When I was moderating a panel at TAB last year on Extending Your Brand Online, I made a comment about how in many ways now volume is more important than quality for content creators. My comment got some pushback from the panel, but I think that’s because I didn’t phrase it correctly. The way I worded it insinuated that the substance of the content we’re creating isn’t that important, which I don’t agree with. What I should’ve said was that we’ve clearly entered an era where the production value of the content we create isn’t as important as the volume of the content we create. At least when we’re judging production value by broadcast standards.
On YouTube, the most important platform for digital content right now in my opinion, content recorded on iPhones and $100 webcams regularly outperforms video content recorded in million dollar studios with multiple $50,000 cameras. I don’t think that’s because people prefer lower quality video production, I think it’s because people like content created specifically for the platform it’s on. Those iPhones and $100 webcams allow creators to capture real world content everywhere, in their homes, their cars, in public and throughout their day. Turning every digital creator into their own one-person production team. This allows them to crank out significantly more content volume than people tied to traditional broadcast studios.
I am by no means saying creators shouldn’t strive to improve their production quality. I just don’t think anyone should use their lack of equipment as an excuse to not start creating content anywhere and everywhere. We should all start with what we already have, the smartphones in our pocket, and build from there adding USB mics, 4k webcams, video switchers, audio mixers like Rodecasters and so on.
One major strength radio has over other kinds of creators is our experience creating great audio. Even in video content people are more apt to tolerate low-res pictures and video than they are bad audio. This is especially true on long-form content. Try to sit through an entire hour podcast with bad audio, it’ll drive you insane. Radio people transitioning to creating more multi-platform content should use their audio experience to capture the best quality audio possible in any setting as opposed to only being willing to create content in optimum audio settings. Because that’s the key to creating the volume necessary to compete with digital competitors. Luckily, with the boom in prosumer gear the equipment required to do so is considerably cheaper and easier to use than it was just a few years ago.
A few weeks ago I recorded an episode of my Radio Influencers podcast asking the question, what is a studio? Because I believe the key to radio broadcasters competing with digital creators is redefining what we think of as a studio. In today’s world a studio is anywhere we have a mic, a camera and someone to talk into them. Changing that mindset will allow us to play to our strengths and use our broadcast experience to get the best production quality possible out of those improvised studios. Then we’ll be creating the same volume of content as other digital creators, but our content will have the added benefit of looking and sounding better. Throw in using our experience preparing for radio shows to allow us to prepare in advance for creating that digital content and we’ll be light years ahead of other creators.
What do you think? Is production quality more important than content volume? Comment below or email me at Andy@RadioStationConsultant.com.
Pic designed by DC Studio for Freepik.com.