Experts Urge Future Focus For Radio
The radio industry needs to leave behind its preoccupation with analogue stations and concentrate on the digital future in order to guarantee survival, according to industry experts speaking at last night’s MediaTel Group Media Question Time.
Speaking as part of the event’s panel, Virgin Radio chief executive Fru Hazlitt told the audience that “commercial radio has become unfashionable,” but that the industry is able to reverse the trend with relatively simple actions.
“It’s still sexy, it’s still great, it has some fabulous programmes on it and if commercial radio gets its arse together and deals with the digital future, which it’s beginning to do, and if everyone stops banging on about analogue licences, then we’ll do it,” she explained. “It’s such an easy medium to transfer to new technologies.”
Railing against the BBC’s use of cross promotion, Hazlitt admitted that commercial radio is too easily distracted by figures and ROI, stating: “A lot of other media have done the same, thinking that it should all be about numbers and ROI, and what they’ve forgotten is the product itself.
“Radio is very sexy. It’s about rock and roll. It’s about good speech, good news, good everything, but commercial radio has been dragged down this road because it has to make money. The BBC has not, because it doesn’t need to make money and can promote its stations for two minutes after Eastenders. It can do all of these things and remain sexy, whereas commercial radio suddenly had to become an advertising medium as well as follow the path of the BBC which was suddenly doing really well.”
Meanwhile Adam Singer, chief executive of the MCPS-PRS Alliance, saw the future of radio in more internet-based technologies, explaining that the “next cycle” would see the barriers to entry collapse, with mass radio streaming offering tailored music via “wimax” computer networks. “When you can get any kind of radio over the air, wherever you are and at any time we will start to see web services which will stream your choice of music directly to you.
“I can see that music will move to new technologies, but I’m not so sure about radio – at least not radio as we currently know and define it. The other important question is that of payment and ownership. The current shift is from owning to leasing. In that kind of shift, does free music via radio still work in a leasing model? These are the kinds of questions that have to be asked. Over the next ten years radio will be great, over the longer adoption cycle we’re looking at I think it has some very interesting questions to answer.”
Elsewhere, Phil Georgiadis, CEO of Walker Media explained that the current challenge to radio is from lower barriers to entry for other media. “You can get on television for the same capital investment that it used to take to get on radio,” he explained. “You can go onto the internet and broadcast. You can do all these things in other media that once were radio’s oportuity to be the low cost entry to broadcast advertising.
“Therefore they’ve now got to stop talking about how radio works with online, TV and outdoor, and just talk about how radio works. It’s become defensive and started talking about how complimentary it is rather than how it is working for their clients.”
Next month sees MediaTel Group hold Digital Radio and Beyond, a morning seminar and debate presented in association with MediaGuardian. The event will take place on Tuesday 6th December from 9.30am with an expert panel featuring Ralph Bernard, chief executive of GCap Media; Simon Cole, chief executive of UBC Media and Ray Snoddy, media commentator and analyst.
Book your place at: www.mediatel.co.uk/seminar/details.pdf.
MediaTel Group: 0207 439 7575 www.mediatelgroup.co.uk