Now What I Know......

Most of the things I spoke about in the last post you could get in an interview with a radio exec or by studying radio as an industry. There might be a little apologist in me but before I'm classified as such please let me state a few things I have learned about radio. I don't know of any website in the world that has the hyper local drawing power of radio. Hold on, I'm talking about targeted, specific web pages within minutes, hours, days, and weeks. This by my definition makes radio hyper local in nature as it is delivered today. It is the task of radio and marketers to augment their beliefs about radio and embrace this new opportunity. If radio websites could be turned into hyper local, turn key, social and search portals the bounds are limitless.

But I also mentioned marketers above; this groups needs to get their mind around creative and stop half baking the stuff at low cost only to be disappointed by the performance. If you are trying to reach Gen X or Y you better be willing to reach into you pocket. Creative needs to be targeted, relevant, and rewarding. Yes, I said rewarding, even if you are selling caskets find a way to make them laugh if you're going to market on a radio website. The best creative performance I have seen has been thought out, well targeted, and costly.

OK done with my rant, back to my point of radio is hyper local; going to a station event is a wild experience. It's a culture unto itself and I'm not talking about only a heavy rock or rap event, I've seen AAA formats who hold events that rival any 70's love fest. I do not say these things to be disparaging, this is a marketers dream. Hasn't the rant about online marketing always been that it cost a ton and reached people in BF Egypt? Radio provides a mega phone that multiple times an hour screams come to our website and do X. Additionally radio activates people all the time on how to spend their dollars; to what extent you ask? Please read the above about marketers and realize this was not intended to just online marketers. Web is not the only medium that has horrible, wore out, so tired a marching band could put it to bed, creative all over it, it's sad! This is probably why a universal expectation has never been published by either industry but it's a real interesting question. At least if you dip your toe into online marketing you get quantifiable results. As to prove this is not a jab at radio I'll post a blog soon on why radio needs to seriously think about how to do the same or except that the high dollar mark in radio has come and gone.

In summary radio provides an online environment but its existence is symbiotic with the on-air and on-site products that the medium offers. Are all necessary, no, but good marketing dollars say it doesn't hurt. If someone gets their head around the opportunity that radio provides if done correctly, tested properly, and syndicated dynamically the bounds are endless. If I could give you an opportunity to reach people online and in person would you not jump at that chance? If you are still with me after tonight, thanks for taking the time.

Why would you go and do that?!?

If you read the About section I'm sure there are some of you that are shaking your head and about to click away (that internal voice is saying "this guy is an idiot, why waste my time?"). But before you go give me the rest of this paragraph. Here's a little secret, Radio is positioned very well for the digital age, the scary part; the opportunity is down right stupid. Radio reaches 96% of American 18-49 with a college education and an annual income of over $75K at least once weekly. Radio has been spun into the same traditional media sink hole as the other aging traditional media dinosaurs. Still think I'm crazy? Keep reading it will get good.

First we must ask ourselves why radio has become a medium of ubiquitous consumption? It's integrated into every facet of our lives and up till now had been the only information resource we had in an American passion that runs as deep as apple pie, the automobile. The radio for most Golden's and Boomer's was the device they heard many of the events that shaped their lives. This love affair with radio has not been radically changed despite the explosion of thousands of new devices vying for your "radio" time. 96% percent of adults 18-49 make time for radio in a world where many personal habits and/or patterns have been greatly compressed by the time crunch of our evolving(?) world. So to me this meant there was a legacy of being a health industry and it is woven into the culture of America.

Second thing that steered my decision; there is a revolution that is coming and could mean a renaissance for radio..... if some of the radio leaders can just reach out and grasp it (Why does Google keep sniffing around in Radio?). The revolution I'm talking about is WiMax. The FCC in March 2008 awarded Verizon and ATT&T control of the UHF spectrum when TV goes digital on February 17th, 2009. Additionally, Google spurned by their failed effort to acquire control of the UHF spectrum, joined with Intel, Comcast, Time Warner, and Bright House Networks in a joint venture with Clearwire & Sprint. This means in my humble opinion we are about to see a new race to blanket the U.S. and quickly there after North America with a comprehensive WiMax network. Why you ask? If you have not been paying attention there are two things of value online: 1) content and 2) user analytics. Whoever can provide Internet access to all points that TV does today creates a giant potential for information gathering that would be both vast and comprehensive. Now I'm sure there are those security nuts out there saying they can't keep data on you. I got big news for your, they can and do! Not trying to scare everyone and will tackle this topic at a different time; but to close this loop, while you were celebrating Scott Peterson going to prison I saw a landmark ruling that forever left Americans exposed online to the powers that be. But I digress, the point is that radio has an opportunity to seize this new delivery method. Many radio stations already stream their stations and pay royalty bills for this content delivery today. This meant to me that they had a toe in the pool and were on the right side of the law.

Last I saw a chance for greatness, not to be cheesy, but I saw an opportunity to make a big impact in an industry many critics have written off as dead or dying with their traditional media peers. I could not disagree more. In the future posts I'll outline why I think radio can win, what the hold up is, and daily challenges as they come about. For those of you still with me, thank you, and I hope you think me more sane then when you started this post.