2005 to 2013: Radio and Podcasting

0:00 This is episode seven of My Digital Life with Rob Greenley for July sixteenth, twenty thirteen. I'm Rob Greenley. Thank you for listening to the show this week. We're back after a two week hiatus, but I'm happy to be back in the seed again. Thank you for tuning in. The topic this week is the future of in car and on demand radio and how podcasting and radio content will blend together in the car. The other thing we'll discuss is possible changes coming to broadcast radio. Does radio need some of the current podcast talent to succeed in the future. We're going to cover all those topics. Yeah, I'm going to spend a few minutes with broadcast radio and media research consultant Mark Ramsey from Mark Ramseymedia dot com to discuss the topics of the week in this episode.

1:00 And I can be reached at Rob at Rob Greenley dot com and that's r O B G R E E N L E E dot com or on Twitter at Rob Greenley same spelling, or in iTunes or in Windows Phones podcast area, Stitcher and SoundCloud is where you can get this podcast. I manage the podcast on Windows Phone for Microsoft. And if you have a podcast and you want to get it in the Windows phone catalog, please send it to me at the email address podcasts with an S at Microsoft dot com. So let's dive into the topic this week. I spoke with Mark Ramsey back in two thousand and five for my IT Conversation Network show that I was doing back in two thousand and five. The show was called web Talk with Rob Greenley, and I will share a link to that interview in the blog post so you can optually check it out.

1:59 Or we talked about the potential of podcasting in the face of shrinking radio audiences and how celebrities, major celebrities will lead the audience growth in podcasting in the early days of podcasting. So it's a little glimpse back in time a little bit, and I'll play a little snippet here from the interview in two thousand and five. It seems like anyway. In the mind, well, you know, satellite radio has a toe hold, podcasting has a toe hold, Internet radio has a toe hold. All of these things have only toe holds. Here's the thing about radio. It's universal. Everyone has many, not just one. Everyone virtually everyone listens to at least some And even though people listen less because of internet, listen less because of podcasts. They still come by the radio store, they still listen to the radio product. So when you have access to three hundred and fifty millionaires, give or take, the question is how you use that access.

2:53 The audiences are still lose, is the way I look at it. Yeah, And you keep or lose an audience based on the content you provide them, and the more distinctive and more compelling that content is. And who can better afford more distinctive and compelling content than an industry which earns boatloads of money hand over fist today with one hundred percent distribution. I mean, this is the this is the wet dream of satellite radio to have that kind of distribution. And also when you think about what the future holds here, that the whole broadcast area is going to maintain its dominance too. I mean, from all of the studies that I've heard about, as a broadcast radio is not going to diminish its influence or reach in the foreseeable future.

3:38 People are just going to augment their radio, their broadcast radio listeners with podcasting. Well yes, except you know, for satellite radio to add a million subscribers. It's a huge boon for them. For radio to lose a million quarter hours is not that big a deal. Yeah, well it's you know, because radio, on the other hand, it's not that big a deal but in terms of numbers. But it turns out that when you've got one hundred percent distribution and virtually everyone listening to you, it doesn't take much for you to feel a pinch. You know, it's not that big a deal in terms of raw numbers, but it is that big a deal overall because everyone's expected to grow annually, and when you're shrinking, even at one hundred percent, you know, there's really only one direction to go, and that's that's a problem because all these other things have a toe hold.

4:27 It is radio's audience to lose. But I don't know, you know, it's as content migrates to some of these other venues, we'll see. I mean, I just read today some speculation that Serious and Apple are talking not about licensing Serious, you know, regular channels, but potentially licensing their original content to iTunes. And as you you know, as I'm sure you've talked about, iTunes is going to be enabling podcasting in their next version so when you put those pieces together, what you have is original, serious content potentially available at least for subscription, if not for free through iTunes for podcasting. And keep in mind that among that original content starting January one, two thousand and six, is none other than Howard Stern. You have now a distribution platform which is potentially vast for a product which is unquestionably unique and compelling and in demand.

5:37 Yeah. And I think also when you kind of look at it from the standpoint of the new cell phones or mobile phones that are going to be coming out over the next couple of years that are going to have you know, always on, you know, connections and be able to have a massive storage capacity within those phones, you can really see kind of a new distribution model. But I guess the question that keeps coming up in my mind if that does, in fact happen, is that will that distribution be dominated by talk radio type programming or will it be dominated by a combination of talk radio and music, which is what exists right now in the broadcast radio. Well, the difficulty, as you know, is that that there are licensing issues with music and that are so far unresolved that someone is to pay to podcast music, and it's unclear who is to pay in how much and to whom, So all of that needs to be squared away.

6:33 But there is other types of music out there. That that well, there's indie reels. And in fact, one of my one of my arguments that I made on a different show is that, you know, I think indie music has the potential to be a prime driver for podcasting because you know, it's put out by the people who own it, and you know it's that that could be a prime driver in no way as prime as Howard Stern. That's the thing. So I asked you your question is original, unique, broad based and compelling content. Star content is what drives everything. You know, Nelly sells more records than Joe Blow undeniably, So a Joe Blow indie podcast would have X amount of distribution and a Nelly podcast would have X to the tenth power distribution. So the more Nelli's you create, and by the way, Nellie's are not going to easily be created by podcasting. They can profit by podcasting, but they need mass media in order for their fame to spread. So I think, you know, music or non it's easier with non music than it is with music because non music content can be star content music content, and so these licensing things are worked out, is going to be Indie content, and you know India is they call it indy for a reason.

8:04 So what you're saying is that the celebrity is gonna really be who dominates podcasting. Well, I mean, look, I mean even though the quality was poor, look at the Paras Hilton podcast for House of Wax. I mean, I don't know what the statistics are, but I would venture a guest that was one of the most downloaded series of podcasts. Yet well you know why the quality was horrible of what the content was, but it didn't matter. A was paras Hiltan and b was widely promoted by whatever the studio was, Dimension or whatever it was. Uh So you know that the combination in other words, of the man, the big corporate behemoth man putting together the star with the medium. Well you know that also iTunes and serious and Howard Stern could be that combination.

9:05 But somewhere in the mix here, this whole grassroots content creation boom that we're seeing happening is going to play into this somehow. It just you know, like you were talking about when you factor in the influence of celebrity on that it does put put the the distribution more going to towards celebrity related podcast. And I've always believed exactly, I've always believed that it's going to it's going to be drifting in that direction. Yeah, but it's also possible that as you look at the whole mass of content creation that's going to happen with podcasting, that the the smaller podcasts, when you aggregate all those together, could wind up being a significant influence as well. And that's part of the reason why I think we're seeing networks a podcasts start to form.

9:51 Here, and well, I think also the reason you're seeing networks is because people are looking towards an advertising model, and in order to justify an advertising model, they need to they need a critical mass, So they need to form a network for that reason and that reason alone, because otherwise these things are all individually too small. I mean, I think that all the grassroots stuff is great, but you know, just because you can do desktop publishing on your laser printer doesn't mean you're going to replace the local newspaper. Just because you can produce a movie on your laptop. It doesn't mean you're going to be lunching with Steven Spielberg at at the Polo Lounge. In fact, very much the opposite is the case. You know, for every Blair Witch project, there are countless thousands of indie films which eat up money and go nowhere. So the ability to create this content and the ability to have it you know, widely heard, scene remembered, cared about, are two completely different things. And you know this, now, some stars may emerge, well.

11:00 We've seen a little bit of that already, I think, but with who you know, with some you know, some of the podcasters that have been able to get some some traction and some press out there. Yeah, possibly, but you know there are even. It's not huge numbers by any means. No, But I mean again, if if I think one of the reasons why Infinity is doing their experiment in San Francisco with an all podcast radio station is to to create a farm team of talent, because if they find anything particularly compelling out of all those contributions, why not put it on the radio? Yeah? Or it can really do some good, really move some needles, really generate some revenue, and really you know, satisfy a lot of listeners.

11:43 Fast forward eight years to twenty thirteen today and how have things changed? Did we get it right back then? I have broadcast radio and media research consultant Mark Ramsey from Mark Ramsey dot com on the line right now to us the future of radio and podcasting and also what are the in car experiences that we can expect around on demand radio and podcasting? Are some hybrid of the two and what is it going to be like to combine broadcast radio and on demand radio like podcasting in the future. Mark, Welcome to the show, Thanks for joining me. Thank you, Rob, happy to be here. Yeah, we go way back. I remember having you on a show that I did for the IT Conversations network back in two thousand and five. It was part of my web talk radio show that I was doing, and we talked about a lot of cool stuff around the predictions of what it's happening with radio, because back in two thousand and five was kind of an early day's run at at online radio and podcasting was just kicking off back then, and we talked about radio topics back then relating to podcasts and online radio and streaming and how it appeared that those mediums, those new mediums were going to start taking a chunk of the radio listening time, and I thought that back then that shift was happening.

13:06 Do you think that, thinking back after about eight years or so, that it's happened to the degree that you thought it was cock. Then, well, I think, first of all, whatever I said eight years ago, it was all correct. I don't know what it was, but I'm positive it was correct whatever it was. So there's that as far as Yeah, I think what we've been seeing in the interim, First of all, I think that conversation is I recall dealt a lot with podcasting in particular, which which particularly new and fresh at the time. In the interim, I think what we've really seen is the rise of the proverbial other where in a fixed amount of time, you can only devote it to a certain number of places. Yes, you can share more than one place at a time. I can watch TV and use a mobile device. I can watch TV and use a mobile device, and gosh, I guess I can have the radio on, but I can't listen to the radio and watch TV at the same time.

14:00 So there's a limit to how attention can stretch and I think, what's It's not so much that all this stuff eats into everything else. It's that it nudges it aside a little bit, and that at the end of the day, it's not that people it's a light switch thing like VHS to DVD was. It's more of a kind of soft fade where things share, you know, the personal bandwidth we call time. Yeah, and there's only so much time to go around, right. So there is only so much time to go around. And that, by the way, is why you see take a look at my opening present from the from the conference we're going to talk about later, and you'll see that I share some statistics about the changes in the average quarter hour rating for radio, which is the fraction of the population that's listening to radio right now over time, and the numbers are down. Radio industry, well, folks will tell you that, you know, there's tons of people listening to radio, A huge fraction of everybody listens through to the radio. That may be true, but they're not spending as much time as they used to. They're not here as many occasions as they used to be. And the reason is not just podcasts and Pandora. The reason is mobile devices and cell phones and iPhones and game boys and u Xbox and Netflix and everything else that Roku, everything else that distracts us and video games that attention that that that target our valuable attention.

15:31 Yeah, and I think that that's a really fascinating point. I'm not sure that a lot of a lot of folks in podcasting are in the broadcast or radio business really think about that. Is that there their new competition is all these other forms of media out there that occupy people's people's mind share, right. That's right. And the difficulty that audio has in general, and this is something I'm gearing up to write about this. I haven't really done it yet, but I've talked to a couple of people about it. The difficulty of audio in general is that while a picture is worth a thousand words, it takes a thousand words to paint a picture. And in a time when our time is stretched, when our attention is stretched, we may not want to devote a thousand words worth of time. We don't devote. You know, it used to be you'd watch two minutes of a YouTube video. Now it's like, you know, a six second vine is more than sufficient. Yeah, I mean The challenge that audio has is that audio isn't suited to a to a six second experience, right.

16:33 Yeah, And I think that. I mean, if you look at places like YouTube, which you know, there's whole kind of new show shows that are coming online there that are less than five minutes long, you know, and it's it's like I come from a generation and I probably you do as well, that there is an expectation that content is longer than just two minutes, right. I mean, it's hard to get a lot of value out of something that's only two minutes long. Well it used to be. But you know, then how to playing these five minutes shows? How to explain the fact that, you know, we can say it's not enough time to deliver content, but then if people get only two minutes of viewing out of a thirty minute video, who are we to say that's not enough time? Yeah? Obviously the audience is spoken, and I think in the audio context, the challenge is going to be that you know these and I look, I create longer form content myself.

17:23 I do it for specialized audience. I recognize it's not for everybody, but for anybody who's creating content that's intended for a broad audience. I think there's going to you're going to have to think through how you capture and sustain attention, and you're going to have to think through how to formulate that content so as to match it to people's desire, ability, and interest to allocate that attention to you. Yeah, And I think that's that's a little bit of the tuggle war that we have going on with content today, is that oftentimes value comes from having more inform there, right, versus shorter bites of information tends to be less detailed, but those tend to get more attention these days because people are stretched, like you say, for their attention spans.

18:11 They don't have a couple of minutes to spend with something. Or that's how we've trained ourselves now to think about, you know, in the twitterization of media, is shorter is better, but it may not necessarily be better in all genres or all topics. And I think that's the tuggo war that we have going on right now. Well, we have to separate the what we mean by better from what we mean by popular. Yeah, Because I mean, you know, I think you look through five ways to use pinterest for your business I mean, could I could read that same article one hundred times and we have five different ways each time, But as long as it's phrased five ways, yeah, you know, that's what's going to get read, because it's a lot shorter than ten ways or a long article with nothing bolded, nothing underlined, and nothing no. I mean, but it's that kind of editorial cosmetics almost that we need to apply to audio. And I would direct people, people like you, people like everybody quite frankly in this space to one of our most derided art forms, television news, local television news, because there they take what could be hours of programming and they spend a whole lot of time telescoping content, teasing content, boiling down content, repeating content, excerpting content. I mean, there's a science to it, and that science is built to grab, capture,

19:42 and sustain attention. Boy, and it can be frustrating though to go through it. Though. It's like, when is that segment coming up in that you know, in the news program that they promoed the last four breaks. Right, yes, speaking is the person who tuned in for every one of those minutes to get to that segment exactly? Right? Exactly? It's it's a struggle. But I oftentimes, and as you were saying that, I was thinking one interesting way to think about this is that maybe as content producers we need to think more about shorter content as a catalyst for conversation. And maybe that's where the justification really hits the road, is that maybe over time here, maybe we're all going to become content providers that contribute to the discussion that happens by the audience.

20:29 Right, what YouTube refer to as a catalyst for conversation, I would call a tease. Yeah, you know, I mean, for example, that's. Kind of that's kind of what talk radio was really built on, right. Yes, but talk radio is also built on the notion that I'm going to talk for three hours today, three hours tomorrow, three hours the next three days after that, and if you miss any portion of what I talk about, don't worry, because I'll be back tomorrow talking about just about the same thing for the same length of time, and you don't really miss anything. It's very much like soap operas. Talk radio is like soap operas. You know, you miss a day, you miss almost nothing. I had a conversation with somebody, and I will not mention who who was referring to a major talk radio talent and said, you know, if we just reran his show from last week today, would anybody notice? And somebody else in the meeting said, last week, we could rerun his show from last year and nobody would notice. Now, whenever that's the case, what you're creating is wallpaper audio wallpaper. You're not really creating something that is certainly for audience which have as many choices as we have today in as many ways to exercise those choices. That's the fundamental gap between kind of spoken so called spoken word radio and all the stuff that we can do online.

21:53 Yeah, with that, you know, part of what we talked about back in two thousand and five was the shrinking audience for broadcast and how that's going to impact you know, kind of major trustrial broadcasters. How do you think that the major trustrial broadcasters are are kind of adjusting to this new. World kicking and screaming with the emphasis side the emphasis on screaming. And there's also look part of again, watch the opening presentation I did for my high vo conference, and you'll see how I lay this out because I said, look, you know, the statistics that have been popularized in the radio industry say more listeners than ever, et cetera, et cetera. And when I show you the stats that say the fraction of the population listening right now to the radio is off nine percent in the past two years alone, I mean, that's a chilling statistic. But I said, the reason for that statistic isn't just paint some kind of, you know, dank, dark picture about radio. It's to say the radio is no different from any other major medium with mass attention, television, film, They've all suffered this. People are consuming as much more content than ever before, they're just not doing it in the traditional channels to the same extent. And why in the world would radio be different.

23:07 So when you buy into the notion that radio is not different from those things, that it's not quite unquote special compared to those things, then you have a basis to plan that's based on reality rather than based on you know, rainbows and unicorns. And I like to base the future on reality. And I think a lot of the broadcasters that are kicking and screaming are arguing that nothing's broken. Where as relevant as ever, whereas used as ever, people are here in the same numbers they always have been. We're just not telling our story well enough. That to me is naive. Yeah. Well, it's also that erosion is happening, like you said, to all the traditional media, I mean even movies there.

23:50 And it's okay, right. They're happening because there's a lot more competition for people's attention now. It's okay, yeah, if you go to Paramount. I just read a book that I'm reading a book now that talks about it talks about Linda Oaps is Sleepless in Hollywood I think it's called and she talks about her time at Paramount on the TV side, and she said she goes into Paramount and Paramount views itself as a multi platform content company. Paramount Pictures a multi platform content company. And you know, ironically, one of the themes of my presentation the other week was content and platforms. Content and platforms. What's the solution to shrinking attention. It's content and platforms. It's being in more places, in more forms, whatever the form is that fits that place for that particular audience, and it's providing content that's worth seeking out. This, by the way, is the fundamental opportunity in the dashboard too.

24:40 Yeah, it's just well, it's just moving to where people are moving to, right, I mean, as a content around, you have to move to where your audience is more likely to be. And I think it's really just as simple as that. And that's I think that the radio folks have kind of forgotten about, probably up to this point, is that their audience is shifting they need to shift to. Well, part of the challenge is that there, you know, radio is evaluated based on radio ratings, and radio ratings are passive instruments, so they'll, you know, they'll they'll passively measure what audio signals are in the area. And that's fine, but that is a universe of radio stations only, right, So when I spend my time listening to a podcast, all of that is off the shelf. When I spend my time watching a Netflix, all of that is off the shelf. When I spend my time, you know, playing a video game, that's off the shelf. So wherever that attention goes, wherever my time goes. If it's not to another radio station, it's not measured. And if it's not measured, it doesn't exist to radio. And if it doesn't exist, how are they supposed to respond to us strategically, So sooner or later, the business models need to catch up with the choices available to consumers. Because here's what's going to happen. Dollars will follow attention. Dollars will follow attention.

25:57 It may not be steady, it may not proportional, and it may not be fast, but it is inevitable. Yeah. And one other thing that we talked about back back eight years ago was how Major reminded me about this eight years then, that major celebrities were going to lead the audience growth for podcasting, And I know, as you think about it today, nothing's really changed in that front. I think it's really fascinating if you think about broadcast radio celebrities, right, like the Howard Stearns and the Sean Hannity's and those those kind of folks that have built big, big celebrity status around radio. A lot of those folks are not really building big celebrity statuses on podcasting yet.

26:40 And there's a whole fresh new breed of the Kevin Smiths and the Adam Krolaz and some of these guys have been able to make that shift, right, But where do you see the whole development of major media celebrities becoming big spoken word audio creators. Look, the reason why you have a radio show rather than open doors on a podcast is because you get much more attention, much quicker, and that invites you know, besides the money, if there is any, you get much more attention, much quicker. That's why even the people with the podcast would trade their right arm for a radio gig on top of that podcast, or at least a radio piece to the podcast. Pie. Certainly Kevin Smith would, yeah, but.

27:22 I say that quite a few of them, like an Adam Kroller, would not. He says he would not. But if someone went to Adam and said, Adam, with no additional work on your part, we're going to air some of your podcasts and we're going to write you the following check, Adam would say yes, thank you sir. What Adam doesn't want to do is trade in his podcast Empire and get another radio job where he is to get up at four in the morning, five days a week for four hours. And I don't blame it, you know, I mean, this is part of the problem. The problem is that Kevin Smith doesn't produce nearly the amount of content that we expect the average radio talk host to produce because the Internet doesn't require that. You know, you and I as listeners don't require that.

28:03 Even radio listeners don't require that. Look, the reason why radio talk radio shows are three hours long, five days a week isn't because the average person listens to fifteen hours of content. It's tuning in and out. Right, they're tuning in in and out. So, in other words, it's built to be grazed, not to be consumed front to back. So the stuff that podcasts are creating are built ideally to be consumed front to back. You don't need as much the problem that you know, that's a challenge for broadcasters because in an ideal world, broadcasters would say, well, here's this wealth of content Adam Carolla is creating. You mean to tell me I can't figure out a way to put that on my air and monetize that without having fifteen hours of it a week or twenty hours a week. Seriously, I mean, we're asking too much of people, and that's why the talented people would rather put a blue NeSSI mic on their table and record a radio show for one hour a week, whether it's Ayisha Tyler, Kevin Smith or Adam Carolla or now John Lovetz he's going to do his own.

29:05 Yeah, I've seeing that. I've never seen a successful podcast do three hours of content a day. No, but you see our radio shows that repurpose their shows as podcasts, in those run three hours a day, and while they get downloaded a lot, I'm sure most of it's not consumed. It can't possibly be consumed. It's too much. It's just too much. So the problem is, how do you have this twenty four to seven three sixty five broadcasting asset and make use of all this incredible content, some of which may be very short short form. Yeah. And also one other piece to this pie too, is is that a lot of those podcasters that are used to the freedom that exists on the digital side with podcasting for language and length is also a big factor there too. They can vary their weekly show or their daily show. It can be twenty minutes, it can be an hour and a half, whatever they want to make.

30:00 It's not locked into a certain duration, and that would be one big hindrance. So I would say, for like Kevin Smith, is is around language right. Well, you know, but and Kevin said to me, though he said, you know, look, I could work clean. And not only can you work clean, but if I'm a broadcast company and someone's providing the name brand, top drawer content and all I have to do is hire an editor for ten dollars an hour, I can hire an editor for ten dollars an hour and they can edit that show. And the question is, you know, if you can run Loveline at ten pm at night Monday through Friday, or whatever the heck it is, you know, why couldn't you theoretically run you know, Kevin Smith's show or an Adam Carolla show in that So why doesn't that make economic sense? Why hasn't someone done that deal? Why haven't broadcasters evolved to the kind of model that they had back in the forties where they were dealing with exclusive content until television stole it. Here we go again. We've got an op opportunity for more exclusive content. And for any of these podcasts, Yes, they have their audiences, and in many cases their audiences are big, their audience is pale in comparison to what they could be if they were exposed on the radio, flat out, unambiguously.

31:16 So what's going to happen here is it going to evolve. This content's going to evolve to be more like radio or is it going to be evolved to be more like online radio like a podcast. I mean, what's the ultimate destination of this? Or are we going to continue to see two worlds coexist? I mean, as you think about it, I know we're going to move into talking about, you know, in car experiences, and I think that that question, I think kind of galvanizes that topic, right is how are those worlds going to kind of come together? Right? Well, I think it's all part of one big world. This is what's not understood well among broadcasters that there's no such thing as radio is apart from Pandora, as apart from podcasts. It's all part of one big spectrum.

32:00 If you take it out far enough, you could argue, well, even video as part of that same spectrum. I'm working with people now to do video versions of their radio stations. Why not if it can be engineered and presented on the plat on the digital platform, why shouldn't people be able to tap into a video version of my radio station such that all the songs roll one into the next, just like a video music channel. Back in the day, but it's my curated list of content, it's my DJs with cameras in front of their faces. Why not. Yeah, well, let's go ahead and dive into the whole topic of radio in the car, right and how that's going to kind of evolve and change here. And I mean, because we're already starting to see the early stages of that.

32:43 And at a fairly recent radio conference, I don't remember what the name of it was, there was some panelists from some car manufacturers that were saying that there's a plan or thought to remove AMFM radios from cars sometime in the next five years or less. And I got the impression that that really kind of rattled the radio industry. What was your observation when that happened? That turned out to be very much a misquote, that was a misremembering of the conversation, And when that conversation was recalled was and when he went back to his notes or the audio and that conversation, he realized that he had completely misconstrued what that individual said. That individual did not imply what you just said. So, I mean, but the evidence is quite clear. Look, anybody who understands consumers know that nobody wants anything taken away. They only want things added the people who want who I want the choice of not using a VHS anymore, thank you very much. I don't want you to choose it for me.

33:40 And when enough people like me make our choice, that's when you make yours, and not until then, you don't arbitrarily tell me what my options are going to be, mister automaker. So that AMFN thing was always a misunderstanding from the get go. The automakers do plenty of research and know exactly what people want, so I'm not worried about that at all. So to kind of jump into that, where the reality of that comment came from was what was the fact that there's going to be more experiences coming into the car that will be connected up with either your mobile phone or directly connected to three G or four G networks into the head unit of the vehicle itself. So basically what's going to happen is that the car is going to become like a mobile computer. Basically that's going to have apps, and the Pandora apps or stitch your apps or whatever service that you want to want to use will ultimately be probably available in your car through either through your phone or through the head unit of the vehicle. And how do you think that if that in fact is the case, that that's the direction of things are going that certainly looks like it, how do you think that's going to impact the radio industry? How are they going to you think evolve with that scenario.

34:56 I think they're going about it the wrong way so far, because the way they're going about it so is, you know, let's be everywhere, let's have you know, have mobile apps, let's be accessible in the car in more ways and forms and so on. I think you need to recognize that if people stray, they're going to stray because something is compelling them to do, something is attracting them. So success in the car is increasingly going to be about attracting people to a destination, not about defending turf that was yours simply because it was a black box nobody could gain access to, which is historically how it's been. It's been either you know, eight tracks, cassettes, CDs, now chords going into your iPhones, ultimately just about anything. So this notion that radio used to own kind of the dynamic content in the car. Now radio will be one of many ways to get dynamic content in the car.

35:56 So what's going to happen, Well, the advantage is going to shift to the most compelling dynamic content in the car, and most compelling. Maybe compelling for me is different from compelling for you. So in other words, it should be a battle for content. It should be about having the most unique and compelling content they possibly can have, especially since radio uniquely right now has the ability to kind of attract groom and popularize that kind of content. At least it has that possibility. Whether it's whether it's exercising it or not, it's another question. So where do you see satellite radio fitting into the picture here?

36:36 I think satellite radio is going to continue to tinker along, to tick along and grow modestly year after year. I mean, it's basically built into every new car. Now you have to decide not to take it. You don't decide to take it. That's a critical thing, by the way, I mean, who wouldn't want there. It would be like putting your podcast on every new car and say you're subscribed for six months. After that you have to decide to cancel it. It's versus Hey, hopefully you'll find out about this. Hopefully you'll stick this on your car, hopefully you'll subscribe to this. Well, one is infinitely more likely than the other. It's way more difficult to cancel satellite radio than it is to sign up for it. So the fact that it's built in standard equipment makes all the difference in the world.

37:24 That means people have to stop using it. So I think it's going to continue to chug along in and continue to be a valid source for attention. Certainly, they've got a lot of you know, quality content on there in addition to the you know, the music channels will be pretty redundant to what you can get from other places. But if I'm accustomed to being in a satellite radio environment, why do I need the other places? You know? Pandora's a great solution if I want to personalize my music, But it's not a great solution if I just want a good jazz station, or a good hip hop station, or a good pop station. I can get that from serious. Yeah, or even a good spoken word program or station. Right. Well, you know with Pandora, that's right, and that's that's another conversation we can have.

38:10 Yeah. So, given the history of radio, you know, it's been focused primarily on local live events, music, talk, news, talk, and other spoken content. So as you think about Pandora, Pandora is very focused on music, right, It's trying to create a terrific experience around music. It seems to me like either one of two things is going to happen. Either one or more of these big music platforms is going to adopt the full spectrum of what people expect from radio, or we're going to have just like the iPhone today, there's separate apps for everything, right, and you have to have this, you know, a separate app for talk radio, separate app for live events, a separate app for music, and separate app for this and that. And how do you see that playing out?

38:57 Well, you know, I think that's going to be an attempt to create, you know, a rainbow of options including all of the above. I mean, that's what's certainly what's going to be created is all of the above. Now, what's going to be popular may not be all of the above, because you have this these conflicting realities. On the one hand, there's going to be a temptation to pack in more features right. On the other hand, the stuff that's most easily communicated is the stuff that's simplest to convey, and the simpler you are, the more single focus the problem you solve. Right, So, yeah, here's the live event app. Great, here's the only personalized music app. Great, you start grouping that together. Now I can get news in my personalized music. Okay, well I didn't know about that. Okay, Now I can turn on and off personalities. Okay, well I don't know if I need that or not. But it's a little hard to describe. And the herd the more stuff you pack in, the harder it is to describe, and the shakier the assumption that you're solving a problem, and the more it looks like what you really doing is trying to recreate radio on a different platform. And the thing about radio is that it works quite well for what it does, for what it's intended to do, and for what people to look to it for. It is great. Radio does a great job. We don't look to our radio to be personalized. We don't look to our radio to be commercial free. We say we wish it were, but we also are not inclined to pay for it. And if we are, there are ways to do that, and most people clearly do not. So, you know,

40:28 what we say we want and what we we gravitate for are two different things. There's going to be a temptation for nice, clean, lean things like a Pandora to grow, you know, warts all over the place in a search for new listener value propositions. And as their CTO said to me, you know at the high View event a couple of weeks ago, they're going to move very cautiously down that path because they don't know, first of all, that they need to. There's this expectation they will from this notion that somehow everything's going to end up looking like radio and radio like everything else. But I don't think that's necessarily true. He did, however, hint of where they would likely evolve if they evolve out of music only, and I thought that was pretty interesting.

41:14 Actually, yeah, I think it was something around the making shows that would be about music, right, as almost like a suggestion engine or a sampling tool, right or something like that. Well, basically, the implication that he gave was that any non music content on the radio would be non music content about music. Yeah, so that tells me it's more of a you know, like a It reminds me of the early days of FM radio. Yeah, when you know you have the they were playing these, you know, crazy rock tunes that you couldn't hear anywhere else. God knows, your favorite AM Top forty station wouldn't play them. And they had DJs that, you know, knew something about the artists, knew something about the music, and talked about that. I mean, it may be kind of a return to that because Pandora is a very music centric experience, and I don't mean that just in terms of the quality of the content, but the attraction to people who are interested in music.

42:17 Yeah, I think it's more what built a lot of music is like a K Rock out of Los Angeles, right, that would have bands on to talk about the music and things like that. So is that more like what you're thinking. I don't know if it would be bands, but it would probably be people who know music. Yeah, Okay, I say what you're saying, But it could be it could be you know, singers, or it could be bands or whatever that could come through and think it. Could be there they go too far down that path. I think they'll hear about it because anyone who's ever listened to a band interview knows that few things are as you know, maybe short of getting teeth pulled. As unpleasant as that. It can be, it can be. You're exactly right. So I guess if you think about what the history of broadcast radio has been, it has been fairly siloed into separate channels. Right, So you have a radio station that's focused on music, and then you have a radio station that's focused on talk and live and news, weather and sports station. And I guess you could draw the same analogy to apps, right, that could. That's very similar to that kind of concept in people's minds. My only concern about that is as you look at ease of use and simplicity and safety in the car, right around complexity being able to navigate this this world of apps and these worlds of content successfully in the car. I don't know what's your thoughts on that.

43:41 Well, I guess that's where a lot of the heat is right now. I mean, wasn't it Ford that had to put knobs back in their car? Yes, because not because of the complexity of the dash, but because all those buttons. It just you know, people wanted knobs. People embrace something that look Knobs are the mechanical equips dilevalent of radio. People are comfortable with what they're comfortable with, and you don't fix what ink bro. So the problem that broadcasters are going to face is not that they need to be in places in the dashboard that they aren't. The problem's going to be they need to be worth listening for people who now have infinitely more choices. Yeah, so they need to be better content creators, is what you're saying.

44:24 Better content creators. And you know what again, if I'm Clear Channel, if I'm CBS, if I'm Cumulus right now, and Kevin Smith is out there producing audio content for free, essentially, I want to do a deal with him, Don't I Don't I want to do a deal with him. Don't I want to do a deal with Adam Corolla. Don't I want to have these assets in my portfolio in some way? Don't I want to try and monetize this content? Given this is this may not be the future of radio, This is the future of attention. Yeah. I think that I think you could draw a similar analogy to what's happening with YouTube and the Big studio is that there's this kind of this envy that's starting to brew around video content too, moving from from the online medium back to broadcasts, and you're seeing podcasts make that jump too, where there's you know, like a Mark Marin being successful in podcasting and then taking that same kind of concept right in the same kind of show and converting it into a video program or a TV show. So you have this kind of this cross media thing. And I think it's back to what you were talking about, It's just it's about content. Really, this whole method of distribution gets a little bit becomes a little bit more, not as relevant to the conversation, right, It's right.

45:39 I mean, you know, ultimately you're a you're a platform content company like Paramount Pictures, and what do they do. They do deals with talent. They they wrap them around projects, and they spread those projects and that talent different forms, shapes and sizes across different platforms and then they do it again. That's what they do. And they don't always work, and it is not cheap, but when it pays off, it pays off. Otherwise you wouldn't do it at all. And I think that's the that's the opportunity going forward is for Ready to look at some of these things and say, man, you know what what if we got in business with Kevin Smith? What would that look like?

46:26 You know, what could we what if we have a meeting with Kevin Smith and we say, Kevin, you know we're clear channel. What can we do for you? And then what can you do for us? Let's put aside what it costs. Let's just talk about what we can do together. Same for you know, Corolla. Not hey Adam, we want to hire you for twenty hours a week, fifty weeks a year. That's the wrong conversation. That's not the one he wants to have at any price. Yeah, he just wants it to be a project that he can work on the dovetails with what he's already doing. Right, not necessarily be a standalone job, but it would be kind of like another way that he can distribute his brand, right, that the broadcast folks can take advantage of. Just that's right, I mean. Kevin Smith told me that when he does morning radio shows, which he does regularly because he does them in the markets where he does live events, he said, the morning radio shows are what sell the live events. That's what makes the live events sell out is when he does the morning.

47:20 Radio show, and he makes most of his money. And that's how he makes his money from the morning, from the live events. I mean, you can't get into that business with somebody. I mean you can't. Again, it's just I'm incredulous at this the idea that people don't look at this and say, how do we get in business with talent such that the talent achieves their goals, we achieve ours, and together we make something bigger than either of us could have otherwise. There is no question that, and I'll just use this as an example. Clear Channel with Kevin Smith does new, different, profitable things that they can't do without. And there's no question that Kevin Smith with clear Channel gets more attention and more money than he can without, no question.

48:03 Yeah, that's right. So maybe that's something that we're going to see happen over the next. You and I need a broadcastle. That's quite hot. Well, anyway, let's talk a little bit about your online radio conference that you did hi vo. Right Ivoh that's right, Yes, as in a hive of smart people kind of in and around the radio space. Yeah, it was intended to be kind of the first of its kind radio ideas festival where we bring in people. It was here in San Diego a couple of weeks ago. We bring in at hivo dot Com. We bring in people hiv Io from outside radio and talk about ideas that might be relevant to people in radio. I don't know the whole list of people we had there. We had everybody from the CEO of the San Diego Union Tribune, obviously a huge local media company in southern California, to the head of a digital agency in the area. We had some entrepreneurs who had some great platforms that they were pitching to broadcasters. We had a guy who is the head of something called National Comedy Theater, which does improv, and he did some improv demos and brought people on the stage and it was touchy feel. It was awesome because again, you know what happens behind the mic. That's why he was there. And you know, nobody ever talks to improv people about stuff like that. They only talk to each other. And that's one of the main leave behinds of the event was we got to stop talking just amongst ourselves and start reaching out to people outside of the industry, which is where all the good ideas are, which where all the ideas are for that matter.

49:33 It's true. That's certainly true. And I know that a lot of those sessions from that conference are available on your website. Right. Well, what we're doing is, you know, as intended as a media event, not as a money making conference. I mean, the conference itself was free. It was invitation only. It was you know, fifty to seventy five seats, and it was free. And every presentation is going to be one week at a time. Basically, we're posting him to my site at Markramesimedia dot com. And so far, we put up my opening presentation last week. The Q and A with the CTO of Pandora happens next week. It'll go up at the top of the week, and that's going to be exciting, and then we'll keep rolling them out thereafter.

50:16 And here's the thing about this is it's getting so much attention. I mean, the we live streamed it. In the live streams alone have a communal. I don't know, it's probably up to about eleven hundred views at this point, which for a vertical thing in the radio industry is a lot. I don't know, we're probably between three fifty and four hundred views on my opening presentation at this point, and every single one of these is going to do that. So we're going to have thousands of communal views on the content of this event, which makes it well larger than any other radio industry happening this year in terms of exposure and impact. And my intention, my desire is to make this as much a movement as an event, because the theme of the whole thing was content and platform sure, and without content and platforms, we're just a utility and who cares about the electric company?

51:08 So are you gonna hold the event next year or two? The plan? Well, you know, I have not definitely said yes, but all signs as as the as the a crystal ball with all signs point to yes. Okay, fantastic, that's great. Well, I'm definitely gonna follow it and watch all of the videos because I know that, you know a lot of the things that you talked about a very similar to what we've talked about today, but you're actually talking to the industry leaders and people that are working in different parts of this that can actually make it happen, So it'll be interesting to follow out. And then once you also tell us a little bit about your company, Mark Ramsey Media and what you're trying to do.

51:49 There sure well, the company, I do two things. I do strategic research for broadcasters and people like broadcasters, so people in this space, in around the space television and radio, and you know, research design to get more audience, get more engagement, get more ratings, whatever it may be. And then the other thing I do is really strategy consultations, so I'll work with brands, I'll work with entrepreneurs, I'll work with people in and around the radio space trying to get you know, smart, new forward thinking projects off the ground, or to try and bring their strategies on trend and make them more effective. Because you know, there's so much going When the very definitions of an industry are in flux, it's a time of great volatility but also time of great potential, and navigating that path is really critical. And in order to do that, you've got to kind of see things clearly. You've got to see your strengths and weaknesses clearly, you have to see what the opportunities are clearly, and you have to not read from you know, industry propaganda bullet points. You have to recognize that making plans for the future is going to be much more successful if you make them based on the truth of today, not the you know, wishful thinking of today.

53:04 Where are the best places for people listening to this to read more about you and follow what you're doing. The blogs at Markramseymedia dot com, twitters at Mark Ramsey Media, R A, M. S. E. Y. That's Mark with a K. And then the event, which is a whole separate sign up thing is high vo dot com. And what's cool about that is I'm trying to make that kind of an exclusive club, So anybody who signs up there, I'm sending the videos to those people early they get. Last week I included the SlideShare deck from the presentation, which I published nowhere else, So I'm trying to put some exclusive goodies in there too for anybody who bothers to sign up for iveal.

53:47 Sure, that's great, well, Mark, thanks so much for spending so much time with me. Rob, thank you, and don't be a stranger for another eight years of course. Not no, no. I think we're in a whole new new phase of podcasting and the line side, and I'm I'm really excited about it, and you know, I'm really excited to see what Norm Pettit's from podcast one is going to pull off. I don't know if you're following him and what he's doing trying to take the model that he built around Westwood one and transferring it over to the online side. Yeah, we'll see. It's very interesting. Well, Mark, thanks, thank you. Yeah, it was certainly great to speak with Mark again. Go check out his his conference website at h I v io dot com and also his website at Mark Ramsey Media dot com. Well that's it for this week, and I'm Rob Greenley, the podcast guy for Windows Phone. Thanks again for listening to my thoughts here. I also co host the New Media Show every Saturday morning at nine am Pacific stand of time noon Eastern time with Todd Cochran, who's the CEO of Raw Voice, the maker of the power press plug in for WordPress. You can catch that live show at Geeknewcentral dot com and you can and also get past shows at new Mediashow dot com. Is the place to get the past shows that we've done. And I definitely want to hear from you on any ideas that you have for topics for this show and what you think

55:18 really about the topics that I cover on this show and get your ideas. I will definitely mention them on the show, and if you want to send those to Rob at Rob Greenley dot com, that'd be great. If you have a desire to create an audio episode, you're certainly welcome to send me an MP three and I can play that and then comment after your comments on the show. And if you want to reach me on Twitter, I can also be found at Rob Greenley and you can also leave comments in my blog at Rob Greenley dot com. So if you're a podcaster and you want to get your podcasts into the Windows Phone Zoom podcast area at Microsoft, shoot me your feed to podcasts at Microsoft dot com. And thanks for listening this week, and we'll be back with a new episode next week. Thanks bye,