Delivering a Consistent Consumer Experience: Ensuring Radio’s Greatest Strength Doesn’t Become Its Greatest Weakness
Consumers don’t care if it’s hard, they care about having their expectations met
Clichés become clichés for a reason: they speak to a generally accepted truth. One I use a lot is “his greatest strength is also his greatest weakness.” I’ve seen examples of it often in my business and personal life and have recently been reflecting that this age old truism might be the case with the radio industry as well.
What is AM/FM’s greatest strength? I’d say ‘dynamic localism’ – broadcast radio’s unique ability to tailor offerings to reflect the tastes, values and interests of local communities and deliver results for clients. I’m not sure that is exactly the right wording – maybe independence or customization or flexibility – but stations’ capability to adapt their product to meet listener and advertiser needs has always been the hallmark of radio.
This remains true even in a post-consolidation, voice tracking and financial crisis/cost cutting world. While many grumble that radio is not as local or varied as it once was, AM/FM is still highly fragmented, with more than 6,000 station owners doing their own thing. One need only look to how local radio broadcasters respond to natural disasters – pivoting on a dime to offer what is many times the only reliable source of life saving information – to see how powerful dynamic localism is.
But this great strength may also become a big weakness in the hotly competitive digital world. Because of its localism, AM/FM has a very hard time delivering what consumers have come to expect with digital media, a consistent user experience - a reliable ‘look and feel’. We must address this challenge soon, or we will lose a huge opportunity to bolster the industry’s digital future.
In the old analog and audio-only days, radio had an absolutely consistent consumer experience. A consumer turned on a radio, tuned to a station, and audio entertainment came out. Every station had a frequency, which was displayed in a consistent manner on the dial or screen. And that was about it, consumers knew what to expect and got exactly what they expected (and wanted).
All that started to change in the 1970s when datacasting capabilities were introduced through RBDS – the Radio Broadcast Data Service. RBDS allowed stations to display limited amounts of scrolling text. A simple and effective technology which promised to deliver new value for listeners and clients became… chaos.
Some stations implemented RBDS, most did not. Those that did broadcast inconsistently, with the service often offline or at times displaying gibberish. Receiver makers, having invested to implement the technology, stopped after several years because of this spotty broadcast implementation. Even after a renaissance of sorts in the 2000s when many stations turned on RBDS, the inconsistent application continues to this day.
The RBDS whiff did not hurt too much when radio was the only infotainment game in town, but it is a bigger problem now. One reason radio is having a tough time getting into mobile phones is poor RBDS implementation. Mobile phone makers and carriers do not want inconsistent radio station displays on their phones’ screens. Contrast this with Europe, where RDS (their version) is widely and consistently broadcast, and mobile phones have very high analog FM attachment rates. Other factors are certainly at play here, but the sketchy RBDS service does not help US broadcasters’ cause.
To further appreciate the issue in today’s media world, consider radio’s digital competitors in the business of music delivery. What is the look and feel of music on an iPod, or Pandora and other streamers, or on mobile phone music services or on satellite radio? It is consistent and fully featured. Listeners see the artist’s name, the song title and the name of the album. In most cases, they also see album cover art. They have ‘more info’ buttons to get artist info or lyrics. They have a ‘buy button’. This is what music listeners expect from media in 2011, and they are getting it from pretty much every music source… except AM/FM. Probably not the best idea to look and feel like a 1947 technology in 2011.
The good news is that HD Radio Technology brings radio the digital capabilities needed to compete. The bad news is the greatest strength, greatest weakness thing: because of its localism, radio has a hard time delivering a consistent consumer experience, even with the expanded digital capability. More troubling, with new, fully functional HD Radio receivers being sold but broadcasters not yet fully delivering advanced features, consumers are getting a disappointing first experience.
So what can advanced HD Radio features deliver? At a high level, all that is needed to meet consumers’ digital expectations.
Program Service Data (PSD) is a superior digital RBDS, providing scrolling text for song and artist info, station IDs and advertiser messaging. iTunes Tagging allows users to Tag songs they like for later preview and purchase on iTunes. HD Radio Traffic provides real time traffic updates to navigation systems. Our most recent introduction, Artist Experience, lets stations broadcast album art, station logos and advertiser branding. Yes, pictures on the radio.
And, as I have previously written, as HD Radio capability is built into connected devices in cars and mobile products, new apps will bring real time interactivity to radio. Touching an album cover will allow listeners to purchase concert tickets, link to the artist’s website or get lyrics. By touching the station logo, consumers could sign up for contests, vote up or down on a song or friend a station. For advertisers, stations can provide services like touch for more info, an 800 number, an instant coupon, a product code or the ultimate, touch to buy. To say nothing of vastly improved measurement and response capabilities. This digital capability will fundamentally add to radio’s competitiveness and business potential.
What Consumers Are Seeing. Here are side by side comparisons of what consumers are seeing in cars. These radios, from JVC, Ford and VW, are available now. On the left, you see how an analog station looks. The consumer sees… station frequency. Look at the same station broadcasting in digital on the right. The experience is rich and fully featured: song title and artist; HD1, HD2, HD3 and HD4 indicators; tag buttons; and on the VW and JVC, album art. Which better meets consumers’ expectations in 2011? Which do you want your station to look like?
But all that potential is unrealized if broadcasts do not support the new features in a consistent, reliable way. It is a real time issue as new cars and consumer radios roll off the line. Everyone purchasing a new VW or JVC navigation radio will be excited to see album art on their screens, but will be disappointed that more stations have not implemented Artist Experience. Buyers of dozens of new car and consumer radios with iTunes Tagging capability won’t see the tag light turn on if stations do not broadcast the feature. Fewer listeners will receive these new features if stations do not increase their digital power as now allowed by the FCC. Having a subpar experience will compromise consumers’ first impression of radio’s digital capabilities.
To be fair, it is tough for AM/FM to get this consistent consumer experience right. Consider again the competition: to add a new feature, most can make a few software changes in a network operations center, and they have a consistent implementation, nationwide. AM/FM’s localism, however, means that adding a new feature requires independent action by thousands of stations. Some of the larger groups have networked their stations to make it easier, but the task across the radio industry is still hard.
But guess what: the consumer doesn’t care if it is hard, they care about getting the digital experience they expect. So we need to get on it, now, because fully featured devices are being sold, now, and consumer impressions are being made, now. Most folks understand the upgrade process will be gradual, but the industry needs to show consistent progress.
Encouragingly, radio broadcasters are beginning to take action. Plug and play solutions for iTunes Tagging and Artist Experience are coming to market from industry leaders like GraceNote, Broadcast Electronics, Emmis Interactive and Jump2Go. Many of the larger groups have begun discussions on industry-wide coordination through the HD Radio Alliance’s Technical Task Force. There are NAB FASTROADS programs targeting the issue. These are very positive developments and none too soon.
We’ve brought exciting new HD Radio capabilities to a wide class of popular consumer devices. These new digital applications will make radio more competitive and open up whole new classes of revenue for the industry. The upside for broadcasters is huge.
But that potential can only be realized if, and only if, broadcasters can pull together and deliver the digital experience consumers demand. For an industry so locally-focused, this is heavy lifting, but will be well worth it.
Pairing radio’s greatest strength – dynamic localism - with a consistent digital consumer experience will be an unbeatable combination. It’s right there, right now. Let’s work together to grab it.
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Thanks for reading, and let me hear your thoughts: email to thoughts@ibiquity.com.
Bob Struble
Columbia, MD
July 2011
