There are lots of advantages radio still has over other forms of audio. Perhaps most importantly, it can be a companion. It's the human bits in between the music, and a shared sense that comes with it.
I agree, the music on many stations is easily replicable. If all a station in doing is playing the same 200 tracks all day every day, with no personality and 15 minutes of ads an hour, then it's probably not long of this world. I think discoverability is a key value that radio can provide even in an age of Spotify. Keen advocates will follow certain playlists and learn about music that way, but it's still kind of hard. A good radio station will drip feed new tracks into their playlist, and maybe even have knowledgeable presenters who can tell you about the new music. While there will always be a small proportion of people who love reading music blogs and digging deep into Spotify - they were the same people that hung out in record shops - a la High Fidelity. The average person isn't *that* interested in music. They just want to get something easily. US commercial radio revenues are actually rising. They were worth nearly $15bn in 2017 and are on track to continue rising. The fact that iHeartMedia and Cumulus have filed chapter 11 is because of the ridiculous debt burdens they placed themselves in. As is the way of these things, all that consolidation has stripped a lot of costs out of the business, and actually leaves them leaner and meaner. Of course, that doesn't necessarily mean the radio is any better, with more syndication and nobody paying DJs any money. I wouldn't defend their business practices in any way. But those businesses remain profitable other things notwithstanding. Adam On Fri, Mar 16, 2018 at 1:16 AM, Steve Timko <steveti...@gmail.com> wrote: > I depend on radio to hear new music. There's only one radio station of in > Reno that does that, but not as much as they used to do. Why should I > listen to radio to hear music I already know when I have hundreds of hours > of music I actually like that I can listen to on my phone? Reno has a > problem that in non-prime listening time many of the DJs are minimum wage > types. Radio does not seem to be profitable in Reno. > > On Thu, Mar 15, 2018 at 5:48 PM, Adam Bowie <a...@adambowie.co.uk> wrote: > >> It's worth noting, since it has been widely misreported, that >> iHeartMedia's radio business itself is perfectly profitable. I'm not in any >> way defending the quality of the services or the high repetition. The >> reason for the bankruptcy is the highly leverage consolidation of the >> business, in particular their takeover of Clear Channel Outdoor, just ahead >> of the financial crash. They can't service their ludicrously high debt, >> taken on by management at the worst possible time. >> >> There's lots of misreporting about this, claiming it's Spotify or Pandora >> eating into their business. Of course neither of those companies are >> profitable. While they are long term threats, commercial radio itself >> continues to make money - not least because so many costs have been >> stripped out during a period of ruthless consolidation. >> >> As I say, repetition, lack of originality, creativity and many other >> things are problems. And there are even bigger problems coming down the >> tracks with the young definitely replacing listening to FM with streaming. >> But as with much of the rest of the broadcast media business, it remains >> profitable even with declining audiences. >> >> >> Adam >> >> On Thu, Mar 15, 2018 at 10:07 PM, Kevin M. <drunkbastar...@gmail.com> >> wrote: >> >>> >>> On Thu, Mar 15, 2018 at 10:56 AM Tom Wolper <twol...@gmail.com> wrote: >>> >>>> It's Chapter 11 which means they restructure debt and keep operating. >>>> >>> >>> “But... but... the focus groups say they want to hear the same 30 songs >>> over and over on every radio station... how can we possibly be losing >>> money?” >>> >>> >>>> http://money.cnn.com/2018/03/15/media/iheartmedia-bankruptcy/index.html >>>> >>>> -- >>>> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google >>>> Groups "TVorNotTV" group. >>>> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send >>>> an email to tvornottv+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. >>>> For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. >>>> >>> -- >>> Kevin M. (RPCV) >>> >>> -- >>> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google >>> Groups "TVorNotTV" group. >>> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send >>> an email to tvornottv+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. >>> For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. >>> >> >> -- >> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups >> "TVorNotTV" group. >> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an >> email to tvornottv+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. >> For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. >> > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "TVorNotTV" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to tvornottv+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "TVorNotTV" group. 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