Radio is dead. Or it will die. Or maybe it is dying.
I guess it depends on who you talk to, but you have no doubt heard these words before. The medium is archaic and there is only one way this whole thing ends, right?
There was a time, not too long ago, where I was really careful not to say that. I understood the sentiment – radio has some serious problems. But the wording, it’s “dying” wreaks of bitterness, as if the people that made these declarations needed to see justice brought to the business that wronged them.
When I say not long ago, by the way, I REALLY mean not that long ago. I expressed this sentiment as recently as last Tuesday on a phone call with JB. Then Audacy eliminated a bunch of jobs, something the company does a lot these days. They aren’t alone of course. iHeart blew out a bunch of talented people late last year. So did Cumulus.
Now, instead of insisting that radio isn’t dying, I think it’s time to be a little more sober and a little more somber.
Radio the medium isn’t dying. The means of distributing information to a local market in real time has too much value. Radio the business is a different story. I don’t know if the radio business is dying or not, but I know the current reality suggests we’re closer to the former than the latter.
How did we get here? There are a lot of reasons, but I think they all fall into one of three main categories: actions betraying words, taking action to validate reaction, and insisting the rest of the world is wrong.
ACTIONS BETRAYING WORDS
The biggest companies and their leaders do a lot of talking and betray all of their words with their actions.
Pick a major radio conglomerate. You can no doubt find an interview with one of their c-level executives or a speech they have delivered at an industry event where they insist that they value talent. They have no doubt said that “local content matters” because “every market is unique”.
Words are nice, but they don’t mean anything if they are not backed up by actions. Talk stations, both news and sports, replace local hosts with syndication all of the time. Some would never even consider a live and local voice on the air outside of one of the two drive times. Others may never consider using local talent at all.
Music stations aren’t off the hook. In fact, anyone that works in music radio might tell you those stations are even more guilty of betraying their bosses’ insistence that local content matters. There are so many more options for not hiring actual human beings. Automation, voice-tracking, and AI DJs are now at corporate’s disposal.
This isn’t complicated. How a person or a company spends its money is the ultimate sign of what it values. If our industry’s biggest names are trying to figure out ways to spend less money on local content, it’s because they don’t value local content. If they don’t value local content, they do not see each market as unique and worth being served.
TAKING ACTION TO VALIDATE REACTION
Contrary to the messages you see on motivational posters, not every proactive business is successful and not every reactive business is a failure. Reactions are usually based on feedback from the marketplace. If they are implemented with a strategy, how is that not good business?
It’s hard to implement reactionary changes in a smart way in radio, because the mandate given to so many managers isn’t to succeed. It’s to not fail. How can you build anything without knowing you will be given the support and patience it needs to grow to a place where it can sustain success? How can you comfortably pivot away from a strategy that is showing signs of faltering if you are always worried that adaptation will be seen as admitting failure?
That sounds like a losing atmosphere. It’s not only a recipe for defeat, but a structure without any kind of foundation. If there’s no foundation, how do you build?
In radio’s case, the industry is fighting on an uneven battlefield. Spotify, YouTube and other digital platforms give the audience the ability to choose the exact entertainment they want the second they want it. Radio is still saying “trust us” to the audience. Don’t like this song? The next one will be better. Trust us! Feel like it’s been a while since you’ve heard any actual content? This spot break will be over soon. Trust us!
A station and its leadership have to build a brand that the audience has faith in. That requires a lot of faith and leeway that local leaders don’t always get from their corporate bosses. They need to have a vision for what can be. If they need to have faith that they will get there and not abandon a well-researched strategy at the first sign of resistance. They also need to be able to see alternative paths to the same destination, so that they can account for unforeseen obstacles and respond to them intelligently.
Do local leaders in radio have faith they will receive that kind of grace right now or are the biggest companies in the industry too paralyzed by the fear of current expenses to invest in a future payoff? Operating that way will put businesses in any industry behind the proverbial eight ball.
RADIO: INSISTING THE REST OF THE WORLD IS WRONG
I was driving from Charlotte back to Raleigh recently and was having a conversation with a friend about the way the public uses Spotify. He said that he has always thought of it as the record store – you go to it with something in mind and if you deviate from it, its because the algorithm has recognized something else you might like based on that initial choice.
But research says a lot of people are using it like a 21st century radio. They aren’t searching for artists or songs. They are searching for terms, finding a three hour playlist and just putting it on.
Even when young people are choosing to trust someone else’s music selections, they aren’t turning to traditional broadcast radio. I have a thirteen year old son and a fifteen year old daughter. They even look at satellite radio as archaic.
Radio the business has to divorce itself from radio the medium. Maybe “divorce” is too strong of a word.
The medium is the platform on which the business was built, but the business has needs the medium cannot meet. Maybe radio the business needs to have an open marriage with radio the medium.
Everyone in the radio business has heard about how important social media is, worked on a strategy to maximize their footprint and then been told that there isn’t enough profit in social media to justify the necessary effort or investment to be great at it. Radio is a rare business. In most cases, of course companies want every sector to be profitable, but in radio’s case survival takes precedence. If my teenagers look at radio as archaic in 2025, there’s no reason to think that in 2035 or 2045 that they are going to have changed their minds.
The industry’s problem with young people isn’t that they aren’t part of our audience yet. It’s that they will never be part of our audience if we don’t find ways to get our content where they are right now. “There’s not enough money in it” is not an excuse if you want to set your brand up for the future.
Radio is using the wrong people and the wrong strategies to monetize its digital assets and insisting the problem is that the task is impossible. Barstool, Wave, Outkick – they all exist solely online and they all make money. The digital space and broadcast radio are two different things. They require different sales approaches, but equal levels of knowledge and commitment to the product. “It can’t be done” is an attitude that leads to extinction.
Is radio dying? Is it already dead? I don’t know, but I see why people might think it is.
Who should we blame? Well, there’s no one single person or company to blame because we didn’t get here as the result of one single action or decision. It was a serious of self-inflicted wounds by companies that grew too big to support all of their properties and let those properties lose too much value to justify selling.
Radio the medium won’t die. It has too much value to local communities. Radio the business, though? It’s on shaky ground and we can’t pretend to be mystified or offended by the people that point that out.
Barrett Media produces daily content on the music, news, and sports media industries. To stay updated, sign up for our newsletters and get the latest information delivered straight to your inbox.
Demetri Ravanos is a columnist and features writer for Barrett Media. He is also the creator of The Sports Podcast Festival, and a previous host on the Chewing Clock and Media Noise podcasts. He occasionally fills in on stations across the Carolinas in addition to hosting Panthers and College Football podcasts. His radio resume includes stops at WAVH and WZEW in Mobile, AL, WBPT in Birmingham, AL and WBBB, WPTK and WDNC in Raleigh, NC.
You can find him on Twitter @DemetriRavanos or reach him by email at DemetriTheGreek@gmail.com.
