Week of February 26, 2007

Bad News For Labels

Friday, March 2, 2007

It's been pointed to as a den of piracy, and it has been milking $9 million in venture capital funding for some time now. Well, someone other than the RIAA thinks it's a good idea, as they just received another $5.7 million in funding. They are Lala.com, and it is the company that lets you swap your CDs for CDs from others you want at the cost of $1.

The labels have pointed to the company as nothing more than a way for users to rip their CDs to their iPods and then trade their CDs with others, which they would then rip to their iPods and trade again. The whole concept of keeping the music and then trading the CDs is what has raised the ire of the RIAA. Whether the company is a brilliant new way to trade compact discs for consumers or a veiled way to have your music and sell it, too, has yet to be ruled upon, but the new funding means the company will be building this model for some time to come.

So Now YouTube Doesn't Help?

Thursday, March 1, 2007

Viacom made headlines a few months back when it announced that promotional clips on YouTube helped improve ratings in its television viewership. Now they have released a statement saying that traffic to its core websites had gone up since it demanded YouTube take down over 100,000 clips of their content.

So does it help programming or does it hurt web usage? Well, it's probably a little bit of both. Promotional videos appear to help, but hosting them on YouTube appears to hurt traffic on your own site.

The iPod As Learning Device

Wednesday, February 28, 2007

One of the things that PMG has been long pointing to is the final realization of convergence in today's media landscape. We are seeing all kinds of functions converging in single boxes like the cell phone, video game consoles, and, of course, computers. We have pointed to the iPod as an excellent example, as it combines video and audio on-demand consumption.

Part of the power of convergence is that it leads to new markets and increased usage. A good example getting recent attention is the iPod itself, which is now being handed out by some colleges as a learning device. Lectures are recorded and sent to students to review. Content is also being shared with alumni and faculty members, including book readings, sports events, and other campus events.

Clarifying the Analog / Digital Difference

Tuesday, February 27, 2007

What's worse, people who don't know about HD at all, or those that don't understand what it is? Recently we've been hearing stories of consumers who have returned their recently purchased HD receivers to the retailer because they didn't think that it followed through on the promise. These consumers were expecting that all radio signals would be improved with an HD receiver, even those that aren't in HD. The subtleties of analog and digital went right over their heads.

What it says about HD is that we need to do a better job of explaining it...if we can. How much time do we need to take on air to distinguish the digital from the analog? What's the primary payoff? Is it improved audio or the availability of HD2 channels?

Supporters of HD rightly point out that radio has an enormous advantage in the power of the microphone. We have a "free" advertising vehicle that any other product or service would envy. But we have to make sure that we promote the benefits of HD (and anything else for that matter) clearly. If we miss the first chance to sell it properly to our listeners, we may not get another one.

Stations, not Formats

Monday, February 26, 2007

One of the unintended consequences of the information age is that monitoring services have overwhelmed many radio programmers with too much information. The ability to look in depth at a competitor's playlist or that of an admired station in the same format is a wonderful thing, but it can also lead to a big problem: programming to the format rather than the audience.

Since it's easier than ever to see what others really are or are not playing, there can be a tendency to make decisions based on format norms rather than on what makes sense in a specific market. In many cases, this manifests itself as making stations narrower than they need to be. So as we get caught up on close-up views of the digital trees, it's important to take a step back and view the forest. We all have to keep repeating to ourselves, "It's a radio station not a format."