Exploding Radio (continued)

Competition is great, isnt it?

I just read yesterday’s WSJ piece on radio.

Here are some quotes from leading radio execs:

"The industry did not invest in its future," says
Joel Hollander, Infinity’s chief executive since January. "If we had
invested three to five years ago, people would be thinking differently
about satellite" and other competitors.

"The Internet and iPod are not challenges —
they are business options for us," says Mr. Hogan of Clear Channel,
which pipes more than 200 of its stations over the Internet and plans
to start allowing listeners to download programs to their iPods, a hot
trend known as podcasting.

Those are the words of executives who get it, realize that they need to move now, and are embracing the new technologies to transform their businesses.  And that’s a big change from where the radio execs have been over the past five years.

Last July, I wrote a long post on radio called "Radio in 2010" where I laid out what I’d do if I was running a radio business.  Looks like the guys who are in fact running radio businesses have the same game plan now.  That’s great.

The reason I am so sure that the iPod isn’t going to kill radio is the same reason I love podcasting.  The iPod is great but I often have no idea what to play.  I want someone to program my iPod.  Podcasters do that.  Radio programmers – good old fashioned radio programmers – which is what we are headed back to now that there is real competition, do that better than anyone.