Change

Change is good.

I’m not sure who said it first, but it has been repeated numerous times over the ages. I believe in change. It is a method by which we can grow and develop. Change comes out of necessity, out of boredom, or even out of curiosity. Change can be painful and sometimes unpredictable. I get all of that. What I don’t understand is change upon change without waiting to analyze the result.

Radio is in the middle of change. The industry is in the midst of a tsunami with two very different catalysts at the beginning of the wave. The advent and growing trends in the internet and digital media has forced the radio industry to question its identity.  And if that weren’t enough, the industry’s primary tool for measuring success has changed to a new method that produces drastically different results. Those two issues have left industry executives and radio programmers scrambling to answer two questions: what are we doing and how are we being judged? Unfortunately, the second question is dictating the direction for the answer to the first question.

The portable people meter, known as PPM in the radio world, is Arbitron’s newest method of collecting data on the radio listening habits of the average person. The meter records in real time the radio frequency in its vicinity as well as the exact time of any changes. It promises a more pure sample of what people are listening to at any given time. This new method differs from the old-fashioned diary which required the listener to recall their listening habits and keep a journal of their listening activity. For generations radio programmers were trained to create radio content that would build loyalty. The goal was to rely on that loyalty  for a listener to recall their favorite station and write it down multiple times in their diary. The dawn of PPM has forced radio programmers in major markets figure out attract and keep listeners in the now abandon the need for loyalty recall later.

The radio industry’s desire to conform to the PPM world has added to its own identity crisis. The second part of that crisis lies was created by digital media. The mp3 has made the favorite song of the moment instantly accessible. The internet library and its card catalog of search engines has an infinite number of information source instantly accessible. Add to that the rise of portable web-capable devices and the world is literally at your fingertips at nearly any place and time. So in this new information-right-now age, how does radio compete? The search for the answer has created grey hair and sleep deprivation.

 The nature of the radio industry right now is answer that question as quickly as possible. PPM allows the results of a particular day to be available as soon as the day is done. The radio programmer changes to conform to the results of a particular day. The days of data collection and analysis over time are gone. The information is now and the judgment is now so there for the change must be now. I can’t help but believe that industry leaders are going to change themselves into oblivion without every considering the effect. Change is good. But without pause for analysis, change can also be ineffective.