Recently, I read a note in The Free Press (the online one, not the Detroit newspaper) that mentioned one can now earn a master’s degree in “degrowth.” Outside of being voluntary, degrowth sounds similar to the US radio industry in the 2020s. After getting past the initial incredulity that a university would actually offer such a degree, I looked it up. It’s real.
The degree is offered by UAB. No, not the University of Alabama-Birmingham, but the Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona. And yes, there is a master’s degree program in Political Ecology Degrowth and Environmental Justice. If you’re interested, it’s taught in English, takes a year of your time, and will set you back just under 4,000 euros. I’ve not been to Barcelona, but I’ve heard it’s a nice city.
The university suggests that while this degree will not lead to doctoral studies (heaven forbid!), you might be able to obtain work in areas such as public administration, environmental justice organizations, or cooperatives, among other potential employers.
The program is run in cooperation with an organization known as Research and Degrowth International. The group defines “degrowth” as “a multi-level voluntary path towards reduction of production and consumption…”. RDI is also a big fan of Palestine and Gaza, the latter of which is certainly well into the process of degrowth.
That’s why this struck me as a useful degree for entering radio management. Certainly, the industry has not been growing for some time, in other words, radio is “degrowing”. Why not hire some people that specialize in the field?
To support my assertion, I was working on a presentation for my current class at Western Kentucky University and came across this chart.
You can see that radio revenue was essentially flat from 2013 through 2019. COVID did a number on the business in 2020, but the rebound in 2021 did not return the industry to the revenue levels of the 2010s. S&P Global and Kagan, the sources of the data, suggest that revenues will decline slowly through the rest of the decade, and this includes digital.
We’ve seen all the layoffs, RIFs, cutbacks, and in a few cases, licenses being turned back to the FCC. It’s not just commercial radio as some of the biggest public radio operators have reduced headcount, canceled programming, and taken other steps to get their financial houses in order as well.
When I’ve been chatting recently with friends in the business, I’ve said that I should write a column with the headline “All of These People Can’t Be Stupid”, in other words, if everyone is hurting, it’s highly unlikely that all of the radio CEOs are all clueless idiots. Any industry that can still generate around $15 billion of annual revenue is not dead but is not headed in the right direction. It’s degrowth.
What to do? Last week, Fred Jacobs offered some concrete ideas in his blog. Fred’s not the only one with ideas that might steer us in the right direction, but it strikes me that our lack of promotion is hurting us.
My summer class at WKU is Emerging Technologies. While I was a dope to take a graduate class that crams 15 weeks into five, it’s been interesting. The subject of my paper and presentation for the class (which is web-based, by the way) is AI in radio and I’ve had to learn more about how AI is being used in the business.
Last year, there was a lot of ruckus about “AI Ashley”, a cloned version of a jock in Michigan doing middays in Portland, Oregon. When you look up AI Ashley on Google, you’ll find all sorts of stories about her and the use of an AI jock. How much publicity did KBFF receive (oddly, KBFF is known as Live 95.5, but AI Ashley is a real live person)? How many people around the country saw or read a story about a radio station?
Do we have any other stories to tell that will bring broadcast radio to a top-of-mind position as one more choice in a world with so many media choices? What can we do to promote our medium more, regardless of how individuals access it? And while we want to promote it to the people who control advertising spend, wouldn’t a greater profile locally and nationally wake some of them up? As I noted in a recent column, we have all the studies, we know that audio advertising works, but that doesn’t seem to be changing the chart above.
If we can’t change the story, perhaps we should have UAB’s website add that holders of a masters in degrowth may have options in traditional media (without the left-wing baggage that comes with the degree although Uri Berliner might suggest a public radio gig). All of print is in degrowth, linear TV is headed that way, and if we don’t come up with new ideas and act on them, radio won’t be far behind.
Let’s meet again next week.
