• by May 20, 2005

MEDIUM COOL -- We've always considered radio something of a misunderstood medium, but until this week we never understood precisely how misunderstood it actually was. As it turns out, there are precisely eight major misconceptions about the medium. How can we pinpoint that with such precision? Because we just so happened to have received an analysis from the radio industry identifying eight issues about the medium that are "misunderstood, exaggerated, or underestimated."

The report, Dispelling the 8 Major Myths About radio, was produced by the Radio Advertising Bureau, and it takes on such issues as: clutter, coolness, the youth market, creativity, branding, "listenership," and the length of radio spots.

If you read the report, you'll learn that radio isn't the "hot" medium described by media visionary Marshall McLuhan, but is actually pretty cool, innovating such media trends as "podcasting," "visual radio," webcasting, HDRadio, and of course, a variety of new listening formats including JACK, BOB, HURBAN, Progressive Talk, DOUG, CHILL, SAM, CHARLIE.