Radio Audiences On The Rise, Time to Zune In.

Oct 20, 2008 by Mark Maier

An article in Advertising Age touted the recent increase in listener numbers for Radio, but the same increases may not be found in revenue....

"A recent online study from Paragon Research polling more than 400 14- to 24-year-olds about their music-consumption habits found that the youth demo has increased its time spent listening to radio 11% this year, while its time spent listening to iPods has actually decreased 13%. The study coincides with the Radio Advertising Bureau's annual RADAR report, which shows that AM/FM radio listeners increased by 3 million in 2008, bringing the number of weekly radio listeners to 235 million.

Jeff Haley, president-CEO of the RAB, said the Paragon study confirms what the radio industry has heard anecdotally by reflecting the "lack of inertia in the MP3 experience. You don't have the ability to refresh or any kind of automated way to come across great new music. As a result, that isolated programming effect does not allow you the serendipitous experience the way radio does."

And how have we embraced New Media and new revenue streams?  According to many, not well....

"And as the industry's highest-ranked executives have readily admitted in recent years, radio hasn't done a good job of embracing new media. As Frank Flores, chairman of the New York Market Radio Association and VP-general manager of the Spanish Broadcasting System, put it, "We've let everybody brand us and put us in different places. The internet branded us as slow and a dinosaur, iPods and streaming just made us seem like your father's brand of communicating, and we've done nothing to dispel that."

That's why its biggest industry initiative to date, dubbed "Buy from FM," is aimed at making FM radio tuners available on every MP3 player and cellphone in the next five years so consumers can identify and buy the songs they hear on the radio directly from their devices. Its first partner in FM song tagging, Microsoft's Zune, just rolled out in 450 stations nationwide, with the RAB and National Association of Broadcasters in "aggressive talks with many carriers to extend the platform," Mr. Haley said."

Wouldn't it be great if your favorite station handed out radio tuner enabled Zune's at listener appreciation parties?  It might be what it takes to get mp3 users to have the availability (radio tuners are iphone's 3rd most requested application downloaded) along with cell phones that integrate the technology.

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