Being the student that I am why not do some research here. Media seems to be expanding to ever growing segments of niche markets. With technological improvements choices of what you can listen to are increasing hand over fist. Is this good or bad? Explain.....you are under oath.

I earn my living by being niched. Scouts honor.

And now this niche sports report

High school Womens,junior varsity, losing field hockey scores, N.E. Ohio edition.



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Tune in Sunday at 1 Pm for the recap.

I personally think it's good over the longer term. It's good because we will be forced to evolve better means for choosing, and or means and methods for people, who might be better at choosing, to help choose for us and deliver that.

We will develop these things, or we will begin to limit the choices somehow. It could be too much is too much and we are not ready. If we see Internet publishing monitized, for example, that's a good sign we are not ready --or the power structure is not ready. Maybe that's the same thing in the end...

Here in the now and near term, it's kind of bad. Most of the population has lived a significant portion of their lives with limited choices and some forced implied trust that comes with that.

Now that it's essentially wide open, self affirmation trumps healthy consumption. Our sharply divided politics are an example of that.

IMHO, this will pass as newer generations come up and adapt and improve.

There will always be lots of self-affirmation though. It's just easier to reinforce existing mindsets than it is to challenge them. For any given person, there is a balance between exposing and diluting too much of the self, and not nurturing healthy growth and improvement of the self.

Having far greater choice, in the form of these niches, really presents a means to make this balance more granular. It will be possible to significantly vary in one's media consumption, yet be similarly informed as ones peers.

Some of us will possess the drive to do that, consume what we will and end up just fine. Others might not have that drive, but will depend on others to deliver this added value.

(and that filtering, delivering, choosing, is something that Radio will remain well positioned to do, BTW)

Really, we should see some greater focus on these skills in schools, or maybe just through social norms. Probably the latter will be the primary driver as nobody wants to own up to just drinking the kool-aid, given so many options.

Takes one willful ignorance excuse off the table, at the least!

Thank you Missing_kskd. I keep hearing people say the increasing of choices and expanding of technology will kill radio. Do you think radio will just die as the doom and gloomers say? What is your opinion?

I don't think radio is going anywhere. Too much infrastructure and momentum. For everybody now, I think, we've always had radio.

Take a look at the Impact thread on the politics side. Audio is a powerful thing. This means radio is a powerful thing.

So it sees ups and downs, because of politics and greed, but it's nature really hasn't changed at all. We haven't changed either, and until we do, radio will do what it always does when people listen.

"Do you think radio will just die as the doom and gloomers say?"

Are you talking about the Gloom and Doomers of the 50's?

I had a professor just go off on media and how magaizine are dead and radio will follow it. He really disliked older media forms.

Not to lighten the mood..but back to niches. If I was running a Christian Rap Station and paid well would anyone of you host the "Rollin with Jesus" morning show? With enthusiam and excitement?

RECAP: (see Above)

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It's still called "broadcasting."

In order to win, you must reach an audience of significant size...why not shoot for the largest among all stations in the metro? It's also about being the most efficient station in satifsying that audience...which means enough TSL to win the 1/4 share battle among the target audience.

A niche format can work if it accomplishes this. If not, it likely will be an "also ran" financially for those running it.

Here's a interesting article on mass audience vs. niche from IBM.

http://www-03.ibm.com/press/us/en/pressrelease/22570.wss

Thank you for the article.