Yesterday was an interesting day for us and for many radio people – lots of blog traffic, comments, phone calls, and off-line emails about Eric Rhoads’ letter and what it might mean to radio and the car industry. The day ended with Radio Ink publishing a letter from General Motors’ Chief Infotainment Officer (great title, by the way) Phil Abram.
In it he said, “We can’t speak for other automakers, but to be clear, GM has no near term plans to eliminate AM and FM from GM vehicles. We are committed to providing consumers innovative services that dramatically enhance the driving and riding experience. We expect AM/FM radio to be one of the choices consumers have in our vehicles.”
At various times this past weekend, and again yesterday, I spoke with Valerie Shuman of the Connected Vehicle Trade Association, and Greater Media’ Buzz Knight, both of whom were on that Convergence panel to get their perspectives on what transpired and what it might mean.
Both took some time to provide some context for the session and to also provide their “take” on how radio might best handle the challenge of increasing competition while people are driving.
This continues to be a major issue, and one that will be addressed at conventions and conferences to come. Valerie will be on a session at the NAB in Las Vegas (see below) next month, and will join me for a different look at the “connected car” at the 25th anniversary of the Morning Show Boot Camp conference in Chicago this August.
Your comments, as always, are welcome.
Buzz Knight:
Since I moderated the panel on the connected car at Convergence this past week, I wanted to continue the dialogue and calm the concern that resulted as a result of Eric Rhoads’ blog entitled “A Cold Harsh Reality for Radio: AM/FM Will be removed from The Dash.” As head of programming for one of America’s most successful privately held broadcasting companies, I am committed to the power of live, local and compelling radio. I am also a firm believer that on-air personalities play a vital role in the future of our industry.
While I am very grateful to Eric and Ed Ryan for providing me with the opportunity to discuss topics like the “Digital Dashboard “and to create an open forum for a frank discussion on these important and relevant topics, I respectfully question Eric’s recent commentary pertaining to the actual conversation that took place during the panel discussion.
The intent was to gather automotive industry experts and give attendees an unvarnished update on where the connected car is headed, and to provide some action steps for radio to consider moving forward.
When I met with my panelists prior to the event, I felt a shared sentiment that their perception of the radio business was that our industry tended to have a sense of “entitlement” about its place on the dashboard ecosystem.
Thilo Koslowski’s (lead automotive analyst from Gartner Research) comment regarding “AM being eliminated within two years” from two companies certainly should and did get our attention. However, without the benefit of listening to the full audio recording of my panel, I DID NOT hear that AM and FM are on the chopping block in the next five years. While it was certainly raised as a possibility, I never heard it referenced as an “absolute.”
The panelists shared their individual perspectives on some “real life” possibilities in an effort to help our business to be better prepared for the “new world” landscape.
I have personally attended CES several times at the urging of my friend Holland Cooke, and subsequently with Fred and Paul Jacobs to see what the future may look like and to gain inspiration around our own products. Included in that has been the development and evolution of the “digital dashboard.”
As a result, some great opportunities have emerged, including creating our own mobile station apps, stepping onto the iHeart platform, and developing a relationship with Ford and their app program.
At the end of the day, shouldn’t the real discussion be about creating great content from our brands? To quote Jim Collins: “Good to Great”!
As Maureen Dowd noted in an opinion piece in last Sunday’s New York Times about the fading fortunes of the newspaper industry:
“Digital platforms are worthless without content. They’re shiny sacks with bells and whistles, but without content, they’re empty sacks. It is not about pixels versus print. It is not about how you’re reading. It is about what you’re reading.”
The bottom line is that the world is changing. Rather than run from it, we as an industry need to embrace it and continue to look for new opportunities to reinvent the way we do business. It’s not about which gadget consumers hear our audio – it’s about the quality of the audio entertainment and information we produce.
Eric, while I respect your opinion, I would like to ask you to keep what was actually said in perspective and realize that excessive hysteria does not help radio’s already challenged “inferiority complex.”
Digital platforms are worthless without content. They’re shiny sacks with bells and whistles, but without content, they’re empty sacks. It is not about pixels versus print. It is not about how you’re reading. It is about what you’re reading.
Valerie Shuman
Radio Ink’s Convergence last week was my second radio conference (the first was the Arbitron Client Conference in December), and at both events I was struck by the intense interest in connected vehicles. The day after Arbitron, radio trade headlines everywhere trumpeted sound bites about the threat to radio’s traditional listener base. After Convergence, the reaction was even stronger, with editorials calling for legislative action to save radio.
While the strength of the reaction has been a bit surprising (to me, anyway), the challenge of navigating technology-driven change is not new. And there are tools for handling it:
• Get the facts straight. There’s no question that the automotive platform has changed. Consumers have made it very clear that they want their smartphone-connected lifestyles to extend to their drive time, and car manufacturers are responding to this demand. An estimated 40% of vehicles sold in 2011 can connect to wireless data networks, according to IHS iSuppli, and over 90% of those new cars can connect to smartphones and other consumer devices in some fashion. Projections from most industry analysts show this trend continuing aggressively.
However, all of this energy has been focused on ADDING options for consumers, not taking them away. While some car manufacturers will undoubtedly experiment with different media packages on different car lines, there is no grand automotive industry scheme to remove all radios from all cars. Radio receivers will only go the way of the 8-track if nobody uses them anymore.
• Understand the possibilities. This cannot be said often enough: go drive a connected car. Play with the system at 60 mph and while you’re stuck in traffic. Take your spouse and your kids and your parents and your grandparents along, too. Make sure you understand what the user experience really is – and start thinking about what it could be. After all, you wouldn’t try to design a smartphone app based on your understanding of landline phone handsets, would you?
• Make a plan. The press releases are coming fast and furious, but successful evolution rarely comes from panic. It’s time to think through a plan for tomorrow’s product and start working towards it today, step by step. How will you differentiate your content? How will you differentiate your media? What business models, tools, and approaches make the most sense for your business? For the industry as a whole?
The next industry discussion of the connected car is slated for April 10th, as a panel of experts addresses the digital dash at NAB’s Digital Strategies Exchange for Radio (DSX4r) in Las Vegas. I look forward to the conversation!
You can read Valerie’s blog here.
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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” Make a plan. The press releases are coming fast and furious, but successful evolution rarely comes from panic. It’s time to think through a plan for tomorrow’s product and start working towards it today, step by step. How will you differentiate your content? How will you differentiate your media? What business models, tools, and approaches make the most sense for your business? For the industry as a whole?”
That says it all. Is radio doing that in any significant way, or is it sacrificing that plan to make another quarter look good? Some companies (the Connoisseur example you wrote about recently comes to mind) are taking the process back to where it once belonged – which is necessary but not sufficient. My contention is that very little of what Valerie outlined is actually being discussed, much less implemented.
If radio doesn’t shift its focus to the future – to the point of being willing to sacrifice a some current quarters to ensure later years, its place on the dash could well be insignificant. If people stop pushing a button, what’s the difference if its still there? There are still plenty of cars on the road with working cassette players…how often are they used?
Bob, even though Eric’s contentions are proving to be generally if not completely unfounded by the automakers, I believe this incident serves as something of a wake-up call to consider some of the longer-term implications you write about. Everyone in radio “gets” what it takes for things to “test.”: We know how to adapt and market our products to truly reflect consumer tastes. The efficiencies that broadcasters have employed over the past decade – or longer – may have gotten ratings, but will do little to advance this greater mission.
As noted in earlier comments, it is essential that when the automakers go “into the field” – whether it is quantitative research or just chatting with dealers and consumers – they hear positive remarks about how radio is essential in cars – and to their lives.
As I stated in yesterday’s post, this is radio’s game to lose. No one understands in-car entertainment and information better than radio people. But it will take some decision-making and commitment in order to re-energize the product to better connect with where consumers are headed.
As whacked out as the last few days have been for many people in radio who have watched this “story” unfold, it has a purpose if we seize the opportunity and consider the consequences. Thanks again, Bob.
Hi Fred, Bob, Buzz, and Valerie,
Content is king! Less staff, more things to cover, it is all how you distribute it. Radio people know how to TELL A GREAT STORY! They are experts at on the fly content delivery in an engaging, conversational way. When my car connects to my smart phone and provides me easy directions…that is a great thing. When I am driving in Minneapolis, and the 35W bridge collapses, I rely on instant up to date content from a trusted friend. In Minneapolis that day, one FM station broke content and delivered, B96. I mentor a 22-year old who gets all her television content on Hulu. She pays $10.00 a month and watches on demand. Radio knows how to do this! Are you licensing your content? Your web videos/client ads? Are you doing what AOL and many others did in the early days, becoming content partners for the greater good? Are you maximizing your advertiser’s dollars by giving them creative ways to brand? Are you providing compelling interviews with news makers or artists? Are you being of service to your area? The IHeart radio app is awesome! People are going to choose their content. Be a leader in your community, be part of their consciousness. I can’t read and drive! I may listen to my iPod, but I still want to hear you when I need to know what’s going on. I still want to hear the deals you offer, the cool interviews you land, the storytelling you provide. I still want a human connection. Guys, we are just talking about what we are already good at, CONTENT DELIVERY! Think out of the box, don’t fret. Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results! You have an advantage over many on the Internet! You know how to deliver compelling content, now be creative in how you do it! You already have the stick, do you have the video?
Karol, thanks. Like a few others, it continues to come down to content, and radio’s re-realization that the things that made the medium great back in the ’60s and ’70s will still resonate today. Of course, that requires a commitment to live and local personalities, news coverage, and having the imagination and courage to present content like interviews and stories as you suggest.
I believe that the rise of PPM, consolidation, and a crap economy conspired to beat the life out of many stations – and even companies. Cutbacks, economies of scale, and conservatism may have helped get radio through some very tough quarters, but in order to fight the new fight and compete in the digital environment, radio is going to have to get back to its roots, the things it has always done so well.
Appreciate you taking the time to chime in, and I know that Buzz and Valerie will appreciate your comments.
Buzz is right on!
1) First and foremost, Content is King. Wherever there is truly compelling content that is easily accessible, there will be an audience. HD Radio has been a perfect example of the opposite of that. Most HD2 and HD3 stations have no content aside from music. HD1 is usually merely the same as FM or AM offering no reason to switch to HD. A lack of compelling content combined with a more complex tune-in has resulted in extremely lackluster growth of HD Radio.
Satellite radio is an example of radio with content, but no local relevance. It doesn’t work.
The same will be true of Internet based radio if it fails to deliver truly compelling local content.
The delivery system is not what makes Radio so strong. That much has been proven again and again.
Just as social media posts should be mainly sharing and listening, and only occasionally advertising, radio content should also be mainly sharing and listening with minimal advertising. That was always what made it great. By heavy spot loads, voice tracking, and reducing radio content to easily deliverable, unimaginative, prerecorded mediocrity, we have opened ourselves up to competition from the mediocrity of music-only services like Pandora and Spotify. We have to be better than that.
2) I think our responsibility needs to be in educating Silicon Valley as to what radio is, how it works, and most importantly, why it remains the #2 most pervasive medium in the country, if not the world. It was clear in a few of the panels that the speakers were extremely out of touch with our business. The comment about “Why isn’t radio digital?!? Everything is digital,” showed a misunderstanding of the situation. The only reason that radio is not digital is that there is very little interest on the part of the listening public to switch to HD Radio. Listeners don’t care about HD or satellite, despite aggressive marketing for both. Let us not forget, Silicon Valley’s (in)ability to foresee the future was largely responsible for the Dot Com Bubble in 2000. They don’t always get it right. And like any good fortune teller, it is only when they do that they remind you of it.
With a proper view of why the medium is successful, software and web developers will at least be operating with an understanding that this is not an “if you build it they will come” situation.
3) As for auto manufacturers putting IP radio in cars, that only makes a difference if users/listeners end up wanting that. We all know that what people say they want in research and what they actually want are very often two different things. HD Radio is in cars now. SiriusXM is in cars. AM Stereo was in cars. Car manufacturers can put as much as they want in cars, but that does not mean listeners will disconnect from the live immediacy of FM or AM radio during their drive to and from work. Furthermore, there is no advantage to removing AM/FM from cars, unless its audience has dwindled to nothing.
My main takeaway is that (broadcast) Radio needs to invest in better content for whatever form of delivery ends up being used just as Print has done with translating their content to the Web. The method of delivery that we have now is VERY tough to beat, but no matter how many ways are invented to access that content, it is the content that drives listening. Our lack of investment in content creation as an industry is where our main issues lie. If we don’t invest in exceptional content now, our audience will be easily fragmented and we’ll never again see the audience or the revenue that we enjoy now.
Stephen, Buzz may chime in on this one (especially because you said nice things about what he wrote). I think you make many great points about content, consumer demand, and technology. But I think your last paragraph truly says it all.
It always has and always will come down to what’s coming out the speakers. That’s what drove the sales of FM converters a few decades ago. And it is radio’s salvation today – if it does the things that got the medium to the dance in the first place. I also believe that radio’s ability to truly serve its communities is the content diamond in the rough here, and something that used to more than lip service. People care about where they live and what’s happening in their hometowns. Radio’s ability to reflect the vibe, values, and ethos of the communities they’re licensed to will resonate – and the automakers and car dealerships will hear that, too.
Thanks for taking the time, and please keep reading the blog and commenting.
Agreed, Fred. I think it is Holland Cooke that is fond of saying that people want to know what is going to “block their path today.” That could be their path to work, the path happiness, or their career path, but no other medium is able to deliver that information with the immediacy and relevancy of radio. But we have to start making that a bigger priority.
Thanks!
Radio is called a “windshield medium” for advertisers. But we have to broadcast what’s going on outside our local windshields. Thanks again for commenting.
I was attending a pair of technology-focused conferences (SXSWi & iMA) while this was erupting. At SXSWi, in particular, it was noticeable how absent radio was from the overall agenda and how this, let’s be charitable, “issue” was a non-starter for the attendees. In the inevitable badge scan/ small talk that happens in long lines and hallways people were interested in hearing about working in Detroit. Radio? No interest. A scan of the very busy SXSW hashtags bears this out.
This is notable, in a specific sense, because so much of SXSWi emphasizes technology’s cultural and relational impact. Deep, personal relationships with the user base is supposed to be one of radio’s clear, defensible positions. Radio is not discussed as having any particular lead in this capacity and radio is not generating the stories of innovation and inspiration.
None of this should be read as positive or negative about radio’s future. This is broad, anecdotal reportage from one of the most significant technology gatherings. In this context, the old joke about the narcissist with the inferiority complex comes to mind: “I’m not much, but I’m all I think about.”
Mikel, thanks for the update. And I could do a “find/replace” on your comment with SXSW and CES, and it would hold up perfectly. Appreciate the insights, and thanks for taking the time.