Technology360

Digital investment challenge for public radio stations

I rarely post work related material (I'm an SVP at NPR, where member services is in my current portfolio but digital media is not), but readers of this blog for the last 6½ years know of my long-time interest in how public media meet the challenges of disruptive developments and investments.  So, with permission of all, I'm posting here a file containing an important email discussion initiated by Jon Schwartz. GM of Wyoming Public Radio, on the NPR "authorized representatives" email list.  It's nine pages -- an original and addendum from Jon, a reply from NPR President/CEO Vivian Schiller and NPR SVP/GM Digital Media Kinsey Wilson, and a further reply from Jon.  PDF Link.

I would also like to call your attention to a related 16 April essay from Todd Mundt, The Challenge of Serving Audiences Where They Are (also available on his own blog), and to this 19 April post from Arthur Cohen of the Public Radio Program Directors Association, which has still more on the topic.  Update:  Independent producer Stephen Hill also provides comments on Jon's email in a 16 April post on his blog.

Lots of reading, all important.  --Dennis

12 TV groups form JV to develop mobile content service

From the joint venture’s news release:

Belo Corp., Cox Media Group, E.W. Scripps Co., Fox, Gannett Broadcasting, Hearst Television Inc., ION Television, Media General Inc., Meredith Corp., NBC, Post-Newsweek Stations Inc. and Raycom Media today announced plans to form a standalone joint venture to develop a new national mobile content service. Utilizing existing broadcast spectrum, the service will allow member companies to provide content to mobile devices, including live and on-demand video, local and national news from print and electronic sources, as well as sports and entertainment programming.  ¶  Broadcast spectrum to be utilized for the new mobile service will come from the three owned-and-operated station groups -- Fox, NBC & Telemundo, and ION -- and the nine local broadcast groups, which are Belo, Cox, E.W. Scripps, Gannett, Hearst, Media General, Meredith, Post Newsweek and Raycom. Separately, these nine local broadcast companies formed Pearl Mobile DTV Company LLC as a vehicle for their involvement in the venture.  ¶  By aggregating existing broadcast spectrum from its launch partners, the new venture will have the capacity to offer a breadth of mobile video and print content to nearly 150 million U.S. residents. In addition to broadcast spectrum, the partners will commit content, marketing resources and capital to the new venture. The service will employ ATSC-M/H, an open broadcast transmission system developed by the Advanced Television Systems Committee (ATSC) specifically for mobile devices. …

Link:  PR Newswire. 

Here's Brian Stelter's story in the NY Times:  Local TV Stations in Venture for Mobile Programming.  Link:  New York Times.--Dennis

Local digital ad revenue no longer mostly going local

According to Borrell Associates, in 2009 there was $13.2B in money that originated in the local marketplace and was spent on local online advertising.  You’d think that local businesses were enterprising most of that, but in 2009 for the first time it was “pureplay” web companies, with Google as the largest player, who took over half that revenue – this is revenue that’s leaving the community in which the advertisers operate.

Terry Heaton (@TerryHeaton) has a thoughtful on the implications of this called We have met the enemy, and he is “pureplays”.  Link:  Terry Heaton’s PoMo Blog.

The Borrell pie charts also show that local radio and television have a miniscule part of this $13.2B, and that the share of local newspapers is shrinking rapidly.  --Dennis

Continuous News

Consultant Terry Heaton writes about the excellent results that WLEX-TV in Lexington, Kentucky is having with its switch to a web site that presents news in a ongoing stream, similar to how blogs are done.  You can view it at lex18.com.  Heaton writes that they hit 9 million page views for 2010 by the end of February and its bounce rate is under 50%.   Lexington is the 62nd Nielsen DMA.  Be sure to check out the “time on site” graph. 

The concept has a simple logic behind it, if you think about it.  Present the news in a manner familiar to people who use the web, not in the manner that recreates a newspaper page on the site.

Link:  Terry Heaton’s PoMo Blog.  --Dennis

FM IBOC power increase update

Radio World has a lengthy update on this.  Leslie Stimson writes:

Now that radio has its answer from the FCC about an FM IBOC power increase, groups and other station owners are determining whether they have the capital to raise digital power and how much of an increase their budgets and transmission chains can accommodate.  ¶  Observers contacted by Radio World believe the industry process to higher power will be a slow, steady one rather than a rush.  ...

Link:  Radio World.  Thanks to John Kean for the tip.  --Dennis

Pandora again dominates online radio metrics

Mark Ramsey reports that AndoMedia metrics for December have been published showing Pandora exceeding 300,000 listeners on the average tuned in at any given time – about the same as CBS Radio and Clear Channel combined!  He also provides some analysis of this.

Link:  Hear2.0.  --Dennis

Gegenwart: Unity between the present and presence in radio

I’ve been meaning to post for quite awhile on a lengthy (30 pp) essay by Pierre Bellanger, Founder and Chairperson of Skyrock, the French-based social network/ radio station (in itself an innovative mash-up).  I do a lot of reading in media topics, and think this is the first time I’ve seen Goethe invoked.  But what an interesting invocation!  He writes:

… As regards the essence of its content, radio is an audio presence. Presence means the co-existence alongside me of another human being with whom I share the present moment. Radio is both about humanity and immediacy. Radio is the audio link between another person and me at the same time.  ¶  Therefore, in radio there is an inseparable unity between the present and presence. To understand this better, it is necessary to read Goethe …  Goethe wrote to his friend, the musician Zelter, and shared his thoughts on the present and presence which in German are a single word: Gegenwart.  ¶  Goethe talks about an intense experience of the moment, a presence in the present and that is radio. It is only worth anything in that moment and in the human intensity which occurs at that moment.  ¶  The vector of that experience is sound. …

The essay draws a distinction between just digitizing radio (e.g., HD Radio in the U.S.) and how radio can be something much more in the internet age.

Link:  Skyrock.  Thanks to Vincent Benveniste, CEO at DAVID Systems, for the tip and link.  --Dennis

iBiquity's Struble: AM/FM can no longer take the car for granted

HD Radio seems to have ended the year, at least subjectively, on something of an uptick -- at least it's been nice to see more positives than negatives on the 200-odd sources I scan in my blogroll, portable devices finally made it to consumers, and some decent transmitter power is on the horizon.  [See George Williams' take in Radio 2020.]

iBiquity's CEO, Bob Struble, is of course a strong advocate for HD Radio and he does that in a new column for FMQB.  But in particular he has some interesting and important words of caution for those of us who may be taking the vehicle as the unassailable bastion of radio listening.  He writes:

... Don't get me wrong, AM/FM is still a fundamental part of the driving experience. Every car sold in this country comes with a radio, positioned square in the middle of some of the world's most valuable real estate – the car dashboard. But the days of AM/FM's monopoly hold on auto infotainment are long gone.  ¶  AM/FM can no longer take for granted that it will be automatically built into cars, or that it will be used by drivers. No, radio has to fight for its position in the dash. The green flag has been waved in this race, and after starting in the pole position, radio is no longer leading the pack. ...

Link:  FMQB.  --Dennis

The decade’s most important radio trends

The Radio Survivor blog (“News, views and tough love for radio”) has a series of posts on the decade’s most important radio trends.  Nothing earth-shaking, and a few are strange choices, but interesting to see the amount of change the industry has undergone in the past ten years.  I just passed 40 years in the business last month and the pace of change has certainly accelerated in that time.  --Dennis

Links:

#1 (Paul Riismandel):  The birth and troubled childhood of satellite radio.

#2 (Jennifer Waits):  The growth of internet radio.

#3 (Waits):  iPod and iTunes lure listeners away from terrestrial radio.

#4 (Riismandel): Podcasting.

#5 (Matthew Lasar):  The age of Pandora.

#6 (Riismandel):  HD Radio launches, but who listens, who cares?

#7 (Lasar):  Internet radio’s Day of Silence.

#8 (Lasar):  The Great Fairness Doctrine Panic.

#9 (Riismandel):  The FCC authorizes Low-Power FM.

#10 (Riismandel):  Clear Channel goes private equity.

#11 (Waits):  Cash-strapped schools turn back on college radio.

#12 (Lasar):  National Public Radio keeps growing.

#13 (Waits):  College radio tightens its playlist.

#14 (Lasar):  Pacifica Radio democratizes itself.

TV advertising will survive the rise of on-demand viewing, says report

Mark Sweney, writing in The Guardian, describes findings in a subscriber-only report form Enders Analysis (UK).  He writes:

The rise of video-on-demand viewing and online TV catchup services will not kill the advertising-funded business models of traditional TV broadcasters over the next decade, according to a new report.  ¶  Media research company Enders Analysis said that despite the "brouhaha" about viewing figures for watching TV via computers, 99% of total viewing of video content is still through the TV set. About 90% of this is still live TV viewing. …

Link:  Guardian.  --Dennis