The Vision Thing

Remember the pivot?

Yeah, that was fun. Sometime in the mid-2010s, between "we need to do a podcast" and "let's focus on social media," it seemed like every media company decided that the future was in online video, or at least the future of monetization was in video, and so they "pivoted to video," fired their writers, and hired people who could make short and frothy videos, preferably with brightly-colored thumbnails featuring young people making "wacky" facial expressions and bold clickbait headlines. That did not work out as planned, which left a lot of companies in even more trouble than they were already facing before the "pivot to video," or looking for the next panacea for media monetization woes.

Two things this week reminded me of this lesson. One was an article in the New York Post that reported a change of heart at Fox Sports, which dumped writers and "pivoted to video" in 2017 and is now apparently pivoting back with an ESPN-like multi-platform approach (text, audio, video). The other was a panel about radio shows using video at the virtual Morning Show Boot Camp. You're probably assuming I'm going to tell you that video is overrated and the pivot was proof of that and we should all stay in our lanes.

Nah. It's more about narrow thinking. I'll explain.

It's indisputable that most of the media companies that "pivoted to video" and replaced their writers with YouTubers suffered for that, and the companies that put all their eggs in the Facebook basket have not been able to extract enough money from The Zuck to make it work. All they did was make Google/YouTube and Facebook even more wealthy and powerful. (Those who saw that coming and went with proprietary video platforms on their own websites basically disappeared.) And it's also likely true that a quadrillion views of a video online may not be what the number suggests, and that preroll advertising on video is not as effective as traditional media are, or were.

The trick is to think of each platform as a separate, if complimentary, medium, and to get out of the mindset that you can only do one at a time. It was never necessary to entirely, irrevocably "pivot to video." There was no reason sites that wanted to try and take advantage of what at the time seemed ilke the trend to follow had to stop doing what they were doing. That's a failure of management to figure out how to maintain the proper proportion of budgeting to a range of functions; entirely defunding editorial and plowing that budget into video was narrow thinking, the idea that a media company has to be one thing and one thing only, that each platform can't be additive or complimentary. Fox Sports' website ceded the audience that preferred reading about sports to ESPN, The Athletic, Defector, and others who maintained the written part, and they weren't alone. Now, they're trying to recover that audience, and it's not going to be easy.

As for radio, stations have been dabbling in video forever, but while sticking cameras in the studio is technically video, it doesn't make video that's visually compelling for a medium that requires visual stimulation. The panel at MSBC showed the value of doing video that transcends the cameras-in-studio norm; Shawn Tempesta of Mix 94 in Las Vegas moderated the panel, and if you've never seen his "Free4All" videos, and you're interested in what can work for radio stations' video efforts, you should, because the videos include graphics and lower thirds and client logos and social media posts on screen and slick effects, even during the pandemic and having to use Zoom to bring everyone in, and I'm not suggesting that hosts all have to be as advanced as Shawn in creating, controlling, and editing visuals, but radio stations of all sizes CAN afford to bring someone in to do that. It's a relatively small investment to be competitive on another platform, and there IS revenue there.

And, Twitch. Put it there, too. That's an entirely different audience for your content. But it needs to look good, and that's another issue. Why do all radio shows have to come from studios that look the same? Logos plastered on banners behind the host. Mic with flag. Board, stray coffee cups... Why not do it on a set more conducive to video, like a TV talk show? Okay, you have to work the board, maybe, but I can't think of everything for you. Get someone who produces TV in to come up with a better look. Or, if all else fails, do something cooler for the background. Ever watch Dan Le Batard's show on ESPNews? His brother's brightly-colored artwork all over the walls, with caricatures of show cast members and guests and catchphrases always within the shot? There you go, visuals. There are many ways to do it.

(We've already gone over how podcasting is a different animal from radio, so I'll spare you that lecture.)

One more thing: We've complained about radio websites forever. They still largely, um, suck, because they're not treated as their own thing. There are exceptions, but you tend not to go to a radio station website for the writing. In some cases, you can't even find basic information about the station itself, like schedules and playlists and stories about the things hosts are talking about. It's a different platform, and it's too often treated as a placeholder or a repository for "news" automatically populating the page from some entertainment news service. With other local media hurting, it would be a good time for radio to establish itself as the best place to find local news, and their websites would be great for that. Some stations do that. Many more should.

All of that is a long-winded way to say the same thing I've said for years: Survival in the media business is going to require the ability to produce quality content for more than one platform. It's especially important for radio, which has wanted to emphasize how its personalities engage audiences more than other media. If that's true, it should work on video and in text, too. Use your strategic advantage everywhere and in every way.

TL;DR: Do what you do on every platform, but do it right. And for heaven's sake, clean up your studio, it looks like a wreck.

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Video, audio, whatever, get stuff to talk about at Talk Topics. Click here and/or follow the Talk Topics Twitter feed at @talktopics with every story individually linked to the appropriate item. And this week, we have "10 Questions With..." Josh Cohen, a guy who's been doing what used to be called "FM Talk" for a long time in West Palm Beach, first at Real Radio and now at WUUB (ESPN 106.3), where he's become quite a fixture in the community. He's someone who might be under the radar nationally but has been very strong for years. Check him out.

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I forgot to mention in the last column that I was taking last Friday off and there would be no column. So, I took last Friday off and there was no column. There, we're good.

Perry Michael Simon
Vice President/Editor, News-Talk-Sports and Podcast
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