Waiting for What's Next: More out-of-the-box
thinking from The Doc
© 2001, Terrell M. McDaniel, Ph.D.
Gavin Magazine, May
11, 2001
In the previous issue of Gavin, I applied the product adoption
curve to the current "Is Country Music Boring?" debate.
I hope that dose of industrial psychology made you not only
see things a little differently, but also made you think,
talk, imagine, plan….even scheme.
The product adoption curve is about people, not products,
but the two follow a similar pattern. Products, including
country music and country radio, have life cycles. At the
beginning of the cycle, there are few profits as companies
work to expose their products, build new channels of distribution,
and create distinctive brands or, in country's case, sounds.
In the middle stages, as the product is adopted, the excitement
grows. Everybody joins, competition heats up, the money rolls
in, and you have a lot of knock-offs. (Remember the "hat" acts?)
But at the end, the product becomes a commodity, like salt
or sugar. Price becomes a big issue. Consolidation occurs,
and there is a shake out. Growth slows because the market
has peaked. The Suits at corporate wants to cut costs. It
seems to be all about efficiency, volume and money. Some
folks can't accept this, and expect for things to just go
on like they did in the good old days. ("Why aren't
your numbers like they were in '96?") And, there is
a lot of bickering, reminiscing and grief over the loss of
something that was really great.
Take your own guess as to when the current product cycle
for country radio started. My notion is that it started with
the Class of 1990: Garth, Clint, etc. Now that era is over,
and a new one has not begun. And if one does, it will likely
reflect all of the changes that have occurred in the past
few years: consolidation, corporate mentality, profit-centered
business, and a new, more complicated relationship between
radio and records.
One of the big challenges will be centralization. In the
past, innovators and early adopters at local, mom-and-pop
stations created the new product cycles. They broke a new
record, tried a really strange new programming idea and took
other risks. If the new idea caught fire, it spread across
the format.
Nowadays, centralized decisions on programming and music,
along with corporate accountability for Big Numbers, make
innovating much harder. But if you don't grow, you rot. This
may give a new urgency to the questions posed in the previous
article on product adoption. Exactly where are the innovators
now? Are they free to innovate? Are there corporate mechanisms
for innovation that can escape the pressures for Big Numbers
Today? Has anybody with power and influence tackled this
dilemma yet? Looking at your own situation, do you personally
have any perspective or wisdom to share?
These questions are urgent because we are not sure when/if
a new product cycle will begin for country radio. There are
no guarantees. Several new media are setting up to challenge
radio's power. The old business model that made for such
a good marriage between radio and records is under pressure.
Country radio has "refreshed" the old product all
that it can. The new era will be ushered in not by an extension
of what country radio is now, but by a revolution.
The question is, who will lead it, and how? And, given the
who-would-have-thought-it nature of revolutions, is there
any reason why it can't be you?
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