Memo to music labels: The “value” of music is defined by consumers, fans, and listeners, not by you and your minions. From Billboard: A renewed focus on the value of music comes as a transition point for the record business. Rob Wells, Universal Music Group’s president of digital who brokered deals with “freemium” services like Spotify, left the company in late February. Now the company is rethinking the value of unlimited free streaming, according to a label source. At the s

Last week I published a piece using actual data from actual broadcasters that argued that their brands could make more money if streaming spots were monetized separately from over-the-air spots. That is, separate inventories have greater revenue potential than one simulcast pool. So how does a radio broadcaster maximize revenue from that online-only pool of inventory? I’m going to provide some thoughts on that. Now I’ll warn you: Not all of these ideas are easy and some of th

What’s the upside for advertising on podcasts? Where is it going and how can your podcast get a piece of a growing advertising pie? That’s what I asked Erik Diehn, VP Biz Dev at Midroll Media, the podcasting advertising network. Midroll, like PodcastOne, is one of the companies creating of the business of podcasting. The audience sizes of leading podcasts are approaching and surpassing what advertisers are accustomed to on TV, so despite imperfect measurements, momentum is be

I have long argued that radio broadcasters demand too little of their mobile apps. Yes, they can stream the over-the-air content. But so can your radio. What else can they do? What about your app is so essential, so engaging, such an important complement to the over-the-air and streaming experience that it demands not only that I download it, but that I also use it on a regular basis? That’s why I like the Clip Interactive platform so much (I have featured them before in this

Chris Bell is president of Triton Digital’s Applications and Services division. Triton is an innovator in bringing game mechanics to radio platforms.  Indeed, gamification is a major emphasis for the company and I have been impressed by their investments in this area. So what is gamification, and why does it matter to radio? How does gamification dramatically improve the engagement between consumers and our radio brands, and how can this engagement be effectively monetized? C

What is it going to take for the radio industry to profit from its digital potential? That’s the topic I took up with Brian Benedik, president of Katz 360. Are broadcasters structured the right way to make this happen (I think they’re not)?  Are we committed enough to digital programs, or do we strangle them before giving them the chances they need?  Just how big is the digital opportunity in terms of real dollars?  And how much of that opportunity will come from your local m

“We have to drive more traffic to our site!” How many times have we heard that – or said it? Why is this our goal?  Well, maybe it’s because the site is where our display ads are and the more eyeballs we get there the better off we perceive ourselves to be.  Maybe it’s because we’re a program director and part of our incentive structure is based on site uniques.  Maybe it’s just because we equate more site traffic with a more successful brand. No matter how you cut it, howeve

Everyone knows the old story of how the the railroad business faltered because they thought they were in the railroad business rather than the transportation business.  Yet the lesson of that story is lost on many broadcasters today. In fact, the lesson is worse than lost.  Because many broadcasters see themselves not even as being in the radio business.  Instead, they think they are in the “making money” business. The problem is that there is no “making money” business.  You

Every great brand – just like every great culture – has its origin story. Here’s one from entrepreneur Chad Hurley: We were having a party in San Francisco in the pre-YouTube era.  We’d shot a lot of great videos of our guests, which we wanted to load onto the Internet to share with our friends and family.  But uploading was time-consuming and complicated, and the net result looked like garbage.  It shot our enthusiasm and the fun of the moment was lost. Anyone in that situat

I have argued long and hard for online radio as an important piece of radio’s digital portfolio, yet I have been faced with all the usual push-back.  From stations that unplug their streams – and get lots of attention from the radio industry for doing so – to stations that turn their stream into a subscriber-only affair and settle for whatever short term gains will arise from that effort. I have even had a major group head tell me outright: “There’s no money to be made in onl