RAB chief, Jeff Haley says… imagine if
February 13th, 2008
As the jewel of his keynote in the RAB Radio conference yesterday, Jeff Haley said that if radio was available on every mobile phone, and if half the subscribers listened to it for half an hour a day, then that would create $3 billion annual increase in radio advertising revenue. Then he said we need to commit to seeing this happen. Here it for yourself.
We are with you Jeff, and dare I say, already a few steps down the road. We have enabled any talk format radio to be delivered to all 243 million cell phones as well as the 181 million landlines anywhere, anytime on CelleCast. It is not dependent on FM tuners being put into handsets and the instant on-demand capabilities create the kind of passion re-ignition value needed to reach todays consumer.
Having developed the technical network to make this happen and as we prepare to launch the Dr. Laura Program as our marquis program cellecast, we are now ready to engage the advertising community squarely to accelerate the achievement of the 2020 goals.
To give you the three points of what the Radio 2020 initiative is, here it is from Jeff’s speech:
1) Address perceived concerns about the health of Radio head on.
2) Engage the industry head on to connect stations, producers to “build an entire radio ecosystem”.
3) engage consumers to reignite their passion for radio.
BTW, this initiative was first presented by NAB’s David Rehr at the 07 NAB Radio show in Charlotte. He had 4 points. I remember then that we were poised to deliver 3 of the 4. When I speak at the Radio Convergence Conference in San Jose next month, I’ll be sure to bring this up.
Also of interest from Jeff’s state of the industry address:
Katz and Interep and RAB are creating a new hub for advertising communication. What will these mean for media buyers?
February 17th, 2008 at 10:17 pm
Haley is too focused on putting tuners in every cell phone. He’s on the right track but that idea is not the point, nor the best solution. Forcing the hardware on other platforms will not solve the problem. The better path is to take the content that already exists, and let it be placed within other audio channels, such as cell phones. And of course, that is already possible.