Apps

Stop for a moment and look at your smart phone.  How many apps have you downloaded out of the "hundreds of thousands of possibilities?"

How many do you actually use on a regular basis?

My point, if you're a radio station or a radio personality, is not to discourage you from creating your own custom app, but before you do, think about what daily, hourly problem for your listener does your new app solve.

Especially if your app is going to be free.  There's no point in spending the thousands of dollars it's going to cost if it doesn't have a sustainable way to make money with it somehow well beyond that investment.

Of course, if you can create a fun, viral app that you can sell for 99 cents and gets downloaded 50,000 times in a day (which happens daily, of course), GO for it.  If you can replicate that trick once a month, you have earned the right to be called an app genius.  Maybe Apple, Google or Microsoft will buy you, turning you into the next Mark Cuban (or at least Fred Jacobs, who'd be the first I'd ask if I wanted to build an app since he has built a going business around apps)

I have downloaded almost 100 apps to listen to A&O&B client radio stations and even though they pay me to do it, I still seldom actually actually use them.  I find it more convenient to simply bookmark the station's streaming page and get there that way.

I admire TuneIn, SHOUTcast, iHeartRadio and the rest for what they are trying to do, but I find myself using Real FM Radio on my Android Phone where I already have my local fav preset.

Don't bother building an app for me unless it offers something better than that.  At the very least, include an "alarm" to wake me up to my favorite morning show, but the one already in my phone works well enough that I'd have to love your program a lot to go to the trouble to download and set it up, compared to just turning you on when I want to hear you.

Am I unique?  Perhaps I am, but at the very least put yourself in my shoes before you build your new app.

Thank You, Congressman Todd Young

Join me in making sure he knows how much we appreciate this. 

Boston and West, Texas, are just the two latest examples of how important local emergency information is - broadcast by mass media every day, somewhere.

Et Tu, Ramsey?

There is a spirited and intelligent debate going on at Mark Ramsey's blog in the comments section in response to his post FM on Mobile Phones? Be Careful what you Wish For.

I don't understand how Mark can cite the fact that Arbitron is still working out the complexities of measuring ear bud listening in PPM measurement as a reason not to have FM on smart phones at all.

Most of the other proponents and opponents can be grouped by their financial interests.  

Count me with Jeff Smulyan and the NAB.  My financial best interest, and perhaps yours will be served by making sure that analog radio's multi-billion dollar business continues for as long as possible, driven by the fact that more than nine of ten people in the U.S. and Canada use it every week, ten times the reach of streaming media.

Sure, let's keep working on digital radio too.  Make the product more listenable and unique.  Find a way to improve the financial model so that it's possible to make a comparable profit to FM and AM radio today while continuing to serve local communities with quality content.

On the other side:  CEA and CTIA.  If listeners can't get "free radio" anymore on FM/AM in their vehicles and mobile devices, they make more money since we'll be paying them for the bandwidth that analog radio makes so ubiquitous.  No wonder that they don't want us on their platforms.

Where Ramsey's opposition is coming from is less clear to me.  I assume it's idealism and a drive to push us all as rapidly as possible into the future, since his financial interests are supported by today's radio too.

Of course, the future is definitely coming at us lickedy split and we are in the midst of rebuilding business models to capitalize on it, but that's no reason to shut the doors and turn out the lights while radio just as it is today remains so important to so many folks (FM Chips in Cell Phones Survey Results - NAB).

I think Voltaire was right, Mark Ramsey.

Tough Competition Takes The Gloves Off. So Should Radio.

The wireless industry's trade group just posted videos on You Tube of their "reporter" across the street from the NAB offices in Washington, D.C., to purport that only 20% of people they asked said they want FM in their cell phone.

Actually, given that almost no one has promoted the fact that FM is available on cell phones to consumers, I thought 20% was a pretty good starting point compared to all the other "apps" smartphone consumers have to learn about and a reminder to us in radio that we can't assume that others don't have long term profit motives at our expense driving their position to exclude "radio" from wireless devices of all kinds, depriving our listeners of service they count and depend on.

Now, there's talk of closed door meetings at the FCC on the issue.

I'll leave the "public safety" argument to NAB and hope that they're telling our story as effectively as possible, but the current issue of United Airlines' inflight magazine features an article introducing "Shannon’s Law" as an additional point to ponder.

Claude Shannon was an MIT researcher who, in 1948, came up with an equation that explained how two factors limit the amount of information that can be accurately transmitted over any communication channel: the bandwidth available and the noise present that could disturb the signal. Using those two numbers, you can figure out the maximum amount of information that a particular link can handle.

I won’t bore you with the math. But the upshot is that we’re coming very, very close to reaching the bandwidth limits determined by Shannon’s Law. Soon, the typical cell tower simply won’t be able to handle any more data. Which means we’re going to need to come up with a solution if we want everyone to be able to watch the latest episode of “Game of Thrones” on their iPhone.

Tech writer Mark McClusky:  "Bandwidth, as it turns out, is subject to not just the laws of physics, but also the laws of supply and demand. Both point to one unpleasant realization: The true cost of wireless data access has been hidden from us for quite a while, and it’s time to pay the piper."

Of course, the wireless industry can't wait until we all have no other option in our mobile devices so that they can increase the cost of that bandwidth.

But, meanwhile, it's my humble opinion that it's in the consumers' best interest to have "free radio" as an option for information and entertainment that they don't have to pay for to make use of and enjoy.

If you agree, start working to move that "20%" number UP by letting listeners know that something they now take for granted, perhaps use unconsciously, needs to be on their future wireless devices and dashboards .. for their own good.