Is iHeartRadio an apocalyptic doomsday machine that will ultimately destroy broadcast radio as we know it?
Or is iHeartRadio a gateway to radio’s salvation, radio’s best chance to remain relevant in a digital world?
The rate at which Clear Channel is signing up new radio groups suggests that many believe the latter.
But is iHeartRadio really the answer?
Broadcast radio’s greatest strength is a station's strong link to its community.
Radio’s local link is the medium’s most potent weapon in the battle for a listener’s heart and soul.
That personal connection between a listener and her radio station is something that national radio (both digital and analog) fails to understand, and can’t duplicate.
Yet iHeartRadio’s very essence diminishes radio’s local roots.
The service neuters local radio, homogenizing radio into interchangeable undifferentiated lumps of similarly formatted radio stations.
Don’t want to listen to New York’s Z100? We’ve got another dozen stations just like it a click away.
Were these choices really different, it might mean something, but the service offers choice without distinction.
Too often one hears the same national playlists, and the same national personalities talking about the same national contests with the same national promos.
The growing interchangeability of stations across the country is all that more apparent with the convenience of iHeartRadio. A listener is just a couple clicks away from hearing the same thing on dozens of stations.
The message of iHeartRadio is that unique local radio is dead. All local radio stations are interchangeable.
The impact of iHeartRadio is to take local radio’s insurmountable advantage, its local connection, and destroy it.
The message to listeners is that local radio is no better than anonymous generic national radio dispensed by an algorithmic driven computer.
In an effort to demonstrate that an aggregation of local stations is just as good as a national service, iHeartRadio inadvertently proves that local radio is just as bad as a national service.
Why else offer a Pandora look-a-like?
Yes, Pandora is the darling of new-media pundits, those people who can’t understand why anyone still listens to local radio.
Yes, Pandora has been growing exponentially armed with an endless array of metrics that suggest seemingly unstoppable momentum.
But the truth is that Pandora is losing money, and shows signs that it might be incapable of making money.
Last year Pandora proudly generated $240 million is sales. Broadcast radio stations generated over $400 million--in digital sales alone.
Why would a leader in an industry currently billing nearly twice the digital revenue of Pandora want to promote a Pandora-like feature, and do it on local broadcast stations at saturation levels?
iHeartRadio is just one of a number of industry actions that claim to be an effort to save radio, but instead may have the opposite effect.
Radio Insights believes this is an important issue that potentially impacts every radio station, and ultimately how local radio is viewed.
We question the wisdom of radio’s obsessive rush to focus on digital platforms, especially when they emulate trendy but failed and failing business models.
The growth of iHeartRadio could metastasize into something quite deadly for broadcast, a possibility that every broadcaster should understand.
That’s why we’ll have more on iHeartRadio and what it says about radio in the coming weeks.
Stay tuned.
Unfortunately Harker is completely missing the point about digital radio — and the role it will play in the future for listeners who want to access their favorite stations on whatever device they're using. They're also missing the point that iHeartRadio is a completely different product from Pandora — providing access to listeners' favorite local broadcast radio stations from around the country, which Pandora does not and cannot do. Harker doesn't seem to be a fan of the concept of digital radio — which to me is a head-in-the-sand approach that, if followed, would surely limit any potential future for the radio industry. There's certainly no 'research' that went into this Harker Research blog post.
Posted by: Mary Beth Garber | November 12, 2012 at 01:24 PM
I'm sorry but I've heard broadcaster for years make this statement: “Broadcast radio’s greatest strength is a station's strong link to its community.”
BS - what have we (yes I'm in local radio) done for the community. I think we have long given up being "local" even when we are. Someone please tell me.
Posted by: Jeff S | November 10, 2012 at 06:26 AM
Will iHeart radio kill broadcast radio?
An attention-grabbing question……
All I can say is, the folks who program iHeart need to be more conscientious to iHeart presentation elements.
(I know, cut backs, “More duties for me and now you want me to find time to do what for iHeart”)
I have personally, listened to iHeart, on line, for months and been empress by numerous new innovations. (Skip feature-make your own station (music selection) etc.
But-- (here it comes)--sloppy presentation, songs cut off, before there completed, clipping of stop sets and more.
The playing of, “A song you should know”, on iHeart radio stations, that would never play, that category of song on their terrestrial radio station. (Someone say, “Pay for Play”)
Except for a few, the majority of the iHeart radio stations sound as if no one is listening to them in the programming department. Or if they are, it is out of their control to fix the problems.
Will iHeart kill radio…?
No, not today.
Make iHeart a mirror to your terrestrial station, as an option to listening-very saleable and a valuable resource and tool, to extend listening.
If you tune it up, iHeart radio, is what radio needs right now, to keep people interested in terrestrial radio.
Were waiting, now go to work!
Posted by: eman | November 09, 2012 at 03:25 PM
Not sure exactly what you are trying to say with "Yes, Pandora is the darling of new-media pundits, those people who can’t understand why anyone still listens to local radio."
Only the uniformed say no one listens to local radio. The pundits I read are pointing to opportunities attached to companies and services like Pandora - the accountability available to advertisers and programmers (data to help them improve).
You appear to vacillate between "local rules" and radio doesn't deliver local with "Too often one hears the same national playlists, and the same national personalities talking about the same national contests with the same national promos."
Having read your columns for years there's always one point of light that shines with each: You appear to not have a grasp on technology and how it is embraced by consumers.
Hold onto your buggy whip. You just may be able to beat the public into not leaving radio for device listening. Said another way, continue to sell impression when advertisers are buying accountability makes for dwindling revenue.
Just one request from this pundit: Please stop comparing Pandora with the whole radio industry. Start including some of the dozens of other audio providers, or online advertising networks. They offer what terrestrial radio has been urged to learn for over a decade.
You may have noticed that online advertising had a $17 billion dollar first half of 2012 (http://bit.ly/PpV1GJ). There's a reason for this, and it's the "why" Clear Channel is pushing iHeartRadio.
Posted by: Ken Dardis | October 31, 2012 at 10:28 AM