If you’re looking for the "truths" about what’s happening to youth formats and the radio business, look no further than the University of Texas of the Permian Basin. It’s a small campus of only 2,200 students, and yet Longhorn Andrew Murphy hits the salient points about what’s happening in radio with clarity. (read the article here)
I’m sure he’s one bright guy, and is clearly a strong observer of changing media habits. But it might also strike you that if a college student has it essentially figured out, it also ought to be obvious to radio’s brain trust. Take note of his comments about the shifting Hispanic population, something that we pointed out in a recent advisory as well. Perhaps that’s clearer to someone living in Midland, Texas than it is to programmers in the Midwest or on the East Coast.
Changing American demography is playing a role in radio listenership. On a positive note, a new study confirms our stated theory about what it takes to appeal to Hispanics. In this Yahoo! Telemundo poll, the key finding is that young Hispanics want to assimilate into American pop culture, and importantly, they welcome advertising messages that directs them to entertainment options (read more details below). For radio stations that need to build new coalitions and make new fans, this is good news.
The industry is changing, music is changing, America is changing. Seeing familiar entertainment offerings through a different lens is part of how radio can make the transition. You don’t need to go back to college to figure it out.
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Wow thanks for this interesting link Fred. This young student makes a point I had never considered before: the impact of the iPod and iTunes on genres. If you don’t anymore have to buy the whole album, you don’t get the broader exposure to a body of music.
The demise of the ‘album’ — which in many ways has always been a scam anyhow — has reverberations all over the place. Hadn’t much considered the link to formats.
Thanks again. Great post as always.
What a terrific post. In the struggle for survival, understanding where people are going and what their habits are is something that – IMO – folks in radio – particularly public radio – still aren’t getting. Have we really become a culture of learned cluelessness? Of course, it’s driven by the brutality of the economy and the challenge of being able to find a model to pay for it all without upsetting the current calculus. And yeah, there’s a new genre of music some of my U Penn interns are calling “iPod rock.” It’s a mix of music where anything goes and “genre” is an old school term.