It wasn’t a comet hurtling to Earth that did in the dinosaurs 65 million years ago, but the environmental changes sparked by that collision, say many experts.
The very world around the dinosaurs changed.
I was watching some show on dinosaurs last night and the dino-expert summed up the situation nicely:
“There are only three ways the dinosaurs could respond in a time of rapid environmental change,” he said.
“They could MOVE, they could ADAPT, or they could DIE.”
As the winds of change swirl around the radio industry, it seems to me these same options apply.
Good luck moving – local radio is where it is.
Dying is abjectly undesirable, of course.
That leaves adapting.
Adaptation requires risk-taking and flexibility and – most of all – an awareness of just how much evolution is really required to meet the future head-on.
In his new book The Ten Commandments for Business Failure
, former Coca-Cola executive Don Keough offers these not-to’s: “Don’t Take Risks” and “Be Inflexible.” Two tickets to dino-extinction for certain, no matter how alluring they might be to broadcasters who yearn for the “good old days.”
There is little about tomorrow that will resemble yesterday in Radio. Our industry must wake up to the revolutionary and fundamental changes that are necessary here. Changes that go well beyond “building out your website” and “stream your content.”
The changes go to the very root of what it means to be “radio.”
Are you up to the challenge?
The options are to move or to die.
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