In addition, technology has created new revenue streams, and radio companies are diversifying to place their content on the new platforms.
Yes, the business has changed rather drastically.
Yet are companies like Entercom embracing change, investing in these new technologies, and expanding? From my vantage point, the answer is no.
I recall a conversation I had over dinner with some former co-workers almost a decade ago. We were talking about the future of the business, and I blurted out an idea I had just thought of. "We need a digital program director for the station. Someone who's only job is to curate content, manage the station's digital presence, and promote it. The version of the station that exists online is for all intents and purposes a whole new property, and we need to invest in that."
The online station is a different animal. Or it should be.
Yet it seems to me that the digital presence of a station (or a cluster) is not being treated as a separate entity. At my last place of employment, there was exactly one person in the sales pit dedicated to digital sales. For the whole cluster. One person dedicated to web content/digital presence. The "digital program director" was also the APD/Midday talent on one station and was supplementing his income by driving for Uber on the weekends.
Yes, radio HAS to evolve. But what it is doing in the face of this necessary evolution is not nearly enough. If you're going to drive listeners of the terrestrial station to your digital station, there'd better be something there for them. If you're going to sell that digital version of the station, there'd better be value for the client. You can't accomplish that by handing the whole operation off to one or two people who already have two or three other jobs on the terrestrial side.
It's a bit like what happened with HD radio. Part of the appeal of HD was that there was going to be 2 or 3 times as many signals. Part of the point was to compete with satellite radio. "Hey, don't spend money on satellite! We've got 3 radio stations now, and they're free!" But there was never any investment in the HD2 and HD3 channels. They were an afterthought. The MD would generate a month's worth of music logs for the HD2 channel on a Friday afternoon and that was the maximum effort expended. Is it any wonder HD didn't take off?
Therein lies the problem. Radio.com is an opportunity. How much effort is Entercom dedicating to that? If everything is shifting to digital - and it is - then it behooves the business to shift resources into that arena. Perhaps more importantly, to bring MORE resources to the table. Not handing the digital presence of the stations to a couple already overworked people, but hiring staff whose only job is building that digital presence. Hiring content creators. Hiring people to sell it.
