touch that dial - the future of radio

Don’t touch that dialThe change of how radio will transform and be

transformed by how we consume media

Markus Sandelin

Radio is becoming a recommendation machine

The number of artists, songs, genres and data has grown exponentially in the recent years. People are used to choose what they want to consume, when they want to consume.

Radio has an important part in this, being a filter, a promoter, a hand picked selection of data. Hosts are our chosen ambassadors, our trusted friends.

Currently radio doesn’t tell me what to do next. If I see a song or a band I like, or a show I enjoy, you need to tell me how to get that or subscribe to it somehow. I’ll do it in your service or somewhere else.

Radio will be consumed differently

RSS did it for news, VOD did it for television, now Spotify is doing it for music. Radio has always been about being live, what’s happening now. This is what makes radio radio.

This has already started to change: Radio will not be only about being live, it will be about spontaneous moments, daily topics and being in the now. It will be those things that make live live.

The content has to separate from its delivery mechanics and limitations.

Radio needs to learn

Algorithms are constantly developing. One day, the radio channel with the best user data will win. Not just the number of potential listeners on the frequency, but those consuming the ecosystem.

Radio needs to expand beyond its current two-dimensional environment and become a part of the rest of the world.

Radio shows are not just time slots

Is a television show a television show if it’s never been shown on television? Can a television show be good if it’s not prime time programming?

The same will happen with radio and many of the previous formats has moved beyond radio, e.g. comedy shows, talk shows on radio.

This leads to a monocultural environment, which makes the ecosystem more vulnerable. It also makes differentiating more difficult.

Radio needs to become more interactive

Radio is mostly live, but it should act more like it. It has become lazy, it does pre-recorded content in the middle of the day. Radio has a massive differentiator in being live, if it stops being that, it becomes redundant.

The future of radio is outside radio, supporting it and the world around it.

Radio needs to get out of radio.

Respect the illustrators

All the images in the presentation are available online and they are used only because of admiration. I would like to point out a brilliant artist behind most of the images, Roger Langridge (@hotelfred). You can find and support his art and talent through his site hotelfred.com.

If you would like to remove ANY of the images or are otherwise saddened of their use, please contact me and I’ll do so immediately.

Markus Sandelin (@banton)

markus@kingmuffin.com | +358 44 3699887

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