Asked And Answered

Every year, there's a Big Thing at CES. Sometimes, the Big Thing never really takes hold -- how's that 3D TV going for ya? -- and sometimes its a Big Thing that becomes a Not That Big Thing But A Thing Nonetheless like drones, and sometimes, it's a Big Thing that carries over for several years and becomes an even Bigger Thing, like autonomous cars. Everyone was showing their autonomous car projects at this year's CES, but that's been the case for the last few years. Same for the connected car/digital dash, which has also been a Big Thing for a while. This year, I didn't really see a Big Thing developing before the show, but while I was there, it became apparent: Voice control is finally a Big Thing, namely Amazon's Alexa and, to a lesser extent, Microsoft's Cortana. Alexa's going into Ford vehicles and is being incorporated into devices galore, and Cortana's being implemented in BMWs. Soon, you'll be able to order a meal and turn your bedroom lights different colors from the comfort of your driver's seat. The new user interface for devices isn't a touchscreen, it's your voice.

That means a few things for radio. One is that people will be calling up your content by telling the car what they want, not by searching through icons and menus. That's a good thing, because the graphical user interfaces for most digital dash systems suck beyond belief. I rented a car in Vegas and it would have taken me all week and a ton of concentration to figure out how to just manually tune in a radio station, let alone anything more complicated than that. The damn thing kept blocking the screen with messages and menus involving back-up cameras the car doesn't have installed, the menu choices weren't intuitive -- I found "Seek," but there was no clue on how to stop the seek once you find the station you want -- and forget finding AM, because I couldn't find any option for changing bands. If I could have just TOLD it what I want....

Well, that's coming sooner than you think. But I wonder how that's going to work; will you have to be very specific, like "Alexa, play WZZZ 98.7 FM" or will "Alexa, play Z98 The Best Variety Of The '80s, '90's And Today," or will "Alexa, play the horrific songs I grew up with" do? If you say "Alexa, play Rush Limbaugh," will Alexa find your local broadcast affiliate on the AM or FM dial, will it find the station via streaming online, will it go to Rush's website and find audio there, or will it just say "Sorry, I couldn't understand your request. Would you like to hear 'Tom Sawyer' or 'Limelight'?" (rimshot) How they find you is changing, and I would think it wise for the industry to work with the people creating that change to make sure that the content is easily... is "findable" a word? Because that. (And because "Alexa, play Today's 96.5" is probably not going to get you whatever "Today's 96.5" is, because it's so generic the system won't know if you're asking for a radio station or a temperature.) It's probably going to be easy to search for a particular podcast, and we know it's easy to search for a particular artist or streaming service because that's already happening with the Echo and Dot. Radio needs to make its content that easy to access, so branding will be even more important for access than it is for marketing.

That's what I took away from CES this year. Oh, and that walking across a convention floor is much less dangerous if you look up from your cell phone while walking. Heads up, people. Please.

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And now that I've returned from CES, we're back to a full schedule of finding you things to talk about at All Access News-Talk-Sports' Talk Topics, all available by clicking here, and follow the Talk Topics Twitter feed at @talktopics with every story individually linked to the appropriate item, too. And there's the Podcasting section at AllAccess.com/podcasts, and "10 Questions With..." KIRO/Seattle evening co-host Jason Rantz, half of the "Jason and Burns Show" and someone who is a next-generation talk host -- if you're wondering about young talent coming into the talk format, well, here's who you're looking for. Plus, a gratuitous gluten question (don't ask).

You can follow my personal Twitter account at @pmsimon, and my Instagram account (same handle, @pmsimon) as well. And you can find me on Facebook at www.facebook.com/pmsimon, and at pmsimon.com.

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By the way, it was great to see more radio people at CES this year. It's not particularly a radio thing, but if you want to understand where things are going and what radio's position in all of it needs to be, you have to go endure the marathon that is CES. Also, next week, I'll be on SB Nation Radio host Matt Perrault's podcast, talking about radio, so look for that. And I was on Matt Cundill's fine "Sound Off" podcast for the year-end edition, talking about radio's 2016 and how I was disappointed in the lack of innovation in our business -- you can listen to that here and you should. (As should be apparent, I'll be happy to talk about radio and whatever else you want on any radio show or podcast -- the contacts are below.) Oh, yeah, Happy New Year, too.

Perry Michael Simon
Vice President/Editor, News-Talk-Sports
AllAccess.com
psimon@allaccess.com
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