Reinventing radio as medium
Stop putting lipstick on a pig. Radio has a unique position as a
source of free music, information and entertainment, but it’s role is
being challenged. Aidan McCullen, from Katawave in Ireland, explained
the urgency for innovations in the industry.
‘There are several ways we can face change, either put your head in
the sand, fight or ride the wave and grab something new’, Aidan
emphasised that radio is competing with everyone now for the attention
of listeners. Highlighting that evaluating your own station is the
most important part of competition, McCullen said ‘we need to start at
the ground-up, and look at ourselves to attract an audience’.
‘Radio is no longer about the monologue, it’s about the tri-alogue’,
Aidan believes that social-media as well as being a
broadcast-platform, should also be a ‘listening-tool’ to judge what
people are really talking about. ‘It’s not a one-way medium anymore,
we need to see how our listens are interacting with each other’.
Giving the rise of Netflix as an example, we saw how the success of
the streaming-site is down to it’s ease and accessibility. Aidan
McCullen urged how we need to ‘be digital’, and make distribution our
first thought, like Netflix has. Our key thought must be ‘Who is
listening, what platform are they on, where are they watching it’,
according to McCullen we need to urgently consider how our content is
available to our listeners.
If ‘content is King, then distribution is Queen and context is the
Kingdom’ – only by recognising that today’s audience is now consuming
our product in a multitude of different ways, and adapting our content
to fit them, can we keep radio relevant today.
