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In the narrow boundaries of our predispositions and arid realism, we miss some of the most important discoveries. Over time you may have read various ADG preachments on putting the technology cart before the performance horse. We first staked that claim in 2005. Well, this week our colleagues at Ramsey Research and All Access delivered a Monet of an article, painting the newest twist in brilliant colors. Ignore it if you dare.
Mark Ramsey wrote, "Beginning this month YouTube is gambling $100 million that by seeding professional production firms such as Young Hollywood, whose slate of YouTube-only programming premiers soon, it will draw more eyeballs for longer viewing sessions." Ramsey goes on to point out what some of us have already figured out: YouTube is a massive distribution channel, but not a creator of content. So what does YouTube do, asks Ramsey? "How about investing in content creation?" Touchdown, Mark.
Massive distribution is like gold. And like YouTube, Radio has it...244 million weekly listeners to be exact. And for the better part of the years following consolidation Audience Development Group has been screaming into the wind, "if you don't know how to create content through talent development and sound-craft, you'll be left behind." As Ramsey points out, the word "television" is being redefined. What once was a monochromatic product produced in New York or L.A. delivered to a viewer originating from a studio or production company totally directed outward, the new "television" can be anything assembled on a screen using a range of devices. The highly interactive theme of the new "TV" parallels what radio must necessarily accomplish; work from the listener-back. Mark Ramsey is right; the whole process is culturally revolutionary.
While these shockwaves are just beginning to be felt from a sociological sense, much of radio seems oblivious to it. Beyond interactive web sites and social media, radio's content still is largely disempowering, detached, and far from reciprocal with its target audience. Radio still refers to its talent as "jocks," their performance time as a "shift" and God forbid, the endless resumes firms like ours received with "The Gig" in the title heading. If television in all forms is "entertainment" when and how can radio make that same pivot to stay on the minds of our target listeners when they're not listening, as much so as when they are?
Countless talent remains undeveloped, uncoached, and unaware. What will it take for radio to come to grips with the central primacy of audience favoritism and loyalty? If you're reading these notes as one of the aforementioned talent, you should be asking, "How will I get from there to here; how can I look through the right end of the binoculars to concentrate on what my vast audience-of-one expects of me?"
Ramsey's All Access notes concluded with a colloquy from Ford's Jim Buczkowski. "Customers have so many choices. Radio should worry less about technology as streaming becomes ubiquitous. It's all about content. Consumers are able to get the same content through the internet they're getting from a radio antenna." Its content not technology where radio's next era will thrive and prosper. Everybody up for the kick-off.
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