Oft-ignored fact: Internet radio is a DIFFERENT medium ·Dec 17, 07:19 AM Here’s the lead from a recent product review in PC World magazine:
There’s a failure of imagination in that sentence that is being repeated not only regularly by journalists, but also throughout the world of broadcast radio executives as well. Let me try writing an analagous fake lead for an article on the new medium of TV-series-on-DVD and see if I can illustrate my point:
See my point? Sure, one can use TV-series-on-DVD in the same way as broadcast TV — restrict yourself to one episode, play it at a pre-arranged time, etc. But the medium itself doesn’t have those restrictions! You can watch any time you want, as many episodes as you want, and even listen to alternate audio tracks (e.g., directors’ commentaries)! Similarly, webcasters can do Internet radio exactly like broadcast radio — an unchangeable-by-the-consumer string of 12 to 16 songs per hour, interspersed with commentary by a “disc jockey,” funded by a couple of commercial breaks per hour of three to eight local advertisers per break, and aimed at a local audience (as limited by the reach of the transmitter). But the medium doesn’t require those restrictions! When you’re delivering radio programming to consumers using the Internet as your delivery mechanism rather than AM or FM transmitters or even satellites, you have more flexibility and more options.
I am not saying there’s not some value for some webcasters in using the broadcast radio model for Internet radio. (RadioParadise.com, for example, uses many elements of that model — an personable DJ offering a fixed string of songs, with commentary interspersed — very well.) But I believe that’s going to be the exception rather than the rule — just as my plans to watch one hour of season five of “24” at precisely 8pm tonight are an exception to the usual DVD rule. Webcasters who take advantage of the characteristics of the new medium — e.g., LAUNCHcast, Pandora, etc. — are, I believe, going to be the ones that see the greatest success in this medium. And right now, the Internet efforts of traditional radio broadcasters (AM/FM broadcast groups, satellite radio companies, etc.) are not playing in that game. ———————————— share: del.icio.us. Reddit Digg Yahoo Wink Windows Google Newsvine
Comment Other blog entries Kurt's summary of the Internet radio royalty dispute iPhone's radio apps are a canary in a coal mine Part 2: DI's Ari Shohat on how to grow audience Digitially Imported's Ari Shohat reveals how he built a huge global audience Emmis's Jeff Smulyan responds re: FM in cell phones Ramsey: "Broadcasters don't understand the radio 'experience'" Honolulu's Brock Whaley: "I have heard the future in my car" Newspaper seems intent on driving print subscribers away CBS Radio gets it; Mason and Goodman appear in Chicago Radio Heard Here is a misguided campaign |














