Apple’s TV strategy revealed! And… Video wins online – but where’s the money? Plus, rants and raves about Dyson’s move into electric vehicles, the scale of Amazon’s investment in Alexa, 12 questions that will change your life, and my own new podcast about the people and the making of the movie The Exorcist. It’s episode 72 of Media Unplugged with branding authority Tom Asacker and media strategist Mark Ramsey. Listen as we go inside media to reveal the ugly truth! Click the p

Video goes viral, but what about audio? I have never even heard the expression “viral audio,” have you? “Going viral” means “being shared.” So why is it so tough to share audio online? In some cases the sharing capability is clunky or nonexistent. But even where conventional sharing functions exist there are two larger problems: Consumption and discovery. Consumption: Online audio is hard to consume. Okay, not hard, but taxing. If one picture is worth a thousand words, then i

Data is powering marketing in general and advertising in particular in ways that could not have been imagined even five years ago. It’s important for folks in the audio space to bend their heads around this because data is, fundamentally, a form of marketing intelligence. And the more marketing intelligence that’s packed into ad inventory, the smarter and more valuable it becomes to the buyers and sellers of those ads. One of the great differences between traditional radio sp

Is online video killing the TV star? Absolutely not! Also: What does it mean when the debut novel from a YouTube star breaks records and outsells even Harry Potter? It’s episode 9 of Media Unplugged with branding authority Tom Asacker and media strategist Mark Ramsey. Listen as we go inside media to reveal the ugly truth! And if you’re reading this by email, click here for the audio. For show notes go to the Media Unplugged site. Don’t forget to subscribe to Media Unplugged a

One of radio’s greatest advantages relative to competing media are its personalities – or at least that could be an advantage. But a “personality” isn’t simply a voice on the air. For a personality to matter he or she must be a genuine talent, someone with “star power” who magnetizes an audience because he or she is just that good. Anything less is just a voice. So what personalities do consumers think of when they think of radio? I thought I’d find out. I did a flash study w

One of the greatest benefits of having a massive music platform is being able to parse the data in interesting and insightful ways. While all the big streaming platforms mine data in this way, Spotify is making at least some of that analysis public, and it’s fascinating. It’s all at Spotify’s Insights blog, and you should take a look. Here, for example, is their distillation of the top U.S. artists by state every day this year (up to mid-October). At the top of January, Drake

Remember when some broadcasters dismissed online radio, arguing it would never catch on because the data plan caps would keep a lid on demand and discourage ongoing use of the platforms? Well, I and others long ago revealed the flaws in that argument based strictly on the relatively thin data requirements of audio streams (especially when compared to the real data hog: Video). But now comes a new statement from underdog mobile provider T-Mobile: Stream all the music you want

“When it comes to mobile devices, we need to remind listeners that radio is FREE – that its use does not sap so much precious battery energy and even more precious data plan bandwidth.” So argue the folks I call the “freeks.” These are the well intentioned folks in the radio industry who believe that listeners do not have their own best interests at heart. That listeners are, as a group, a bit dull-minded. Thus, listeners must be marketed at and advertised to in order to conv

So which is the better strategy to monetize online radio? Featuring targeted spots built for the context and platform of online radio and the consumers who expect something relevant there? Or simulcasting the same spots you run on-air online? Well we can argue about which is better from a strategic standpoint (I certainly have made my opinion known), but we can no longer argue that there aren’t extra, unanticipated costs to simulcasting. Contrary to the wishful thinking among

As media mix and match, as edges smudge and barriers topple, it’s inevitable that the original audio medium becomes enhanced with pictures and even video. Not only will this be more engaging to consumers, but it will be more valuable for advertisers. Case and point: SoundCloud. This week the company announced a beta “Pro Partner” tier for uber-content makers, rolling out with folks like Snoop Lion, Red Bull Sound Select, Chris Hardwick’s Nerdist, The Grammys, Kevin Smith’s SM

David Siteman Garland is the founder of TheRiseToTheTop, one of my favorite business oriented blogs, and “the Number One Badass Show, Resource & Community for Mediapreneurs.” He is host of one of the Internet’s most popular, successful and longest running web shows, and he has a message for broadcasters. You, too, can make money online. Watch the complete Q&A or skip to the abbreviated transcript below: Prefer audio?  Try this: Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or abo

Last week one of the radio industry’s big headlines was the preliminary deal struck between Sprint and various players in radio to provide over-the-air FM on Sprint devices via the Emmis/HD Radio NextRadio platform.  I haven’t seen much thoughtful analysis on this yet, so here goes nothing. On the surface, this is good news.  After all, it means more ways for listeners to listen to the stations they love and more ways to interact with those stations. Looking deeper, however,

MusicFIRST really needs to have their heads examined. They’re in a tizzy because, allegedly, Pandora executives have done what executives at companies post-IPO do – cash out some shares.  And since these folks own a lot of shares, that can add up to a lot of money. But what does this have to do with the central question of onerous music royalty rates and the Internet radio industry’s long-term ability to profit in the face of them? Forgive the Econ 101 lecture, MusicFIRST, bu

Apple is rumored to be launching a radio-like streaming service, and Bloomberg is missing the point. Yesterday, Bloomberg published a piece focused on Apple’s challenge to Pandora, yet it’s blind to the larger reality: Whatever targets a radio-like experience in mobile platforms (especially cars) and is advertising-supported is a significant challenge to ALL radio, not just the folks from Pandora. Especially if it flips a switch and on day one and has distribution across nume

Michael Robertson is best known as the founder of digital music pioneer MP3.com, but today he has an exciting new project, DAR.FM, that promises to transform the relationship radio fans have with their favorite radio content by enabling a “virtual DVR” for your favorite shows. Michael is uniquely positioned to evaluate the cutting edge of technology and how it will impact radio across platforms, across devices, and even on the open road. Watch: Prefer audio?  Try this: Audio

NPR’s recent deal with Triton Digital is more than a means of measuring webcast metrics.  It’s also an important step in the direction of monetizing NPR’s streaming content and sharing that revenue potential and that power with affiliate stations. Listen as I talk with Jay Sterin, Triton’s VP Digital, about what the new capabilities of NPR’s streaming assets will mean to the the network and its affiliates alike: Alternate version: Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or

It’s largely off the radar for most broadcasters but I have noticed something interesting in the past year or so: Satellite radio is getting more important to consumers. I do regular proprietary research studies for broadcasters all over America, and one of my basic measures is the “favorite station” metric. For the many music stations I have conducted these studies for in markets large and small, the majority feature “SiriusXM” as one of the top 12 “favorite stations or serv

Talk to many broadcasters and you’ll hear a common refrain:  We wish we could simulcast our on-air spots with our online ones and bundle those impressions in one Arbitron number. Well, be careful what you wish for. AFTRA rules get in the way of simulcasting these spots on-air and online in the US, but in the UK there is no such restriction and broadcasters are free to simulcast spots or split them as they wish.  Historically, most have simulcasted. But now that is beginning t

It’s not news that Arbitron has a problem with small samples in PPM markets. Every broadcaster in these markets has bumped into this problem at one time or another, usually with either delightful or devastating ratings consequences. Let’s look at this problem from a different perspective: Forget ratings and consider cancer rates in the US.  Did you know that the lowest cancer rates occur in the the least populated communities? Aha, obviously it’s the quality of life in these

What will the dashboard look like in the car of the very near future? And what will radio look like there? Those are some of the questions addressed by Jake Sigal, founder and principal of Livio Radio, a company committed to getting music from the Internet into peoples’ ears, especially in the car. A personalized mobile device (and aren’t they all?) will personalize your dashboard, and it will allow you to control your content safely, by touch and by voice. Where does this le