PBCliberal
Jan 6th, 2005, 10:11 PM
As recently as a year ago, professionals in the terrestrial broadcast industry were mocking internet broadcasting and alternative media as amateur efforts by neophytes. These amateurs lacked the kind of market research they said was necessary to gain an audience in 21st century radio.
Today, some of these same programmers are admitting that they may have things to learn from early adopters who now have the ability to be their own program directors and compile their own playlists. Today, they're watching those people they once chided as amateurs very closely.
This new research, such as a study from Bridge Ratings (http://www.bridgeratings.com/press_1032005-iPods.htm) which sampled the playists from personal listing devices, shows that there is a good deal of crossover of musical tastes, and broadcasters may benefit from broadening the scope of the material they play. The detrimental result of a steady diet of narrow playlists and up to 22 minutes of commercial content per hour is finally showing up in market research.
Its probably too late, though. Most of the people inside the industry who were pointing to eroding listenership among young people and warning that stations either adopt new technology or lose the war to it, have left the industry or been fired.
Today, some of these same programmers are admitting that they may have things to learn from early adopters who now have the ability to be their own program directors and compile their own playlists. Today, they're watching those people they once chided as amateurs very closely.
This new research, such as a study from Bridge Ratings (http://www.bridgeratings.com/press_1032005-iPods.htm) which sampled the playists from personal listing devices, shows that there is a good deal of crossover of musical tastes, and broadcasters may benefit from broadening the scope of the material they play. The detrimental result of a steady diet of narrow playlists and up to 22 minutes of commercial content per hour is finally showing up in market research.
Its probably too late, though. Most of the people inside the industry who were pointing to eroding listenership among young people and warning that stations either adopt new technology or lose the war to it, have left the industry or been fired.