Radio’s Mobile Strategies Must Go Beyond Streaming, NAB Panelists Say

Streaming radio stations’ music to Apple’s iPhone, Research In Motion’s BlackBerry, cellphones using Google’s Android operating system and other smartphones and wireless devices is a start for broadcasters to enter the mobile sector, executives said. To make money there and keep terrestrial listeners when they're not at a traditional receiver, the industry must also develop applications, radio executives from Canada, the U.K. and U.S. said Thursday. Some of the panelists at the NAB Radio Show in Washington said offering paid apps is an area that may bear fruit -- both financially and in keeping the attention of some of the biggest listeners.

"A mobile strategy is not putting yourself on the iPhone and being able to listen” to a streaming version of the terrestrial broadcast, said Chief Operating Officer Clive Dickens of Absolute Radio, with about 2 million weekly listeners in the U.K. Radio stations need to understand what listeners want from their consumer electronics devices and cater to it, he said: An example is Absolute offering an app that acts as an alarm clock so users wake up to the station, getting “some mobile time in the morning,” when terrestrial listenership is usually high.

Pandora offers a model of sorts for over-the-air radio to expand to wireless devices as that company lets users watch video related to the song that’s playing, see lyrics and view the station’s playlist, said Vice President Shawn Sires of Airkast, with about 800 radio station clients. The radio industry must “proactively” build up its mobile device audience, he said: “Much like the Internet in the early days” when people “wondered why no one was clicking on it. It does have to be promoted.” Airkast clients are starting to add to revenue from such endeavors and “big-brand advertisers and interactive agencies” are participating in them, Sires said.

Pandora is transformative because it lets people know what they're listening to and allows them to save or purchase the music, said Director Michael Yoch of NPR Digital Media. “Those types of things go a little step further than by [just] saying we want to be ubiquitous,” he said. “We have been very hot on mobile for a couple of years now and it’s part of a larger strategy to reinvent NPR.” The organization hasn’t experimented with paid applications because its mission is to provide free radio, Yoch said.

"If your station is streaming on an iPhone, that is not a bad start on a mobile strategy,” said General Manager David Huszar of Corus Interactive, whose broadcast unit has about 50 stations in Canada. “Simple apps can be very effective.” Broadcasters should keep in mind that when it comes to their product on CE devices, “it’s not about radio as the appliance, it’s about radio as the service” and it’s “encouraging to see that actually hadn’t become totally irrelevant to our audience,” Huszar said. His advice to other radio executives going mobile: “Make it easy for people to find what we have, make it easy for people to consume it” and be available on all entertainment devices.