Shelf Space in the World's Radio Market
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Walking through a grocery store there's a question that usually goes unasked: Why are there so many rows of one label's brand and fewer rows devoted to competing brands? The answer is simple. Those brands with the best positioning pay for it, or work a relationship with the retailer for better shelf space.
This same approach applies to placing a radio station in front of people who are looking for a new station. From what I've seen, though, there's little evidence that the radio industry is interested in placing its brands in front of these "searchers."
Gone are the days of trading locally among media for exposure. In the past, it was SOP to cut a trade deal with the local weekly or daily paper. Television would regularly exchange commercials for ads on local radio stations. Billboards? They were left out of the loop pretty much until Clear Channel got into the game. Today you'll seldom see a non-Clear Channel station marketed on billboards.
Meanwhile, in the world's radio market (the internet) there is less evidence that broadcast radio stations are interested in expanding audience reach. Proof is in the amount of energy and money spent trying to get the word out that a station exists online.
The big clue that the radio industry is not trying to get prominent "shelf space" online comes from the scant numbers of broadcast stations ranking high on search engines. Another clue, on a much smaller scale, concerns the stations suggested for listing at Audio Graphics' RadioRow.com.
At any time, there are approximately 150 station-suggestions in queue waiting to be considered for listing at RadioRow. These submissions come from a "Submit Your Favorite Station" link at the web site, and are sent in by: a) people who are fans of a station, b) station employees, and c) station owners.
Most submissions received at RadioRow are from (or about) internet radio stations. I'll give it an unscientific 70%/30% split, with 70% being submission for internet-only radio stations. It being that each submission passes through my email inbox, I'll also guess that less than 2% of the broadcast radio submissions come from radio industry personnel; mostly, they come from station fans. Internet radio station owners wanting shelf space at RadioRow continually re-submit their station until it's listed. Why is there such a large differential?
The other avenue for gaining audience numbers online is through search engine queries. On average each month, according to Google's "Keyword Tool," the top radio searches in volume (from the United States) are:
13,600,000 - Radio
823,000 - Radio Stations
673,000 - Radio Station
673,000 - Online Radio
450,000 - Internet Radio
450,000 - Internet Radios
450,000 - Radio on the Internet
368,000 - FM Radio
301,000 - Music Radio
301,000 - Radio Music
165,000 - Online Radio Stations
135,000 - Radio Stations Online
Of these twelve searches, Clear Channel shows as #6 return for the keyword "radio," once. NPR is #7 in the same keyword. NPR also shows up as the #10 return for "online radio."
The only other broadcaster showing in a top-ten return for searching these keywords is 102.7 KIIS FM, once, at #8 for "radio station."
Considering this is the best shelf space to be found in this new world of media, why is it that there are no other radio industry names mentioned out of 120 slots for 12 keywords?
Those who show multiple times are as follows:
11 - Pandora
10 - Live365
10 - Radio-Locator
9 - AOL Radio
6 - OnlineRadioStations.com
5 - Slacker
4 - Jango
3 - LastFM
2 - XM/Sirius
2 - Audio Graphics
RadioRow shows up twice in the above keywords, but our search strategy is geared towards specific music genres - i.e., "rap radio stations," "country radio stations," "jazz radio stations," etc. (Its search positioning breakout is here.) In using this approach, a few more broadcasters end up in the top ten, but it's still very few.
Sixty-two slots, out of 120 available listings across 12 radio-related keywords, are taken by the above companies. Add the 2 NPR mentions, 2 RadioRow, 1 Clear Channel, and 1 for KIIS FM, and there are 32 slots in these keywords where a company shows 1 time. None are radio industry related.
Getting back to that "shelf space," you've just walked down the radio station aisle in the online grocery store called Google. MSN Bing and Yahoo! Search results are not much different.
With all the talk about online being the future, at what point will radio industry executives put emphasis on being found, on getting better search engine shelf space?
Considering the growth in Smartphones and incremental rise in radio-listening through these devices, now would be a good time for radio to start.
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