Wednesday, September 2, 2009

What's Next For Radio? Video!

Nielsen just released a new study on video usage and the bottom line: video consumption in terms of time spent and size of audience is up...way up. Even old school television was up 1%; while mobile video usage is up a whopping 70% and internet video usage rose 46%.

Ready for a shocker? What age group has the largest percentage of on-line viewers? 45-54 year olds at 21% followed by 35-44 year olds at 19%! When it comes to mobile viewsers 25-34 year olds leads the way with 32%; while 35-44's come in at 20%.

And as one who does this all the time myself, 57% report using the internet and watching TV simultaneously at least once a month.

We are already having problems with the younger demos and their fading interest (read: declining TSL) in radio; and now we are beginning to see evidence that our bread and butter demos could very well be in jeopardy due to their growing interest in on-line and mobile video.

You can see the entire Nielsen report here

Helping radio stations and radio groups develop on-line and mobile strategies is part what I do every day and I would be happy to assist you and your group maximize this amazing opportunity to effectively reach video entertainment consumers. You don't need to be a CBS or Fox affiliate to be in the TV biz!!

Here's two (somewhat obvious) suggestions as thought starters:

1-Your on-air stars can be video stars. How can you leverage their popularity within your market and capture some of that video traffic? What can they produce that the listeners will seek out on line and on their iPhones?

2-You program a top 40 station, why not put a video playlist together that replicates your on-air playlist simultaneously? You can invite your fans to watch station KAAA's music on line now. The simplest way to accomplish this would be to use You Tube as your video source since most popular videos are already there. There are other more proprietary ways to do this if you want. You may also want to consider creating additional playlists as well, maybe one that features the hottest newly released videos or a playlist of your stations best flashback songs. The opportunities are endless.

Bottom line: video is not a passing fad and neither is on-line and mobile consumption. As we consider how best to navigate our sizable ship into the future, we must consider how we are going to use video to our best advantage. Not doing so will not make it just go away. It's here to stay and it really needs to be something more than an afterthought.