NAB 2023: 'Radio Radio'

“Radio is a sound salvation

Radio is cleaning up the nation

They say you better listen to the voice of reason

But they don't give you any choice 'cause they think that it's treason

So you had better do as you are told

You better listen to the radio

“I wanna bite the hand that feeds me

I wanna bite that hand so badly

I want to make them wish they'd never seen me”

-????????Elvis Costello "Radio Radio"

The National Association of Broadcasters annual event kicks off tomorrow (Sunday) morning – I know, crazy right? – with a wide array of panel discussions, keynotes, speeches, gatherings, and happenings.?Register now: https://tinyurl.com/2vnpxrkc

As an automotive industry kind of guy I am laser focused on a single session taking place at the event with crucial relevance to the future of radio, which often seems to “take a back seat” when the NAB gets together.?The session is “Driving Revenue and Insights with Connected Car Listening Data.”? With 50% or more of radio listening occurring in cars, this is a critical discussion for the industry.

The session takes place Sunday morning at NAB at 10 a.m. in the West Hall.?Don’t miss it.?Jacobs Media’s Fred Jacobs, Xperi’s Joseph D’Angelo, Westwood One’s Pierre Bouvard, and R&R Partner’s Fletcher Whitwell will peel back the implications of Xperi’s new in-car listening data (derived from DTS AutoStage) which is poised to upend the business of understanding what consumers are listening to in cars.

It is curious that the NAB has given radio such a featured spot at the event.?As an organization, the NAB sometimes seems to have tossed the keys to the future of radio to a single entity: iHeartMedia, which raises the questions: Why bother? Who cares? Let iHeartMedia call the shots.?They seem to know what they’re doing, right?

Really?

I have highlighted the lyrics to Elvis Costello’s classic track “Radio Radio” at the outset of this commentary.?“Radio Radio” is often considered by music anthologists to be Costello at his best.?To quote Wikipedia: “The song has since seen critical acclaim, being marked as one of Costello’s best by many writers and appearing on several compilation albums.”

The song has a unique history given that it was a critique of radio which is where groups like Elvis Costello and the Attractions were desperately seeking airplay.?It rose up the charts until broadcasters realized that it was a critique of their industry and then it was suppressed.

Costello said of the song and its message, again, according to Wikipedia: that it “reflected the moment when ‘you get into the business of making records and you realize what it’s really about is some guy going off with a big sack of money to give it to somebody with hookers and cocaine so that they play your record enough times that people get batted to death with it and that makes it a hit.’”

The rebellious nature of the song was further reflected in Costello’s appearance on Saturday Night Live in the U.S. in 1977– an event still etched in my aging brain – when he started performing “Less Than Zero” then stopped and pivoted live – against the wishes of his label and SNL – and played “Radio Radio” leading to a (temporay, but decade-long) SNL ban.

A portion of the original broadcast: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eD_24nDzkeo

Costello’s feelings about the broadcast radio industry did not mellow with age.?The Wikipedia entry quotes him from 2003:

“Oh, you might as well just admit now that radio has nothing to do with music anymore – it’s in the advertising business.?There’s a real skill to programming in an intelligent way, but nobody does that anymore.?It’s all done by computer, by committee.?Radio is absolutely the enemy of music.?They are my sworn enemy, and I will have nothing to do with them.”

Strong words from a creator of some of the hottest licks in rock and roll.?But his experience defined the era of “popular” music that never got much airplay.

When FM arrived on the scene – in the 1970's – it opened the door to tracks and artists that weren’t making the top 40 charts.?That reality still applies.?There is an ocean of music that isn’t receiving radio play but is nevertheless popular.?Radio’s relevance to music industry success has changed.?“Going viral” is not something that is happening on the radio.

The radio broadcast industry is poised, however, on the threshold of a data-driven renaissance.?Where data has been used, according to Costello, to blend and bland radio down to least common denominators and palatable background music to all powerful advertising priorities, digital radio has opened the door to new possibilities for both content and advertising.

And it's not just narrow-casting. Digital radio – now deployed in new (and some older) vehicles from Hyundai, Genesis, Kia, Mercedes, and Tesla – has enabled the ability to tabulate listening preferences and behaviors like never before.?Sunday’s session at NAB will explore these possibilities, which promise to change the way car companies, broadcasters, advertisers, and maybe even Elvis Costello think about what radio can be and become.

Don’t miss Sunday’s session – if you are at NAB in Vegas.?Do your best to pull yourself away from the cocaine and the hookers for long enough to tune in.?The future of the radio is unfolding in dashboards and in conversations taking place at NAB this week.