Agency Redefines Radio

Media Post reports that MediaVest, a division of Leo Burnett Company, has decided to drop the use of the term, " radio." Joe Mandese writes, "As The amorphous, platform-shifting nature of the current media marketplace is driving at least one major shop to redefine a medium based not on its distribution, but on the fundamental nature of its content format. MediaVest's new approach to audio planning is part of a growing industry shift away from defining media based on their distribution platforms and toward understanding how consumers interact with it."

So MediaVest has decided that radio is part of a broader media category they call "audio." Railroads were marginalized by airlines because they saw themselves as railroads and not transportation companies. If radio does not want to be marginalized by these other competing audio delivery systems, we should not forget the mistake of the railroads.