Thought Leadership: “Radio lacks vision”

Working in research, we have seen firsthand the way the digital revolution has fundamentally altered the lives of consumers. Harris Interactive has been carrying out research online for over a decade, alongside traditional methods such as face to face and CATI (telephone) interviewing. It took most of that decade to persuade clients that online samples could deliver representative models of reality – arguments we still go through today.

Yet in the past two years alone, many of our respondents have adopted even newer methods, and we need to follow them. We now use WAP and mobile phone based surveys, as many respondents are now so comfortable with this platform, and our panel management now includes social connection tools to maintain engagement. But not everyone wants to be on any one platform: these new platforms need to be used as additional, not replacement methods. Research, just like media, is having to learn to be platform agnostic.

Newspapers aren’t just at the news-stands anymore; they have been online for years. And they have web 2.0 functionality, with comments on articles (the natural extension of a letters page) and increasingly with rich media content such as audio and video. The Guardian has even launched an API area, allowing developers to build new ways of managing (and monetising) its vast array of content. TV is also going multiplatform – not just offering on-demand content over the web, but even with “mobisodes” and video podcasts, as well as building ever-closer relationships with DVD distributors and companies such as Love Film. Everyone is chasing the next big thing – and it is generally digital. Whether it is cinemas replacing physical film with digital files, or poster companies replacing plywood walls with glorified flat-screen TVs, the theme of innovation has been taking an increasingly digital turn.

So why has radio been the poor relation? DAB has simply failed to take off; despite continued sales of sets, most listening remains to analogue stations, and on analogue devices. New DAB brands have folded, and the entire D2 multiplex failed to even get off the ground, putting a considerable dent in Channel 4’s reputation. Online, radio stations have failed to grab real share when compared to simply putting one’s own iTunes library on shuffle. There remains, even with DAB, no meaningful return path, no “buy button”, and no evidence that listener engagement when tuned in via DAB is any more valuable than on FM.

The problem, I believe, is that DAB is not founded in any real consumer or business needs. It offers, at considerable cost to the broadcaster, a quality of sound which only a very few people care about. It offers a range of stations that is not matched to any meaningful segmentation of the music market (which is remarkably heterogenous, but clusters very tightly around a small musical core). It offers the opportunity for broadcasters, again at a price, to broadcast scrolling text and idents to sets which are, for the vast majority of the time, ignored by listeners (they may pay attention to the audio, but rarely to the box itself). And all that investment is, like the audio, lost in the ether once it is broadcast.

For me the perfect DAB set would be MORE digital. It would capture all that text information, but would store it, for as long as I listen. I could review it if I wanted, when I am not busy, but ignore it while I am. I’d be able to send it to a browser – through an SMS or Bluetooth – including links to buy the music, join the fanclub, and vote on songs I like or dislike (and yes, visit the sponsor’s website too). And the really daft thing is that it needn’t cost the broadcaster anything: there is already an RDS system which could do this as a sideband to your FM radio signal – all it would require is the development of an app for any digital device – from a high-end iPhone to a low-tech USB gadget, to read and use that information.

If DAB succeeds, it will be because (in spite of its design) consumers find something about it that they can make really work for them. For all my disappointment at the radio industry’s lack of human insight, I wish radio well – indeed I hope that DAB does succeed. I have found the value that makes it work for me; it’s called Planet Rock. (I also love the ease of tuning that means I can quickly and easily tune back to Chill or Radio 4 when my wife comes back into the room). I still wish I could use all that data to help me remember what that song was that I loved, but was too busy to rush over and stare at the little scrolling text bar when it was on. I might even do the same for adverts. And I wish that my digital radio could talk – just a bit – to all my other digital devices. I don’t want to take a laptop, or an iPhone to the room I am painting, but a nice rugged little box with a Bluetooth connection so I can later review what I was listening to can’t be that hard, can it?

My wish list is my own – do feel free to comment and let me know what digital radio could be for you (see – I can be all Web 2.0 as well). Very few people have ever suggested that I am normal, but I find it hard to believe that I can be that far off the curve on this question. And if you can EITHER build me an app for my iPhone that can capture and store the text, OR tell me what that track is with the stunning guitar solo that they played about 10 minutes ago on Planet Rock – please get in touch.

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