Are We Using Them? Or Are They Using Us?

Ken Dardis

In grade school we'd bring our transistor radio to class and listen to the ball game. It was a time when radio was beginning to bounce back from a bruising delivered by the new media television. Radio no longer was the darling of home entertainment.

On to the mid-60's. We became a mobile nation, and
radio entered people's lives between points of travel.
FM arrived in the 70's. Our programming style changed.
New in format and image, radio received a dedicated
following from a whole generation.

But, while leading all media in ability to entertain, report news, and promote ourselves ‘bigger than life,' a funny thing happened in the early 80's: radio fragmented the audience.

MOR left the scene. Pop 40 split into Urban,
Contemporary, and Teeny Bopper. FM blossomed
into a variety of Rock, Classical and talk.
Beautiful Music disappeared. Sports Talk entered.
We went into a 10-year lull.
The high crest had hit and it was
rapidly receding. Station audiences
grew smaller amid a dazzling array
of specialty formats.

Then the industry realized you can't make a big buck when everyone is playing to too small a crowd.

So in the 90's we consolidated and became aggressive.

Come the Mid-90's, enter the Internet.

Four years ago, radio crawled onboard
the Internet to expand revenue streams.
It dug in for a battle on what was thought
to be new ground.
With an attitiude of 'we'll fine tune it later',
ill-conceived radio station web sites were
launched in hopes of tapping into the
Internet on Radio's terms.
Thousands of radio web sites still sit waiting for a payoff.
May, 1999:
"Yahoo establishes its own radio channels."
"Looksmart to launch talk radio show."
... the realization is setting in.
Someone in this new media has been
looking at radio with the same eye
radio used to look at the Internet.
There is a war brewing, but it's on our turf.
Now all those radio station sites with
streaming audio - the ones that get 50
visitors a day - stand a chance of losing
broadcast audience share to branded,
established Internet sites with lots
of money to burn.
What's going to happen?

Radio, failing to understand the Internet in its infancy, finds this new media has grown up. And although its not fully developed, Internet folks have the edge in this battle because they do understand. Stations are no longer one of x-choices in the market. They can't hide behind FCC frequency assignments. And, about this new ground, broadcasting on the Internet is the easy part of the equation. Getting people to your Internet address is the problem. The fight is not for part of cyberspace anymore but for the listening audience.

Sites like Yahoo and LookSmart have the potential to introduce their brand of radio to millions of users who will listen on their computer. It's only a matter of time till users figure out how simple this is.

Back in the 50's, radio took a thumping by a new
technology called television. It fought back, with
help from its relationship to the automobile.
This time, instead of placing a radio receiver
in the limelight as car makers once did, WebTV,
AOL, Charles Schwab and many other companies
are pushing the Internet.
Yahoo and LookSmart understand this.
They also are counting on radio people
to under-estimate the power of the Internet
when it's used throughout the radio station:
programming, news, promotion and sales.
The tables have turned with this week's
announcements by Yahoo and Looksmart.
Other action has AOL working with NBC
and a few more major sites assembling their
own radio staffs.
Time's come for Radio to abandon it's arrogant
approach to using the Internet.
Instead, it needs to be concentrating on how
the Internet is going to use Radio.

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