C Story

Fred Jacobs and Jerry Del Colliano both note this week that radio's "systemic" ambivalence towards the younger set will likely eventually have disastrous results for AM/FM radio.

Jacobs actually refers to "Generation Z's" (today's under-18s), Del Colliano "Millennials" (young adults), but they make a similar point: "When radio loses generations of listeners, its relevance in the world of media options is going to be called into question," Jacobs wrote in his JacoBlog. Del Colliano says what most broadcasters are doing now, in terms of attracting younger demos, is a "losing formula... driving the essential next generation away from radio."

So, what do broadcasters need to do?

"If you want to know what you’ll be doing in a couple of years or so, study teens," Jacobs wrote. To illustrate, he cites the increasingly popular Snapchat photo/social platform -- mostly ignored by radio.

On his Inside Music Media blog, Del Colliano cranked out ten action steps for broadcasters to better speak to teens and young adults, including reformulating the approach towards "morning shows," reinventing radio's "formatics," and building content designed around a "two minutes or less" attention span.

"Fix what's on the air, buy more years and then personally escort your newfound Millennial listeners to your next business -- digital content," he advised.

Jacobs concludes: "Because if you don’t do the research and take the time to listen and learn from Gen Z, you lose powerful insights into what may be right around the corner – your corner."

Read Fred Jacbos' JacoBlog here, and register for Inside Music Media here.

Hypebot and MusicWeek report Rara.com has introduced the first in-car music streaming service for multiple European nations, which doesn't require a smartphone, SIM card, or dongle.

The music subscription service is available in the UK, Germany, France, Italy, and the Netherlands for the BMW 5 series with ConnectedDrive Online Entertainment.

Rara also offers access via the web and mobile device apps. The service boasts 14 million songs and 200+ "curated" streaming music channels.

Thursday at RAIN Summit Europe in Brussels, Media UK managing director James Cridland will moderate the panel discussion "Mainstream Mobile" to discuss views on "best practices" for building listenership on mobile devices and monetizing it. Limited space is still available for the conference, visit the RAIN Summit Europe web page for registration info.

Read more here.

Gizmodo contributor Mario Aguilar decided to find the best "automated DJ" on a streaming music or Internet radio service, pitting eight top services against each other for his "The Best Streaming Radio."  

His original intent was to find the service with the algorithm that created the best sounding user-generated station (he only considered services that offer "generative playlists" -- the ability for users to create "stations" on the fly by simply typing in a single artist, song title, or genre). Nearly immediately he realized picking a winner based solely on a good mix was futile, as they all, by and large, do a pretty good job at this task.

So he widened his considerations to other facets of the services -- "integration with social networks to the design and overall usability of each service's unique features" -- for the shoot-out.

I'll let you click through to see his ranking, but I'll include a few of his points here about specific services:

Turns out he's not a fan of Clear Channel's iHeartRadio service, which (he wrote), "does so little and doesn't do it especially well." He called it "radio in the most traditional sense," and didn't mean it as a compliment, since "regular radio stations are terrible, which is why we turned to the Internet in the first place."

Pandora, which is "showing its age," only fared a little better. He found the service "less evolved" with only "very basic" social integration -- but "if Pandora has a selling point it's simplicity."

And though Last.fm may still have something to offer, in 2013 it "feels ancient." In fact, its concentration on scrobbling (tracking what you listen to on other services) makes it "more of a recommendation engine than a polished way to listen."

Aguilar actually had some high praise for Slacker's human-curated stations, which he says offer the "kind of variety you can't get from a machine." But, alas, this shoot-out was for algorithm-driven "generative playlist" channels. And the newly-redesigned Slacker interface seemed "ambitious and very good- looking, but it's pretty confusing" and "needs streamlining." Perhaps even worse, he said Slacker "completely missed the potential of social" media integration.

So -- does any service offer anything he likes? See which topped Gizmodo's The Best Streaming Radio here.

Radio streaming services provider Securenet Systems announced it has integrated Livio Connect's "smartphone-to-dashboard" solution into its mobile streaming app platform. Securenet Systems provides third-party apps for Internet radio, with more than two-thousand listener apps on the Android and iOS platforms.

Senior Managing Director for Securenet Systems Kerry Brewer said, "With Livio, we simply add the Livio Connect API to an app, upload the code library, and once enabled, any one of our apps will now work with car dashboard buttons or listener device commands."

Read more on Livio Connect in RAIN here. Securenet's press release is here.

Digital Music News editor Paul Resnikoff asks, "Do consumers really care about having every last song at their fingertips, millions of songs deep?"

While streaming music services like Spotify, Rdio, and Rhapsody seem to think so, as they tout library size as a major feature, most listeners don't care, concludes DMN.

"This matters far less than the industry thinks."

SiriusXM has over 24 million subscribers, dwarfing any other music subscription service. But "Sirius has selection, and even Pandora-like stations. But you're not picking the songs, playlisting, or otherwise DJing with millions of deep tracks. You're driving, working, reading, sleeping, or doing something else, while someone else is curating an ultimately limited selection."

Another example: Pandora, with a far more limited library and lacking the on-demand component, it's topped 200 million registered users.

"Many consumers will say they want everything, but actually don't," Resinkoff wrote. "And all you have to do is look at virtually any chart from any 'comprehensive' streaming service. Because even with the widest selection imaginable, the world's chosen playlist is amazingly thin."

Read this entire article from Digital Music News here.

New research indicates that for streaming music services, 70% or more of registrations are likely abandoned.

Digital Music News reports on research by Midia's Mark Mulligan on services Deezer and Spotify. Mulligan found that 73% and 70%, respectively, of these services' registered listeners sign up, and don't return.

"What the numbers show is that inactive users is a big problem for streaming services, which in actual fact means that churn is a bid problem for streaming services," Mulligan wrote in his blog. "The important point is... that streaming services as a whole have a problem with churn."

Yesterday Clear Channel announced that its iHeartRadio platform has reached 30 million registered users (more here), but gave no indication of what percentage use the service on a regular basis.

Spotify' Daniel Ek identifies that this affects all businesses with a free tier that requires registration. Mulligan indeed points out that this isn't unique to music services. Only roughly 25%-35% of registered users of social networks like Google+ and Twitter use those services regularly (see here). Mulligan's blog entry is here. Digital Music News covers it here.