When I look at the emerging creator economy, podcasters becoming rockstars and AI technology that advances daily, I don’t see a nail in the coffin of radio. What I see is an opportunity for radio broadcasters. Provided broadcasters are willing to adapt, innovate and merge new ideas that pair well with the things radio has always been good at. That process starts with putting a fresh face on our stations to make our heritage media look more like new media. Here are a few ways we can do that.
Improve how radio looks in the dash. In episode 32 of the Radio Influencers podcast I host for Radio Update I mentioned how car dashes are going to look vastly different in a couple of years and, for radio to continue our in-car dominance, we’ll need to look a lot better than we currently do. I talked about a couple companies that are trying to get ahead of that, DTS AutoStage and RadioPlayer. Another one a client brought to my attention afterwards is MyQuu.net. All of these companies are helping radio look more impressive in car dashes. What we can display already is only limited by our willingness to send metadata and what metadata we choose to send. This is also a good excuse to update or redo station logos that look a little dated, if that’s necessary.
Ethically and intelligently embrace artificial intelligence. We should NOT fire the few remaining on-air personalities on our payrolls and replace them with AI voices, even when those AI voices become indistinguishable from human ones (which we’re close to). A much better approach is to keep that limited staff, provide them with AI tools and train them on how to use those tools to become significantly more efficient and proficient. Then, use AI voices, listeners, artists, local celebs and other content creators in any daypart that’s currently unmanned so there are voices on 24/7 again.
Which brings me to my next point, content partnerships. While we beg our radio staff to create content for every platform we now have there are a TON of people out there creating content on their own within every single radio market. People podcasting in their basement, creating their own YouTube shows, crafting a reality show on their social feeds, twitch streaming themselves playing video games and a whole host of other creative content ideas. Why aren’t more radio stations partnering with content creators within their market to get those people to create content on their station’s behalf?
Learn from those content creators. Content creators outside of radio have been stealing tips and tricks from radio for years, it’s high time we returned the favor. The bulk of the money being made in the creator economy are from brand deals. A brand deal is essentially just an endorsement deal by another name. Radio invented endorsement deals and we all know they demand a premium. So, let’s look at how successful creators are doing their brand deals, which companies they’re working with, what’s working and what isn’t. Then try and incorporate that into our existing endorsement model. The other big lesson radio can learn from solopreneurs in the creator economy is to think and act more like a journalist. We have to always be looking for opportunities to capture content anywhere and everywhere it happens, starting with our smartphones and investing in tools to create our own content creator tool kits as we grow.
Embrace individuals and individualism. One of the lines at NAB in New York that silenced a room full of broadcasters came from YouTuber Jacklyn Dallas who said “individual creators have the opportunity to create the next generation of media companies”. The panel full of other creator economy solopreneurs echoed this talking about the power of individuals over corporations. They’re not entirely wrong, I and many others have written about how powerful some individual podcasters and YouTubers have become in recent years. We have absolutely entered the era of the content creator. But, they aren’t entirely right either. Pairing an individual that connects with an audience with the power of a broadcasting company to reach the masses is still a winning combination. Just ask Tucker Carlson and Don Lemon, two guys from opposite sides of the aisle who had much more power and reach when they were paired with the strength of a broadcaster. I think radio can strike a happy medium when we start identifying individuals who have the power to connect on their own, allowing them the creative freedom to continue creating their content in front of our larger audiences and share in a portion of the profits we make from that content.
Revenue and staff shortages are nothing new to any of us. Radio has been struggling for years. We’ve all essentially been in survival mode for at least a decade now. It’s time for us to stop looking at changes happening throughout the world as a negative and start looking for our opportunities within that change.
What do you think? What other opportunities do you see for radio? Comment below or email me at Andy@RadioStationConsultant.com.
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