Do you still listen to Radio?

The advent of the Net and the web in the early and mid-1990s has turned commercial as well as non-commercial radio, including its “content”, as a source of growing impatience among listeners who have to wait around for programmes they might care about.

I remember way back in 1986/87 during my youth service days in Radio Nigeria2, 45 Martins Street, Lagos, how the medium was extremely powerful. We were the only FM radio station in Lagos and the best in the country. It was therefore a wonderful experience for me as my name was mentioned almost daily on air! Listening to radio was simply a must for me.

But today, the question is “do I still listen to radio?” The truth is I do not deliberately listen to radio because of any particular programme- I just tune in because of music. I actually belong to the old school so you can guess what kind of music I listen to. But primarily, I listen to news and I am also a very stubborn loyalist- one radio station and one television station always!

However, I cannot say I am particularly happy with the commercials I hear and watch on such media. I like traditional radio for its immediacy, i.e. the fact that it is live. But there now seems to be another breed of radio that derives its nature from the Internet and can be archived in a way that enables you to listen at your convenience. Podcasts are downloadable radio programmes, often distributed through Really Simple Syndication feeds that can be transferred to digital music players like iPods.

To better understand what this medium is, see it as Personal Option Digital ‘casting, i.e. PODcasting, which has come to represent a shift of our time away from an old medium where we wait for what we might want to hear to a new medium where we choose what we want to hear, when we want to hear it, and how we want to give everybody else the option of listening to it as well.

Podcasting is one of the developments, along with online digital music services like iTunes and Rhapsody that enable a consumer to be his/her programmer. Podcasts can be created cheaply with little more than a microphone and a computer. I understand that the hosts of corporate podcasts are PR staff who are performing double duty. According to Rishad Tobaccowala, chief innovation officer at Publicis Groupe Media (PUB), “this will obsolete terrestrial radio for many advertisers.”

The primary amateur Internet audio medium has become the Web’s next big phenomenon that advertisers can no longer resist a promising way of reaching consumers who are deliberately reducing their consumption of traditional media. Most major advertisers in the US like General Motors, Ford, Procter& Gamble, Unilever, Warner Brothers and Heineken are either already advertising in podcasts or at least considering the right creative approach before towing the line.

Johnson & Johnson, the maker of Acuvue lenses, is one of the large American companies that have successfully embraced podcasts as marketing tools. J&J and its advertising agency, R/GA, enlisted very bright girls to write and host a series of episodes about teenage life called “Download with Heather & Jonelle.” It is interesting that no one knows the girls’ full names, or where they live. However, it is remarkable that the programme has increased awareness of the Acuvue brand among teenagers, says Naomi Kelman, president of Vistakon Americas, the J&J unit responsible for Acuvue.

Abroad, radio stations, newspaper publishers and others who wish to distribute content that users can download and listen to at their leisure have now embraced podcasts. Nestle SA’s Purina unit, the maker of pet food, airs podcasts called “Animal Advice,” assisting pet owners with useful information, which includes restraining their dogs from jumping their back fence. What is interesting about this experience is the fact that Purina is mentioned at the outset, while the podcasts are replays of a radio show about pets that the company sponsors.

ESPN, CNN, ABC News, etc. are mainstream media companies that are dominating podcasts as evidenced by their consistent topping of itunes, Apple’s download site. Podcasting started appearing in the US in 2004, when its pioneers realized that talk radio programmes could be downloaded with a click of a mouse, just like digital music files- and podcasting gets its name from Apple’s iPod digital music player.

Is Nigeria ready for podcasting? Public radio should begin podcasts and offer a few of its more popular shows. Edited versions of their on-air shows can be offered, while they focus on popular interviews and comedy sketches. Some of the same companies that advertise on the radio shows can also be offered slots on the podcasts, but without as many breaks, and the ad content kept short.

I am impressed with Zenith Media’s recent white paper on podcasting, stressing the benefits of reaching early adopters. According to the report, “Advertisers who embrace the new technology and communicate to consumers in meaningful ways through podcasts may be viewed as innovators, forward-thinking, cutting-edge, and the envy of the neighbourhod. Zenith Media is a large media-buying agency for advertisers.

Podcast content ranges from slick programmes developed by professional radio stations to amateur ones recorded by individuals. However, the mass reach is nearly impossible to be achieved by podcasting. But it is unique because you are reaching an enthusiastic audience, e.g. Volvo sponsorship on Autoblog.com reached about 120,000 people a month, says Anna Papadopoulos, interactive media director at Euro RSCG, Volvo’s agency.

What happens then to traditional radio? Podcasting will not replace old-fashioned broadcasting, just as FM did not replace AM, and TV did not replace radio. It is also not narrowcasting, which is seen as broadcasting for fewer people. Podcasting has its own identity. Conventional radio and podcasting can coexist in the long run. However, the real promise of podcasting might lie in the new forms of expression the medium will ultimately permit. Following closely will be video podcasts as a result of envisaged insatiable demand in the advertising world for new platforms and new media.

Our advertisers should take advantage of this new but exciting medium. Guess what, I still listen to radio, but the commercials are boring!