By Holland Cooke
Consultant
Linear broadcast media have never been more challenged. Internet video now commands far more viewing time than over-the-air TV. And their own networks are hijacking viewers! Your local NBC station tells you to watch Peacock. ABC points you to Disney+. CBS pushes Paramount+. Affiliates are effectively forced to promote their own competition.
Music radio is – at best – holding the line against streaming. News/talk radio’s information staples are more-available on smartphones and smart speakers, and its monologue‑heavy style feels less inviting than social media dialogue.
Radio has what TV envies. We’re in-car, and still #1 there.
TV has what radio needs. With more local news HR, they’re in more places.
Both need more promotion than they can afford.
- Radio still delivers the most cost-efficient reach and frequency in the local market. When I programmed WTOP, Washington, we and what’s now WUSA9 (the former WTOP-TV) had a handshake deal to grab whatever we wanted from each other, with on-air credit. True story: The news director from NBC4 offered that “you can use OUR stuff and not even SAY it’s ours. Just STOP saying that so-and-so ‘told Channel 9…’”
- And radio-using-local-TV-meteorologists is a win-win. Weather is the #1 reason people watch local news, so TV stations promote it heavily. Radio using their weather people underlines – and stands on the broad shoulders of – the TV station’s weather image and delivers radio habit-forming content with a pedigree.
Local TV and radio are the last two mass-reach media in town, with neither medium losing to the other. Resourceful collaboration makes all the sense in the world. Brainstorm.
Holland Cooke (HollandCooke.com) is a consultant working the intersection of broadcasting and the Internet. Follow HC on Twitter @HollandCooke and connect on LinkedIn