According to their own data, people check out Pandora to hear a handful of songs on their own station. So the way they use Pandora is more like the way they'd access an iPod if people still downloaded songs. Pandora is killing iTunes, not streaming radio. That's why Apple had to merge with Beats.
Well, for one thing, Apple didn't
have to do anything, but that's not the reason they bought beats (not merged) even if they
were in financial trouble. They bought Beats because A: it's the perfect brand to pair with the iOS devices, and B: Apple is increasingly a hardware company, not a software company. They've made OS X available for next to no money and have even publicly stated that they don't care if people just download it illegally (because it's basically a modified version of Debian, anyway, which is open source). They may be losing money on iTunes, but that's not where the income was coming from in the first place, anyway. They sell hardware and "cool." That's why they bought Beats, which is an example of both.
As for Pandora, their TSL isn't much better than broadcast radio, but the difference is that they're getting more content in that time than broadcast radio offers them, and that's why it's eating into radio, not iTunes. Do you know where most Pandora listening comes from? Mobile devices. You know why? People put it on in their cars, the supposed last safe haven for captive listening to AM and FM. They turn on the car, pull up the Pandora app and off they go. And when they turn off the car, off Pandora goes. That's why most listeners only listen to a few songs at a time: Pandora has replaced AM and FM in the car.
The "industry" isn't selling me anything. I can read the statistics. Users like certain songs, and that's what they listen to. They're searching for curated music lists to help them sort through the tonnage of musical clutter out there. That's what OTA radio does for them, and why, even with all the choices, they choose OTA streams more than all the other "Live365" stations. Not a single one of those stations comes anywhere near close the numbers of the streaming OTAs.
Traditional radio offers curated music lists, yes, but
not curated music lists tailored to the tastes of each listener, which is what they demand, and which is why they're leaving in droves for pure play digital.
Live365? What year are
you stuck in, 2001? They haven't been a player in streaming for years. But independent streams listed through TuneIn and iTunes and various other directories? They're gaining numbers every day. Small numbers for each of them, sure, but that's because there are so many of them. The more successful streams are offering multiple formats for similar tastes through one hub. Sites like di.fm and 1.fm, which have very strong listener numbers, very few ads (only one or two every hour last I was listening to 1.fm) and a much broader, less top-40-intense clock that people tend to prefer when the insane rotations of today's hit-centric FM stations wear them out. Which, judging by the shrinking TSL of most of those FM stations, is becoming more and more often. All independent streams combined EASILY outrank the listeners traditional radio's streams are getting.
Easily. It's not even a contest.
Where's the localism on Pandora? Name the personalities on Pandora. Name one. Tell me about audience interaction on Pandora. If Pandora is what the people want, then you're telling me they don't want localism, personalities, or audience interaction.
I didn't say that Pandora had to be local to be successful, I said that
traditional radio has lost it's localism, and that's why
it is failing. Don't try to confuse yourself with things I didn't say. People who want local content and personalities get it elsewhere. They've
had to, because they're sure as hell not getting it from radio. In order to work, radio has to be local, personal and involved in the community. It is
none of those things anymore, which is why people are tuning out. They tune to Pandora to get the music that they don't want to have to put up with 8 minutes of commercials in a row and idiotic claims of "MORE MUSIC THAN ANYONE ELSE!" between every song. They go to TV and TV station web sites -- or even independent local news sites -- for local content and community interaction. And much of it today is social media-driven, something radio STILL, after all these years, has
not figured out how to use properly, save for maybe a handful of stations that see a spike every once in a while because they grabbed a viral picture or video from somewhere else and shared it, which isn't really what people want from a radio station online, it's just the luck of the draw on who gets the most clicks for viral content.
And as for the number of songs, the key thing they're looking for is help to sort through the clutter. They hear the hits on OTA, then build their own station with the songs they hear, and listen to them over and over. Survey after survey proves it.
No, they're hearing the hits on YouTube via social media, not traditional radio. Which begs the question: surveys from whom? Nielsen? The NAB? The industry rags? Yeah, those are
real trustworthy.
The point is, there are different platforms that each type of content works better on, and radio isn't
any of them anymore.
