I’m very pleased to be presenting at Podcast Movement this week, and I hope you’ll come! I’m part of the Broadcasters meet Podcasters track, produced by Jacobs Media. I’m going to talk about all the stuff I’ve learned on the way to a hit podcast. Stuff you need to know. There will be some cool insights and some audio from our two latest projects, Inside JAWS and the forthcoming POPS about the life of Louis Armstrong and starring actor Reno Wilson. Here’s a peek at a TV segmen

Think digital and radio are two separate worlds and digital learnings can’t make audio content across platforms better and more popular? Think again. Anya Grundmann is NPR’s Vice President for Programming and Audience Development. She leads NPR’s programming center and its strategy for program acquisition, evaluation, and development. In this remarkable presentation from hivio, Anya shares what NPR has learned from its digital efforts and how those digital efforts have enhanc

Audio advertising sucks. It just does. Face it. But it doesn’t have to.Audio advertising sucks. But it doesn't have to. #hivio Click To Tweet That’s a main takeaway from new research into the types of audio advertising listeners prefer. This research was presented for the first time anywhere at the recent hivio conference in LA, and you can watch the entire presentation (it’s only 13 minutes long) below. This is required viewing if you’re in the business of selling ads to age

What if music genres are a lot less important to how listeners tune in music than “use case” moments? That is, what if what you want to do while you’re listening is more important than the genre you are listening to? That’s just one insight from Spotify’s deep dive into their massive dataset. Think about the implications of that for a moment. It suggests that you should spend less time trumpeting your genre and more time trumpeting the moments that your genre is suited for in

It may be the most popular presentation from hivio 2015, the audio future festival. It’s branding authority and celebrated author Tom Asacker on what folks in the audio space can learn from the big brands and the critical trends shaping the winners and losers in the modern media world. Tom cuts to the chase and spells out not only what’s going on out there but what you and I should do to leverage consumer and business trends and emerge on top. Many people told me this was a h

We live in a video world, don’t we? A world where pictures are worth a thousand words and are therefore a thousand times more powerful, right? Not always. Sometimes the power of audio can be amazing, and the intimacy and impact of audio on listeners and on consumers can be monumental. Hence my opening presentation at the recently wrapped hivio 2015, the audio future festival. The title was “The Power of Audio.” It’s more than a love story to audio and to those who make it and

This week I’m pleased to be a featured speaker at NMX, which is concurrent with the NAB in Las Vegas. If you’re in town for either event, I invite you to come to my session, 7 Radio Lessons that can Transform Your Podcast. It’s on Tuesday, April 15 at 2pm. And if you’d like to connect to talk business, please reach out to me. I’ll be there through Wednesday, midday. #speaker #7radiolessons #newmedia #radio #podcast #2015 #markramsey #lasvegas #nmx #radioindustry #nab #broadca

A few weeks ago I was very pleased and flattered to be part of the opening presentation at the Public Radio Program Directors Conference in Portland. The PRPD is always one of my favorite events because every single person in the room is on a content- and service-based mission to make their communities and the lives of folks in them better. They are passionate about what they’re doing. As one of the speakers said, “nobody here is getting rich doing this.” The theme of all the

Podcasting, online radio, terrestrial radio, satellite radio….Do you think that all these audio silos have little in common? That podcasting is different from radio is different from online radio and Pandora, etc? You’re wrong. Do you think that ever-increasing choices in a world offering everybody their own personal customized experience means the end of “hits,” and – by association – the end of radio? No, in fact the more choices you have, the more important “hits” become.

If you are in Nashville for the Country Radio Seminar, stop by my presentation at 11am on Thursday, February 20. The title: BUILDING A STRONG BRAND NO MATTER WHAT TECHNOLOGY DOES Here’s the description: Radio is suffering a crisis of attention. The time spent with radio is declining as attention scatters to sexy alternatives. The solution to this problem is not more social media, better apps, a slicker stream, or some new techno-integration in the auto dashboard. The solution

SoCast is a company that integrates radio and social media to make the distinctions transparent across platforms. In other words, SoCast makes radio social. Not only does SoCast social media-enable all your online radio content, they can even provide an all-social CMS for your brand. Sandy Hurst is COO of SoCast, and he highlighted the opportunity for radio in the social media space at hivio 2013, the first-ever radio ideas festival held this past Summer in San Diego. Watch a

In this presentation, Patrick brings us up to date on trends in online radio and explains just how much online listening is happening to Pandora at the local market level (it’s pretty astounding). In the month before hivio, about two-thirds of the market’s online listening was to Pandora, while the rest was spread across an astounding 4,754 different sources, including many broadcasters from across the country. Patrick detailed many fresh statistics on the growth of online ra

A couple weeks ago I gave a presentation at the Christian Music Broadcasters’ Momentum Conference, and the topic could not have been more timely: “Betterness.” My argument is that improving the lives of our consumers is the highest calling for any broadcaster – and certainly for any Christian broadcaster.  This is not a generic thing or a symbolic thing.  This is a very specific action that begins with one listener and spreads to her family and her neighborhood (not the other

Recently the folks at SoundCloud (a very good tool, by the way) did a presentation called “Why Sound will be Bigger than Video.” Well, with all due respect, I don’t agree.  At all. Here’s their argument (points are summarized from Business Insider): Simplicity. Twitter is popular because it gives users a way to express themselves in only 140 keystrokes. But now everybody with a smartphone has a microphone in their pocket, and it takes only one click to record something. A lot

“What should I do with my website?” That’s one of the most common questions broadcasters ask. And it’s quickly followed by “Can you show me an example of one of my peers doing a really good job with their website?” There’s nothing wrong with a point of reference – unless it substitutes for a digital strategy, as it almost always does. Look, digital is hard.  I know.  Especially when you’re profitably selling spots yet still trying to rub two sticks together to build a digital

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

From Inside Radio: Where does radio fit in the marketing universe? Radio needs to see itself as one part of the larger media world if it wants to remain relevant to advertisers. That’s the message from Donna Speciale, president of investment & activation for the ad agency Mediavest. She believes the various media need to see where they fit into the overall marketing universe. “The conversation has to be holistic,” Speciale told the Digital Hollywood Conference yesterday in Ne