One of the main reasons I encourage people to go to conventions is because it gives us all a glimpse of what’s coming. Last week’s TAB Convention was a prime example of that. It was very forward focused. Starting with a keynote that included a 3-year forecast of broadcasting’s AI evolution, then a session on what a radio station will look like in 2030 and finally a session about envisioning a bright future for broadcasting. All of these presentations had a common theme. With each passing day more industries and big name brands are getting into radio’s space. If we want to remain competitive going forward radio has got to focus on creating more original content and sharing that on ALL of our platforms. This excites me because I think content creation is our strength in radio, so focusing on that is a good thing. But, it also scares me because as I look around I currently see a massive content shortage within our industry. Luckily, it’s not too late to remedy that.

As the Chief Editor for Radio Update one of the things I wanted to do when we launched was highlight some great original on-air and digital content radio talent from across the country were creating each week. So, we asked talent to submit content for their chance to win and our staff combed through market after market looking for content that stood out to us. While we certainly did find some real standouts in all size markets, overall we were surprised at how little content we were able to find. Some of that is due to companies continuing to cut personalities (at a time when they’re more necessary than ever). A little more of that is because there are still a lot of on-air talent who rip and read the same prep in market after market adding very little to it to make it their own. But, mainly it’s because a VERY small percentage of good on-air content is shared digitally, posted on the website and/or shared to social media. Plus, there is little additional digital content being created by radio talent. Most radio stations in the US still don’t have cameras in the studio, which makes sharing content digitally easier and significantly more effective because the algorithms favor video over audio alone. Plus, most on-air talent still don’t podcast and many that do are simply pulling audio clips from their shows and repurposing them instead of doing a separate stand-alone podcast. Many that do podcast still resist adding the element of video. 

For years, continuing to dominate in-car listening has been the key to radio staying relevant and competitive. But, the header image above is just one example of what that car dash is going to look like in only a few years. Here are a few more.

There will be a lot of people fighting for the prime real estate on these dashboards as well as the windows themselves once autonomous cars become more prevalent. If radio wants to continue staking it’s claim on in-car listening we’ve got to start creating more content now and make the content we do create more visually appealing. First, by doing everything we can to capture and share the content we’re already creating. Second, training and incentivizing our staffs to create more content. Then finally, embracing the right AI tools and partners to use AI to help our limited staffs to each create ten (or more) times the content they could produce on their own.

What do you think? Is radio creating enough content? Comment below or email me at Andy@RadioStationConsultant.com.