Big radio, it’s time to get over Pandora

By the editors of Media Life

This is one in a number of stories on radio in Media Life’s ongoing series “The new face of radio in America,” examining all the changes taking place in the medium. Click here for earlier stories.

In the early Greek myth, dating back before Hesiod, Pandora opens a jar and unleashes all manner of evils upon the world.

Leap forward a couple of millennia to 2005, and dear Pandora does it again, this time in the form of a streaming radio service that’s left many in the radio industry wheezing in a protracted state of panic.

Big radio’s response has been to attack this interloper as, well, not really radio, while further stoking fears that the menace of Pandora worsens by the day.

The latest in fear-stoking comes from radio giant Cumulus. It offers up research showing that Pandora and other digital services like Spotify are perceived by advertisers and media buyers as being much more popular with listeners than they really are.

Enough.

Big radio needs to get a grip, rethink itself, do a reality check, maybe have an afternoon heart-to-heart with Dr. Phil.

Here is the reality.

Pandora is indeed radio, as is Spotify and for that matter podcasting and whatever other forms of entertainment reach the brain through the ear.

It is all radio.

These new services are taking radio to a new level. They are innovators, and their very existence speaks to the vitality of radio as a medium.

These innovators do two things. They make radio more available to more listeners on that many more platforms while increasing total potential revenues.

They force traditional radio to begin innovating on its own, always a good, and they make life harder for those who refuse to innovate, also always a good.

If advertisers and buyers are talking up Pandora and other digital services, it’s to their credit. They are doing exciting things. Good for them.

Traditional radio’s response, sadly, is to undertake public relations campaigns rallying believers to its cause. The message boils down to this: Traditional radio is grand, Pandora has cooties.

But like so many such campaigns, it’s had the unintended and opposite effect, conveying the very strong sense that traditional radio is in decline.

Asked to pick one word that best described the state of radio, “struggling” was the first choice in a recent Media Life survey of media planners and buyers.

The truth is that radio is actually holding up quite well. Listenership is down a bit but still huge. Revenues are down but are climbing back.

Why do media people think radio is struggling? How could they not when so much that comes out of big radio is defensiveness?

But the saddest consequence of this nattering over Pandora is that it takes attention away from what’s best about radio, and that’s the vital role it plays in communities across America. Radio connects like no other medium.

And no one appreciates that better than media buyers. Big radio may fret over Pandora and the like; buyers don’t. In that same Media Life survey, nearly two thirds of readers agreed that such services have a place but are not a major threat to traditional radio.

They rated traditional radio tops for its ability to drive sales for their clients, precisely because of its strong community ties.

What buyers would like to see is radio reinvesting back in local markets, staffing up again after years of budget cutting, hiring back the on-air personalities that put the local in local radio for so many years.

But in order for that to happen, big radio must get past Pandora. After all, it’s been 10 years.

Tags: online radio, radio, pandora, digital radio, big radio, the new face of radio