What’s Important? Greater Media’s Peter Smyth begins with the economy.
"Over the past several weeks, we moved into much more treacherous waters with the housing and credit crunch, but I do believe that the Fed will do all it can to keep us growing, even if it’s into the headwind. The specifics of the radio economy have the added challenge of stabilizing and trying to grow our advertiser list and our share of advertising dollars. We need to redefine who our competition is and what our business is. We get sidetracked thinking that the station down the dial is taking ‘our fair share’ when it’s really the new-media operators like Google, Facebook and YouTube who are siphoning millions of ad dollars into their new universes. In the big picture, radio is in the relationship and communication business. That means that anyone who can create a compelling reason to listen, watch or click on their offering is competing with us for our listeners’ time and attention. Success in the future will not be defined by the share of the radio listening. We have to work more diligently on deepening and broadening our relationships with our audiences and invite our advertisers into that relationship - not just to pitch, but to expand their relationship with our listeners. That’s a big, woolly goal that has to be honed through a lot of trial and error and learning from experience. If we don’t take these steps, we risk being identified as a one-way medium in a land of two-way dialogue, greater choice, and almost infinite variety."
