Remember the "Borg" from Star Trek? A race of cyborgs who assimilated all other races it encountered? Radio is becoming a Borg, of sorts. Each time a new "atom of technology" attaches, Radio finds itself evolving into a "new audio molecule".
Turn on a radio station today and it has a website, it streams, the DJs blog daily, it offers Podcasts - and that's just the beginning.
It would be easy to stereotype the components of today's Radio environment as either "old radio" or "new radio" but the fact of the matter is, the smart radio station operators are avoiding being marginalized by such references by maximizing the latest technologies to stay relevant. That's what "Convergence 08" is all about.
The conference is March 10 and 11 in San Jose, California, and is presented by Radio Ink, an industry publication available to 42 countries in addition to the 400,000 people it reaches daily with online feeds and email updates. I recently posed some questions about "Convergence 08" to Eric Rhodes, Radio Ink's publisher.
Corey: The Radio business is morphing and "radio" is becoming a multi-dimensional presentation. Can you expand a little on this?
Eric Rhoads: Radio is a powerful medium which reaches 95% of the American population for several hours every week. Virtually every car in America is a radio on wheels and as traffic increases there is more time spent with radio.
Because of its reach radio has a huge opportunity to combine its reach and strength with internet driven digital media technologies, which will give it an opportunity to offer its advertisers new digital opportunities in addition to radio advertising.
Eric Rhoads - Profile
- Began Radio career in 1969 as a DJ at age of 14
- Rhoads owned his first radio stations at age 25
- Entered publishing in 1987 and brought forth Radio Ink
- In 1997 published first book, "Blast From The Past: A 75 Year Photo History of Radio"
- In 1999 Rhoads founded e-Radio magazine, first publication dedicated to radio and the Internet
It's the direction all media is taking but many "old" media like newspapers and broadcast television are loosing significant shares due to the internet. Radio listening has not declined at the same rate and remains strong.
Corey: Listeners expect more from their radio stations than ever before. How do we accommodate them?
Eric Rhoads: Give them what they want. It's the principal of all successful business... reflect the needs of your customers. Radio has usually been (Cont.)
