Disintermediation

From Webster's Dictionary:

"the elimination of an intermediary in a transaction between two parties"

Will our radio stations hold their value with listeners? Or will we, "the middlemen of content delivery," be left out in the cold barren tundra? The answer to these questions has already begun to be answered.

Our content has always been the vehicle to deliver listeners to our commercials. Without valuable content our commercials will be without value.

I remember many a conversation that went something like this:

"Listeners understand that we are giving them free music or information and they also understand that they need to put up with the commercials because that's how we continue to give them what they want for free".

Our model of spots for songs, or spots for news/information can continue to work as long as our content continues to entice listeners to our space. [more on commercials-length, content, volume, and interactivity in a later post] If listeners give us the privilege of choosing what they will hear we better not let them down or they can very easily go back to listening to what they want when they want.

For more check out this video-it illustrates exactly what took place to get us where we are today.

This Is Really NOT a Post About HD Radio. I Promise

I promised myself when I started writing this blog I was not going to write about HD Radio. So much has already been written. Then, I wrote about HD Radio. It was like a child attracted to a flame. I couldn't help myself.

This morning I started my day reading about HD radio--the trades, the blogs, the opponents, the supporters, and the appeasers. You name it, seems like everyone is writing about it. Ugh!

I wish as much time and energy was put forth writing about how this general manager in city X just hired this new programmer who is playing this and that and is making some noise. But no, that might be productive. Maybe that story would have to be made up because there's really nothing like that happening at this moment in time. Too bad.

I'm not going to call anyone out on this blog for the fandango that HD Radio has become.

Instead, I'm going to try to forget about HD Radio for a while and finish this post with a recommendation to check out a relatively new social networking/music site called iLike.com. As you can see on this chart from Alexa.com a few people have latched on to it over the last year.


It's a very simple concept:
1. Connect your music from iTunes or Windows Media Player
2. Add friends, get music
3. Compare tastes
4. Free MP3s by new artists

So far, according to a story I saw on CNBC, this site has amassed 15 million users in about a year and a half. Not bad. When you go to the site you can easily check out whats hot and get this radio friends--"most added."

Add this site to all the others doing similar things and at the very least one has to realize that any radio station that is in the business of playing CHR, Active Rock, Alternative, Hip Hop, or any other genre of music that appeals to under 35's these sites are:

1. Great resources to better understand what's hot and what's not.

2. They are our competitors when it comes to music discovery--an area that radio has traditionally been the leader (and still was based on research conducted 2 years ago).

iLike is also doing a couple of other things that radio has always done well: concert listings for the US and Canada and the iLike challenge--a game where you have to name the artist and song.

Here you can check out their own description of what they do and the people (you will see some familiar names) behind the company http://ilike.com/about.

Now, I am off to discover a new song or two.