It’s Time for Radio to Befriend Listeners Again – A Worried but Optimistic New Years Greeting

The past 12 months have been the best in the history of RadioAnalyzer, but unfortunately for many of our clients the review of 2024 will be a bleak and dystopian one. Put simply: times are extremely challenging in our beloved industry.

More on how those obvious contradictions can stand side by side in a moment.  

There is no single cause for the tough times the industry is facing; a multitude of factors are in play and some of those wounds self-inflicted. But some of the factors are beasts that we just need to accept, so let’s deal with them first.

Our colleagues in the commercial sector are struggling with what can best be described as a dual slow bleed: fewer listening minutes to sell and slightly less value pr. minute from the advertisers. Both are the result of the change in media habits all over the world rolling in over the past 15-20 years. Combine the two and voila: income is noticeably affected. I have personally spoken to clients that think their budgets will shrink by double digit millions of euros in the year to come.

It’s not much different on the public service side of our little radio world – where the global security situation has made more investment in boring things like military equipment and emergency services necessary – and at the same time, a general political swing to the right has been happening in most countries. As a result, the public is less willing and able to finance public service media. Some of our public service clients have already been cut by 25% in the past four years, with even more budget-slashing to be done in the time to come.

Try as we may, we are not going to be able to roll any of that back, but that doesn’t mean we are powerless – far from it.

Seen from the perspective of RadioAnalyzer – a company that has the declared “raison d’être“ that we want to help radio thrive – the developments are highly disturbing and immensely sad, but at the same time they mean we are busy as never before with the flow of new clients reaching heights we never dreamt of when we started this mission almost 12 years ago.

The reason for this counter-current growth is straightforward: smart leaders in radio are beginning to discover that radio can no longer afford – financially as well as in terms of methodology – to stick to the “plan” we apparently made in a collective meltdown when the headwind started tormenting us. We can’t keep following broken thinking patterns and keep looking to prehistoric research systems to tell us which hits to play and what formats to run; most of them just telling us variations of the same storyline that led us to this barren place: play the biggest hits more (but never first) and play it safe when it comes to content (by repeating what someone else has done before).

We already know where that leads: more music but fewer songs (sounds delusional when you put it like that, right?), no local content, more cookie cutter DJs doing generic breaks with little or no soul or edge, less real engagement with listeners and more and more machinelike digital projects that the listeners can’t feel.

Ultimately, we are painting ourselves into a corner where we mean less and less to the fewer and fewer listeners we have.

The time has passed where it makes sense to keep doing this. We can’t budget-cut our way out of trouble this time – at least not when it comes to creating on-air product. That requires people with talent and agency to use it.  

We need to understand that the reason radio has meant a lot to people for so many years is: we made sense. We played a part. Had a role. We were a beat to walk by, a note to sing along to. We were an integral part of everyday life of our listeners. Not a flashy one. But an important one.

Radio was the friend who always wanted the best for us and who tried hard to help us through whether the obstacle was weather or traffic or something else, to keep us informed, to inspire us with music and thought. To make us laugh. To offer us experiences and a place to belong to.   

And so, the first question you should ask yourself whenever you make any decisions is simply: Will this play a role in the life of the listener? If you can’t answer that question clearly and with conviction, think of something else. And keep thinking until you reach a “heureka” moment. It might take while.

You can’t reach the fix by asking listeners what they want. Cause they don’t know.

If they did, they wouldn’t tell you either, because they are busy spending the minutes they could be spending with you on the myriad of social media platforms that are built to create an endless addictive usage loop. Platforms they feel at home on. Ironic, huh?

When you have given birth to your idea you need to observe the reaction and adjust, adjust, adjust. And you need to keep on believing in what you do and to never ever give up and relapse into the lazy pattern of slowly making the product worse and worse, containing fewer and fewer calories for the listeners. If you do, then YOU are the problem; the listeners aren’t.

Working with data from all over the globe on a daily basis, we see the effect a well-composed and creative DJ or team of hosts can have on the ratings – if you take them seriously and start treating them as the unique selling point they really are. So don’t restrain them and make more music sweeps. Set them free and help them find a way.

I like to sometimes make this thought experiment to motivate myself when ideas are running low:

Imagine all the media platforms we know today are in existence but radio has just been invented and will go on air tomorrow. I am confident advertisers would be fighting each other for commercial minutes in this new “wonder media” that you can enjoy and use with only one of your senses while using the others for something else. While driving. While cooking. While reading. While falling asleep. While waking up. While walking. Everywhere. At any time. Unlike any other media.

Users – as listeners are now known – would be lining up around the block to get in.

Add to this amazing ability that the new “super media platform” is also one of the only ones that can emotionally affect the users. Make them feel “at home”. Make them feel they have a friend. Make them form a bond.

This is the platform some of you are giving up on by slowly making it less and less attractive.

Wow.

We strongly believe radio not only has a future, it has a bright future. And thankfully, we see lots of innovation and creativity blossoming in our beloved industry. But we need strength in numbers, not just a few bright stars.

So my wish – the the wish of RadioAnalyzer – for radio in 2025 is this: make radio that means something to someone. Don’t be afraid of diversity and taking risks. They are your fuel.

Having learned that you always need to end a serious rant on a positive note, here is an idea in the shape of a playlist that could perhaps serve as inspiration for the thinking you need to do. I’m a radio refugee because most stations play the same 50 songs and talk about the same 10 topics if any at all. But it didn’t have to be that way. I want to belong; I just can’t stand the lack of variety and endless repeats.

So I used the RadioAnalyzer tool to make a simple search on a dozen of the stations around the world that sometimes touch my taste in music. I refined the search by listening and feeling – and the result is a group of all new songs from 2024 and arguably only one song that has been a minor radio hit. The rest is almost untouched material that could have been flowing my way in the past year as a breath of fresh air. Something new. Something different – but still agreeable and melodic.

Musicians in hundreds of thousands around the world spend every breathing moment of their lives creating amazing music in every colour of the rainbow and some new ones you hadn’t even thought of – and people listen to it! So why, if you were to paint something beautiful and interesting, would you only use the same three brushes and five colours everyone else have already drained.

We see daily in the numbers from our clients that variety, taking a chance, owning a new artist, adding flavour and depth will increase listening time. So take a look and a listen – and ask yourself if a handful of these songs could have perhaps enriched your listeners in the year gone by. I know they enriched me.

Enjoy the music along with all the best wishes on behalf of the RadioAnalyzer team.

Upwards and onwards!