"The Death of Radio"

Here’s what one writer and observer of electronic media wrote about radio’s fate:

Everybody knows that radio is a dying medium. Nearly anyone who has a smattering of talent is deserting radio for the new medium.Throughout the nation radio lay apparently dying in the wake of new media’s irresistible onslaught. To many, the end of radio seems near.

Sound familiar?

These observations offered by Claude Hall, then Radio-TV editor of Billboard, were actually penned over 30 years ago about the fate of radio nearly 60 years ago. He was writing about the threat that radio faced from television in the early 1950s noting that many were writing off radio. Pundits back then declared that no one would listen to radio when they could watch TV.

Hall went on to explain why it didn't die:

The death of radio was somewhat exaggerated primarily because a few good radio people refused to roll over and play dead. Radio of the mid 1950s was made up of devotees who lived, ate, breathed, and slept radio.

Hall made the point that while television was busy adapting radio programming to TV, radio people were busy reinventing radio.

Television had taken Red Skelton, the Lone Ranger, and Fibber McGee and Molly, but innovators were busy devising new better formats to replace them. Gordon McLendon, Todd Storz, Bill Stewart, Chuck Blore and countless others help reinvent radio creating Top 40, Beautiful Music, All News, and other formats in the years following television’s debut.

Faced with a new-media threat, radio understood that winning was all about product. Deliver an exciting, dramatic, and entertaining product, and nothing can beat local radio. Hall noted even in 1977 that radio was forced to make constant adjustments almost on a day to day basis, but that radio was up to the task:

As a direct result of the dynamic, energetic people in it, radio, as a medium, seems to be totally regenerating.

The key to local radio’s continued strength is innovation. And the key to innovation is enlisting the help of people who do not accept the status quo, and do not accept the inevitability of radio’s demise.

Product innovation made radio successful. Product innovation saved radio in the 1950s. It will save local radio today-provided industry leaders understand that product innovation, not technology, will make the difference. People don’t listen to apps.

Comments

[Joe]

It has nothing to do with elitism. It has to do with the fact that commercial radio is a sea of blandness. You might be right that FM can't innovate and survive, but then maybe something is wrong with their business model.

It's a shame that you think a desire for choice is elitism. It's a shame you think a desire for a good classic rock format is elitism. Or talk that isn't the right telling me the President is a nazi.

The many channels on Sirius XM aren't about getting large amounts of listeners, its about providing choice. Something that you don't get when big companies own too many stations in a market and try to copy each other with their FM stations.

Maybe it would be good for a few of these big companies to fail. Until they change, I'm one of the growing masses who have stopped listening to FM radio.

[Richard Harker]

Joe, I'm sorry to hear that you and your friends can't find anything to listen to on the commercial band. Three hundred million people do, however.

The only channels on Sirius that attract any listenership at all are the ones most similar to commercial radio stations. The niche channels attract virtually no one.

The reality is that every time a commerical broadcaster attempts to create a unique product, the station fails. Commercial radio can only succeed by offering popular formats, something elitists like you and your friends disdain.

[Joe]

Innovation? Radio hasn't innovated in years! The sea of sameness that exists due to consultants and national or large ownership has made AM and FM radio a sea of bland sameness. Radio may not be dying, but it should be. At least Sirius XM or some of the web services give me a variety of options.

It's nice that you say radio isn't dying, but none of my friends or coworkers listen to commercial radio anymore. NPR is the only FM they listen to.

[Chris D]

So I guess people don't listen to radios, either. Too clever.