Kudos to RAB CEO Jeff Haley for underscoring the crying need for broadcast radio to once again become the "anywhere" medium. As Haley notes, "The goal is to have an FM radio in every PDA and cellphone." This picks up where David Rehr’s "2020" speech at last year’s NAB left off.
The focus groups we did for Arbitron back in ’05 among 18-34s produced that "Oh wow" moment when respondents after respondent told us that radio is tethered to cars and nightstands, while you can take iPods anywhere. We saw even more evidence of this in last year’s Arbitron "Bedroom Project," which emphasized radio’s growing portability problem. And of course, last year’s Jacobs Tech Poll provided us with the evidence that the one feature that Apple iPod owners would love in their next mp3 player is an FM radio. Tech Poll IV goes into the field later this month, and we’re expecting to see more of the same.
Our industry may be turning an important corner, as radio’s leadership is now lining up goals that must be achieved moving forward in order to ensure the medium’s survival and growth. While radio has a myriad of problems to combat, this issue of "location, location, location" is paramount in its place on the media landscape.
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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You can already buy portable handheld radios, and have been able to since Sony introduced the first ‘Walkman’ in the early 80s.
Most portable music player providers are not going to fall for this stuff, and will likely not
Not when WiMAX and other emerging Internet technologies make Internet radio more portable. But there are things the broadcaster can do to woo the listener back that have not been considered by the NAB or others, those organizations simply asked the wrong questions in their surveys.
Radio can:
!. Be more local and responsive.
2. All stations webcast all programming, that way the listener hears the ads as well as the programming.
3. Make sure listeners know they can take this programming anywhere, across town or across the country.
WiMAX and its successors will make that all possible in ways we don’t see yet. WiMAX towers will allow one to pick up an Internet connection anywhere the provider has service, some towers will provide coverage equal to at least a Class C3 radio signal, some more, although in urban areas it may be like a small Class A. But the beauty is once you get out of range of one tower, you’ll be in range of another, and can continue to receive the programming via the Internet stream.
This also promises to be a satellite radio killer. That is, if they get the towers along all the mileage of the major Interstate, US, and Stae Highways as well as significant local roads out of range of the towers on those roads.
Which allows me to reiterate the fact that once this is all realized, you can take your local station with you anywhere. Programming would be next, making sure the listener was satisfied, more research into what a station’s listeners want, coupled with more format diversity (jazzy house, anyone?) and with hundreds of musical styles not covered by radio now, there are distinct possibilities for the stations out there now to be prepared for this next big thing in radio.
I recently invested fifteen dollars in a Sony SRF-59 receiver. Half the size of a cigarette pack, this gem hears stations that large expensive receivers have trouble pulling. Audio is good. It runs for a week on one NiMH AA cell.
But BigRadio HD cronies resent that. HD gang now openly speaks of ‘replacing’ our radios – our private property, for those who still care about such trifling matters – with HD stooge sets. Next? ‘Conditional Access’, a polite translation of the old Mafia patois, ‘you wanna listen, youze gotta pay’. Nice crowd.
HD wasn’t supposed to jam. HD was to have its own band. But BigRadio had a scheme. Slop HD onto AM and FM, and let the ensuing raucous interference jam competitors off the air and listeners into submission.
As that sort always does, the HD gang outsmarted itself. Yeah, they bought the FCC and coerced stations into installing this techno-jalopy.
But they can’t buy us, the American people. Nor can they coerce us. Nor will they lie us into destructive HD.
HD is where it doesn’t belong. It would be fine on its own band. But HD jams AM and FM. Many once enthusiastic broadcasters, now ask, ‘What are we doing to ourselves’, having heard HD’s destructive jamming.
Consumers don’t want HD. BigRadio cronies can persist in jamming but they’ll be regarded as a big, fat, flatulent amnesiac who arrives uninvited, with a big stomach, hollow leg, and a knack for telling long, pointless stories, tastefully accented by the aromatic effects of dental caries.
The more BigRadio jams, the better for satellie, WiFi, iPods, and all other methods.
Listeners checked out HD. As with an uninvited boor, told it to get lost.
Paul Vincent Zecchino
Manasota Key, Florida
15 February, 2008
You said: “The goal is to have an FM radio in every PDA and cellphone.”
I have a great idea to go along with your’s: what about the gramophone, maybe even the ability to receive “Talkies”? And if the FM were HD the bonus would be it would stay put if any hurricanes came along it would be so heavy, but the problem is that kids would look at the FM section and say “What is this and what is it doing in my cell phone? Radio, er.. isn’t that for old people? This thing has WiMax doesn’t it?