Fred Wilson covers a lot of ground in his post about Impact Media. Part of it involves dissecting the relationship between the record business and radio and Fred's vision for the radio dial of 2010. Let me add the following:
-The radio dial of 2010, besides having HD & satellite radio access, will probably have some sort of IP-Radio content available, whether as a stream to the car or, more likely, via content that is time & space-shifted, aka podcasts (you'll dock your ipod in your car). The main point will still be that the consumer will have a lot more choice. Like we do on the Web today, we will roll our own radio dial by, say, having a few 'fm/ams' on our favorites list (think presets), some satellites and some indie podcaster types.
-Notwithstanding the JD Powers report, I still think HD Radio will be just a small piece of the overall radio pie. It will exist but it won't be dominant.
-The medium will continue to drive the format. This is butchering McLuhan's famous phrase, I know. Let's take FM Radio. We all know that its high frequency/low wavelength make it better for music while AM is better for spoken word. FM music stations have tight playlists because of morning and evening drive. Why? Well, most FM Radio listening occurs during morning & evening drive and since there are only X slots on the FM dial, and since losing listeners means lots of lost revenue, FM music stations play popular tracks and repeats during drive time so that fewer people change the channel when they hear something unfamiliar. If the average commute time in the States were much greater than the 20-30 minutes it is now, we'd have much longer playlists!! Also, fewer channels means more lowest-common-denominator music -- i.e. stuff that's least likely to offend the greatest number of people. Not that all LCD music is bad btw. It just means it's very likeable.
-OTOH, satellite is a different medium: more 'shelf space' means that the individual stations will have deeper playlists catering to a narrower audience. That satellite is subscription-supported means that, like HBO, their content can be edgier and more experimental.
And so it goes with the other technologies: their content will be dictated by the medium. What does this mean? Since radio is continuing to explode, and with the rise of the internet as a great promotional medium, there will be fewer stars and a greater 'musician middle class' (something quite lacking in a world where the primary outlets of promotion, FM radio & mtv (lower case), were tightly controlled by both the labels and the media outlets. Indie labels will thrive (but few will hit grand slams).
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