Why terrestrial radio is doomed (talk is cheap)
I’m a big sports nut and a big Yankees (baseball) fan. On the radio, the best (and I think the ONLY) sports talk-station is ESPN (in the Tri-state area of New York-New Jersey-Connecticut, it’s 1050 AM) In the morning, the program of choice is Mike (Goldberg Greenberg) & Mike (Golick) During the day, there’s plenty of great shows from the likes of Steven A. Smith, Dan Patrick and Michael Kay.
So what’s the problem?
When I travel into the city on my every-other-day commute on the train, I typically leave around 7 or 7.05am in order to make a 7.20am train.
So what’s the problem?
When I arrive at the station and park, my car tells me I’ve been traveling for about 7 minutes.
So what’s the problem?
The problem is that in these 7 minutes, I don’t hear a damn word from Mike & Mike. All I hear are damn ads, promos (Summer Hummer crap) and more damn ads. Actually that’s not true, I change the channel and typically continue to change it as I encounter more ad breaks.
I’m not going to stick around and wait for ESPN to figure out how to better reach – and connect – with me.
I also don’t want to hear about the NFL or NBA or NHL. I want to hear about Baseball, Football (your soccer), Cricket, Rugby and headline making stories in general.
ESPN doesn’t care what I want. They just care what their advertisers want.
I’m out of here.
Radio is doomed.
Here are a few ways of helping to kill off this terminally ill patient.
1) Radio’s only remaining competitive advantage is the live or near live experience i.e. currency (as in current) and listener call-ins. So to make the East Coast commute, beginning around 6 or 6.30am, I would record a podcast every morning at 5am and upload it at 6am. 30 minutes; 1 sponsor maximum.
2) The third Mike. Are Mike & Mike truly (one of) the best in the game? Perhaps and perhaps note. Against ESPN’s arbitrary standards, absolutely. Against the wisdom of crowds, lifetime Yankees loyalists and sports nuts…not so much. It's time for the listeners to become the broadcasters...
3) Tailored Content. The podcast created in 1) would be a Yankees podcast (25 mins) with 5 mins of general content to balance out the sporting news of the day/night before
4) Satellite Radio. Need I say more?
5) The rise of iPod (or similar MP3 player) installed handsets in cars. Yes, the lighter thingy is nifty, but it’s a little cumbersome and the quality isn’t so great and besides, if they can put in GPS, Satellite Radio etc in a car, they can make sure MP3 players are standard
6) The obvious next step…who needs an MP3 player anyway? Ala Tivo and Rocketboom, how far away are we to being able to download podcasts directly to our “audio console” (or whatever we end up calling it) in our cars.
7) The obvious next step…the mash-up of SkypeCast meets Wi-Fi meets Podcasting. The inevitable and inexorable march towards LiveCasting (there’s a term worth coining), which should be able to comprehensively be the final straw or final nail for radio
8) 5 steps backwards…there are already plenty of Yankees Podcasts, right? WRONG. Can anyone spell out O P P O R T U N I T Y (see step 1)
