Mobile Radio Simplified. Accessible. Relevant.

That is a phrase I have been using for a while and hearing as well from others in this space. I think it is important however to clarify the statement. It is easy to say in the way a politician says everything they say.. to get a majority of people to nod their heads. The full truth however is that Social Media has come to represent a collection of changes in media of which Radio’s early contribution represents just one aspect. The three legs of the stool are: User Generated Content (UGC) publishable and in response to other posts, media sourced from the many vs elite pros, and media sources organized in a personalized manner by the consumer. Unless I am missing something, that covers it. Of course to have any viability at all, these three have to work to support a living community, or else it is just lifeless academics.

I am not sure how others would break it down into components or whether they would even see the need to do so. To me the need arises when we begin to see just about any new innovation in media, or old as demonstrated by my headline, claim to be social media. Not unlike the term “radio”, “social media” is also beginning to suffer definition fatigue from the thousands of companies seeking authorship and/or leadership in this new landscape. Having a text messaging campaign where people reply to win a prize is not social media.

The more I think about it, to have pure social media, you need all three legs. Radio, as a step beyond newspapers’ letters to the editor, provided the first realtime feedback mechanism (UGC). With the aid of the ubiquitous and familiar telephone, talk radio hosts could pipe in the voices of select audience members and channel that back to the audience through the broadcast. These call in participants represented the whole audience to a degree, turning the monologue into a conversation. The second component where the audience voices self-published in their own right was not tenable. The third component of personalized organization of participant media — not applicable.

With the web came the ability and the need to have all three. Forums, Blogs, Facebook, You Tube and Twitter all have the open feedback mechanisms as a core components, and should pay tribute to some degree to radio for pioneering that into our media lifestyle. The second social media leg of sourcing from everyone is what is coming into more focus these days with Blogs, You Tube, Twitter, Facebook, and for radio, BlogTalk Radio. Now everyone can be a publisher. Whether we should be or not helps explain to some degree why Twitter is a rising star right now… Who has time to publish more than a quick snippet of information at a time anymore? And thirdly, since information is being produced on such adn expanded many-to-many scale, social media can’t exist sustainably without tools like RSS, Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, Friendfeed and others to help each of us on the consumer end of it all to organize the information from the people we want to hear from.

Now, with all that mostly self-evident stuff said, that doesn’t mean that I am a purist measuring all new social media innovations with a three part litmus test. There is a lot to be said for the majority of our media consumption to be entrusted to the professionals. My friends are good sources for where to meet for dinner and “what are you doing?” Lou Dobbs and other talk hosts are a better source for information on what I need to hold my elected officials accountable on. The local station is the best source for local news traffic and weather.

So the thing that really interests me and motivates me to write this post is.. where is the sweet spot between the social and professional sourcing of media? This second leg and the role of todays talk radio host is the big issue for us and our readers here. I believe this is where it is time not to follow but to lead. Take the 1-2 weeks to accept the 1st and 3rd components as a critical part of the future of all media, and spend the next few months actually getting strategic about it. As a show host, the second leg issue requires a personal grappling with the way you lead conversation, and the kind of brand your show will have. I decided a long time ago that our network would showcase the professionals vs the DIY crowd, but that our hosts in order to remain viable would need to encourage even more audience participation. If you are ignoring social media because you already have a big audience, that will only last a few more glorious years. What you need to do is to give your audience a voice, but still be the conversation leader. These are not just my ideas, but the convictions on which I have built CelleCast, making it program oriented, but also interactive and participatory for the audience with Talkbacks, CelleGrams and Audio Tweets. I look forward to combining these ideas with yours as we work with more stations this year.

Smart strategies for how to not only survive in this controversial recession but thrive are the focus of more and more people these days. When things are going relatively well in an industry, there is a natural resistance to trying anything new. This is self-evident. Why do things differently when we are profitable? When things get tougher, especially ahead of the curve in an economic downturn like they have for radio in 2008, the pressure grows. In radio’s case, against the advice of just about every radio consultant I have talked to, the industry got even more resistant to innovation as profit margins shrank and radio stocks lost 85% of their value. The reasoning was that all remaining resources had to be spent on core operations.

Now that the recession is fully upon us, and there is no bailout in sight for radio, it is coming down to a simple choice: Innovate or Die. This blog has been focused on the premise that radio must innovate by going mobile since its inception (of course CelleCast has a stake in this). Our message has been respectful, and will remain so, but now that the heat of circumstance is turned up so high, it is not enough for radio executives to simply act like they are listening, and it is not enough to just engage in a few initiatives that repackage the exact same product. The gauntlet to innovate WELL lies before us, and there is no excuse for having delegated this burden to the ‘digital guy’ or following the path of least resistance.

The good news is that the recession and even a good portion of the supplemental uncertainty that accompanies President Obama’s redefinition of the economy opens the door for innovation that didn’t even make sense a year ago. I wouldn’t say this if there was no historical precedent. When we look back at the great depression, we find that a host of enduring innovations emerged. Of course many also failed. What I want to do in this article is point out a few characteristics where we see a sweet intersection of opportunity between the recession, radio and new mobile media trends. Draw your own conclusions, and reach out to those that can help you adopt recession friendly innovations.

First of all, during a recession, you have to position yourself as the ‘value leader’. We see many companies already doing this. A recent frozen pizza commercial compares their product to delivered pizza as equivalent in quality for a fraction of the cost. It is not just a pricing war tactic, it is an appeal to the consumer to rethink the value equation in their pizza habits in a world where everyone is re-examining their overall buying habits. Brands that succeed during this time have to become part of this re-evaluation process today’s consumer is undertaking. Radio, since it already free, has to create value for its audience in terms other than cost. For talk radio specifically, value is found in helping people find new ways for their voice to be heard politically, socially, etc. Having them take turns calling in for a chance to get past a call screener to be on the air is not a good value proposition. Of course there are other ways to establish the value position for radio, the key is that in this space you need to stand out as a value leader, not just be one of many responding to the need. Look at what Ed Shultz is doing is doing in this space for new advertisers as an example.

Secondly, you have to stand out as a relevant voice who understands current trends, how to set trends, and how the recession is forcing people to re-evaluate their adoption of new trends. This recession in particular intersects a particular set of new media trends relevant to radio, namely: Portability; Personalization; User generated content (UGC); Shareable content; Social Media; 3G Mobile Services; Advanced interaction; On-demand time-shifting; and Free telephony. I believe the recession is already starting to affect the trend equation here in two key ways:

1. Watch for gadget hype to sharply decline. People will prefer to find ways for their existing gadgets to do the job. (yes, their cell phones and VoIP lines, and web browsers)
2. The value of time. Frivolity is already becoming less a result of happenstance, and more a product of deliberate choice. It would be easier of course to just say that people have less time to waste, but that isn’t exactly true. It is more polarized. Some people have less, some people have more (like while unemployed), but everyone has less time tolerance for waste in being pitched to. I think the new radio winners will be ones that position themselves as the best in content and ad targeting, giving the consumer higher control in what is heard.
3. Commonality of Access. Recessions, as evidenced by the reports in online relationship sites registration spikes, have an effect on our value of connectedness. Families generally pull together, and social circles of higher trust are the ones we shift back into. I believe this will cause people who can’t convince their high trust friends and family to get on Facebook to connect in new ways that are more accessible. This applies to direct social media tools as well as to broadcast, etc.

Thridly, you have to be agile. Even on a company cultural level, statements like, “We’ll take that under advisement in our next meeting”, and then not getting back to the person will become less of a forgivable act. Or saying, “I am about 150 emails behind right now”, like I heard from a prominent digital radio executive, is not going to produce a pass from the shareholders. The opportunities in innovation are indeed going to be exploited with or without your participation and investment. New entrepreneurs ready to meet the needs of the public can go directly to them with podcasting, webcasting and cellecasting, but how much better will it be for radio if the industry is in the lead instead of remaining branded as innovation-resistant?

Finally, and this is a very specific value intersection of talk radio during a recession, you have to find ways to lead in rallying people politically. Whatever your politics are, there is no denying the fact that people on all sides feel less informed about the substance of today’s debated topics, and more caught up in personality wars in the media environment. In one sense people are empowered to opine in written form all over the web, and now they can post video on YouTube and elsewhere. But what is radio doing to collect contemporaneous audio commentary from the people? What is radio doing to give people access to raw audio (like Rush’s CPAC speech) that is at the center of today’s dramatic news cycle? What is radio doing to provide audio content elements for the Twitter timeline? It is not that radio shows need to polarize people into partisan entrenchments. The rallying can actually be around letting ideas be shared and aired out so we can come into a place of real national unity, government transparency, scientific debate, and long awaited accountability. There is a new market for this that radio can meet, and we look forward to partnering with it.

We leave you with a CNBC video link on innovation that features Mel Karmizan. The people in this video series have much greater wisdom to offer than I can provide here, but I hope you gained from my specific ideas on how radio can emerge as a winner during these challenging times.

For the scores of people looking not just for worked up Youtube video of the Limbaugh address to the CPAC on Saturday, it is now available in audio form for you to download to your iPod here (1,2,3) as a podcast and more conveniently, available to anyone on CelleCast. All you have to do is dial 415-707-3003 and listen instantly. The cellecast of the 90 minute address is put into a format designed to be heard over the phone for a special reason. Namely, so that all who hear it can simply press 3 during the speech to weigh in on the issues put forward. What will happen to national politics when you give everyone a microphone and a way to share it with friends?

We believe that it is not enough to simply listen, fume and write back in a comment form. Talking Back forces people to articulate more substantively on why they believe what they believe and it, fostering a more constructive and civil forum to actually solve the problems America faces.

I personally believe that way less people will comment on this story via voice because 90% of the twitter posts so far show people are either totally in the tank for Rush, or think he is totally evil. Politicians of course have to run from him because they basically operate in the theater of fear of loss. The people however can use this event to advance the dialog and transcend demagoguery. I challenge you all therefore to hear it and contribute a thoughtful reply on the subjects brought forward.

Lets talk!

Is recovery really only possible through unprecedented spending levels?

Is Rush Limbaugh really just a bigot… or worse, a racist?

Is the timing really of such a critical nature that it is right to suspend the normal congressional deliberative process?

What exactly is the compassion contrast between a liberal and conservative world-view?

Make your case! The nation wants to hear your response.

Moderated responses will show here.
The unfiltered responses will show on our audio tweet twitter timeline or on each subscribers individual twitter status.

Good to see this line up from eMarketer on a pretty thorough variety of sources in which people that know the internet use to get informed.

31% use talk radio and 6% use mobile media.

That may seem like a small share, but nothing even gets 70%! This is the year where it all turns toward mobile. We believe the best interfaces will be the most intuitive, personal and portable. The iPhone is bearing that out, but they are just the beginning. We’ll be building radio apps for Android and the iPhone and more as the year progresses.

The shift is not just technologically based, but cultural as well. 2009 is going to be a very political year, with new voices striving to be heard and more people seeking narrow channels of on demand media to participate in. We are about to see convergence not just around what is possible, but what is practical for a people striving to survive as well as lead in this trying time in our history.

I just posted a comment on RRW’s great post on 10 changes expected in Social Media for 2009 and realized my list of 6 needs to be on our own blog.

IT IS ALL ABOUT THE CONTEXT OF RADIO AS FAR AS WE ARE CONCERNED…

Well… having attended more than a few conferences on social media, blogging and “what’s next”, as well as being a daily social media networker, my take is that in 2009, we’ll start to see the next group of early adopters from the mainstream and more traditional media begin to use social media.

This will produce the following:

1) Those that successfully experimented first to help extend their brand, like Hugh Hewitt’s twitter hash #hhrs, will see others flood in and withdraw somewhat, as the buzz subsides

2) Most of the newer adopters will bounce right off like they have been doing all along so far, as they are too out of touch with adapting to the new demographics of radio

3) Twitter, FF and FB will be gateways back to radio’s core audio content, rather than a distracting parallel activity.

4) Social media will be more about Mobile 2.0, and radio, if the leaders pay attention, will be able to score a win for a change!

5) The conversation leaders will again be those from other media that have finally come around and decided to really engage the listeners into the conversation. The value of UGC will max out at about 30% of the overall content, and UGC-based portals will lose a lot of their value.

6) The things talked about on Twitter and other such services will thankfully be less inward focussed, and more about the substantive contributions of the participants. Right now, it is such a freaking echo chamber of discussion about how everyone is doing social media, but really it is the few who promote media change that account for 90% of the activity.

More things come to mind now that I am posting this on our blog, and rereading the RRW post that triggered it. Namely, like we have been saying all along, talk radio as a form of media is a pioneer in interactivity and social engagement. Once the listeners were invited to call in and be part of the program, the conversational aspect of media jumped way ahead of the “letters to the editor” model. Now, radio needs to harness what is happening on Twitter, Facebook and Friendfeed and realize that the audience can form a meaningful audio based community about the audio of the show.

But this is not going to happen from social media geeks pushing people in that direction. Radio programs need to work on ways to engage their audiences and nudge them into the new century as well as pick up new fans from younger demographics. Social media is radio’s strength, not weakness.. at least for a few more months.

Since we first started to see the trends come together calling for the need for radio to go mobile, and to get “TiVO-ized”, we have been fighting for more than the success of our particular solution, but for the culture of radio and media in general to embrace new platform innovation. In the last two years, the big question was whether radio should fortify against new media innovations, or whether it should stake some claims in the new media frontier. The option of leading the culture into the future was not even discussed, which is a big reason radio has a perception problem to overcome.

Well, as predicted, we now see that any argument for taking the fortress approach is rapidly losing supporters, and in it’s place, radio leaders are beginning to look into complementary platforms as a way to future-proof the viability of radio. Actually, I state the latter not because we are seeing major movement in that direction as of yet, but because the language is shifting away from last years untenable arguments. For one thing, the fears of cannibalization are rapidly dissipating, as new digital distribution experiments are not drawing the ire of affiliates as first cautioned. Now, I don’t refer to radio’s slow turning toward new ideas as a slam in any way. Regular readers here know that our respect as newcomers to the radio industry is profound, and we have been outspoken against what I like to call the new media detractors of radio, who on one day slam radio as an industry, and on the other hold out their hand and expect to cut deals with networks in hopes of an eventual supplanting. This “podcast expo counter-culture” truly only deserves to remain in radio’s giant shadow.

But how will the radio industry venture into the new without diminishing it’s successful core position in the minds of the consumer? To that we provide a carefully considered Platform Diversity Strategy, that first protects radio’s core content assets, assures against cannibalization, and most of all, expands branding and monetization. We are basically fighting for, and appealing to our friends in the industry to do, is to be deliberate and strategic about new platform opportunities. Doing so will be well perceived by radio consumers, shareholders, vendors and observers alike. Good leadership points will be scored as well.

So, to the point of this post, the prediction of an near term expansion of media platform diversity. I just found an article today about the work television leaders are doing, titled: Network Execs Wrestle With Multiplatform, Time-Shifted World. The compelling quote within it that should bring additional comfort to us in radio is…

“It’s early days still, but the good news is that multiplatform exploitation seems to expanding audience, not cannibalizing it,” said NBCU Digital Distribution president J.B. Perrette.

When this kicks in, it will kick in quickly. Together we can lead this change, or tomorrow you can follow it. Let’s build alliances to help radio rebound well in 2009, not by reacting, but in leading.

Andrew.

This is a topic that is dear to our hearts and I am glad to say that despite the justified concern in the Talk radio industry, this issue likely won’t be on the table in the short term. Take a gander at what Tom Taylor wrote on this today:

Obama’s win won’t immediately change the [FCC] Commission.
Chairman Kevin Martin now shows signs of wanting to hang around longer than expected, and it could be a while before the new Democratic Administration gets its ducks in a row to nominate a new Chairman and new Commissioners (both Dem and GOP). Would Martin accept a demotion to just-plain-Commissioner, since his term’s not up yet? That’s almost never happened, historians tell me. And if Martin really does want to rev up a political run back in North Carolina (for Sue Myrick’s House seat in 2010?), he’d want to get going pretty soon. An Obama presidency might be interested in elevating Commissioner Jonathan Adelstein to Chairman, and he’d be a good consensus builder. If that happens, expect fellow Democrat Michael Copps to turn a deep shade of green - for jealousy. But Obama could well look for a fresh face to run the FCC, and if that’s his wish, Martin could be around the 8th floor for quite a while.

For our part as advocates for the Fourth Speaker, I say that no one segment of media should be complacent about what the Fairness Doctrine would mean if implemented. Just because Talk Radio is the target of it, it doesn’t mean you are immune. You have to think of the precedent it would create. Your blog could arguably be next. Not next year or next term, but 20 years from now a president could seek new ways to silence dissent as well.

I usually don’t send a retort to posts on competitors’ blog, as I just figure people can derive their own conclusions from what they read, but I am so annoyed by this effort to cajole the radio industry that I have grown to respect, that I will only feel relief by openly rebutting it. It is nothing other than a cheap shot at an industry in genuine transition. I understand what drives the thinking within it, because I too have been frustrated at the slower than expected pace of radio networks moving content to mobile radio, and have been tempted to do likewise. The thing that stops me though is the wisdom of mentors who cautioned me not to lash out for attention when you are frustrated.

Before I go deeper into how counterproductive this partisan outsider approach is, my first point is that the 36 month prediction of radios relegation to “the dustbin” is just plain wrong. Not only is there no precedent for it, as radio has survived quite well over many cycles of similar predictions, the various tools emerging to potentially supplant radio are only now getting their first market tests (apart from general web streaming). They are mostly device and/or carrier dependent, not to mention requiring consumer adaptation hurdles acceptable currently only to narrow demographics. To borrow from Thomas Jefferson, “We (those within the radio industry) hold these truths to be self-evident”. In short, the industry will not expire, but it will gradually transform into a multi-platform model. The platforms that still reach 93% of the population are not going away anytime soon, nor should they.

Secondly, talking down radio, as David Rehr so aptly stated in his NAB Radio Show Opening Keynote Address today is a senseless self-inflicted wound that we would expect to be reserved for radio’s detractors. The only people that benefit from creating a divide between new and old media are those seeking to acquire old media’s hard earned treasure. What happens when we leave these kind of new media startup pronouncements left unchecked? We create two narratives: One where new media people continue to talk about the stodgy old radio executives that are too slow to progress, and another where radio executives are content to withhold support from new initiatives without high guarantees of success.

The course I have decided upon for CelleCast, as newcomers working within a mature radio industry, is to present cell phone radio on demand as a complement to the goals of radio, rather than a supplanter of the position of radio. Not only does this dismantle the pointless partisan narrative that impedes progress, it opens dialog to where it needs to be. For the life of me I can’t figure out why this has eluded so many, unless it is indeed true that radio’s culture is so change resistant that it vilifies all newcomers. My experience is not consistent with that. Instead, I talk to smart radio people everyday that, despite the deluge they are under trying to do more with less, are totally open to what we offer, provided that we are not pushing the revenue question off into the future as Silicon Valley seems content to do. Radio has a long legacy of making money, which of course newcomers want to grab a piece of, so it is no surprise to me that today’s industry gatekeepers are slow to experiment with unproven ideas.

Long live Radio!

Ok, so if you are paying an extra $70/mo to Sprint, or perhaps your boss is, that makes you an exclusive member of 3% of the 264M US cellular subscriber marketplace. Congratulations to you for getting the NFL games live to your phones for the 5% of the time you gotta have it, and have time on the road to catch it live.

Mr. Brian Rolapp, talk to us when you want to reach 100% of the marketplace, as we can deliver all the games via mobile radio on demand so people can hear them not only when it is live, but on-demand on their own schedules.

Then, you’ll have a cool press release.

For $58/mo, plus installation and activation, you will be able to get wireless internet in your car.

It is basically a cellular data card for your dashboard that also has a wireless router within it. Wireless data cards can of course just go direct to your PC’s via USB, so I would just do that instead of losing portability this way. When I was in India, I used a CDMA card and went online from Chennai to Delhi, the Taj Mahal and back. I had internet in cars, airports, hotel rooms and offices… In short, everywhere, as India has as good a cellular tower network if not better than the US.

That said, Chyslers move and pricing model is good to monitor. Although it wont affect radio per se for some time, it is in the zone of interest for simplifying mobile media.