iPhone Changes the Rules for Radio Industry
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By 6:45pm Friday I was holding one in my hand thinking that radio industry execs are not going to get the significance of this. By 7:45am Monday I was seeing evidence that those running radio are even slower at picking up warning signs than their track record indicates. From Inside Radio came this quote by Clear Channel EVP Jeff Littlejohn: "...the radio industry shouldn’t worry about the high-profile launch of the iPhone...it’s not a competitive threat."
No, the iPhone is not? Should we also believe that advertisers aren't looking at online, that youth don't want something different, and that technology has a way of always going backwards?
The radio industry is in trouble. Its leaders, again, are sticking their heads in the sand hoping it will all go away. The clever ones among them are getting into tomorrow by following the easiest routes, hence Clear Channel's dive into text messaging as the promised NTR Savior. It's just that there are not many variables attached to text messaging, not many ways to use it within a radio industry environment. These shortcomings will become apparent in short time.
The comment about the iPhone not being "a competitive threat" has me wondering what's going through radio exececutives' minds today? Can they not read that the landscape has changed, that their value lies in the amount of time audience devotes to radio, and that that "time" is growing shorter each year?
Mr. Littlejohn, there is a movement in progress. You're competing for the public's attention and not doing a very good job of keeping it.
Plus, there's this other item pacing before you: the threat of having to pay performance royalties for over-the-air broadcast IN ADDITION TO your online streams. If this passes (and there's a good chance it will), your stations' operating costs could shoot to staggering heights. That's not good for an industry seeing a 1% drop in revenue for May.
iPhone is a direct competitor in that the iPhone amplifies the shift in what's getting attention today.
If radio is not part of the answer to placing everything a user wants in one unit - aka iPhone - it's destined to diminish at an exponential rate over the next ten years. Keep your eyes on TSL. There'll be no spikes in the future.
The iPhone that I held in my hands amazed me! It has a friendly user interface, colorful easy-to-use icons, fast response. It is a computer with sidepockets for everything that affects my life, and it does not have a radio tuner.
It's not the iPhone that's radio's competition as much as the concept the iPhone represents. Those who are younger understand what's happening. The older ones who are running radio (and every other traditional media) need to understand the rules have changed. All media now comes in one container.
As Mr. Littlejohn demonstrates through his comments, radio execs just don't see that they've been left out.
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