Radio InSights

Think Streaming will Replace Radio? Think Again.

Do you think soon streaming on a smartphone will be the primary way people listen to radio?

A lot of broadcasters at the recently concluded Radio Show thought so. Before you agree, better look at how much a listener is going to pay.

A story in this month’s PC World points out how quickly a smartphone can run up against data plan limits.

According to the author, streaming Pandora consumes about 24MB an hour.

If you’ve got AT&T’s $15 200MB plan and you’ve maxed out your plan watching Hulu or YouTube, uploading pictures to your Facebook account, or sending emails with your latest Hipstamatic creation, listening to Pandora is going to cost you $1.80 an hour, a little less if you use their lower quality settings.

Smartphone radio listening during the daily commute could cost more than the Starbuck’s Iced Latte you picked up on the way.

When Pandora recently eliminated the 40 hour per month limit on free listening, many users cheered, but they must not have been 3G listeners. Now Pandora will allow you to spend up to $320 on their "free" plan.

If your boss won’t let you use the company WiFi to listen during the day (many companies are starting to ban Pandora in the office because it chokes networks), you could rack up $200 a month using your smartphone at work.

If you’re smart and sign up for the $45 4GB plan and watch no videos, upload no pictures, and otherwise minimize your data consumption, you’ll be able to listen to streamed radio up to 140 hours a month and not incur any data overage costs. That's not much more than four hours a day.

That’s more than the typical person listens to radio now, but who can resist the occasional YouTube or Hulu video? Who can resist the occasional download or email attachment?

If the smartphone does become the Swiss Army knife of information and entertainment, are people really going to spend their bytes on radio when they can get it for free?

AT&T provides a useful online tool to estimate how much data you are going to consume. Give it a try and see what you come up with.

The notion that soon we’ll all be watching Netflix movies, playing games, listening to the radio, and placing video calls from our smartphones assumes that data rates are going to go down, but the opposite is happening.

One by one, the carriers are eliminating unlimited plans. Most people are going to have to budget their data and watch their consumption.

The bottom line is that the belief that most listeners will switch from broadcast to streaming is a pipe dream. But AT&T, Verizon, and Sprint hope you’re right.

Radio Asleep at the Wheel...Again.

Yesterday we brought you the story of Rebecca Black, a 13 year-old who’s parents helped her produce a music video.

Ridiculed with comments like hilariously dreadful and mind-meltingly horrific, she just may be having the last laugh. Her video is approaching 38 million views.

 The phenomenon has generated nearly 500 web stories so far, an appearance on the Tonight Show, and kind words from Lady Gaga herself.

The perfect grist for radio morning shows, right?

Out of the roughly 1,600 CHR and AC radio stations that ought to be all over this, by our count 27 have played the song. Fewer than 2% of stations in the two formats have bothered to exploit the story.

About one-third of the spins were on Clear Channel stations alone. CBS, Citadel, and Cumulus, in contrast, had each managed to play the song once when we checked.

The monitors may have missed a few spins, but even if we're off by a factor of 10, it says a lot about radio's loss of focus. Friday went viral, and radio didn't even seem to notice.

Is there any stronger evidence that radio is out of touch?

Is This the Worst Song Ever?

Can a song with over 33 million YouTube hits be the worst song ever? What if the song is also ranks 45th on iTunes?

The song is Friday, sung by 13 year-old Rebecca Black and produced by Ark Music Factory.

 

According to Physorg.com:

As the tune began to attract attention on YouTube, a Yahoo! music blog called it a "mind-meltingly horrific song" and asked readers "Is YouTube Sensation Rebecca Black's 'Friday' The Worst Song Ever?"

Time magazine described "Friday" as a "train wreck" and the video as "hilariously dreadful."

The poor reviews only fueled more interest in the video and it has become a viral hit, racking up millions of YouTube views, spawning a slew of parodies on the video-sharing site and making Black an Internet sensation.

A 13 year-old unknown can generate over 33 million YouTube views, but most radio station videos generate views in the hundreds. What does it say about the state of radio and radio morning shows?

Why can't a multi-billion dollar industry that prides itself on its marketing skills create a viral sensation? After all, even a kid can do it.