Other Media Preview Radio's Potential

As Pandora increases it's ad inventory, making longer commercial breaks and Apple begins hiring ad sales teams, it's pretty obvious that it's now a multimedia world and radio must grapple with the ramifications of what competing media and not just other radio stations are doing.

CBS-TV's victory over Time Warner sets a precedent that says broadcast content is just as valuable as anything else.  CBS CEO Les Moonves says of the NFL:  "They deserve what they get because they deliver great ratings. ”

It wasn't just a win for CBS, but for anyone who creates great content that viewers and listeners demand.

Meanwhile, the up's and down's of CNN, MSNBC and Fox News provide another clue as to where things are going.  When politics are hot, the latter two do best. 

When world event warm up, it is CNN'S turn to jump up.

Selling media in 2013 requires the ability to predict when a medium's audience is going to spike and to credibly pre-sell those opportunities at aggressive and justifiable rates based solidly on the size of the audience.

Those of us who produce content need to become alert to times when we have unique viral information or entertainment that can push metered ratings above average.

iAds and Pandora are going to find that music alone can't do that. 

CBS-TV has proven that exclusive branded content non-musical content is worth the big bucks.

Now, it's up to audio media as well to develop/pre-promote big audience-builders (which of course is nothing new to great radio personalities) and market those things well in advance to maximize the money they bring in (which the majority of radio sellers still come up short on).