, the nature of the barriers mean that stations have scale to provide a service to the audience. That service includes everything from presenters to newsroom to sales etc. Sure there's plenty that have grown fat and need to shape up.

Given time I'm sure a new breed of entrepreneurs will figure out a way of getting paid to be listened to. Maybe someone like the late Gerry Ryan (who was a master of drawing people into his world) may be able to make a decent enough living. But it won't be easy and it won't be filled with overt advertising. It is also a good bet that it won't be just an outlet for a few large music publishing houses like it is today.

Gerry Ryan was only a master of drawing people into his world because RTE stuck a huge broadcasting infrastructure under him. That's not denying his talent but millions were spent building the Ryan brand.

As for the revenue, you either charge a sub (pay wall) or put adverts/sponsorship into the radio programme. Other than that people haven't figured it out!

The commercial radio business today is like a big crowd trying to get through a very small doorway. Sadly for them, on the other side is a very big field where most of them will perish.

That statement makes no sense at all. What is this field? Could we liken it to to the blogosphere? We were all told that there was a generation who were getting their news from and writing their own blogs. Hasn't really worked out that way.

Personally, I think commercial radio stations will just change technology. We are in that transition phase and there naturally will be casualties.

mbur

BrianD wrote: »

Personally, I think commercial radio stations will just change technology. We are in that transition phase and there naturally will be casualties.

So despite the lack of evidence to support my statements, our differences over the correct analogy to use and some other minor details we are in agreement Brian. There will be casualties. Where we may differ is the size of the carnage.

The Tunecore guy was being a bit clever in saying:

And as soon as “connectivity” becomes as common as air conditioning, commercial radio as we know it will be dead.

We all look at the last three words and tend to miss the "as we know it". He is expecting changes as are we all.

Bigcheeze

Great I can't wait until my car radio starts buffering every 30 seconds. That'll be progress I tell ya.

Red Alert

I'd love if there was a commercial station with no DJ's, just news on the hour, with quarter-hour commercial breaks to make it pay. Otherwise just music.

joewicklow

I have gone from at least 2 to 3 hours radio a day when in the car to almost full time podcasts.
I will catch the 7am news on Morning Ireland and then switch over to a podcast. No adverts and you get to listen to anything you want.

BrianD

joewicklow wrote: »

I have gone from at least 2 to 3 hours radio a day when in the car to almost full time podcasts.
I will catch the 7am news on Morning Ireland and then switch over to a podcast. No adverts and you get to listen to anything you want.

Podcasts are probably generated by commercial or public radio stations?