Missing the Obvious

Radio programmers have had an expression for decades: “You can’t bore people into longer time spent listening.”

Know how to tell when a radio program is boring? You’ll recognize the unmistakable sound of radio receivers being switched off across the whole community. Likewise, you’ll recognize plummeting newspaper and magazine subscriptions as a sign that the writing is not particularly compelling.

And yet, the major media owners all seem to think that the audience is spending more time with their competitors (satellite radio and the internet) because the audience is enamored of changes in technology. In typical neo-Luddite fashion, a recent CNN/Money article explains that magazine publishers are joining together to promote magazine reading; that newspapers are joining together to promote newspaper readership; radio groups are joining together to promote terrestrial radio listening.

They’ve totally missed the point.

People aren't buying expensive satellite receivers and also paying monthly subscription fees because they percieve an improvement in audio quality. They didn't go to the web because they were unhappy about getting printers ink on their hands.

People went to satellite or to the internet to get content they specifically wanted to hear / view / read.

And if content providers want an audience to continue using the more traditional delivery channels, they need to come up with better content.

Offer radio programming that moves us, emotionally, and we’ll listen to it on shortwave if that’s where it's found. Make the writing fascinating and we’ll pay for a subscription to read it.

But give us the same recycled pablum as all of your competitors, and the technology doesn’t matter at all.

Boring content is boring content no matter what the medium.

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Want to make your customers and potential customers find your communications with them to be fascinating? I can't think of a better source of information you can immediately use than you'll find at The Magical Worlds Communications Workshop.

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The workshop scheduled for July 20, as usually happens, this class, has been sold out weeks in advance. There are still a few seats available for the August 17 class.

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