How can radio put itself on equal footing with this?
With television stations able to put their live feed directly on Facebook and other social media platforms during major events, where is the ability for easy embedding of audio? Facebook removed its embeddable audio function in 2012 and has yet to come up with a new solution. Two public media tests have been made this year as NPR worked with Facebook on a player, while WNYC used the video player with a static image to create a way to share recorded audio. But there still is nothing being done to get live audio to the masses as it is being broadcast. How much more reach could a station’s morning show have if their celebrity guest and the show publish the live stream?
Between the growth of the podcasting industry and social audio platforms, any way to reach more ears needs to be considered. When C-SPAN goes to a Periscope video it just shows yet again that the source of the content is no longer of importance, just what the content is.
Amazing moment as @cspan broadcasts a Periscope feed. They're holding on it too pic.twitter.com/3JbWl6riZJ
— Derek Wallbank (@dwallbank) June 22, 2016
Nothing is more infuriating to me than a radio station that does not have its act together at launch. When Cumulus launched “X105.1” in Kansas City last week, how did the station let sweepers calling it “X 101-5” make it on air? Where was the quality control?
This was after the station was part of a frequency swap that was not announced ahead of time. How is the audience expected to find that their favorite station didn’t go away and just moved? The majority of the audience is not going to be following it on social media after the fact or seek out information on Google. They’re just going to flip the dial to another radio station or continue the exodus to a digital platform and away from radio and not look back.
When my mother was a child she won a WMCA Good Guys T-Shirt on-air from Dandy Dan Daniel and never forgot it. She followed him to 1050 WHN and became a Country music fan in the process. Most of my early exposure to radio was to him on WHN and then 97.1/103.5 WYNY including being dragged to many station events including a station hosted picnic on the bluffs overlooking the Hudson River in Fort Lee where she made it her business to show him a childhood picture of her in the WMCA shirt.
While by no-means was she a radiogeek from an early age like I was, but Daniel and WMCA’s giveaway established a life long relationship not just with a station, but also the jock. Most of you probably had a similar relationship with another DJ. Now jocks are interchangeable in many places, not given a chance to establish relationships with their listeners or aren’t even part of the brand. How does one expect listeners to care about the brand when you can’t even promote that it moved to a new frequency?
How in the living hell does a mistake like what occur? How do you get the tag line OF YOUR OWN DAMNED RADIO STATION WRONG?! Cumulus really dropped the ball. This format and frequency change should have been announced at least six-seven weeks before it happened.
IMO programmers were sold on the notion that people prefer to use radio as an appliance, and not as an intimate part of their LIVES. That intimate connection has eroded in the last 20 years, with some exceptions.