John Musgrove, the top of analysis for Industrial Radio & Audio, spent 20 years as head of insights and analysis at Southern Cross Austereo. He recollects these early days the place everybody, SCA included, was viewing the MP3 format as “an assault on music radio.”
“There have been headlines out of the UK. There was this factor known as MP3s popping out, the iRiver (an early MP3 participant) was taking on, after which there was this factor known as this Apple iPod coming to market.”
The iPod got here with the seemingly unimaginable promise of storing one thousand songs in your pocket.
“The headlines within the UK mentioned, ‘The radio killer’. The Apple iPod will kill radio. You understand, 1,000 songs in your pocket. Why would you desire a radio?”
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Michael Anderson, then CEO of what was then known as Austereo, determined they wanted to look into this new risk, with the looming query: “ought to we be getting out of radio?”
Underneath Anderson’s directive, Musgrove waded into some behavioural economics, and found that, slightly than being a radio killer, this sudden entry to a swelling musical library merely reignited an iPod person’s love of music.
“All of the sudden the 1,000 songs they’re taking part in of their pockets, that, at that stage had been their 1,000 favorite songs, make them go: ‘Oh, I haven’t heard that track for some time now.’
“And so what we had been seeing was extra individuals eager to hearken to music in numerous codecs.”
Radio was nonetheless the premium place for music discovery.
“And so radio didn’t die,” Musgrove reviews. “At that stage particularly, it was nonetheless the place that [as a listener] I’m going to find new music, and I’m going to remain in contact with my neighborhood, and listen to the kind of music that’s sizzling proper right here, proper now.
“However this entire MP3 factor and iPod factor, that offers me one other factor to play with. So, on the weekends once I’ll go and hearken to all my favorite music and stuff like that, I’ve received that there.
“So, what occurred is we simply received extra.”
A rising tide lifts all boats.
That is very instructive when trying on the radio panorama now. With the rise of music streaming companies, the thought of a library of merely 1,000 songs appears positively quaint. Add this to the saturation of podcasting over the previous 15 years, and there may be actually that acquainted scrawl on the wall for radio.
However, in response to Musgrove, the rise of different audio choices doesn’t crowd out radio – it merely reinforces the concept individuals are listening extra throughout the board.
Radio networks are discovering {that a} assured success on the airwaves doesn’t neatly translate right into a podcast hit, or vice versa.
“The 2 are usually not the identical. It’s apples and oranges,” Musgrove says.
“My expertise once I hearken to a podcast is usually completely different to why I hearken to a radio station.”
Musgrove notes the case of Marty Sheargold’s Triple M Breakfast present in Melbourne, which was launched within the midst of Covid. The radio viewers stalled considerably, whereas the present’s podcast listenership bloomed.
“The explanation an individual listens to Marty Sheargold’s podcast is it’s a forty-minute present, which is about my common commute time in a metropolis,” he explains.
“It takes out all of the music and all of the advertisements – aside from the pre-roll, mid-roll – and so, at forty minutes, I get a whole present’s value of worth.
“Now, if I’m listening on radio, I’m not going to pay attention from 6 o’clock to 9 o’clock, and so, I’m by no means going to get the entire present. I’m going to get somewhat little bit of Marty, however I’m additionally going to get the information and all the opposite info. I don’t really need the information, I don’t need the advertisements in it.
“So the podcast is a really completely different listening expertise, as a result of I’m listening for one thing very particularly, wrapped up into a pleasant field, that equals my commute time.”
Musgrove discovered this at Austereo with the success of drivetime podcasts, particularly the early reputation of Hamish and Andy. The duo benefited from their content material being evergreen, and never tied to the information cycle. The tightly packaged nature of the podcast additionally helped.
“I couldn’t hearken to the entire Hamish and Andy present as a result of I used to be working,” Musgrove says.
“However I may bounce within the automobile the subsequent day and hearken to yesterday’s present and there was nothing so well timed – even with breakfast exhibits, outdoors of the particular information reviews themselves – the occasions which might be talked about are likely to have used-by-dates which might be for much longer than a 24-hour information cycle.
“So you may hearken to final week’s present and the relevancy might be simply as excessive. So, as in podcasting, you go to music streaming for a special motive.
Musgrove loves Apple Music, however says he listens to it “for a really particular motive that’s completely different to why I hearken to radio, which is about conserving me in contact, making it so I really feel as if I’m listening to the music that the individuals round me are listening to – not the individuals in New York or L.A.”
One other huge level of distinction between music streaming and radio is that the previous depends on new musical suggestions, whereas the latter is aware of familiarity is essential.
“One of many issues we all know in radio music programming is you’ve received a 3 track span for a listener – and you’ll play two songs they don’t like, or they’re not conversant in, however your third’s received to be one they’re conversant in. Trigger that’s what retains them in.”
“For those who get by means of three songs and so they don’t like three in a row, it’s like, ‘Yeah, I’m going to a different station.’
So for those who consider suggestions on the streaming music system, for those who’re simply getting track after track after track that’s unfamiliar – it’s a part of our human nature to really feel, ‘I don’t thoughts that once I’m prepared for that, however I’d additionally prefer to go and hook up with a whole lot of acquainted music.’”
As the top of analysis for Industrial Radio & Audio, Musgrove has clearly thought deeply and at size about this topic.
He cites Al Reis and Jack Trout’s landmark 1994 e book, The 22 Immutable Legal guidelines of Advertising, and, particularly, the Legislation of Sacrifice.
“The Legislation of Sacrifice is a human behavioural factor. It says people don’t like to offer one thing up, to switch it,” he explains.
“We really need to hold including on. And it’s the identical with all the pieces. It’s why we’re so pressured at present, we simply need to do increasingly more and extra. Devour extra media.
“And, , as soon as upon a time we watched one factor. Now we’re watching the TV and studying our social media, and we’re multitasking to buggery.
“And it’s inflicting our thoughts to be fried and stress us out. That’s the Legislation of Sacrifice: I don’t need to quit one thing.
“So, I feel this concept, that individuals are going to offer radio up, and simply go and do music streaming is a fable.”
One other fable is that younger individuals don’t hearken to radio anymore.
“I do that on a regular basis, if individuals say to me younger individuals don’t hearken to radio anymore, the very first thing I’m going to say is, ‘simply present me one knowledge examine, only one, wherever globally, that validates that remark – as a result of it’s completely not true.
“I can completely validate the other with research within the US and UK and Australia right here, that younger individuals are listening to the radio.”
Musgrove additionally notes that DAB+ is “ rising quickly in youthful audiences”, which he takes as additional validation that, even these youthful rock followers who discover the likes of Triple M too broad for his or her style, are looking for the curation of a radio station.
“And for those who’re a teen you may hear TikTok Radio [on DAB+] and it’s all curated for you. So that you’re going to get a pleasant combination of your personal songs that you just’re conversant in, and need to hear, and so they’ll curate the 50, 000 new songs to seek out the 5 which might be really going to make hits around the globe. They’re the songs that , your folks are going to be speaking about.
“So once more, it goes again to what’s the energy of radio?
“As music stations, we’ve all the time been superb at curating music to go well with the viewers. We analysis it. Each single week, each a type of stations goes out and says, ‘What are you listening to? What do you want? What don’t you want? What are you sick of?’
“So that you’re presenting a extremely good playlist of songs for those who go well with an viewers – a broader viewers – however nonetheless, it’s an excellent curated expertise.
“So even within the US, and out right here, we’re anecdotally beginning to hear that individuals are getting a bit bored with having to create playlists.
“I simply push a button in my automobile and all of a sudden I’ve received all this curated music that fits me and I can transfer between somewhat little bit of jazz or I can go to some easy listening or a little bit of rock or I’ve received like 30 stations with completely different music genres I can now select.
“That’s fairly straightforward. I can transfer round these and get a extremely good expertise.”