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Latest Cumulus Results

TheBigA said:
That time has passed. There is no way to increase revenue from broadcast. The only revenue comes from advertising, and music listeners HATE advertising. So the business model no longer works. There is no amount of investment in talent or format that will cause people to throw away their phones & computers. We just saw it in Seattle, where Hubbard invested in an adventurous AAA format, and it failed to attract an audience after 14 months. The audience for music on the radio isn't growing anymore.
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Your absolutely right. I'm just venting from being baffled at how poorly even broad, moderately hip formats fail.

Yeah Seattle not being able to be AAA. Saw that. How cow! That one is another sign of the radio apocalypse. The City where grunge was born cant do a AAA in 2024.
 
radiorobert said:
But that's just the problem. Radio cant bear the diversity so it doesn't matter in many cases. Again its dying.
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Compare it to the recording industry. Twenty years ago the physical product business went away. People wanted to download or stream music. That completely changed the business model. Royalties didn't replace CD sales. The money is less. But there's less cost in terms of getting CDs to stores and shelf space. So what happened is instead of having a few artists who sell millions, they have a lot of artists who sell thousands. That meant more artists and more music, but less impact. We may see that as radio moves from broadcast to digital.
 
TheBigA said:
That time has passed. There is no way to increase revenue from broadcast. The only revenue comes from advertising, and music listeners HATE advertising. So the business model no longer works. There is no amount of investment in talent or format that will cause people to throw away their phones & computers. We just saw it in Seattle, where Hubbard invested in an adventurous AAA format, and it failed to attract an audience after 14 months. The audience for music on the radio isn't growing anymore.
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I pay for Spotify and YouTube premium to get rid of the ads. The problem is the content has to be worth paying for it.
 
TheBigA said:
That time has passed. There is no way to increase revenue from broadcast. The only revenue comes from advertising, and music listeners HATE advertising. So the business model no longer works. There is no amount of investment in talent or format that will cause people to throw away their phones & computers. We just saw it in Seattle, where Hubbard invested in an adventurous AAA format, and it failed to attract an audience after 14 months. The audience for music on the radio isn't growing anymore.
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I don't think it's that listeners hate advertising as it's they hate 9 minute stop sets with 18 spots. It's just too much.
 
RadioGuy1864 said:
I don't think it's that listeners hate advertising as it's they hate 9 minute stop sets with 18 spots. It's just too much.
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Surveys don't put a number on it. One spot or 18 doesn't matter. It's an interruption. Surveys say over 65% will skip the one pre-roll ad in YouTube. But still, the number is what it is. It's based on the amount of revenue it takes to operate a business. The rates can't be increased, and so this is all they can do.
 
TheBigA said:
Compare it to the recording industry. Twenty years ago the physical product business went away. People wanted to download or stream music. That completely changed the business model. Royalties didn't replace CD sales. The money is less. But there's less cost in terms of getting CDs to stores and shelf space. So what happened is instead of having a few artists who sell millions, they have a lot of artists who sell thousands. That meant more artists and more music, but less impact. We may see that as radio moves from broadcast to digital.
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The problem with "digital" radio is that now, instead of being limited to a few licensed signals per market controlled by a small number of broadcasters, listeners have their choice of thousands of radio stations that may cater more precisely to their preferences, most of which are out of town and many of which are out of the country. I don't see how this helps current broadcasters.

Worse yet, many (most?) people don't even choose to listen to radio online at all. Once they have left the walled garden of FCC-licensed terrestrial radio signals in their local reception area, they don't have to listen to a playlist someone else chooses for them anymore. They can customize their own.

Sure, iHeart and now Audacy have introduced "paid" tiers to compete with Spotify, Amazon, Apple et al but are they really getting any traction at all? As far as I know, Audacy hasn't even gotten theirs off the ground yet.

Being so late to the digital party, terrestrial signals are still most radio broadcasters' biggest assets, like it or not. Sure, grow the digital side, it's an obvious necessity. But stop trying to cost cut your way to profit by stripping everything away from the terrestrial side that people care about.
 
Theater of My Mind said:
The problem with "digital" radio is that now, instead of being limited to a few licensed signals per market controlled by a small number of broadcasters, listeners have their choice of thousands of radio stations that may cater more precisely to their preferences, most of which are out of town and many of which are out of the country. I don't see how this helps current broadcasters.

Worse yet, many (most?) people don't even choose to listen to radio online at all. Once they have left the walled garden of FCC-licensed terrestrial radio signals in their local reception area, they don't have to listen to a playlist someone else chooses for them anymore. They can customize their own.

Sure, iHeart and now Audacy have introduced "paid" tiers to compete with Spotify, Amazon, Apple et al but are they really getting any traction at all? As far as I know, Audacy hasn't even gotten theirs off the ground yet.

Being so late to the digital party, terrestrial signals are still most radio broadcasters' biggest assets, like it or not. Sure, grow the digital side, it's an obvious necessity. But stop trying to cost cut your way to profit by stripping everything away from the terrestrial side that people care about.
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Worse yet, many of the more bland stripped down stations going to suddenly do better? They are already restricted as it is given the markets they are in, not to mention stripped down. Why would I listen online to it at that point anyway when there are thousands of other options? You aren’t going to create an award winning station online if it already stinks. Are stations going to suddenly get reinvigorated with cool programming because the internet makes it more popular? Of course not or we’d already have seen that.

Now it will be an inferior product streaming worldwide trying to compete among millions of other options.
 
radiorobert said:
Worse yet, many of the more bland stripped down stations going to suddenly do better? They are already restricted as it is given the markets they are in, not to mention stripped down.
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That is why in many other countries there is no such thing as “loca” radio or very little of it. Everything is programmed out of a central location with each nation’s best talents.
 
DavidEduardo said:
That is why in many other countries there is no such thing as “loca” radio or very little of it. Everything is programmed out of a central location with each nation’s best talents.
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That worked in Europe and South America, but would it work in the US, now that the genie is out of the bottle and the internet is a real thing?
 
Theater of My Mind said:
The problem with "digital" radio is that now, instead of being limited to a few licensed signals per market controlled by a small number of broadcasters, listeners have their choice of thousands of radio stations that may cater more precisely to their preferences, most of which are out of town and many of which are out of the country. I don't see how this helps current broadcasters.
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Current broadcasters have top tier talent that can put its shows on multiple platforms and the best research and programming, which makes for better digital channels. That's how digital should help broadcasters. Now, we know that many of them aren't using their talent as well as they should and that talented people from all walks of life have gotten into podcasting and live streaming. So, that works better in theory than in practice. Sears invented the mail order catalog. One would've thought it would've been prime and ready for the eCommerce, but Amazon ate its lunch. Something similar may well be happening now.
 
Theater of My Mind said:
I don't see how this helps current broadcasters.
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Once again it depends on the content people want. If its commercial-free music, that's not what radio does. If its edited highlights from yesterday's Mets game, then the radio companies have it. You have to broaden your view of what radio is.

radiorobert said:
Worse yet, many of the more bland stripped down stations going to suddenly do better?
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Some people like bland, stripped down. Those who want something else can look for it. But as I often say, radio companies aren't in the music distribution business.
 
Theater of My Mind said:
Worse yet, many (most?) people don't even choose to listen to radio online at all. Once they have left the walled garden of FCC-licensed terrestrial radio signals in their local reception area, they don't have to listen to a playlist someone else chooses for them anymore.
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No one was ever forced to listen to curated music on the radio. Once people had personal portable music devices, they were able to make their own playlists. In fact, the personal phonograph pre-dates the invention of radio by about 20 years. So in that way, people have always had the option to buy their own music collection and listen to it in their home, car, or at work. Radio is merely a convenience. I personally and professionally advocate people BUYING music.
 
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