BusinessWeek: Radio has little of its own stuff

2008 February 29
tags: ,
by Todd Mundt

Jim Russell passed this along from BusinessWeek:

“… of all major consumer media, radio is the least suited to an online transition. … Radio is built to a large degree on music it doesn’t own and syndicated talk shows. Both are available in countless venues online, which means radio Web sites have less unique stuff to attract audiences. And stations aren’t structured like newspapers. While their profit margins are much higher—try 40% and up—they also have much smaller news organizations and fewer bodies to create new content that can be slapped up online. … It says something about radio that a commonly cited star example of its online efforts is the not-for-profit npr.org, which has Web traffic growth most companies would envy. “

More here.

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  • clinton forry
    Odd that the comparison to newspapers fails to mention the large amount of syndicated content [like AP] that bulks up these newspaper offerings.
  • Ironically, local public media outfits are best positioned to take advantage of this weakness in commercial radio. But only if we focus locally and stop trying to reach beyond our means. Or at least that's the problem I'm experiencing in Alaska at this time. I see tremendous opportunity for us to dig in and become part of the local social DNA. Commercial radio gave up on the community years ago in favor of corporate / shareholder profits.

    Either existing pubcasters will transform into locally engaged entities or someone else will come along, startup the same thing in an online context, and beat us to it. Risk and opportunity, all at once.
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