Seth Godin once said it to me, and Kevin Kelly (one of my favorite thinker/writers) hints at it in this post: Radio is the envy of the new media world.
Why?
Because radio can provide what no digital destination can get on its own without a bunch of extra help.
Radio provides attention.
As Kelly writes:
In this world we simply cannot deal with all good things. There are more good songs than we can ever listen too. There are more good movies than we can ever see in our lifetime, even if it was our full time vocation. There are more useful tools than we have time to master. There are more cool websites than we have attention to spare. Forget about all junk, all the mass produced hits, and all the critically acclaimed creations that mean nothing to you personally. Focus instead on just the things that would rock your boat. There are still too many of them! There are in fact, more great bands, and books, and gizmos aimed right at you, customized to your unique desires, than you can absorb. New things that don’t work or serve no purpose are quickly weeded out of the system. But the fact that something does work or is helpful is no longer sufficient for success. Good, useful stuff is now the minimum standard. I might even make the argument that great stuff is the minimum. Now anything that lasts has to also maintain our attention. And when it wins our attention, money will follow.
What is attention worth?
And what advantages flow to your station when you control both the attention you generate and the digital destinations you direct that attention towards.
“When it wins our attention, money will follow.”