The Death of Radio? Stop it.

    I am really disgusted by the radio industry's latest bout of self loathing. I will never understand why there are so many in our industry that think we are on the brink of collapse, regardless of the fact that the amount of radio listening has never decreased. I have been in radio for 12 years now, and every single one of those years I have heard the latest expert reading radio's last rites. But since the latest economic downturn, it seems that those in the actual industry have started to believe them! Layoffs have gone into the double digits, slashing long lists of sales and programming. Every trade publication and consultant firm has created special web pages, erecting walls to the fallen. Its not just those who are under performing. Its people who have large ratings and bring in buckets of revenue. Radio companies just slash without any consideration for the quality of the product, insane with panic because the industry will never be the same.

    Stop it! Are you people serious? The most puzzling thing about the radio industry in general is its own insecurities. The people who are in radio seem convinced that we are the "other" media. We aren't as solvent as television or print, that we are on the brink of collapse at any time. Have any of these people actually done some research? Study after study shows that Americans consume more radio than ever before. Of course the faces on television and print belittle the radio industry, they have motive to! They are competing for the same advertising dollars that we are! Yet when President Obama identified his voice of opposition, was it a blogger, columnist, or pundit? Nope, Rush Limbaugh because he is the biggest name in conservative media. He arguably created conservative media, but we set that aside. Has this industry been going out of its way to create the next Rush who created a format that didn't exist before he started? Of course not. Part of radio self loathing is as soon as a star is born, we think there can never be another. So we slash, eliminating the up and comers to make sure there will be no more profitable stars.

    Radio is a media unlike the others. Its the only one that is completely one dimensional, and the easiest to consume. Radio doesn't ask you to stop what you are doing, commanding your full attention and patience. Radio can be with you when you drive around, do housework, play video games or exercise and its the only media that can do all of that. Radio is designed to be enjoyed however you like, and however much commitment you give it is how much enjoyment you get out of it. If you leave a station on in the background, you will have noise to distract you. If you wear headphones, you will hear a produced quarter hour of carefully selected music that a professional stressed hours over. If they did it right, the mix will give you a better experience than any random internet stream will give you. If you are listening to a talk show, you can also leave it on for noise, but you can also get up to twenty minutes of free wheeling discussion that will either make you laugh, think or make you angry. No other media at all gives you twenty commercial free minutes of entertainment, and there are thousands of radio stations that are doing it right now 24 hours a day with absolutely no cost to the listener.

    Yes, ad revenue is down. Of course it is, we are in a recession. But we still have a huge audience that we can give to our advertisers. Now is the time to cultivate relationships with advertisers and we can't do that when we are radically changing the product that we are selling. Remember, its not the 60 second spots we are selling, its the airtime. Radically changing the product does not help at all in getting revenue up.

    But yet we slash. We try to figure out how to cut corners, assuming that the industry will never be the same. Network TV numbers are way down, so they are cutting costs. Newspapers are cutting like crazy, because less people read newspapers. The number of radio listeners actually went up in 2008, but..

    Why are we looking to other media whose numbers are declining for leadership? Why don't we point out that you must pay for digital TV boxes, you must subscribe to cable, you need a subscription or a website account to view periodicals. Why can't we point out that we are the industry that thrived during the real great depression, and we have the audience that has never gone away. Why don't we point out that the rise of the Internet actually adds to radio, because it the one media that you can enjoy at the same time as surfing the web? We don't point that out, we just slash. We assume that if television and newspapers are doing it, we should too. These are the same outlets that excoriate our business, calling us "shock talk" and look down their noses at us. They shame us, call us names, put labels on us, have less of an audience than we do, compete for the same advertising dollars that we do, and yet we follow their lead.

    Don't you see that now is the time to act? Our industry is not hurting, it is thriving. The Internet has given us the one thing we never had: a visual element. We can take this one dimensional media and our listeners can enhance their experience if they choose to. Plus, we can save huge amounts of money on promotions cost by using free Web 2.0 services like Facebook, Twitter and Plurk. We can reach listeners now and remind them to listen in ways we never had before, and we think this industry is in trouble?

    But still we slash. We devalue how important we are to the audience. We forget that our industry is still a dominant media, and people on TV have every reason to say we are less than that. Yet still we slash, as if the radio side of the economic downturn will never end, regardless of the fact that the audience still wants and needs us. The death of radio? As with the most tragic cases of self loathing, we're committing suicide.

    I am really disgusted by the radio industry's latest bout of self loathing. I will never understand why there are so many in our industry that think we are on the brink of collapse, regardless of the fact that the amount of radio listening has never decreased. I have been in radio for 12 years now, and every single one of those years I have heard the latest expert reading radio's last rites. But since the latest economic downturn, it seems that those in the actual industry have started to believe them! Layoffs have gone into the double digits, slashing long lists of sales and programming. Every trade publication and consultant firm has created special web pages, erecting walls to the fallen. Its not just those who are under performing. Its people who have large ratings and bring in buckets of revenue. Radio companies just slash without any consideration for the quality of the product, insane with panic because the industry will never be the same.

    Stop it! Are you people serious? The most puzzling thing about the radio industry in general is its own insecurities. The people who are in radio seem convinced that we are the "other" media. We aren't as solvent as television or print, that we are on the brink of collapse at any time. Have any of these people actually done some research? Study after study shows that Americans consume more radio than ever before. Of course the faces on television and print belittle the radio industry, they have motive to! They are competing for the same advertising dollars that we are! Yet when President Obama identified his voice of opposition, was it a blogger, columnist, or pundit? Nope, Rush Limbaugh because he is the biggest name in conservative media. He arguably created conservative media, but we set that aside. Has this industry been going out of its way to create the next Rush who created a format that didn't exist before he started? Of course not. Part of radio self loathing is as soon as a star is born, we think there can never be another. So we slash, eliminating the up and comers to make sure there will be no more profitable stars.

    Radio is a media unlike the others. Its the only one that is completely one dimensional, and the easiest to consume. Radio doesn't ask you to stop what you are doing, commanding your full attention and patience. Radio can be with you when you drive around, do housework, play video games or exercise and its the only media that can do all of that. Radio is designed to be enjoyed however you like, and however much commitment you give it is how much enjoyment you get out of it. If you leave a station on in the background, you will have noise to distract you. If you wear headphones, you will hear a produced quarter hour of carefully selected music that a professional stressed hours over. If they did it right, the mix will give you a better experience than any random internet stream will give you. If you are listening to a talk show, you can also leave it on for noise, but you can also get up to twenty minutes of free wheeling discussion that will either make you laugh, think or make you angry. No other media at all gives you twenty commercial free minutes of entertainment, and there are thousands of radio stations that are doing it right now 24 hours a day with absolutely no cost to the listener.

    Yes, ad revenue is down. Of course it is, we are in a recession. But we still have a huge audience that we can give to our advertisers. Now is the time to cultivate relationships with advertisers and we can't do that when we are radically changing the product that we are selling. Remember, its not the 60 second spots we are selling, its the airtime. Radically changing the product does not help at all in getting revenue up.

    But yet we slash. We try to figure out how to cut corners, assuming that the industry will never be the same. Network TV numbers are way down, so they are cutting costs. Newspapers are cutting like crazy, because less people read newspapers. The number of radio listeners actually went up in 2008, but..

    Why are we looking to other media whose numbers are declining for leadership? Why don't we point out that you must pay for digital TV boxes, you must subscribe to cable, you need a subscription or a website account to view periodicals. Why can't we point out that we are the industry that thrived during the real great depression, and we have the audience that has never gone away. Why don't we point out that the rise of the Internet actually adds to radio, because it the one media that you can enjoy at the same time as surfing the web? We don't point that out, we just slash. We assume that if television and newspapers are doing it, we should too. These are the same outlets that excoriate our business, calling us "shock talk" and look down their noses at us. They shame us, call us names, put labels on us, have less of an audience than we do, compete for the same advertising dollars that we do, and yet we follow their lead.

    Don't you see that now is the time to act? Our industry is not hurting, it is thriving. The Internet has given us the one thing we never had: a visual element. We can take this one dimensional media and our listeners can enhance their experience if they choose to. Plus, we can save huge amounts of money on promotions cost by using free Web 2.0 services like Facebook, Twitter and Plurk. We can reach listeners now and remind them to listen in ways we never had before, and we think this industry is in trouble?

    But still we slash. We devalue how important we are to the audience. We forget that our industry is still a dominant media, and people on TV have every reason to say we are less than that. Yet still we slash, as if the radio side of the economic downturn will never end, regardless of the fact that the audience still wants and needs us. The death of radio? As with the most tragic cases of self loathing, we're committing suicide.