Magazines versus Radio

People have been writing about the problems other media have. Newspapers are in trouble. Magazines are in trouble. Mark Ramsey recently blogged about the subject. Which prompted me to write this, comparing my experiences reading magazines to my experiences listening to commercial radio today.

Sadly, I think comparing radio to magazines makes us look even worse.

I just bought a new iMac. Never owned a Mac. But there are magazines that I can turn to and be confident that I am exposed to all kinds of new ideas and products that are suddenly interesting. And I can be also be confident I won't find ads for Windows 7. Content is aligned with shared interests.

But I also have an interest in a number of popular bands and singers. What do I learn from any of the radio stations I listen to? Zip. Nada. U2 was here Tuesday night. How did it go? What was the best received song? How old was the audience? How is the new Bon Jovi stuff being received? What is the number one song for people who are like me? What will be the next number one song? How do we know? Any great local bands for people who also like the music on this station? No, not the ones you're paid to recommend. What does the tribe have to say? You don't know? You don't F-ing know?

I could just keep writing. It doesn't matter what I write. The answer still is that when I listen to stations, I learn nothing. I can't, because they don't know anything about me or what I like. They are tracking other stations
airplay, not my opinions. They don't track listening choices or loyalty. They track "audio exposure". Like how many people thumbed through the Mac magazine sitting on the shelf at Borders? I connect to nobody. The station websites, Facebook, Twitter, blah blah are all excuses to talk about ticket giveaways. you'd think the entire world lived for the chance to win a ticket. All hail Ticket!

But I do get music beds that make it harder to understand the content (radio's version of pink text on a blue background). And until the day when my Mac mag makes me sit through 7 minutes of utter crap before I'm allowed to start reading the next article, radio remains the big loser in the battle to be an entertaining experience.