I remember when MTV was new on the scene. As exciting as it was to have a 24/7 cable channel showing non-stop music videos, hosted by veejays, trying to add the video dimension to radio (remember that? MTV was like that once, right?), many of my peers in radio saw it as doom and gloom. (I guess it didn't help that they launched the channel with the Buggles' "Video Killed The Radio Star"). When Sirius and XM launched their first birds a few years back, the reaction in the terrestrial radio world was the same. I wonder why?
Oh, I get that they're new competition. But radio is all about time spent listening, so anything a prospective listener spends time with - another radio station, Sirius, MTV, NBC, the latest Harry Potter book, the toilet, or a quiet car ride in the country - is competition.
First of all, competition should make us better. It should drive us to rise to the occasion. Has it? I don't think so, at least not yet. We've let the accountants take the wheel, and they've reacted to increasing competition and a shrinking slice of the pie by cutting cost, and our ability to compete in this bold, new world. But that's not the point of this blog. Still, homogenized music playlist, the same, old boring imaging, jump through hoops promotions and liner jocks who are nothing more than schills for the station (or, worse yet, the advertisers) don't create a very compelling radio station. It's been years since I listened to the radio for pleasure when I was traveling. It has seemed like homework for two decades or more.
But the real point of this blog is, for those of us in the programming side of the business, these new mediums are opportunity. What? I'm supposed to be loyal to terrestrial radio? Like a Harris FM Transmitter is what got me all excited about the business in the first place. No, man. It was the connection. It was the relationships - the relationships between listener and station, listener and jock, it was the role that a really cool radio station played in your life. It was all the things about radio (mostly long lost things, I'm afraid) that made radio stations something people were passionate about. Come on, no one has a favorite TV station. 'Never did. TV stations, for all the power of that great medium, have always generated about the same level of passion among their viewers as insurance companies do with their customers. Yea, Allstate! Prudential sucks! Imagine hearing that cheer in a crowded bar one Friday night!
So, really, if you're driven to make that kind of one-on-one connection, if it's all about relationships with a listener and bringing out your personality, does it really matter if the deliver mechanism is an FM transmitter, an AM transmitter, a satellite, the Internet, a podcast or anything else. I'd rather do compelling radio on Citizens Band channel 14 than lackluster stuff on a 100,000-watt blowtorch.
The new mediums are just more opportunities for the talented people, and the passionate people, to work their magic. Welcome them. Embrace them. They're your friends. Ultimately, they still may drive over the air radio to get better. They also add to the potential employment market for good communicators. Either way, they well may empower you to do your thing more than terrestrial radio ever has on it's own.
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