Old Reliable Sounds Pretty Good

 © by Wayne Ens         

          Jon Gibs, Vice  President, Media and Agency Insights at Nielsen Online, notes,  "We have seen major growth in Facebook and a subsequent decline in MySpace.  Twitter may be changing the outlook for the entire space.  Regardless of how fast a site is growing, it can quickly fall out of favor with consumers who seem willing to pick up their networks and move them to another platform at a moment’s notice."
          Radio, on the other hand, has remained a constant media, successfully facing challenges from new technology over the decades including; TV, cassettes, Walkmans, MP3’s, satellite, iPods and more.
          Our biggest and oldest competitor, newspapers, cannot say the same. Circulation has been sliding for years and I’m embarrassed that we, the immediate electronic media, let them get away with calling their day-old content ‘news’ for as long as we did.

         It’s increasingly difficult for marketers to plan their marketing in the face of rapidly changing technology. In very short order, consumers have given up their Palm Pilots for Blackberries, Yahoo has lost ground to Google, and now on the social media front, Facebook is rapidly replacing the recently popular MySpace.
 

          Yellow directories that once took more ad dollars out of our markets than all radio stations combined, are quickly being replaced by a host of online directories.
          If we market ourselves properly, and don’t cut our expenses to the point that we don’t continue to present relevant content to local audiences, old, steady and reliable radio will be the comfortable local media choice in the face of confusing and rapidly changing alternatives.
          At the risk of sounding old fashioned, I only fear that our search for alternative new media to add to our value bundles might leave the impression that radio audiences are going the way of MySpace and newspaper readers.
          Radio has always tried to add to their value bundle. Most stations, for example, sold coupons as part of their bundle during the hay-days of couponing, and adding onlineproducts will add value to our core properties today.
          Any 20 year old techie can start a new media company, webmall or online directory with almost no overheard.
          Our biggest advantages in competing with these daily upstarts are;
  • The relationships we have with our advertisers
  • The influence we have with our audiences
  • The current cash flow from our traditional media products
          Let’s not lose sight of, or give up on, our core business and competitive advantages.  When advertisers find it difficult to keep up with ever-evolving new platforms, old reliable radio can sound like a safe haven.