Is radio dead?
Depends on whom you ask.
Today’s developments such as Pandora, Spotify and iPod-ready vehicle connections have made their way into our daily lives.
However, commercial, public and college radio stations remain comfortable with the current age of radio and its future.
Commercial Radio
After 33 years in the broadcasting business and three years at Radio One in Atlanta, “Hurricane” Dave Smith, the operations manager, said it’s the music industry that has changed. The three stations he manages have adjusted to the times in terms of formatting.
“If somebody likes a certain type of music, then our station caters to that type of taste,” he said. “There has been a lot of fluctuation in the marketplace, but our stations have been pretty solid since I’ve been here.”
Radio One consists of Majic 107.5/97.5, Praise 102.5/102.9, and Hot 107.9. These stations each manage to maintain a large audience through a particular music study formula.
“Our job is to find out what people like and then give it to them in heavy dosage,” Smith said. “We call our P1 listeners.”
A P1, priority one, is the listener who tunes in 90 percent of the time. The music studies “Hurricane’s” team conducts has them communicating with P1s. The team plays hooks of a song and P1s tell them when they’re tired of hearing it. “Hurricane” said they don’t want to talk to the people who are not P1s.
“I want to play music for the people who are listening 80-90 percent of the time. They’re my priority one.”
College Radio
Anastasia Zimitravich, general manager of Georgia State’s WRAS 88.5, said with the public wanting music that’s similar to their own taste, they’re turning away from commercial radio.
“[They’re] digging themselves a deeper hole by trying to play songs that they know are hits to appeal to a wide market,” she said. “ …People get tired of those. That’s where we come in.”
Once in 2008 and twice in 2009, WRAS was voted “Best Overall Radio Station” by Creative Loafing Atlanta, a weekly arts and entertainment newspaper. One aspect that makes WRAS unique is that it differs from stations that place listeners as its primary concern.
“They matter to us because we want people to be listening, but they don’t dictate what we play,” she said.
Zimitravich said it’s obvious that radio is changing because there has been so much reformatting with the commercial stations recently. 92.9/Dave FM, 99X, and Project 96.1 are a few of the Atlanta stations that have undergone this change. With these new adjustments, Zimitravich said she feels that there is a larger niche forming for college radio. Her perspective is that commercial radio is struggling just to stay alive.
“The listeners do not rely on radio as much anymore to break new music for them,” she said. “It used to be, ‘I want something new and fresh to listen to. I want to listen to the radio because it will be breaking the Beatles or the Rolling Stones and I won’t hear them anywhere else.’ Now that we have the Internet and people are so communicative, it’s really easy for people to find new music on their own.”
Her experience with WRAS has shown her that people like to listen to the station because they hear something different each time. Because listeners are not going to hear that variety on any other station anymore, it allows for them to be more lenient with their music, she said.
“We can get “poppier” if we want to and still not clash with commercial radio,” she said.
Public Radio
One Atlanta public radio station follows “Hurricane’s” strategy of giving people what they want, and a lot of it. Shed Jackson, director of marketing and communications at WCLK 91.9 FM Clark Atlanta University, said they listen to their audience’s input to test out different music types in jazz, whether it be neo-soul or mainstream.
“In our station, since we are a jazz formatted media outlet, people sometimes tune in and out,” he said. “We’ve been doing … a lot of music studies to see what [people] really want to hear so that they can stay tuned in all day long.”
Public broadcasting receives government subsidies and avoids most paid advertising. This is in contrast to commercial broadcasting, which airs radio and television advertisements for profit.
During WCLK 91.9’s 38 years, Jackson said rather than having to go through any reformatting or any significant changes, they’ve made some “enhancements.”
“We’ve made it possible for [people] to tune in or stay connected with the station across all mediums,” he said. “Just with the whole wave of where communication is going it’s forced us to do things differently.”
The question of whether digital music services are putting DJs out of a job then presents itself. These services, such as Spotify and Pandora, have posed a level of competition, according to Jackson. He said there is competition because people want to hear what they want to hear when they want to hear it.
“We ask listeners, ‘Tell us what you want to hear.’ That way we begin to get playlists that are programmed or …produced by our listeners,” he said.
Arbitron Radio Market Rankings for fall 2012 rates Atlanta in the top 10 media market. According to Jackson, because of this, radio, and communications in general, is serious business. This is possibly why 92.9/Dave FM, the rock station that will become an FM sports talk station, decided to reformat.
“I don’t know about the research or anything that went into it, but in commercial radio, when the numbers go down, it says a lot,” said Jackson. He said in commercial radio, if the number of listeners is down for six to eight months consecutively, “somebody’s got to go.”
“Programming is a science. We actually look at the numbers to see what changed from last year to now, particularly when they’re lowering,” Jackson said. “Your numbers dictate how you’re going to scientifically and strategically place music, news and even place advertising.”
Personalities
Though customizable radio services are quickly becoming the new alternative to traditional radio, there is one thing that listeners receive from commercial radio that they do not from Pandora, an iPod or Spotify: Personalities. Creative radio DJs and their personable charisma and voices relay information, entertainment and a music genre that listeners make the decision to listen to. DJs make audiences laugh, maybe even cry and present hot topics for their audience to think about throughout the day.
KD Bowe, radio personality of Praise 102.5/102.9, said that new technology for radio is working toward the station’s benefit.
“Technology has caused people to listen to us more. It’s helped the personalities. If [radio stations] don’t embrace technology, then it will be the death of them.”
As with most stations, at times, the issue of over-playing records arises for Bowe. Because he’s primarily gospel, he said the TSL, time spent listening, is significantly longer than other formats. According to Bowe, people who listen to other formats are only listening for about 30-35 minutes at one time.
Playing the same gospel songs multiple times for an audience that will listen in up to an hour and a half can become a problem.
During Bowe’s 22 years in network radio syndication, he said one of the changes he’s seen is how radio has moved away from personality radio to “liners.”
“Liners … just say, ‘Alright, this is Praise 102.5 Atlanta’s inspiration station. Here’s another song.’ They cut down on the talk, tremendously so. But I don’t think the people will have a problem with you running your mouth a little longer about something that they want to hear.”
The radio star lives, as for the DJ?
In the case of the digital age replacing DJs, “Hurricane” said the flip side of technology is that instead of having a body do the work, a machine is doing it.
“Machines sometimes can do it better, more efficiently, more consistently,” he said.
With technology allowing listeners to receive music in a more desirable way, they might quietly do a switch to digital alternatives without saying a word to radio stations. “Hurricane” said his stations don’t receive that many complaints. According to “Hurricane,” part of the reason is because people are already fans. One complaint that he might receive is listeners asking why they play a song or commercials all the time.
“If it weren’t for commercials, we wouldn’t be able to play those songs, keep the lights on or give away trips and prizes,” he said. “If you have a complaint and you don’t like it, just go some place else.”
With music customization at everyone’s fingertips, and the lovable radio personalities that people spend their morning and afternoon commutes with, only time will tell whether people will literally go some place else. After all, the journey into the “golden” digital age has only just begun.
