Millennials and Pandora

From today's Tom Taylor column, regarding Millennials and Pandora...

Reality check from the researcher - For Millennials, “Radio is no longer the center of the audio universe.” It faces “numerous challenges” with listeners in Kassof's latest online study of 303 respondents aged 13-34. Remember two days ago, when Kassof released data showing that 37% of Millennials say they “love FM radio” and another 45% “like it”? Here’s how Pandora matches up – 39% of Millennials “love Pandora.” Another 26% like it. Only 5% dislike it and 1% hate it. Kassof says this age group “feels just as positively, on average, about Pandora as FM. Whether you see this as good news or bad news depends on your perspective.” For a radio guy like Kassof, “It hopefully makes you and me sit up and realize that Pandora is a serious challenger.”

This whole line of resarch misses the forest for the trees, if you ask me. I still think radio needs to think differently to get Millennials. They live in a multi-media world, and radio needs to be more than just audio. It needs to have a visual element, a mobile element, and be immersed in social media and the internet. That's radio's opportunity to continually provide content, content, content. You need to be a go-to place, and not just in the car. Engage. Don't use your website as a throwaway. Don't use your facebook page to announce where your street van will be showing up. Have someone providing content all the time, and not just information about your format.

It won't translate into ratings or money immediately, which is why it doesn't happen in the shortsighted moneygrab world of broadcasting, but it will pay off by making you an important part of their lives. Some stations are doing it well. Most are not. Even Pandora doesn't really do it well. That's just my opinion as the father of a few Millennials. We used to call them "P1s" when I was in radio. Right now you've got a whole generation of P2s.