Radio broadcasting is at its root an audio-delivery system, but its real value goes well beyond that. The service that has grown up around that transmission infrastructure is what the radio business is all about today. Not that the transmitters are incidental – as they have almost become in broadcast TV today – but over-the-air (OTA) broadcast is not the only audio delivery system anymore.

So if the radio business is to survive, it must no longer define itself by a single delivery format. It’s not about the platform, it’s the value of the whole package: Content plus Delivery. Yes, broadcast radio, particularly FM, is a great delivery medium, and its receiver penetration is unmatched – today. But it could be the best or even the only delivery system in the world, and if there was nothing worth listening to on it, no one would care, and it would have little value (and thus minimal monetization potential).

Thus the challenge for radio operators today is to migrate the OTA audio content business they have established and developed so well into additional, new delivery formats. Just as the storefronts moved from downtown to the mall (and then back downtown in some cases), radio service needs to go where the audience is, and provide the audio entertainment and information that these audiences want.

Radio operations used to spend a lot of time and money on the creation of a single OTA product. Now, just like a successful retail store or restaurant, it’s time to open some new outlets. For radio this means turning that shop that used to be focused on producing one big output into one that also manages a lot of little ones. Today’s digital technology makes this fairly easy and inexpensive to accomplish.

Importantly, this doesn’t mean simply copying the on-air service online. Each platform has different attributes and therefore attracts different users at different times. So the content offered on each delivery method must be optimized for that platform and its users’ behaviors.

This also means that the definition of success will be different on each platform. They are all separate offerings with their own operational parameters and metrics. Don’t operate or judge the merits of one service with processes designed for another. Point-to-point vs. point-to-multipoint, wired vs. wireless, one-way vs. two-way, real-time vs. on-demand – the permutations (and opportunities) abound.

And by the way, the problem of free content killing the business model that seems to be hurting the print industry shouldn’t apply here – radio’s content has always been free.

It took awhile for OTA radio to become a successful business, but once it did, it remained amazingly resilient. It’s now time for “radio” to develop its next suite of services.

The author of this blog post is Skip Pizzi, who is a Media Technology Consultant and Member of The Radio Workout Team.

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