The Signals Sent By CES

 

What happens in Vegas does not stay in Vegas -- not this week, anyway. The largest technology convention in the world, the International Consumer Electronics Show, is always causing buzz in the tech world in the first weeks of the new year. What happens at CES is what will soon happen everywhere, as orders come in from buyers who'll place these products in their stores and catalogues and try to determine what will be hot for next Christmas. CES is always a beacon of what's to come.

 

But something new is happening at CES this year. An entire new automotive section has been created because of the buzz about the electronics in the car center stack -- that is, the connected car.

 

Speaking at the Radio Ink-Jacobs Media DASH conference in Detroit, Consumer Electronics Association CEO Gary Shapiro told the audience that he has been warning radio about competition in the car for years, but those warnings fell on deaf ears in the radio industry. Of course, Radio Ink first revealed the magnitude of this movement some years ago, and was met with similar resistance.

 

Many of you have already shot the messenger.

 

At our first DASH conference, experts from the automotive industry predicted that 2015 would be a major year for new car sales because of the giant fleet of 10- to 12-year-old cars still on the road. They also predicted it would be the year that most new models of cars would be  offering in-car connectivity.

 

If you were in attendance, you've seen all this coming true and learned details about how it affects your listeners, right down to their ability to find and use broadcast radio in the car. You've also seen research indicating a strong bias for radio by loyal radio listeners -- who nonetheless found themselves easily converted to online listeners in the car.

 

Why am I telling you this?

 

If 2015 is indeed the largest new-car sales year in history, and if online radio is present and connected on the dash in a significant number of those new cars, that will affect your audience -- definitely in some small ways, and possibly in a big way. It's not too late to make sure you're reinforcing your footing with your audience and ensuring they can find you once they move to a connected car.

 

But this starts with understanding the connected car yourself. Every market manager, sales manager, and program director needs to go test drive every major brand of vehicle and experience all the variations on the connected car and how AM/FM radio is, or isn't, easily found.

 

A few diehard radio executives continue to insist radio can defend its turf and its future without adapting much, or at all. Others within our industry think online radio in the car is just another fad, citing issues with the high costs of streaming and music licensing fees that, they think, will make the model unsustainable. On the other hand, many of the non-radio-industry experts at CES believe those protests are meaningless. They think it's all over for radio.

 

The radio industry cannot deny what is happening in these new connected vehicles and how they are the showcased stars at CES this year. Though the day when every car on the road is connected may be a decade or more away, every car is already potentially connected today, even if it's just a smartphone playing music in a cup holder. And it all can be used to reinforce the idea that radio is on its way out.

 

No, radio is not going to stop this freight train. Connected cars are now a reality, and your online competitors, the darlings of the tech world, are now front and center in the dash.

 

Yet radio continues to hold deep relationships with its audiences. But erosion is happening, and digital alternatives are building audiences. Radio is not over, but the very premise of radio listening in the car is being challenged.

 

You can't afford to ignore the potential impact on your business for the long term. You should cultivate a healthy willingness to defend your turf, to make sure you're not handing your audiences away to alternatives that offer consumers different listening experiences, and to make radio better than ever at every turn, so audiences won't want to leave.

 

Radio still has the cume, still has the majority of listening, and needs to fight to keep that gap as wide as possible. We'll also have to fight mistaken perceptions as the visibility of the connected car grows, even as wrong assumptions about online listening and the future of radio are spread by the novelty-loving media.

 

I'm not indicating for a moment that this is the beginning of the end, but I do believe that whenever anyone is threatening your future, it's critical to take it seriously and be the very best you can be to prevent it.

 

Radio needs to continue to reinforce its relevance with listeners, and promote the FM chip and the NextRadio app. You need to protect what everyone wants to take from you. You can't do that if you ignore the huge visibility CES and other venues are giving the connected car and the role of streaming on those dashboards.

Comments

[Panama Jack]

I wholeheartedly agree with you Eric, Radio has competition coming from every direction but TPTB are snoozing while the industry revolves around the drain. The process will continue and accelerate.
Better wake up and start recruiting talent good enough to convert your PASSIVE audience into ACTIVE audience.
Seems most Radio execs never learned this simple strategy, which is why Radio sucks in 2015.

[Ronald T. Robinson]

Even the most enthusiastic, hard charging cheerleaders amongst radio's leadership - like yourself, Eric, refuse to acknowledge the real, more important issues.

1. Radio has yet to accept itself as just one of a number of entertainment/informational/advertising sources.

2. Radio has yet to learn how to define and deliver itself as a unique and powerful medium - perhaps the medium with the most potential at reaching and influencing audiences.

Until those understandings, and the necessary change-methodologies, are brought into the mix, radio will continue as a semi-slick, but not particularly influential, entertaining or informative source.

Maybe the relative demise of radio will be justified and explained by the mewling classes as having been swept up and lost because of overwhelming technologies. Whoever says it will be wrong (or lying).

We are the architects of our own dismal fortunes, some of it from - as you have been insisting for years - from the advent of newer technologies.

But, we will be the main culprits because of our unwillingness to learn - and to change.

The argument could be made that were radio such a necessary, helpful, pleasant and powerful piece of audiences' experiences, those same audiences would already be insisting that a button be placed handily on the dashboard as a sweeping neon sign that reads: "Radio".

The sign is not there on the dash; the audience doesn't much care; radio is making no attempts to rectify the situation - gawd forbid improve.

I have never bet a horse brought to the track in an ambulance because the owner put a pretty bow on its tail.