Go ahead, touch that dial – The Short Stack
Friends,
Fair warning, I'm about to tinker with an old broadcast expression.
“Don’t touch that dial” was something you heard when a tv or radio show wanted to keep you watching or listening – a call to “stay on this channel because more great stuff is on the way.”
A “channel” in media/marketing lingo is obviously different – a specific path to reach people. In audio, no mystery, the primary paths to the ears are podcasting and broadcasting (OTA, satellite, streaming). The former is for those who pick a show when they want it (~ 20 percent of U.S. adults/week); the latter, for people who want content to just come to them (~ 92 percent). Some people want both “lean in” and “lean back.”
A lot of broadcasters have caught on to the obvious: deliver great audio content as podcasts too, and that smaller-but-extremely-valuable group of listeners gets to experience that greatness. Broadcasters aren’t leaving the channel they’re traditionally more comfortable with, they’re expanding to a new one. It’s a new kind of “touching that dial.”
It’s less common to see the inverse – podcasters expanding to broadcast – but it shouldn’t be. Limit listenership and you limit growth.
We’re talking a lot about both sides these days – specifically about letting technology make “channel expansion” easier. Have a look at our latest three-minute video on that.
And look for a lot more on the subject soon. Don’t touch that dial.
Rockie Thomas , CSO 
Hollywood doesn’t understand just how specific a genre audio is. I wouldn’t say they think it’s easy to do, but they do think that if you’ve had success in other formats that you can easily plug in audio … there’s a unique skill set that [audio professionals] have developed.
There is another issue here that isn’t getting much play, which is that the alleged independent third-party ad verification on YouTube and across its network does not actually meet the standards any rational being would have for “independent” or “verification.”
A huge portion of the population values a more “lean back” experience forged in radio, where all the listener has to do is tune in. Podcasters need those audiences too. That capability is here with SoundStack Podcast-to-Broadcast. CRO Rockie Thomas walks Bryan Barletta through in our next deep dive with Sounds Profitable.
