RIP Terrestrial Radio... and good riddance

There are now 850,000 podcasts out there.  It seems that mine is not the only one.  Only 1% of them are successful enough to have ads.  Happily, I am one of those.  But the point is, terrestrial radio can say they’re doing great, but the truth is they’re dying a not-so-slow death.  850,000 podcasts has to take a big chunk out of their audience.  

And then there’s satellite radio, everyone’s personal playlists, and internet stations and you can see the wolves are at the door.  

So how does terrestrial radio try to stop this erosion and gain back listeners?   By programming 18 minutes of spots an hour… or more.  I drove a rental car recently (no satellite or bluetooth) and couldn’t believe how terrible terrestrial radio in Los Angeles sounded.  Seven-to-ten minute commercial breaks.  If you’re a sponsor why would you possibly pay to be the ninth spot out of nineteen?   Who’s listening?  

Even when there are commercials on podcasts there are generally only one or two and the breaks last a minute or two.  And most podcast commercials are delivered by the host so they’re conversational not produced spots.  I’m never given a script to read for my commercials.  I’m given a page of bullet points, things to work in.  So they’re ad libbed… and hopefully somewhat entertaining.   And the spot load is less than 1/15th of the podcast as opposed to 1/3rd in terrestrial radio.

There are no commercials on satellite radio, maybe a couple on music services and internet stations.  Most of the internet stations are free.  If you have a computer you have choices.    

People usually listen to radio while in the car.   Now with bluetooth and Car Play, all your various options are right there at your fingertips.  

But here’s the dirty little secret: owners of terrestrial radio stations (and there are primarily three or four conglomerates who own my 95% of them) don’t care.  When an industry is about to go under, those in the industry try to make as much money as they can while they can.  It’s no longer a matter of mortgaging their future — there is no future.   The idea is to amass as much income as humanly possible before the whole thing crashes.  

What this also means is they don’t give a shit about you, the listener.  Whatever they can program on the cheap is what they’ll do because, again, they have one goal and one goal only — make as much money as they can NOW.  

So in that regard I have no empathy for them.  When major market stations like KABC, Los Angeles have informercials for colon blow on weekend afternoons, when medium market stations have no local programming, when long time personalities are fired simply because they’re making too much money — I say screw them all.   

Not all of the 850,000 podcasts are good (and that’s being charitable).  But at least they all care about pleasing their listeners (even if it’s only three weekly).  Not one of the conglomerates that own terrestrial radio stations can say that.  Not one.   

As a longtime radio freak this breaks my heart.

from By Ken Levine