![Perry Michael Simon]( "Perry Michael Simon")
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The Letter
By Perry Michael Simon
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Think Indifferent
November 22, 2013
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I've gotten to the point at which I don't even read the stories about new research showing people's attitudes towards radio. I don't even read the ones I write. It's all muscle memory now. (That's a joke, son. I do read them first. I just don't always remember them.) We've been doing this for so long now that it all seems to be one big loop. But I did note that there was some research asking a small sample of millenials what they think about AM and FM, and a big deal was made about their indifference to AM and how they look at "webcasters and satcasters" -- do human beings actually use those terms? -- as being the same as broadcasters. This is a huge bulletin to anyone who's been unconscious for the last decade. Unfortunately, it appears that a sizable percentage of people in the industry were indeed unconscious, so maybe they need the research.
Research? Hey, if they need corroboration, I can do some research. So I set out today to do exactly that, asking a representative sample of the public about their attitudes towards radio. And then I remembered that I tend not to leave the house other than to go to the post office and supermarket, the only people I usually encounter face-to-face other than my wife are the grocery workers, and I hadn't planned to go out this morning. But research must persevere in the face of all obstacles, and so I did this extensive survey on attitudes towards radio, presented here in its entirety in an All Access News-Talk-Sports Exclusive:
Subject Number One
Gender: Female
Age: (redacted)
Occupation: Non-profit Project Director
Question 1: How do you feel about AM Radio?
Answer: "What? Hey, did you get the Thanksgiving decorations down from the storage area like I asked you to do last week?"
Question 2: How do you feel about FM Radio?
Answer: "No, really, I asked you, like, a dozen times. Go get the decorations."
Question 3: How do you feel about streaming audio and podcasting?
Answer: "Fine, I'll get them myself. Where's the ladder?"
Subject Number Two
Gender: Female
Age: 13
Occupation: Cat
Question 1: How do you feel about AM Radio?
Answer: (scowls)
Question 2: How do you feel about FM Radio?
Answer: (scowls)
Question 3: How do you feel about streaming audio and podcasting?
Answer: (yawns, stretches, turns around, lays back down)
As is clearly evident, the general public is indifferent towards radio. And other media. And research.
All right, you can't draw conclusions from a sample of two, half of which is not human. But you shouldn't need to, not at this point. The issue today is the same we've had for the last fifteen or so years. Actually, maybe longer. Even back before RealAudio turned streaming audio from unlikely and theoretical to real and a competitor to transmitters, towers, and licenses, we saw AM radio aging; that's why the discussion about putting talk radio on FM first happened. Here we are, years down the line, and we're still consulting research to determine what's been obvious for all this time: People do not think much one way or the other about AM or FM or, really, any delivery mechanism. The radio, streaming, podcasts, satellite -- they just, you know, ARE. Older people use AM and FM, younger people use FM and online, but none of them spend a lot of brain cells considering those choices, it's just what they're accustomed to using. What matters is the content. If that research asked not whether people, of any age, love or like or dislike or hate AM or FM or Pandora or SiriusXM but instead asked how they feel about the individual stations, the music, the personalities, and the topics, you might see a different level of passion. And you might find a different set of challenges, because the radio industry hasn't been amassing a strong track record on any of those fronts lately.
Which is to say that while if you're the CEO or head the equity firms that fund them or a stockholder, you might be concerned about the value of the medium, but they and everyone else should be looking at the content and how to best develop and deploy it, regardless of the medium. It doesn't even have to be just audio anymore. And you shouldn't care WHAT people think about AM or FM or XM or any M. It's about the shows, the music, the personality, and what you can create that someone else can't. And then you use all available media to deliver it, to catch your audience wherever they live.
Even my cat knows that.
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Okay, a little housekeeping now. All Access News-Talk-Sports' Talk Topics is here, as always containing hundreds of links and comments and bad jokes to stimulate discussion on the air, and I'm going to be off next week, so consider yourself warned -- although there's still enough timeless stuff in there to get you through the break, so go ahead and root around the place until I get back. And make sure you follow the Talk Topics Twitter feed at @talktopics, where every story is individually linked to the appropriate item. It's all free. There's also "10 Questions With..." Scott R. Miller, newly-minted Executive Producer at WGN in Chicago and someone with a really interesting background that covers years of working as a producer in Chicago radio and at Oprah Winfrey's radio operation, plus doing mornings in another market and anchoring at Merlin's FM News 101.1/Chicago when that was a thing. Definitely worth a read.
And follow my personal Twitter account at @pmsimon, find me on Facebook at www.facebook.com/pmsimon, and visit the other site I edit, Nerdist.com.
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Now, time to take a break. May you have a wonderful, food-and-football-filled Thanksgiving. I'll be back before you've finished all the leftovers.
Perry Michael Simon
Vice President/Editor, News-Talk-Sports
AllAccess.com
psimon@allaccess.com
www.facebook.com/pmsimon
www.twitter.com/pmsimon
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