(Photo courtesy of Steve Melewski’s Twitter account)
I had the pleasure of being joined by MASN Sports’ Steve Melewski to talk all things Baltimore Orioles. Steve gave insight on what his biggest surprise of the season was as well as what moves the Orioles could make this offseason. There was also talk about a potential Manny Machado extension and more.
As I previously wrote, Pandora recently acquired the rights to “Serial,” the most popular podcast ever produced. This is definitely a move that will undoubtedly be a huge boost to the exposure of podcasts, provided more are added to Pandora. Pandora has also recently been in the news for buying out rival Rdio on November 16. Pandora appears to be struggling and is looking for new ways to boost revenues which could explain the move to buy out Rdio.
Pandora has long been a thorn in the side of traditional radio because of its convenience factor and the much lighter load of commercials. Pandora currently has over 75 million active monthly listeners. They seemed like an unstoppable force, but now their business model is in doubt.
Pandora is looking for a new subscription service that would generate a revenue stream; they are hoping the acquisition of Rdio will provide that. Pandora made the $75 million deal with the aim of using Rdio’s technology to launch a new premium, on-demand subscription service to compete with the likes of Spotify, according to Media Life. Pandora currently has a subscription tier, but it is not widely used. The current problem with Pandora isn’t generating ad revenue; it is the fact that the ad revenue isn’t growing fast enough to keep up with the high cost of content. This has been a looming problem for years. According to Media Life, the cost of streaming music jumped 90 percent in the third quarter. Ad revenue grew 31 percent. Content costs ate up $215 million of the $255 million in ad revenue brought in that quarter. These expenses are expected to keep creeping higher and higher. So this bears the question- how much longer can Pandora continue to sustain these content costs rising much faster than ad revenue?
Pandora cannot be faulted for its lack of trying. The digital radio service last month also purchased TicketFly an online ticket sales company, in an effort to add more dimension to its offerings. Hopefully, these new acquisitions to the company can help Pandora stay afloat. Not too long ago critics believed traditional radio could potentially succumb to Pandora and now Pandora is at risk of going under.
CBS Radio Production Studio (Photo By Tim Barbalace/TU Student)
Podcasting has been around for more than 10 years. The problem is it hasn’t caught on as quickly as some had hoped. Currently, podcasting is as popular as it has ever been, but it still has plenty of room to grow. Currently one-third of Americans age twelve and over have listened to a podcast only once. Only 49 percent of people actually know what a podcast is. All of these statistics considered, podcasting is finally poised for growth.
So what is podcasting? A podcast consists of digital audio files that people can download and listen to at their convenience. Some podcasts are just taped versions of a radio show. Other podcasts are web-exclusive and can consist of episodic series. Anyone can make a podcast and there are podcasts on pretty much every topic.
Pandora, the country’s biggest online radio service, has acquired rights to “Serial,” the most popular podcast ever produced. “Serial” follows producer and presenter Sarah Koenig as she delves into the 1999 murder of Hae Min Lee, an 18-year-old high school student from Baltimore County, Maryland. On Nov. 24, “Serial” will be available for streaming on Pandora. This is hopefully just the beginning of third party delivery systems of podcasts. If “Serial” does really well on Pandora, there is no doubt Pandora would push further into podcasting. This could mean a huge new audience for podcasting through Pandora, which has more than 75 million active monthly listeners.
Pandora’s move to stream podcasts came months after rival Spotify made podcasts available. Spotify formed a partnership with Comedy Central and Vice Media. Spotify has over 20 million paid subscribers that have access to these podcasts. These third party delivery systems will undoubtedly be a huge boost to the exposure of podcasts. Hopefully, the podcasts already available on Pandora and Spotify will be successful, so that will open the door to more and more podcasts being streamed from these services. It is puzzling that podcasting hasn’t experienced much growth over the past 10 years considering how easy and cheap they are to produce. In addition to this, podcasts are very accessible as many of them are located in iTunes or websites across the internet. With the advent of podcasts being streamed on Pandora and Spotify, their audience will grow far more quickly than it did in the previous 10 years.
105.7 The Fan Studio (Photo By Tim Barbalace/TU Student)
Radio is definitely alive and well. Believe it or not “Radio” is the second-most-common activity on smartphones, behind social media usage, according to comScore. Radio is also looking at ways on how to reinvent itself.
The radio industry is experimenting with the idea of activation of FM chips in smartphones. This idea would be very intriguing. There are already several apps such as Tune In, Radio One, Pandora, and Iheart Radio that all have radio capabilities. This would bring into question if it is necessary to include an FM chip in a smart phone when there are apps already capable of accessing radio stations. I think there will always be a place for radio in media. As long as there are cars there will always be radios inside of them for people to listen to. Radio has been a staple in media for a long time and will continue to be for the foreseeable future.
The other avenue of radio that has made a resurgence is podcasting. PodcastOne is currently delivering 400 million ad impressions per month, according to Norm Pattiz. I think podcasting is a great way for the average person to gain public exposure and, if done well enough, develop a potential radio career. Podcasting is also a very cheap way to channel something a person is passionate about. Anyone can do a podcast on any topic.
The topics of radio and podcasting mean a lot to me because they are career avenues I plan to pursue after college. My goal is to be an on-air host of a sports talk show. Currently, I am employed at CBS Radio as a producer for 105.7 The Fan and I am also a promotions assistant. I love my job and being able to produce shows on 105.7 has been a tremendous experience for me. Being able to have the opportunity to talk on air on occasion has been something I really enjoy. I also host a show on Mondays and Fridays on Towson University’s student radio station XTSR. I plan on starting my own podcast at the beginning of 2016. I see this podcast as a way to gain more experience and exposure that I could use on my resume for future potential employment.
tim barbalace 