Radio: We’ve Got a Name

After 100 years and a drastically changed landscape, it is interesting how radio is still so easily explained, but how rarely it benefits from a modifier. That’s especially true when you’re looking to differentiate the product originating on AM/FM from other like services.

Not everybody who reads Ross on Radio regards “terrestrial radio” as a pejorative. “It sounds futuristic, like it’s out of science fiction,” says Jeff Berlin. “It feels special and magical, like we are,” says Lauren Pressley of New Jersey’s WOLD. 

Mostly, though, “terrestrial radio” still comes across as satellite radio’s attempt to position itself as the space-age service, and everybody else as something lesser. That was certainly why the consumer press so enthusiastically adapted it in the early ‘00s, and why radio advocates like Erica Farber have campaigned against it. 

Edison Research, in its studies, uses AM/FM radio to signify stations originating there, even if those stations are consumed on another platform. In this column, I’ve mostly used the term “broadcast radio” in the same way. As a proud broadcaster, I know that term is easily understood among us, but there’s no sizzle there for a consumer.

In the first segment of Point-to-Point Media’s recent What Workers Want study, Strategic Solutions Research asked listeners about “your local radio station.” It was a term that many respondents viewed favorably, and one that Strategic’s Hal Rood encouraged radio to embrace, particularly since there was no consumer benefit to “terrestrial.”

Part I of the What Workers Want trilogy of webcasts found that “local information” was still valuable to 48% of respondents, third after non-stop music and “funny content.” Even traffic, the thing still on most stations because it’s sponsored, but thought to have been made redundant by your phone, is still an attraction for 33% of listeners. “I like ‘local radio,’” says veteran PD Monica Starks. “It’s where it’s originating from and hopefully not lost on programmers.”

I agree that “local radio” is a great thing to offer people. As Starks notes, being “local radio” carries with it the responsibility to deliver “local” rather than just talking about it. Even when an air personality is sitting in a station’s studios, and even if they’re speaking in real time, they may still be talking about entertainment news or what doctors in Sweden have discovered. When I listen to client stations, “I need to learn more about the market” is usually among my notes. 

“Local radio” doesn’t cover everything, or have to. I’ve said before that not all radio needs to be local. Part of my vision for a more compelling radio dial is the creation of more “real national” or “real regional” to replace “faux local.” I’ve also suggested that some of that national (or regional radio) could have some of the benefits of local just by being more transparent about where content is emanating from, something that works well for SiriusXM. 

“Traditional radio” reinforces the notion of radio as hidebound. “Classic radio” means radio with the values that have always made radio great, but it also doesn’t provide for an ongoing evolution, and it’s easily confused with Classic Hits radio. For myself, I think of those stations that still do the right things as “real radio.” That wouldn’t be a bad way to differentiate ourselves for listeners, but that one also carries a burden of proof. 

Some readers make distinctions with friends depending on what exactly they’re referring to. “I usually make it as specific or vague as necessary,” says Country Insider’s Brian Mansfield, who will use “local,” “terrestrial,” “satellite,” or “broadcast” as applicable. But he uses radio “if it’s just delivered audio. Then I count on the reader to go, ‘wait, what’s the difference between “terrestrial radio” and “radio?”’ And that sets up a teaching moment.”

“When I’m talking with people about how they listen to music, they usually don’t give a generic answer [like] ‘I stream,’” says Bruce Cole. “They answer with brand specificity: Pandora, Spotify, YouTube, etc. My takeaway is to talk brand more than delivery message … not radio but WXRT, CBS-FM, V103, etc.”

For many readers, like Alan Sells, the answer is just “radio, that’s what it is. You would have to waste too much time trying to rebrand any other term for 99% of potential users, who wouldn’t know why you were trying to rebrand the project.”

It’s not news that streaming pureplays still often find “radio” to be the easiest way to explain what they do. “We don’t have to explain what we are,” says syndicated morning host Jerry Broadway. “We are radio. Satellite and internet ‘radio’ are derivatives of a well-established brand. We don’t have to explain, they do.”

When I’m asked about the survival of “radio,” a question poised even by some broadcasters themselves at the National Assn. of Broadcasters convention in Las Vegas earlier this week, there’s no grim determination required when I tell people that I believe there will be a franchise for “radio” forever. The only issue is who will provide it and on what platform.

Despite its initial publicity, SXM has always been for me a bastion of “real radio,” although some of its expanded offerings, particularly following its merger with Pandora, are less so. “Free radio” is a popular and valuable talking point at the moment, but I’m still in favor of SiriusXM being thought of as radio and counting towards radio’s “Share of Ear” in Edison’s studies, and in the perception of the media and advertisers.

It would also help broadcasters in the perception of the media and advertisers if there were a way to make their presence in podcasting better known and recognized. According to Edison, four of podcasting’s top 10 networks and two of the top three are part of the radio industry; (again, I’m including SiriusXM here). Sharing that story would help reinforce the notion of “radio everywhere.” For those listeners on which that distinction might be lost, it would help broadcasters if just a fraction of the inventory of those podcasts went toward directing listeners to real-time radio, some likely for the first time.

If broadcasters were able to target podcast listeners, they would have to offer both a compelling message and a product. That would require the same improvements, particularly in both quantity and quality of spots, that would improve radio for the existing audience. They might indeed do better to market specific brands or shows, and whatever they market will have to be available on multiple platforms, including the one they’re listening to at that moment. We won’t necessarily have to explain what real radio is; but it will be necessary to deliver it.