The New Version

Everything old is new again, and so we had a fairly pointless debate this week over whether radio has been reinvented. I'll spare you the details, but this all came about when a media reporter, enthusing over Spotify's acquisition of a social audio company, tweeted about the significance of the fact that "Spotify podcasters like Joe Rogan and Bill Simmons could soon broadcast in real time, rather than on delay, while musicians might one day be able to broadcast their concerts or other recordings live to listeners." Pretty much everyone on Twitter responded that this is radio, or what radio has enabled since Marconi. His response was to dismiss the idea that social audio -- yes, we're talking Clubhouse and its many clones -- is merely radio. insisting that the "implications of social audio on a platform like Spotify are massive."

There have been countless columns pontificating on what Clubhouse means to, well, everything, but especially to traditional radio, and whether Clubhouse will break into the mainstream, and whether the clones can do better, and whether opening it up to the public rather than invited participants will help or hurt the product. In fact, right in the middle of writing this, I got a tweet about yet another Clubhouse analysis (thanks, Shaggy Matt!) appearing on a prominent tech website. If everybody else is going to weigh in, then, perhaps I should do the same, since I've been tinkering with Clubhouse for several months and I've been taking notes. So, then, a few observations:

1. Yes, Clubhouse does share the basic structure of talk radio. Someone has a show (room) and sets a topic, the host is in control, and people can call in (raise their virtual hand) and participate at the host's discretion. Shows (rooms) are live and at appointed times. Miss it and, unless someone recorded it and posts it as a podcast, you've out of luck. So, yeah, it's like talk radio.

2. It's not new. Streaming audio talk shows have existed for years. You can go live with or without video, and there are ways to take calls or use chats for audience participation. Clubhouse (and Twitter's version, and Stereo, and the other aspirants) is just a new way to do that....

3. ,,,which has value if it makes things easier to do. One thing these apps enable is to do a show using just your phone. Everyone has a phone, and all you need to do to have a show is to fire up the app and start talking. But...

4. Content is really, really hard to find on Clubhouse, and if you think it's hard to discover podcasts, wait until you go to Clubhouse at any given time and it's a never-ending parade of rooms about crypto and NFTs and "entrepreneur secrets" and random hangouts. Right now, in case you're not on Clubhouse and wondering what's there, imagine your spam folder somehow generating talk radio shows. And your dating apps, because there's no shortage of rooms of people who are there to pick each other up. Or, as I wrote before, convention panels without the actual convention. There ARE good rooms there, but no matter how I tweak my preferences, they never come up in the list of live shows when I'm logged in.

5. One of my biggest complaints about Clubhouse is that when I have time to use it, there's nothing interesting to hear, and the rare times there IS something interesting, I'm not available to commit that time to it. That's what gave rise to one of the main rationales for the existence of podcasting: traditional radio is of the moment but inconvenient if you want to hear a specific show and can't tune in at that time, and podcasting lets you choose what you want when you want it. Social audio goes back to the pre-podcast days when you couldn't access radio shows on demand. That's not exactly progress.

6. Social audio is still in its infancy. My skepticism shouldn't be taken as dismissal. There IS something here; sure, it's just like talk radio, but if the content is good, I don't care how I get it. It may not happen at Clubhouse or Locker Room or whatever other app is hot at the moment, but think of these as tools for distributing content. As long as they're functional, someone may figure out something that's unique and popular and sets the audio world ablaze. Maybe even, as the reporter suggested, Spotify having Rogan or Simmons go live. Again, the platform is important only in its utility and ease of use; what's of greater importance is the content. Oh, and, by the way, that's radio's path, too. Put something great on the air and people will find it. Maybe not on AM, but they'll find it.

All of this is for apps that are still a mystery to most people. Will that change? Nobody knows. Nor do we know that it will last. So many other flavors-of-the-month have fallen by the wayside; Periscope is the latest to be abandoned, but we've been through several iterations of the Next Big Thing and what's been consistent is that nobody predicted which ones would be long(er)-term successes. (You didn't have TikTok on your dance card before it took over the attention of every single person under the age of 18 and reshaped the music industry seemingly overnight. No, you didn't. You were still on Snapchat, and is that even a thing anymore?) Maybe "social media" will be the next big thing. Maybe it's overblown. Maybe it's just an attempt to reinvent radio.

If you really want to reinvent radio, though, try doing it from the creative end. Come up with the content that changes everything. Clubhouse, and podcasts, and YouTube, and broadcast radio itself are tools. Your creations are what will really change things. Get to it.

No, really, get to it. Please. I could use something fun to listen to right about now.

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Whatever platform you choose for your creation, you'll find stuff to talk about at All Access' show prep column Talk Topics. 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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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. I'm also on Clubhouse at pmsimon, so if you're in there, feel free to follow me.

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Yes, it's another reminder to register now for the 2021 virtual All Access Audio Summit so you don't miss my panel on moving from radio to podcasting, with Atlanta's Jeff and Callie Dauler and Steve Goldstein as the experts who have done what you're thinking of doing. That's on April 21st. Register now. If that panel's not enough, we have The Breakfast Club, Jason Aldean, and all the radio and music industry experts you'd want to hear. Plus, you don't have to travel, so there's that, too.

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