Playing Fields, Podcasts, And Pizza

It's closer.

I suppose I should define what "it" is. It's the day when radio loses its strategic advantages of ease of use, ubiquity, simplicity. The playing field's getting a tiny bit more level. You knew it was coming, and it's not quite here yet, but it's one step closer.

The latest shot across the bow came from Google, which finally has incorporated podcasts in its search results in a way that allows users to play the podcasts right there within Google. Oh, it's not perfect and it's not anything the general public will notice right away, but it's there. Search for a podcast and it'll show you a sampling of the last three episodes; you click the arrow, and you get a basic podcast player at the bottom of your browser, including variable speed for those who like their podcasts sped up. (Go check it out -- it works on computers and phones. Search my podcast "The Evening Bulletin with Perry Michael Simon" if you're feeling charitable. Yes, I'm shameless.)

In and of itself, this is hardly revolutionary. You've been able to play podcasts in browsers practically since there have been podcasts. Same for streaming. But what it does is put podcasts one more place where people go, in a way that more people will find intuitive. Want to hear Podcast X? Search, click, done. And added to smart speakers becoming smarter, and dashboards and 5G ultimately making access to streaming and podcasts in the car a simple task, it's obvious that the days that radio holds the ease-of-use/ubiquity competitive advantage are numbered.

To be fair, the number is still high. Those dashboards aren't changing overnight, and the turnover in cars isn't going to be fast enough to eliminate radio's advantage for several years. But every additional step that podcasts and streaming take to be easier to access and use brings us closer to that day.

That means that what's always been true is more true than ever: It's about the quality of the content. The technology is changing, and the market for content is bigger than ever. And that in turn means that you have to be better -- better content than others, more original, more unique. If your technology isn't going to give you an advantage, then your business isn't about the technology, it's about what you provide your customers, however you do it.

That could be better breaking news coverage (see last week's column). That could be deep-dive analysis of news. That could be comedy. That could be true crime, scripted drama, celebrity interviews. That could be curated playlists with personality elements. That could be companionship with a live personality relating to listeners. That could be pizza delivery.... well, maybe not, but pizza IS a form of content, and it doesn't hurt to rethink what exactly your business does best. If you can't say that your audio content delivers, via whatever technology people are using, what people want, done better than anyone else, maybe your core competency lies in something else.

We're one step -- maybe a small step, but a step -- closer to the day when you can't rely on being the medium that's easiest to access. Get your content in order now and you won't need to look into mozzarella prices later.

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Whatever the future holds, you'll always be able to get plenty of show material from Talk Topics, the show prep column at All Access News-Talk-Sports, all free when you click here and/or follow the Talk Topics Twitter feed at @talktopics with every story individually linked to the appropriate item.

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My podcast is "The Evening Bulletin with Perry Michael Simon," a quick (two minutes or less) daily thing, and you can get it at Apple Podcasts/iTunes, Google Play Music, iHeartRadio, TuneIn, Stitcher, and RadioPublic. Spotify, too. Google Podcasts? Click here. You can also use the RSS feed and the website where you can listen in your browser, or my own website where they're all embedded, too. And if you have an Amazon Alexa-enabled device, just say "Alexa, play the Evening Bulletin podcast."

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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Happy Mother's Day to all the moms out there. And... that's all I got. Just Happy Mother's Day. Talk to you next week.

Perry Michael Simon
Vice President/Editor, News-Talk-Sports and Podcast
AllAccess.com
psimon@allaccess.com
www.facebook.com/pmsimon
Twitter @pmsimon
Instagram @pmsimon