• by Corinna Wu , March 2, 2009

Industry insiders worry radio has been around so long that it's taken for granted. "If you invented this medium today - with its ability to be local, ubiquitous, and its low cost of transmission - everybody would marvel at it," says Jeffrey Smulyan, CEO of Emmis Communications. "But because it's been around for almost 100 years, everyone says, 'It's just radio.'" In response, the National Association of Broadcasters, the HD Digital Radio Alliance, and the Radio Advertising Bureau launched Radio 2020, a campaign to remind listeners and advertisers that this century-old medium is still relevant. Part of that strategy involves encouraging the industry to integrate radio into the rapidly changing media landscape.

Radio "will be thought of as a multiplatform, multi-touch industry," predicts Kelly O'Keefe, professor and executive education director at the VCU Brandcenter in Richmond, Va. "We'll see interesting innovations as we go from platform to platform to make radio a little different."

Going digital opens up a host of possibilities. For example, some HD radios allow listeners to press a button to tag songs they like. The information gets saved to their iPods, which will then automatically download the tagged songs from iTunes - kind of a high-tech version of hitting the record button to tape a favorite song.

Still, industry experts don't foresee people abandoning the AM and FM dial. Take the introduction of the iPod a few years ago. "Everybody said, 'It's the decline of radio because people love iPods,'" says David Rehr, president and CEO of the National Association of Broadcasters. "One of the most requested accessories to an iPod is an FM adapter." With that in mind, the industry is working to get FM tuners into devices like cell phones. Many phones have them already, Rehr says, but the chips aren't turned on in the United States the way they are in Europe.

This new technology will drive changes in content, O'Keefe predicts. The ability to broadcast several alternative channels of HD programming, for example, might encourage a station to experiment and take some risks. "We'll see a much more eclectic and varied playlist world," he says. "Today's consumer wants variety in everything." More choices for the consumer will force broadcasters to create better content in order to keep their audiences, says David Goodman, president of digital media and integrated marketing at CBS Radio.

Radio will survive because its qualities are ones that people value in newer technologies: It's available everywhere, offers a wealth of content and is (generally) free. "Technology is the best friend of radio," says Goodman. "All the things that are core to radio are able to be amplified and grow as a result of technology."

And it's tough to beat the cost of the hardware needed to access such a variety of content. You can go into almost any dollar store and buy a radio for a buck; they may not be HD, but they work. "It's a very democratic medium," says O'Keefe. "No other medium can say that."