There are times that working in radio can make you wonder if we’ve been left behind when it comes to important and emerging digital trends.
Looking back over the past couple decades, the radio industry has been challenged in its ability to participate in a number of new media opportunities. From iPods to satellite radio, broadcasters have had to sit on the sidelines and watch these trends unfold.
But when it comes to the mobile space, the radio industry has had – and continues to have – a great opportunity to play the home version of this incredible game. Started by Steve Jobs and Apple just over five years ago, mobile apps continue to explode in popularity. And radio – including individual radio brands – is on center stage.
A new Flurry analysis indicates that app usage in 2013 increased a whopping 115%. While messaging and social apps led the way, followed by utility and productivity apps. But next in line came media, music, and entertainment apps, occupying a strong third place position. Apps like the kind that jacAPPS produces, along with iHeartRadio, TuneIn, and Pandora, saw a 78% increase year to year.
(By the way, that’s ahead of shopping, gaming, fitness, and news.)
That tells us that there’s a great market for what we’re doing – and what radio should be doing moving forward. But the radio industry needs to go to school on these trends and consumer habits to better understand how to meet their needs moving forward. We totally “get” traditional radio listening at home, work, and in the car. Where we continue to lag behind is in our understanding of how consumers utilize mobile in their lives – and how radio can play a starring role on these devices and gadgets.
We continue to ask some important questions in our Techsurveys about all these new entertainment options. But the need for companies, clusters, and individual stations to do their own homework to better understand this space may be at the heart of radio’s future.
The lack of on-air promotion for station apps, for example, continues to amaze and perplex. As this new listening location becomes even more mainstream, radio needs to better communicate that its apps look great on iOS and Android “desktops.” Radio needs to “connect the dots” for its audience and let them know how their smartphones can take their content with them wherever they go, whenever they like.
A case in point occurred last month. Flurry reports that December 31st saw a record 4.7 billion app sessions that day. As we have communicated to jacAPPS clients over the past few years, the need to ramp up mobile app promos around the holidays is essential as more consumers get new phones and tablets – and obviously have lots of time on their hands before the new year begins. It’s only a first step in understanding how consumers use apps, and why it matters so much to radio broadcasters. The fact that radio did not build basic on-air tactics to take advantage of this opportunity speaks to the industry’s lack of knowledge of the mobile space.
The mobile app revolution continues to roll.
And radio is perfectly positioned to come out a winner.
It’s overdue for the industry to truly create viable mobile strategies.
Jacobs Media has consistently walked the walk in the digital space, providing insights and guidance through its well-read national Techsurveys.
In 2008, jacapps was launched - a mobile apps company that has designed and built more than 1,300 apps for both the Apple and Android platforms. In 2013, the DASH Conference was created - a mashup of radio and automotive, designed to foster better understanding of the "connected car" and its impact.
Along with providing the creative and intellectual direction for the company, Fred consults many of Jacobs Media's commercial and public radio clients, in addition to media brands looking to thrive in the rapidly changing tech environment.
Fred was inducted into the Radio Hall of Fame in 2018.
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Radio’s sideline approach to apps is perplexing. Its denial of all things digital (with apologies to Kara Swisher) seems almost passive aggressive. Once upon a time, radio looked for ways to use their brands and/or relationships to create new forms of revenue (events, NTR, etc.) and BRAGGED about how those dollars WEREN’T radio. Now radio spends way too much of its time arguing about whether competitors that are eating them alive like flesh eating bacteria should or shouldn’t be called radio. News flash: to the people that matter – listeners and advertisers, its a distinction without a difference.
Lets look at radio’s app aversion in a larger context – the digital world. Most websites don’t even offer easy access to recent morning show bits. Many large companies require levels of corporate approval to add something as innocuous as a link. Very few station websites have any real sales connection like keyword to special offers/coupons, etc.
Apps could be all of the above and more. They could be used to offer non radio services to a station’s cume. Anything they night like or think is cool could be marketed via the station profitably.
Which brings me to the question…can radio’s decision makers really be that digitally clueless, or is there has an unwritten decision been made to resist digital initiatives as cannibalistic?
I understand that there is currently no way to monetize digital music and that fact presents a set of no-win choices for radio. But the rest of the digital universe can be monetized in ways that can begin to make up for flat or down traditional ad revenue – and for the most part, those initiatives will make radio look cooler to its dwindling audience. And with the world flocking to digital music services, shouldn’t renegotiating royalties be a front burner item?
When I did national sales, a client once said – “you have to put a signal over them…they’re not gonna drive to where you are…”. “They” are on their smartphones and radio needs put put a “signal” there.
And I don’t mean an FM chip!
Thanks, Bob. On this question, I can partially speak from some experience from the jacAPPS point of view. While radio has been reasonably quick to recognize the importance of apps, the industry is not looking at global strategies and solutions. It’s more of a POV that says “OK, mobile’s hot, and we have an iOS and an Android app – we’re covered.”
As the Flurry data shows, the trajectory for mobile is heading in a much more positive direction than radio broadcasting. And yet, radio broadcasters have more institutional knowledge about PPM than they do about mobile. That needs to be addressed.
Hi Fred. Remember, I feel like this has to do with the programmers of the station, and not the jocks. I think the jocks, (because they use them themselves) realize the importants of the way radio has gone digital in the past four years. I am friends with a major market morning show and they took a pole one morening on the phones. Any caller that called in was asked how they were listening to the show, and 20 percent of their audience was listening with the app. When I was told this, this was in 2011, so I’m sure it’s absolutely had to increase. But as programmers keep shoving the phrase, “In A PPM World,” down jocks throats, they’re going to lose out on the mobile and digital factor, absolutely.
Daniel, thanks for the comment. And part of the disconnect is due to the fact that Arbitron then and Nielsen now have to help the radio industry aggregate listening across traditional and digital sources. It’s a tough one, to be sure.
I agree. Radio stations individually and the industry as a whole need mobile strategies.
Too often though, that discussion begins with technology (and promos for the technology) instead of content and user experience.
Both you and Jack Taddeo make excellent points. Without the differentiated content and some attention paid to the CX, it’s an issue. Thanks for that clarity because without what’s coming out of the speakers (or earbuds), it doesn’t matter. Thanks, Dave.
Frustrating as this is to read, radio is guilty of thinking we’re in the radio business. Our on-are stream, if you will, is the “Main Stage” and we let our streams puke out a cacophony of sloppy spot to music rejoins, repetitive “replacement” spots and filler from God knows when. While I agree we need to promote our mobile channels incl apps, I strongly suggest we get our streams to sound at least as good as our on-air channels before we invite everyone to join us there.
We’ve talked a lot about the importance of “dogfooding our streams” – and a great suggestion is to turn the radio off for a day and monitor via the stream. As someone who spends a lot of time listening to clients and their competitors on streams, I can speak for a very checkered consumer experience. Thanks, Jack, and to Dave Beasing for keeping us focused on the basics.