Denial on the Radio Dial
RAIN reports on Roger Lanctot, Associate Director of Strategy Analytics, a company deep into the area of the connected car. He has some dire warnings for people within the traditional radio industry.
The majority of radio listening in the U.S. and, increasingly, elsewhere in the world occurs in the car. Once the sole province of the Associate Director of Strategy Analytics in-dash car stereo, the automotive audio environment has become a free fire zone for satellite radio, digital terrestrial radio, good old-fashioned analog radio, streaming audio, Internet radio and pre-recorded content.
Still, terrestrial radio dominates, commanding billions of dollars in advertising revenue based on a predominance in hours of listening and reach. Radio wins for being already in the dashboard and easy to use.
But radio is increasingly irrelevant among young people (pick your study, there are many). And as those young listeners age they are moving like a plague of locusts across the listening landscape toward IP-based alternatives.
