An email comes through (to my work address, but I never answer these kinds of things on behalf of my employer, that would be dangerous)…
I am working on a report on the economic implications of Web 2.0 – the collaborative internet – and one of the questions I am asking is: is it a threat or an aid to traditional media? How might we see traditional media adapt to stay competitive in this new world? Would you have a window over the next couple of days to comment on this question in terms of the music industry?
I’ve no particular comment in terms of the music industry. There’s a common misconception that the music radio industry is, in some way, part of the music industry. It’s not. Indeed, there’s a common misconception outside the media that record companies pay radio stations to play certain acts. That’s not the case either; in fact, radio stations pay to play music (between 8 and 10% of their income, usually). Yes, “pluggers” are employed by record companies to ensure that their product gets played; but radio stations are pretty adept at choosing songs themselves.
But anyway.
“Is it a threat, or an aid, to traditional media?”
That depends on what you mean by Web2.0. I used Wikipedia, which has a long definition, partly including this:
The most “Web 2.0″-orientated (applications), which could only exist on the Internet, deriving their effectiveness from the inter-human connections and from the network effects that Web 2.0 makes possible, and growing in effectiveness in proportion as people make more use of them. O’Reilly gave as examples eBay, Craigslist, Wikipedia, del.icio.us, Skype, dodgeball and AdSense.
So, in short, if we think of Web2.0 as being “effectiveness from inter-human connections”, then we need to work out if it’s “a threat or an aid to traditional media”, which begs the question: what is traditional media?
“Traditional media”, in the broadcast sense, might mean a linear broadcast stream. Turn on the radio, and you hear whatever’s on the radio right now: no way to pause it, rewind it, control it in any way other than the “off” switch. And the same’s true of television. Except it isn’t.
Television, we’re told, is becoming less and less reliant on the schedule. Viewers with Sky+, the most popular digital video recorder in the UK, frequently claim that “they never watch live TV any more” - their hard-drive recording specific programmes, allowing the viewer to instantly access these programmes. This ‘disaggregation’ is made possible by the electronic programme guide. The programme title - the main way viewers navigate through the schedules - has never been more important.
Radio, too, is seeing ‘disaggregation’. DAB Digital Radio now also contains an electronic programme guide for many radio stations: it’s not as advanced or as consistent as its TV cousin (and the user interface for EPGs on DAB sets is normally pretty poor) but it holds the key to reinventing part of the medium. Broadcasters, like multiplex-owner “MuxCo”,plan to use the EPG to broadcast innovative new programming using overnight capacity. But radio has also benefitted from the internet. The BBC’s listen-again service is continually growing (in terms of unique users) month after month; and the BBC’s listen-again service is particularly efficient at growing niche programming, with some listening figures for programmes comparable to those off-air. Podcasts, too, add considerable numbers to broadcaster listening figures: and some programmes (In Our Time, Peter Day’s World of Business, The Geoff Show) are disproportionately popular online - once more, niche programming reaching a wider audience. It’s not just the BBC doing this; commercial broadcasters are there too (and, in some cases, in front of the lumbering, sometimes-inflexible beast that the BBC is).
And, while still pretty new, catch-up services (the BBC iPlayer, 4oD, itv.com) are redefining how people watch the television, too. All signs point towards these services being as popular as the BBC Radio Player, in time.
“How might we see traditional media adapt to stay competitive in this new world?”
All the above is ‘traditional media’: dramatically adapted to stay competitive, and relevant, in this new world. Total radio listening has remained steady, despite commercial radio’s suicidal tendencies in the past few years. The addition of more choice in the form of DAB Digital Radio appears to add to total radio listening, which is excellent news.
The report-writers, and the journalists, love an “Internet kills the media” story: unfavourably comparing “total spent on the internet” with “total spent on radio” or “total spent on tv”, as if a 90-word Google AdWords ad is, somehow, equivalent to a glossy thirty-second TV ad.
The reality is that the ‘traditional’ media is continually adapting its products to fit the Web2.0 world. Virgin Radio even went so far as to launch its own social networking site (before the big Facebook craze); the BBC’s Radio Player launched in 2001-ish, far before the excitement of YouTube.
And have we succeeded? Mass media like radio and television has daily access to audiences that even the largest websites would dream about. MySpace, the home of tons of music and youth-orientated websites, is used for 25 minutes a week; yet BBC Radio 1 itself is listened-to, on average, over 10 hours a week - youth commercial station Galaxy reaching over 7 hours a week. And that’s in spite of the tremendous growth of media outlets (see the photo above). If Web2.0 is all about “inter-human connections”, then we do a pretty good job.
Yes, we’ve work to do. It’s why I enjoy working in multiplatform support for radio, keeping radio relevant to today’s audiences. And no, we’re not complacent - partly the reason why we continue to reinvent our brand (by adding visuals to radio on DAB or on phones, for example).
But, I’d humbly suggest, “traditional media” is, in the UK at least, doing a good job of keeping up with the Web2.0s. Things are different in the US and other countries - and much of it has to do with the absence of a strong, forward-looking, public service broadcaster. Even the most rabid anti-BBC person (as I once was) would agree that the presence of the BBC raises the standard of all broadcasting in this country. Mark Ramsey’s hectoring from the sidelines in the US reflects a particular issue there; but not here.
I once joked in a conference: “We’re already up to ‘Web 3.11 for Workgroups’”. And I believe it, to a degree. We’re in pretty good shape. Don’t talk us down.
Photo: giovanni gallucci | new media consultant. Used under licence
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A version of this blog entry now appears on the BBC website.
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