Why Podcasting Your Radio Show is Smart
I penned this item for Radio Ink Magazine:
We live in an era of choice and control - think Netflix and YouTube. Fewer and fewer people are watching live TV anymore. We watch what we want and when we want it. That same arc is happening in audio. If someone can't be around to hear a show broadcast at 2pm, it used to be gone. Into the ether. On its way to the dwarf planet Pluto, but not listenable to anyone on planet earth.
A lot of great content, here at 7:20 and gone at 7:21. It's a shame. But now, through the magic of podcasting, that content can be listened to at a time more convenient to the customer.
Sure listening to a show at a different time wrecks the status-quo of the current rating system but its pretty brutal out there in content-land. It would be great if everything just stayed the same, but that doesn't appear to be the case. People's expectations are changing rapidly, and you either make the content available on multiple platforms or risk losing your voice.
Imagine if Coke said "Hey, we're only going to be available in big bottles."
So should you post the three hours of today's show? Sure, go ahead, but the empirical evidence is that few will download it all. In fact, no one listened to your entire radio show on-air today either. It's just not the way it works. And in a Pandora and Spotify world, they aren't exactly clamoring for the live 24/7 stream of the station.
Content needs to be rethought and redesigned for each medium. Local TV has long since moved on hoping you'll watch the delayed broadcast of their 6pm news on their app, but you can find vital content, breaking news and short video clips. They have made their brands relevant on a new platform with reimagined and repurposed content.
Radio needs to move beyond thinking about podcasting as a lazy way to repurpose and rebroadcast a show and embrace the concept of it being accretive to a show or brand by offering repackaged "best-of" segments, interviews or even better, fresh and original content.
We live in a viral world - SNL, Jon Stewart and Jimmy Fallon all know clips (yes, segments!) of their shows increase their relevance. It might mess with the ratings, but it creates sampling and gives them voice beyond 11:35pm. At the end of the day, their content is adapted and resold.
Talkradio is off by 1/3rd in four years among 25-54 year-olds. Maybe its because the programming is fossilized and maybe its because its not easy to come by except at 2pm.
Nothing is linear. Think audience retention. Think brand building. It's an on-demand world.
Steven Goldstein is Founder/CEO of Amplifi Media and can be reached at 203.221.1400 or sjgoldstein@amplifimedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @amplifimedia.com.