The Written Word
for July 11, 2001

It’s interesting to speculate where radio is headed.

After the war, when TV was just getting going, the futurists all predicted the end of radio. TV would take over … after all, who wanted to listen when you could both listen and watch. But radio not only survived but prospered.

Part of that was built in. You can’t drive a car, read a book or ogle a member of the opposite sex to the accompaniment of television. Moreover TV is prohibitively expensive to produce which no doubt accounts for the fact that it’s so bad. I have nearly 100 channels on my cable service and I have a hell of a time finding anything to watch for the half hour a day I spare TV as I do my treadmill exercises. When it comes to news, it’s perhaps a saw-off. Unless the event is predictable, like the Gulf War, radio gets there first. The later TV coverage is perhaps sexier but again, that’s a set piece exercise and a very expensive one.

Now radio is on the Internet and no one quite knows what will happen. You’ve been able to download my station, 980AM, for some years but this is pretty old stuff. While this has given world wide coverage it hasn’t brought much, if any, revenue. How do you charge – indeed whom do you charge?

This is quickly changing. In our case there is a consortium of media providers, including the owner of the station, who will make Internet radio available on a more formal basis. You will be able to listen to current programs, past programs, get news, traffic and sports updates with a click of the mouse.

Again the question arises – whom do you charge for this service, how much and on what basis?

Some of the advertising revenue will come, one presumes, from advertisers within the programs being broadcast as they are now. But how do you know how many people are listening and for how long?

Of course "hits" will be recorded but did those people see the "banner ad" on the screen, hear the ad being broadcast or just tune out immediately?

Each service will record its own hits – for example if you went to the CKNW website and clicked on the weather option that would be recorded - but the same questions as above arise.

What also arises is a question very near and dear to me – how do you pay your performers?

There is no real formula now. It’s simply recognized that if you have the ratings you get the big bucks – if you don’t, you’re outta here. But I have no way of knowing what I’m worth in the absence of a hiring contest which, lamentably I’ve never been in. I get paid a lot of money but, who knows?, compared with what I make for CKNW it may be peanuts. But that is difficult to ascertain even if I had access to all the figures for it may be that a replacement for me at half the price might bring in more revenue.

It’s a very exciting time throughout the media business. TV still gets the glamorous news coverage but, stay tuned, it may be even more interesting out there in radioland!