iHeartradio-Firings-Bankrupt-Media-Future-Bob Davis Podcast 893

Radio Talk

I don’t always talk about radio in my podcasts these days. However when something most noteworthy happens, I do. Learn more in iHeartradio-Firings-Bankrupt-Media-Future-Bob Davis Podcast 893.

Displacements Or Firings?

Recently the biggest radio company in the United States unexpectedly announced it was firing over a thousand employees. Especially relevant is the fact that the company used such obtuse language in its press releases, it confused news writers and listeners.

You Got A Future?

Moreover this event has kicked off a lot of discussions about the ‘future of radio‘ in this country. In addition suddenly all my friends and clients are asking me to comment.

Not much

First of all, radio doesn’t have much of a future. At least not as we have known it. I’ll tell you why in iHeartradio-Firings-Bankrupt-Media-Future-Bob Davis Podcast 893 and in a recent podcast I did about the history of top forty radio. You can find it here.

Content Creators Struggle Too

Furthermore all not rosy in the digital media world either.

It’s All About Revenue

While it seems like everyone who has ever worked in the radio business has an opinion about how iHeart ‘screwed up’, the bottom line is revenue. An industry that scaled to a certain point based on the old business model, simply can’t support that scale anymore.

Digital Marketing

In contrast various forms of digital marketing are all the rage, sucking all the revenue from ‘traditional’ forms of advertising as well as media production. Digital platforms are producing huge numbers while we haven’t quite figured out how to monetize individual content creators very well yet.

Disruptive Technologies Rule

Finally we’re living through an extraordinary moment in history. Due to disruptive technologies we’ve seen more traditional businesses destroyed and whole industries laid to waste. Broadcast radio and television are just two of them.

Tower of Babel

Even more, considering the tower of babel that is American Corporate Business Speak, I wonder how well other industries and businesses are actually doing.

On The Beach

In conclusion it’s tough to lose your job no matter what you do. Because of the realities in radio these days, I am afraid there will be many more people on the beach.

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iHeartradio-Firings-Bankrupt-Media-Future-Bob Davis Podcast 893

 

 

Podcast 549

Hillary’s 911. Finally the mainstream media is picking apart the vagaries of the Clinton response to her health scare in New York on September 11th, 2016. After months of harping on the republicans with Trump this and Trump that, suddenly the former Secretary of State is the lead story, and it is not flattering. After Democratic Presidential Candidate Hillary Clinton had to leave a 9/11 memorial event, and collapsed on the street before she got into a van, every news source, advocacy media, You Tube Video, Podcaster, and blogger including yours truly, is speculating on what her problem might be. The answer? No one knows. No one knows no matter what they tell you. No one will know whether Hillary Clinton becomes President, or loses the race to Donald Trump. In the short term the video from this weekend is damaging enough that one would expect future polls – state by state polls – might dip in favor of Donald Trump. On the other hand, don’t count your chickens Trump supporters. First, there’s always the sympathy vote, and second democrats might conclude that Clinton would make a better president on her worst day than Trump on his best. In a race characterized by high negatives, the two worst presidential candidates in a long time continue a comedy of errors, lurching from one rhetorical flourish to another, up to and including Clinton’s latest health scare. Either way, voters will have to make a choice in November to vote for one of the mainline candidates – unless she drops out and don’t count on that – or one of the so called independent candidates. Meanwhile speculation continues with social media denizens and yes, conspiracy theorists armchair and otherwise, telling you she’s an alien, suffering from Parkinson’s Disease, a cancer victim, a stroke victim, a victim of brain damage and anything else that can be ‘proven’ by slow motion video, short cuts of her responses to question, speeches on the campaign trail and whatever people can get their hands on. None of it proves anything other than, we don’t know. We won’t know in the near future and we may never know. We’re still going to have to vote. As predicted the democrats have trotted out pictures of FDR in a wheel chair, campaign staff are crying ‘mea culpa’ in response to questions about who knew what and why the media wasn’t told about ‘pneumonia’ and on and on. Yep. Hillary’s 911. All Hillary All The Time. One more necessary breaking news political podcast in this worst-election-in-memory-and-maybe-in-all-history podcast. Sponsored by Brush Studio at the West End and Ryan Plumbing and Heating of Saint Paul.