The Role of Radio in the Future of Music
Posted by Jeff on Sep 2nd 2007, 10:36
In a time not to long ago, radio was pretty cool. DJs actually controlled the playlists full of real, talented, musicians. Listeners would turn to the iconic stations to discover new music and listen to their current favorites.
Not anymore.
Today, the radio is controlled by mega corporations who have their programming dictated in large part by the record companies who pay them to play their records. They figured out long ago that it's more cost effective to pay to promote the "marketable" acts, rather than promote the good ones. This isn't to say that the current top 40 on the radio are bad musicians - they're not - but they are 99% the product of corporate marketing efforts. It's a pretty souless institution.
Internet radio was supposed to change all that. The internet removed the historic frequency and licensing restrictions that made the barrier to entry for terrestrial radio so hard. And while thousands of internet radio stations have popped up, offering listeners hand picked playlists in any genre you could ever imagine, they have failed to take hold and offer the same level of service and penetration as good old AM & FM.
The reason for this, mostly, is the initial lack of penetration of broadband in the United States. People just weren't able to stream radio fast enough to be able to listen. And by the time they were, music downloads and MP3s became huge - so nobody cared about finding new music. They wanted to download all the music they were hearing on FM.
But that time is over. Radio has become even worse and people have gotten over the initial novelty of downloading music. People are looking for ways to find and discover new music. They're looking for that really knowledgeable DJ to play them that one Portishead song that causes them to say, "Who's this?" They don't know that yet, but they are.
So radio, if you're listening...here is your gameplan to success.
Not anymore.
Today, the radio is controlled by mega corporations who have their programming dictated in large part by the record companies who pay them to play their records. They figured out long ago that it's more cost effective to pay to promote the "marketable" acts, rather than promote the good ones. This isn't to say that the current top 40 on the radio are bad musicians - they're not - but they are 99% the product of corporate marketing efforts. It's a pretty souless institution.
Internet radio was supposed to change all that. The internet removed the historic frequency and licensing restrictions that made the barrier to entry for terrestrial radio so hard. And while thousands of internet radio stations have popped up, offering listeners hand picked playlists in any genre you could ever imagine, they have failed to take hold and offer the same level of service and penetration as good old AM & FM.
The reason for this, mostly, is the initial lack of penetration of broadband in the United States. People just weren't able to stream radio fast enough to be able to listen. And by the time they were, music downloads and MP3s became huge - so nobody cared about finding new music. They wanted to download all the music they were hearing on FM.
But that time is over. Radio has become even worse and people have gotten over the initial novelty of downloading music. People are looking for ways to find and discover new music. They're looking for that really knowledgeable DJ to play them that one Portishead song that causes them to say, "Who's this?" They don't know that yet, but they are.
So radio, if you're listening...here is your gameplan to success.
- Find your niche in all of music, and hammer on it hard.
- Play a wide variety of music, and make sure it's easy for people to figure out who they're listening to
- Then, make the path from discovery to more information and the eventual download and/or purchase as easy as possible. If you do that, you'll secure your role in the future of music.