Tuning in to Clubhouse yesterday while I took a short road trip.
I like to take road trips because it allows me to use the time to do everything I can’t do in the office because of distractions like thinking, listening to audiobooks, and getting some insight from thought-provoking industry people that I respect and to gain more perspective on the industry. I’m mentally always hungry for new, innovative, and creative information because I bore very easily (yawn).
I got to talk to about six people during the road trip and a couple of them told me they are seeing young radio people back down from the spotlight and the need to promote themselves. Pretty much going along to get along and not wanting to ruffle any feathers. I talked about this five years ago and when I saw nobody cared I STFU.
A majority of the people I talked to also felt that the pandemic was going to bring about a certain permanent change in the radio industry. Even though the corporations were able to get PPP loans this time around, there is certainly that the money is a drop in the bucket when compared to the massive debt that many radio corporations are saddled with.
The general consensus was that jocks will continue to work from home and radio stations can start eliminating some of the brick and mortar debt tied up in long-term office contracts. That would make sense. When the question was posed back to me about the future of radio I responded that I think radio is trapped because of PPM.
I’m really surprised other rating systems have not come into play over the last few years so Nielsen obviously has a stronghold on the concept but I think it kills the ability for radio stations to think outside the box and be more creative with programming like NPR is (Have you listened to NPR lately? Amazing).
That being said I also think many black or R&B and Hip Hop stations are leaving a TON of money on the table by not properly utilizing their websites, a great tool to garner additional income and to better target their listeners with SEO (Search Engine Optimization). I’m not in that room with them but I’m thinking many of the corporate stations are selling advertising for their sites and podcasts as group packages.
The problem is, most of the sites lack compelling content but more rehaJay Z Sells Tidal, Clubhouse Segment
I’m getting more deeply involved in SEO for my sites and to find out what people are looking for online pertaining to our industry. As a part of that, I’ve been following the success of Bruno Mars and Anderson .Paak’s “Leave the Door Open.”
So the video was released a few days ago and has already gotten over 20 million views but that really wasn’t the part that blew me away … there is a way to use Google search as an amazing tool to find out what people are searching for online and that song was searched for almost 1 BILLION times in a few days.
The ability to directly connect to what you want online with no middlemen is obviously very appealing to listeners. To that end, make no mistake there is money to be made online a LOT of money. I’ll leave it at that for now (see search below).
