Stephan Sloan Addresses 'Future Of Radio' Conference

Findings From Conference

MEDIA SERVICES GROUP's STEPHAN SLOAN told the Future of Radio Conference that in 2007, half of all Internet listening was being done to 81 of 10,000 streams. In 2011, the data shows that half of all listening will be done to 161 streams, but there are now more streams than there are people listening to the Internet.

SLOAN also addressed the relationship of retail sales to radio revenue, which he's been tracking since 1980. In 2000, at the peak of the business, radio was doing over 0.6% of retail sales in revenue. In 2010 it was only 0.34% -- and the forecast is almost flat going out to 2013. That’s lower than the BIA/KELSEY forecast, which did not see radio getting back to '08 levels through 2013.

SLOAN also talked about the difficulty of innovating. He said that when companies are focusing on the next quarter's financials because of worries of violating their loan covenants, it’s difficult to come up with the next great idea. You can view SLOAN’s entire presentation at www.futureofradioonline.com/videos/sloan.

According to THE FUTURE OF RADIO GROUP leader JIM HOOKER, there are four distinctly different possible futures for the industry, based upon three critical uncertainties that are driving the business. Those uncertainties are:

* Technology: Will radio be able to continue to depend on RF/towers to serve the consumer, or will radio morph into some form of "Radio App" that is more digitally based?

* Advertisers: Will the advertiser continue to value radio as a viable service to reach customers or will they spend their dollars on other media?

* Listeners: Will the listener continue to turn to radio as a source of entertainment and information or will they get those things from other sources?

Go to www.futureofradioonline.com. Under "White Papers" you can read an overview of the scenarios created in 2010 that describe the four very different possible futures the group envisions.

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