Is the golden era of radio dead? Report from Kristie Mercer at the USA RadioShow.

Michael Harrison, the publisher of Talkers magazine and our US RadioInfo namesake (no connection) reviewed radio’s futures and gave his top ten tips for survival.

“There are two types of people here today”, opens Harrison. “One group is preaching that the golden age of radio is dead. The other group is convinced that radio is heading into a wild new era that hasn’t been seen before.” 

So which way are we headed? And if radio is dead, should I call an ambulance?

“There’s no ambulance needed and radio can survive in the 21st century but only if it remains at the forefront of popular culture”, answers Harrison. “Radio is the pulse of popular culture. If we loose sight of this, we will lose radio.” 

I bet you’ve heard a PD say ‘content is king’ right? Well Harrison blows this theory out of the water “content is NOT king…platform is king! Content will only get you to the door. You could have the greatest content ever, but if you don’t have a platform to stage it on, nobody will know about it” he insists. “People say radio is challenged by the Internet…it’s not. Radio and the Internet are two very different things – radio is a platform and the Internet is a ground. Just like the airwaves, the Internet is a massive ground…it’s just a place for things to exist. When you ask ‘what station are you on?’ You don’t answer: the airwaves, you answer 100.9FM!”

Harrison delivers the top ten rules that radio must follow to survive in modern times…

1. Don’t forget radio is radio – don’t try and compete with TV, the Internet or satellite channels. Just do radio and do it well. Don’t spread yourself thin until you have lost the most important element – radio.

2. Bring people together – we live in a fractioned world. We used to live in a time when we were all watching the same TV shows, listening to the same radio stations…now we’re all so disconnected. A few months ago when the Superbowl was on I thought: this is amazing! Everyone around the country is watching the same thing at the same time, this never happens! Radio can bring people together with a common interest. Use this. 

3. Be a hero everyday in every way – radio comes to the rescue when natural disaster strikes. Radio can help terrible situations ie. charities, the disadvantaged in the community, human interest stories etc. This on it’s own is powerful enough to save radio

4. Strive for local – local is not just where the listeners live, local is where the advertisers live! Good local will always beat good national

5. Make your town proud – why do you think people love sport? Because they love seeing their hometown team, beat another town’s team! Syndicating programming kills the ability to take ownership of the bands you play, your local sporting teams etc.

6. Eliminate commercial tune outs – there has GOT to be a better way to generate revenue! The commercial is going to kill commercial radio. The most valuable thing in 2013 is TIME! We certainly don’t have 8 minutes at a time to spend listening to ad breaks. These days all songs have to be under 3 minutes to fit on radio because ‘there’s not enough time.’ Bullshit! We have time for 8 minutes of ads, why don’t we have 3 minutes to play music?

7. Maintain an active scope of works – every radio station should have a ‘lab.’ Allow experimentation, allow people to break your format. How can we move forward and change if we don’t break the rules once in a while? All of the greats were born from breaking format.

8. Learn about intellectual property – this is the basis of all deals to come

9. Don’t compromise radio – integrate radio into the digital world without compromising its integrity and losing sight of what radio does best…doing radio!    

10. Eliminate debt – radio can’t simply operate in numerical terms anymore because it is killing the industry! The radio has to be good (not just cost effective) for it to go to air. 

Harrison became very passionate when asked about the current state of the industry: “CEO’s CFO’s and COO’s are killing the industry. Radio these days is so corporate. We don’t have any real people working in radio stations anymore! It’s time to bring back the weird work experience kids, the disk jockeys, the music lovers, the local bands, the creative people. Let’s bring the human element back to radio. If we don’t find room for these people in the industry, we will have no industry left.” 

_{Kristie Mercer, breakfast host on The Border’s Star 104.9 FM, is reporting for radioinfo at the 2013 USA RadioShow.}