Background Noise
Sydney Morning Herald
Monday October 13, 2008
Radio is well placed to survive the onslaught of new technology.
Despite generation Y's increasingly short attention span and its love affair with new technology, Sydney social researcher and futurist Mark McCrindle believes there is a future for radio. Then again, it would have been a brave person to say otherwise, considering the audience McCrindle was sharing his thoughts with - a roomful of somewhat anxious Australian radio executives trying to assess future trends in broadcasting.Addressing Commercial Radio Australia's annual conference on the Gold Coast last Friday, McCrindle said radio would survive as a popular medium if stations adapted to the different consumption habits of the younger generation. That's not as simple as it sounds in the digital age of the internet, MP3 players and the mobile phone."To some extent radio's best friend is the new technology because many of the young people we are interviewing say, 'Yeah, of course I'm online but the radio is on in the background,' " McCrindle says. Radio has the advantage over television when it comes to multi-tasking, the favourite pastime of anyone under 25. "Television is declining among generation Y but their overall time in front of a screen is rising. There is more gaming, more internet and mobile phone use and, because radio is a relatively passive activity, it can be going in the background."Radio stations would rather be in the forefront of consumption habits, especially when it comes to enticing advertisers, but McCrindle says there are not too many mediums these days that can expect undivided attention. "Even when this generation is focused on the internet, they are still across multiple windows, constantly churning back and forth from iTunes, Facebook, blogs and other websites," McCrindle says. "In their cars, the under-25s will have the radio on but they are twice as likely as older drivers to have passengers in the car, so again, their attention is divided."McCrindle says the key for radio's survival is variety and flexibility - offering more listener interaction, channelling across multiple platforms, particularly the internet, and allowing listeners to create and drive the content. "For an internet-savvy generation, most of the content is created by the users rather than organisations," he says. "That's why there's more reality-type television shows where people vote and have a voice. The same applies to radio. The more involved the listener feels, the stronger the attraction will be."His reflections on the future of AM talkback are interesting, given how old 2GB and 2UE listeners are. "While generation X has followed the baby boomers into talkback, generation Y might not be so interested," he says. "They are already adept at using other social networking sites to find out what the group thinks and to get social validation."He says one advantage of targeting the young is that older listeners will follow. "People are not living within the stereotypes of their age groups. There are a lot of generation Xers listening to under-25 stations and a lot of baby boomers following the trends of their generation Y kids. A station that is perceived as youthful is going to attract a lot of people outside the core target."
© 2008 Sydney Morning Herald
