The Water's on the Ceiling - The Fish Hold the Poles
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Not many people working in the radio industry grasp the potential of what the internet offers like Daniel Anstandig, President of McVay New Media. I've known Daniel since he was 17. He's possessed with the notoriety of being invited by Bill Gates (yes, that Gates) to speak at a Microsoft conference because of Daniel's then-popular Daer Internet Radio station.
When Daniel speaks, you listen. It's a simple action that any person in a radio executive's chair needs to follow. Anstandig understands new media and the radio industry.
The reason for bringing up his name is an article Daniel penned, titled "The Blue Ocean for Radio," which appears at Radio-Info.com. It contains solid advice and truth - such as "We simply need to have fun as an industry again" - as well as comments on "Tired Positioning" and "iPod Programming Mentality." I urge you to read and heed. (BTW: The last item about "iPod" comes from Rockie Thomas, Interactive Consultant at McVay New Media. Rockie's also a long-time friend whose words carry weight equal to Daniel's. She knows.)
I agree with everything in "The Blue Ocean for Radio," only holding reservation on the concept of crowdcasting a radio station's audience through Listener Driven Radio. My hesitation on this comes from the multiples of people required to make social networking work (not the discussion here, though).
Let's get back to the title of Daniel Anstandig's article, "The Blue Ocean for Radio." For me, this holds double meaning: 1) The way it is laid out in the article and 2) relevance to how the radio industry and audience find each other, as in then and now.
If you have any pain-killers on hand, you may want to digest one. I'm no artist, and can only conjure up pictures of my perspective through crudely-drawn graphics that might cause your eyes to burn. But here goes, described in the same way it was explained to Daniel over lunch a few years ago.
My "ocean" is more a matter of the radio industry's approach to attracting audience. The system has literally been turned upside down. Here's the old interaction between the radio industry and its listeners.
Each station carried its own fishing pole (programming), dipping it into its own little ocean (market).
Today the fish carry the poles, and they are all swimming in the same big ocean. Radio stations no longer troll for an audience; it's the other way around.
Please, read what Daniel Anstandig has written. Sign up for his Radio-Info newsletter here.
Also keep in mind that the radio industry is now operating amid a much larger fleet of stations, all fishing for the same catch. More appropriately, radio stations are all trying to catch the same lines now being dipped into this Blue Ocean by the audience. It's important to note that most people use search engines or radio station portals for trolling.
The major comment you must remember comes from Daniel: "...show prep can no longer be comprised of browsing other mainstream media for news." What you have to do to make your station stand out today goes far beyond this feeble effort of going through multiple sources of information. It takes work to pull off the successful approach that Daniel Anstandig is pushing the radio industry towards.
Don't forget that part about having fun, either. If you need an example of how to pull this off, call Daniel. I've never seen him wearing anything on his face but a smile (and he never even saw these silly drawings).
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From: Ric Haley
This is the best real example of the media scene I've seen in years. In the old days fishing was much easier. But you leave out one other competitor that also fishes in the same waters..play lists; on ipods, mp3 players etc. Every new car now comes with an aux plug on the face of the radio that they generically refer to as the ipod port.
It seems that the old rules of show prep of music or topics that are relevant and topical, locally focused and not recorded 5 days ago as voice tracking may stand a chance of bringing radio back. If today's hybrid radio operator/banker would embrace this philosophy they might stand a chance. But even if they actually made those expensive changes they would require considerable capital to promote and I haven't met any owners that can see past the next board meeting let alone have the courage to tell the owners of these overpriced stations that this is the way to success.
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