Recently, Seth Godin penned a great piece on ad blocking. Yes, I know – you can’t block the ads on your local radio station. That’s the beauty of a linear, non-digital programming stream. Hooray! But actually, people block radio ads all the time. Every time a consumer switches stations or switches from radio to a platform that is not radio it’s to hear something that is not on right now, because often what’s on right now is a commercial. And for digital audio the problem is j

In  a new report from Nielsen, the news for the traditional radio space is decidedly unsurprising, and not the stuff of holiday cheer. As Tom Taylor summarizes: AM/FM’s monthly reach gained half-a-percent – but Time-Spent fell 3% over last year. And the 3% drop is consistent across African-Americans and Hispanics, two groups that have traditionally shown stronger listening than the national average. Two charts display the contrast between monthly reach for Americans age 2+ an

When we talk about online radio, it’s easy to view that as a trivial component in the average station’s strategy because, for any given station, the number of folks listening to that station’s stream is, while growing, comparatively small. But that’s viewing the world through the broadcaster’s microscope.  What does it look like through the consumer’s telescope? Note, for example, this chart.  It summarizes streaming data for radio, TV, and movies: According to this source, r

Recently I was interviewed by a reporter for a major advertising trade, and she asked me whether broadcasters “see the light” that shines on future opportunities, or are they stuck in the past, defending an industry structure that will never be what it once was. Many do see that light, I explained.  And there are two stories broadcasters can tell, one of which is unfortunately favored over the other. The first story is one of decline. It’s one where radio reacts reflexively t

Radio folks talk a lot about the “reach” of radio.  And while “reach” isn’t sufficient, it is necessary if your goal is to spread a message far and wide. So says social media scientist Dan Zarella in his terrific new book with a recall-resistent title: Zarrella’s Hierarchy of Contagiousness: The Science, Design, and Engineering of Contagious Ideas What makes a message “go viral”?  Or, in traditional media terms, what allows a message to spread to as many people as possible? T

Last week in MediaDailyNews, these results were trumpeted: Comparing listening patterns from spring 2009 to spring 2010, [Researcher Richard] Harker found that the proportion of the U.S. population that is listening to broadcast radio actually grew from 91.4% to 93% over that period. Average weekly listening dipped about 1%, or 11 minutes, to 17.4 hours per week. The conclusion?  That “digital alternatives have failed to make a big dent in local broadcast radio listening.” Th