As you probably know by now, I read way too much radio and television trade press. Perhaps you have the same vice, but if not, you might have missed two related items in a recent edition of Cynopsis.
The first one noted that what was referred to as “The US Joint Industry Committee” released a statement about their role versus the role of the Media Rating Council. I’ve mentioned this JIC before which is really The US Joint Video Industry Committee because, to the best of my knowledge, it does not deal with any sort of audio measurement.
Regardless, the JIC says they’re focused on “…evaluating the transactional readiness of national, cross-platform, measurement solutions…” while the “MRC goes much further in conducting intensive audits of measurement methodology”.
Meanwhile, the Coalition for Innovative Media Measurement (CIMM), which is now part of the Advertising Research Foundation (ARF), detailed some priorities for the first half of the year. They plan to:
- Support innovations and improvements in measurement and currency development
- Help buyers to navigate changes in current and measurement
- Build trust quality and transparency and collaboration in identity resolution
- Developing best practices for new ecosystems
- Building capabilities and strategic resources for content measurement
That’s what video is doing at an industry level. And speaking of ARF, their recent Audience xScience 2024 event was held in New York last month.While I did not attend, a review of the agenda listed 54 different sessions (many run concurrently). I counted three that were dedicated to audio and one more that had an audio person on the panel.
All three audio panels were under the heading of “Traditional Media: Outside of Video” and ran concurrently with other subjects (“Audience Diversity: State of Inclusive Advertising” and “Attention and Impression Quality: Ad Experience, Impact, and Media Planning”).
If you’re putting a number against that, audio/radio was 5.6% of the panel topics. To add insult to injury, the moderator for the “traditional media” sessions was from CIMM, which as best I can tell, doesn’t have much to do with audio or out-of-home.
If you review CIMM’s membership on their website, you won’t find any radio companies. You will find the TVB and the IAB, but not the RAB. Nielsen is involved, of course, as is Numeris, their Canadian counterpart, both of which measure radio, but also have a much greater interest in video. You won’t find iHeart, Audacy, Cumulus, Westwood One, Premiere, or any other “audio first” company.
What to do about this situation? The ARF knows where their support comes from. When I was much younger, radio played an important role in the various ARF conferences, but no longer.
Meanwhile, Steve Goldstein’s latest blog (dated March 31 even though it arrived in my inbox on April 1 so I assume Steve did not want it seen as some sort of April Fool’s entry) ran a partial transcription of a panel he chaired at the recent Podcast Movement Evolutions conference. One set of comments really struck home.
Drew Marcus, who has covered the media industry for years and is now a senior advisor at Guggenheim Securities, made a couple of key points. Here are quotes (italics mine) that I’ve lifted from Steve’s blog (which you should sign up for at www.amplifimedia.com if you don’t already receive it):
“The future of media is streaming. The stock market is supposed to be an efficient predictive entity. In the past year, Spotify stock has doubled, iHeart stock has been cut in half, Netflix stock has doubled, and Warner/Discovery stock has approximately been cut in half. Media executives are obviously very cognizant of this, so they’re leaning into digital strategies, with podcasting being one of them. Podcast listenership is going up. Radio listenership is going down. In the past five years, time spent listening to radio is down about 25%.”
And “The tech giants have a lot of resources. To put things in scale, the seven largest tech companies have net about $700 Billion in cash. The ten largest media companies have about $200 Billion in debt. The tech companies are the innovators. They are the disruptors with the pristine balance sheets and resources. When they put their mind to it, they can build without buying.”
Drew is a Michigan alum and while that’s a negative in my MSU green and white book, he crystallized the issues facing radio in just a few sentences.
What do we do? How do we change our medium to adapt to this new reality? Something for everyone in the business to think about.
Let’s meet again next week.
