Think Different

New years always start with CES, followed by people telling you that you should have been at CES or that you need to pay attention to CES or that OH LOOK A ROBOTIC BUNNY HOW ADORABLE. 2023 is no exception, and so we have the usual breathless reporting about 5G and smart cities and flying cars and autonomous cars and flying autonomous cars and 4K and 8K and 16K and InfinityK and NextGen TV and NextNextGen TV. You will be told that this represents the future, YOUR future, and how it will change everything.

In a few weeks, you will forget all of it, and so wil everyone else. Next January, the cycle will start anew. And if you manage to remember this year's CES, and the ones before it, you'll notice that most of it will seem very familiar.

That's because when CES moved from being a festival of large television sets to Oracle Of The Future, some themes became perennial. The consumer electronics industry had to pivot when things like 3D TV didn't sell. So, about a decade ago, self-driving cars became a big deal, just around the corner, an autonomous vehicle in every driveway any day now. But it hasn't yet happened, because the technology isn't yet reliable, the infrastructure isn't ready, regulation isn't in place, and, let's face it, the public isn't necessarily looking to replace their old semi-reliable cars and SUVs quite yet. And the industry is now pitching the tech to a possibly more receptive audience, commercial interests which would benefit from trucks and delivery drones that drive and fly themselves; no pesky drivers or other employees necessary, just punch in the destinations and get out of the way. All enabled by 5G! The future!

Maybe. Probably. If it works. Who knows? The thing is, for years, forever, really, the industry has been putting stuff out there before they're sure there's an eager consumer audience for it. 3D TV is HD Radio is every other Next Big Thing that wasn't. Flops happen when nobody does the research to determine what people really want as opposed to developing something and then trying to convince people they need it.

But so do successes. Ask Apple, which is particularly good at creating stuff you didn't know you wanted until you had one, and as I write this I'm looking at my Apple Watch and my iPad and my AirTags. There's an argument for doing things by gut instinct. You just need, um, good gut instinct.

However innovation happens, it's essential for the growth and survival of any industry. Radio and podcasting are no different. There's creative innovation, coming up with content that doesn't sound like what came before or which takes the medium in a new, different direction. There's technical innovation, which isn't just changing delivery from analog to digital (again, HD Radio) but... well, when Steve Koenig opened CES this year and mused that car makers could offer a Features as a Service model and gave the example of offering AM/FM radio not as a standard feature but under a paid monthly subscription, that may have set off alarms with broadcasters but could just as easily be seen as an opportunity. Paid subscriptions on car stereos? How about competing with SiriusXM and Spotify with premium custom content for a fee, and work out deals with auto makers getting a cut for promoting it to their customers, or, like with SiriusXM, offering free trials? How about podcasters and podcast networks doing the same thing? How about... wait, it's not my job to come up with innovations for the industry. You get the idea.

So, take the future's-so-bright reports out of CES in context, and take it more as a cue to encourage innovation than for the specifics. A refrigerator that talks to you and orders milk when you're running low? Whatever. Yet another self-driving car prototype that can't avoid crashing into pedestrians? Been there. New, different ideas? Now, you're talking.

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Okay, then, 2023 is underway. Let's do this.

Perry Michael Simon
Senior Vice President/Editor-in-Chief and News-Talk-Sports-Podcasting Editor
AllAccess.com
psimon@allaccess.com
Twitter (for now, at least) @pmsimon
Mastadon (for some reason I haven't yet determined) @pmsimon@c.im