For Radio, Denial’s a River in which Many Could Drown
September 5, 2008 |
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By Dave Wilson
My day job is Sr. Director, Technology & Standards at the Consumer Electronics Association. When I’m not at work trying to help grow the consumer electronics industry, I operate two FM radio stations on Hatteras Island on the coast of North Carolina. These stations are in a resort area where there is a large influx of weekly and weekend tourists from mid-spring to mid-fall. My hope, as I was putting these stations together, was that I could start from scratch with an all-digital operation, forgoing analog broadcasting altogether. The FCC didn’t believe such an operation would be in the public interest, however, so I built analog facilities instead.
Right now all-digital signals are only allowed for local TV, cable TV, satellite TV, satellite radio and Internet radio. I’m optimistic that, at some point, radio broadcasters and regulators alike will recognize that all-digital local radio broadcasts are not only in the public interest, they’re what the public demands. Here’s what I would like to be able to do someday with my stations:
I would like to provide a real-time audio stream that is essentially commercial free. There would be a few commercial announcements in the stream but for the most part they would simply be reminders to listeners to customize their listening experience by accessing stored files. The stored files would be things that I also broadcast, but that are not heard or seen by the listener in real time. While the listener is tuned to my station a program guide is available on the screen that indicates what types of stored files are available (restaurants, car dealers, news, weather, etc.). A listener who wants to be updated with the latest news would select “news” on the program guide and a news report would play, along with a sponsorship message. A tourist who wants to learn about restaurants in the area would select “restaurants.” The listener could “play all” and hear the pitches from all stored restaurants sequentially, or could navigate to specific restaurant messages. With navigation systems becoming so popular in vehicles I want my stored messages to include geographic location information for each advertiser. This way the consumer could also opt to “play closest” or “play closest to farthest.” At any time in any of the messages the listener can hit “exit” and return to my real time audio stream.
The beauty of this system is that it increases the value of my ad inventory because the only people who will be listening are ones who intentionally tune to the ads for the purpose of listening. This increases the value of the ad to the advertiser because the advertiser is assured that the people listening to the ad are actually listening. And people can listen to the ad at any time because it’s always available until it expires. This system also increases the value of my overall programming to listeners because those who don’t want to hear the stored ads are not interrupted unnecessarily.
Such a system would also allow me to increase my ad inventory dramatically. In fact, the number of ads I could sell would be virtually unlimited were it not for the limited storage capacity in the receiver. All ads and other content would have an expiration date, so I could still sell commercial runs for a week, a month or a year. And, most importantly, I would be able to provide a product that would be an attractive choice for listeners. They’d get nearly commercial free entertainment, but would have to listen to sponsors’ ads in order to get news, sports, weather and other information. They’d only get this information when they ask for it, though, making their experience far more enjoyable than it is today. This is somewhat similar to the business models of Google and Yahoo, but customized for the dashboard.
To those broadcasters out there who think my system won’t work because people will just listen to my real-time stream and will never hear the stored ads, well, you’re welcome to load up your real-time streams with as many commercials as you want and take advantage of the stored ads, too.
The benefits of such a system in a large market would be even more dramatic. Large market radio stations typically cover many local communities and many traffic arteries. Because of this you typically only hear about news stories in a particular local community if they’re big or interesting enough to interest the rest of the metro area. With a store-and-playback system that allows radio broadcasters to serve up audio files for on-demand use by very specific audiences radio could provide a much more localized service. The listener could navigate through the menu on the receiver to “news” and drill down to community 1, community 2, etc. Likewise, traffic reports for specific roads could be selected.
It seems so obvious to me that major changes are needed in local radio’s product for it to remain competitive, but I fear that many of the leaders in the industry don’t see this, and are simply in denial.
My two stations are practically right on the spot where, 106 years ago, Reginald Fessenden sent the first musical notes ever relayed by radio waves. Today, in addition to an historical marker on the highway, there is a local community center there in his honor. If only radio could recapture the adventurous spirit that existed back then.
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