GaryOsberg.com

Why Radio?

We heard something recently that people in radio can really embrace because it lays out the case that radio remains a vibrant medium and the key source for people to experience music. What may surprise you is the source of the quote.

Can you guess who the following quote is from? Was it…

A. Jeff Haley, President and CEO of the Radio Advertising Bureau
B. Joe Kennedy, CEO of Pandora Media
C. Bob Pittman, Chairman of Media & Entertainment Platforms, Clear Channel Communications

Here is the quote:

“A lot of people are surprised at how huge radio remains today – AM and FM. According to Arbitron, 93% of the US population age 12 and over tunes in to radio every week. That there were 234 million Americans, on an average they listen for over 13 hours a week, almost two hours a day. That constitutes fully 80% of the music that the average American consumes. We believe that radio remains huge today and will continue to be used into the future for really two reasons: The first is serendipity. The way our brains are wired, music is at its most entertaining when we don’t know what song is coming next. We don’t know what note or what chord change is coming next. There’s an element of surprise and discovery that keeps the experience fresh and vital. Second, audio entertainment is unique among the forms of entertainment in that we most frequently consume it while we’re multi-tasking. We’re driving. Or partying. Or cooking. Or working at spread sheets. So it shouldn’t be surprising how huge radio remains, nor how important the car and the home are as the places where all this listening takes place.”  

The correct answer is B. That was Joe Kennedy speaking Tuesday, September 6, 2011 to the Citi 2011 Technology Conference in New York.

Of course, he went on with the pitch we’ve heard from him before that Pandora is taking the best part of what has made radio successful and doing radio one better via the Internet.

Know the habits and intentions of today’s consumer – which is the listener – then radio wins. It is not about radio ratings it is about retail consumer data.