I have written extensively about the challenges radio will have in cars with a dashboard which is built to sync with Apple Carplay and Android Auto. I have also written a lot about what happens to radio when cars drive themselves (hint: It gets ugly). But there’s another force out there and it’s a force in the other direction. And that force is your own voice. Ford has announced an integration between their Sync platform and Amazon’s Alexa voice control system: [Starting] thi

“Share-of-ear.” It’s a mantra among broadcasters nowadays. And I’m going to explain why you should forget about it. You know what it means: We compare the time listened to radio with time devoted to other audio forms: Online radio, podcasting, mp3’s, whatever. The theory holds that any platform’s “share-of-ear” comes largely at the expense of any other audio-centric platform. So when podcasting listenership grows, that means radio listening (for example) might shrink. I can o

A recent Piper Jaffray report focused on the behaviors of teenagers and the consequence of trends in those behaviors. One of the questions asked teens what percentage of their time was spent listening to music in the following categories: mp3’s, Pandora, local radio, other streaming radio (e.g., Spotify, Songza, etc.), CD’s, or SiriusXM. The result: About 16% of teen music listening time is spent with radio. Pandora’s share was slightly higher, while mp3’s were more than twic

In order to rally and fight a problem, we must begin by recognizing its existence. The realities of changing consumer usage have certainly provoked action for my clients in what used to be called “newspapers,” I can tell you. But radio has been slower to action not only because the trends have been less dire, but also because so few are willing to stand up and tell the Emperor that he has no clothes. Indeed, some refute the trends altogether. So it is when we hear that radio

“We need more occasions.” That’s the kind of radio industry jargon that we can thank PPM for. Where once all of our focus was (quite wrongly) on trimming out everything that could possibly be conceived of as “clutter,” the trend nowadays is to look at an even more important issue: Keeping people tuned in is not enough.  You also have to bring them back. And cutting the clutter doesn’t do that.  Because you don’t know what you’re not hearing, whether it’s cluttered or not. Ind

Broadcasters are increasingly aware that – even in a PPM-rated world – it’s not enough to cling to listening occasions like they’re life rafts in a vast and dangerous ocean. You can only keep people listening for so long when you eliminate turn-offs. Eventually you need to focus on turn-ons – things that will bring listeners back again and again. Remember, eliminating turn-offs has nothing to do with bringing back listeners because they are deaf to your turn-offs when they ha