Radio Back On The Road

“Nobody listens to regular radio anymore”.

I’ve heard that myth every year for years.

My predecessors, heard a similar myth I’m sure when music became portable.

Phonograph records have been around for more than a century but in order to listen to them, you needed a record player which wasn’t very portable.  This changed a few decades ago with the invention of 8 track tapes.  My parents could buy an 8 track tape player for their car and listen to an entire record album while driving down the road.  People thought that would kill off radio stations.  But it didn’t.

8 track players were replaced by cassette tapes and eventually compact discs replaced both tapes and records. The audio systems in our cars continued to evolve as well as the prediction that radio was about to be replaced by these newer, portable ways to listen to music.

Compact Discs were just the beginning of digital music players as iPods and other MP3 players made it possible to have hundreds of songs in your pocket.

And of course the internet was supposed to kill off radio stations too, especially when our cars became connected to the online world.

I mention all of this history for one reason.  Like I said at the beginning…

“Nobody listens to regular radio anymore” is just a myth.

1000 adults 18 and older participated in a survey a couple of months ago and here’s some of the details:

According to results from a national CARAVAN survey conducted by ENGINE Insights for Xperi’s DTS the pandemic has increased the importance of the personal vehicle and in-dash infotainment today, versus pre-COVID. The study says this is especially true for Millennials and Gen Z.

Now you might think that they want to be able to connect to the internet while they are driving.  Not so fast.

According to the study, radio is indispensable or highly important to seven out of ten vehicle owners, with nearly 80 percent of Millennials valuing radio in the dashboard. Also, nine out of ten vehicle owners say it is important to have radio in their dashboard, with over half wanting it as the anchor of their media diet.

What about satellite radio?  Wasn’t that supposed to be the wave of the future?

Four in five vehicle owners (79 percent) feel it is very important that listening choices in their vehicle are free (radio/podcasts/etc.) versus subscription based.

Surely podcasts then are going to kill off radio stations.

Nope, the vast majority of podcasts have a teeny tiny audience and last less than a year.  Similar to what I observed when blogging was the hot new internet sensation 15 years ago.  The podcasts that have staying power and a significant audience are those linked to broadcast radio stations.

It was ten years ago that I walked away from a successful job in the radio business and joined a website firm.  I came back to radio less than a year later.  I left radio again and worked full time in social media, but in 2013 returned once again in radio to stay.  See, when I was working outside of this business there was something I continued to do.

Listen to the radio as I drove to my internet job.

Last month, my radio station, WOWO in Fort Wayne, Indiana had a birthday. WOWO turned 96 years old on March 31st and it’s not about to be irrelevant.  Besides our news and talk hosts and anchors doing their regular radio shows, they have podcasts too.  Not to replace what they do on the radio, but to supplement it.  We also podcast the interviews so listeners can listen later or share too.

Want to know more? Contact me.  Scott@WOWO.com