In his blog today, Fred Jacobs talked about The Denuo Group and the observation its CEO Rishad Tobaccowala that:
"the challenge is that today's marketing (and in radio's case, our ongoing, fluid content) are in real time, largely because of interactive tools like Facebook and Twitter. As he noted, "Only the schizophrenic will thrive: You must have two [business] models. One is smaller and faster, and more risk-prone, and one regular model."
With the Apple inclusion of FM radio in the new Ipod Nano, the stations, groups, personalities and management should play close attention to those words. While the NAB and RAB should be happy about the inclusion, they should also be vary wary and ensure there is a nimble, consumer-centric model to accompany their traditional broadcast mindset. Both the consumers and advertisers will demand it.
Everyone should be wary that under the consumer scrutiny that comes with Ipod visibility, the fact that radio currently programs TO rather than WITH its audience will not hold up. The NAB and RAB should be diligent in pushing their broadcaster members to embrace an open, social media philosophy both on the web and on mobile devices as a requirement, not an option of their future.
Just as Apple included radio pause and tagging features in the Ipod Nano to force FM radio forward, the industry participants must change their traditional mindset to truly take advantage of this new venue. With a popular mobile device, the programmers should go beyond static tagging and embrace dynamic tagging that creates an ongoing relationship with those who interact beyond the broadcast.
Most importantly, traditional radio must abandoned the idea that they are solely in competition with each other because everything from the consumer's playlist to Pandora takes the eyes and ears from them and their advertisers. In order to compete effectively, they must retain the excitement and engagement of the listeners...and passive, one-way communication just will not do the job by itself.
If the stations, groups and personalities continue to program in a one-way, broadcast-only fashion and do not take advantage of the mobile, interactive capabilities of this new device, they will suffer a very public failure and all of the backslapping to get this first win will be meaningless.
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