Is Radio Dead?  
Community Radio in the 21st Century

by Todd Urick

When investing starting a non-commercial community radio station it is important to gauge the future relevance of your station to the community.  There are those iPod-wheelin’ techies who will assert, “Radio is dead; get over it.”  Statistically, commercial radio is on the decline.  The question is what competition is causing the decrease, what programming factors are involved (radio content), and what effect--if any--is there to community radio.

Commercial radio pre-2000 was financially thriving.  The Telecommunication Act of 1996 drove hyperactive radio consolidation, introducing the dawn of the ultratight playlist.  This initially paid off in advertising dollars, but slowly and surely less people tuned in.  Revenues at commercial radio stations have been decreasing since the start of the decade.  The internet, and to a lesser extent satellite radio, have been putting a dent in listenership, especially in the teen and college-aged demographics.  Does this mean we can expect to see a dramatic decrease in radio listeners in the future?  How useful will radio be in the future?

At first glance with satellite radio, you would intuitively think that this is the largest detractor of FM listeners.  Satellite radio, however, collectively has around ten million listeners.  That may seem impressive, but take for instance the collective listenership of the top two terrestrial radio outlets; Clear Channel has 48 million and Infinity (now CBS) has 35 million.  Roughly put, XM and Sirius pull in less than one percent of the adults in the majority of radio markets.  Less than one percent is not ground moving.  Glancing through a data sheet in Arbitron’s One Percent In-Tab Criterion, you find it is not uncommon for a large NCE radio station that covers most of a market to exceed 1percent in that particular market.  Satellite radio is not much of a detractor to commercial radio at the current time.

According to Radio And Internet News, radio listening has been down more than 10 percent (at home, work, other places) since 2000.  Additionally, Redlands CRC writes "According to C|Net and The NPD Group, the number of listeners to radio media has declined by 4 percent against the previous year, and the number of people listening to music on their computer has risen 22 percent. The study has also shown that online radio station listeners have increased to 53.5 million this March, up from 45.3 million a year ago. Music streaming also saw an greater uptake in listeners this year, with an increase of 37 percent compared to the previous year."  Numbers like these demonstrate that radio’s primary competition seems to be the internet and iPods.

Commercial radio has responded to these numbers by reformulating station formats to complete with new media forms.  “Jack-FM,” a no-DJ song-shifting format imitating an iPod, is one formulation.  “Neo-Radio” has been tested in some larger markets, which the  boasts a DJ with a more natural approach in relating to the listener, throwing in less topical tracks.  Entravision’s Indie 103, an original concoction of Clear Channel, is a clear example of test marketing a commercial radio station that sounds more like public radio, marketing toward twenty-somethings and open minded adults.  So far Entravision, primarily a Spanish-language radio corporation, has been pleased with Indie 103’s inlets into new radio marketing approaches.  KYOU, another test format, is a San Francisco Bay Area station that is simply an amalgamation of podcasts submitted by listeners.

NPR is probably the closest equivalent to forecast the usefulness for community radio.  In the early 2000’s, NPR listenership had made modest gains.  However, in the last couple years, listnership has flattened out.  NPR affiliate’s stronghold are nationally syndicated news programming, which has also been on the rise in percentage of total programming.  Is NPR listenership leveling-off due to the internet?

Looking at the situation, it would seem that the internet is gaining a share of all radio because of radio’s inability to adapt to what internet and mp3 players can offer: personalized and on-demand media.  At the commercial station level, there is little way to adapt to this competition.  HD Radio, or high-definition digitial radio, doesn’t solve this problem either (read Mark Ramsey’s  “The Premature Death of HD Radio” and “Another Body Blow for HD Radio”).  Commercial radio in general cannot compete using its current model against digital media.

On-demand programming and niche music is the wave of the future; this could lead to the demise of commercial radio.  In addition, the music industry is helping seal the fate of radio because they are releasing disposable music that half of which nobody is going to want to go back and listen to in the future (example: think late 80's early 90's hair rock).  Because of that, and the growing niche and indie artist base, radio will not be able to market across a populous platform like it does now.  For example, in the 70's, most people listened to popular rock, pop, and soul.  Today radio stations can cater to those demographics because most listeners of that particular era were focused on that music.  In the future, it will be too hard for radio to cater to all the niche genres offered currently through electronic media.  Most people will not want to sit through the crappy stuff they never listened to on a "best of the 2000's" station because most likely they were only listening to their own niche music on their iPods.

Future of Radio

Should an organization consider starting an internet steaming-media station instead of a broadcast station?  If you are looking for regional coverage, the answer is an emphatic no way.  Internet streaming startups are not sustainable due to the music licensing costs versus available income.  With broadcast radio you are competing with 30 other stations in your market for attention; with the internet, it’s the millions of other world wide web media outlets, most of which have an incredible leg up due to corporate financing.  Even one of the most popular indie internet broadcasters, WOXY, is considering a switch to a subscription-based format because music streaming licensing is so expensive.

What about podcasting?

Podcasting is a tech word for a subscribe-able MP3 download.  A program is recorded as a sound file and then is posted on the internet.  People can then subscribe to the file through iTunes.  Anything can be recorded to a podcast:

News/Information Podcasting:  Podcasting can be efficient for non-music programming.  If you have news or talk material for a national audience, podcasting is a good way to go.  However, for local audiences, it is a more difficult way to distribute content because you have to figure a way to alert people that your podcast even exists.  Billboards?  Newspaper ads?  Radio, in contrast, is available to anyone who tunes-in in the region.

Music Podcasting:  Music programming is basically illegal on podcasting because it is similar to illegal downloading if the content isn’t licensed.  Licensing the music for podcasts would be equivalent to paying for each song per each person you distribute the media to.  Podcasting one two-hour show to 50 people without a steep subscription fee could basically wipe you out financially.

Non-commercial community radio can offer what commercial radio, streaming, and podcasts cannot.  Community radio…

  - is the best medium for communicating to audiences in a specific region.  Listening potential is everyone who lives in that area without any incremental cost per each additional person tuned-in (compared to the internet).

  - can fundraise through the use of tax-deductible donations.  Because you have access to a regional listening audience, you automatically have to power to thank regional businesses for supporting you financially in the form of on-air announcements.

  - has a low overhead.  Compared to commercial radio, profit for shareholders is not the end goal.  Enough money only needs to be generated to pay rent, power, engineering, and someone in charge.

  - can broadcast music at an affordable non-commercial licensing rate.  People look towards radio as the number one source to hear about new music.  In an Ipsos Public Affairs poll for AP and Rolling Stone, 55percent of respondents said that radio is their “main way” of finding out about music, compared to 4percent for the internet.  That means the majority of people use radio to determine what they listen to.  If you are the only station in town playing the 99percent of music that commercial radio doesn’t play, that is an exceptional position to be in.

  - can offer local news and public affairs that no other media outlet will consider because of lack of commercial marketability.

  - can be used for education.  Information is the new radio (see below).

  - can offer a locally-originated or alternative critique of politics, news, and current events.  Because most news is corporate affiliated, community radio is playing an essential role in democracy.

The new radio of the future needs to have smart, creative content.  Traditional commercial radio is losing share because it can only offer the intelligence of an mp3 player with 50 songs connected to a 50,000 watt transmitter.  With the advent of portable digital music, there is no need to tune in and hear the music industry’s music picks played back-to-back with commercials.  An individual’s iPod can do that infinitely better.  Commercial radio’s stronghold exists because of its ability to cater to the lowest common denominator to gain large market shares.  In other words, the common listener is brought in to listen to the same twenty hits, and the smart tune in too because they no have alternative to turn to.  Nevertheless, both audiences are held captive by commercials.  So what happens when MP3 players are so easy that commoners and smart people alike find they can program their 100 hits the way they want without radio?  Radio is going to have to offer something MP3 players can’t, which is talent, information, entertainment, and anything different than “computers programming music”. Radio’s content, therefore, must evolve.  George Aposporos sums this sentiment in Wired Magazine’s article, “The Resurrection of Indie Radio”:

Aposporos, head of the streaming-media company Friskit. "You hate Britney Spears or you hate depressing news about Iraq. Why would you put up with it for one second when you don't want it?" Aposporos argues that radio falls into two categories: "the stuff I know I want, which I want to be in control of, and the stuff that I don't yet know I like and want." Radio can't win the first category, he says. No matter how carefully targeted the niche audience, no matter how much the playlist is restricted to songs known to be popular with that demographic, the iPod will deliver a more precisely tailored program. But radio has something to contribute in the second category, Aposporos says. "Your iPod will never be able to completely duplicate as idiosyncratic and individual a bunch of voices as DJs." The only problem, he says, is that since the corporate takeover of the airwaves, "I'm not sure I can think of any examples of that kind of radio."
                                                                                                         (Wired, March 2005)

And folks, that is the problem.  However, an interesting conundrum exists for commercial radio because of this.  Commercial radio cannot currently offer the intelligent content of talent, information, localized coverage, or evolved entertainment.  If it moves towards more intelligent content, because “intelligent content” by nature means excluding much of the lowest common denominator, radio is going to have to abandon some of its listener base.  Because intelligent content means monetary investment in talent and information, not only is the radio audience shrinking, but the investment in programming for the remaining audience is going to be expensive.

Community radio is in the distinct position of recapturing what is left of the radio audience.  Because community and college radio is non-profit, volunteers of all backgrounds have the capacity to create content-rich programming on small budgets:

- DJs that are music geniuses can program music and educated the public on pertinent new and historical music not available on commercial radio.

- Niche genre music hours are able to pick up listeners from a plethora of distinct backgrounds.  America is a melting pot; not everyone listens to just country, pop, rock, and R&B anymore.

- Non-commercial stations often are connected with universities or have higher-learning affiliated members.  The option exists to have talk shows on a variety of issues in science, politics, social science, etc.

- Issues valuable to the community can be tackled in community forums and local public affairs.

One interesting statistic was the Ipsos Public Affairs poll mentioned above that stated that 4percent of people say that the internet is their main way of finding out about music.  Although much of the population uses the internet for just about everything else, it appears finding out about new music is a small share of intended internet usage.  How can this be when thousands of independent artists, labels, blogs, music services, etc, exist on the net.  A hypothesis could be information overload, or even corporate dominance of the major label music websites.  The internet is filled with information on every subject at the fingertips of anyone, but if nobody is aware of it, it is as good as not existing at all.  In such a glut of information, the most popular of anything via promotion and advertising rises to the surface.  One future use of non-commercial radio is to act as an intelligent medium to channel the data that is relevant to people now living in a fast-paced internet age.  Of the thousands of independent artists on the internet, someone needs to pull out the significant ones that are pushing the artistic boundaries of music, or the ones that are historically important.  A demand for “data sorters” and “consolidators” is seen for information era.

Non-commercial radio as an educational tool will have relevance in the media of tomorrow.  It is a matter of unlocking that potential by programming what can’t be offered from other sources.