The Forecast For Radio: “Make A New Plan, Stan”

What a week!  It started at home for me in Detroit in our newly configured offices.  Like many of your businesses, the pandemic and changing workplace priorities has redefined our idea of what it means to “go to work” and what’s left of company culture.  This is something that’s been in-play for Jacobs Media and jacapps for nearly five years, dating back to when the pandemic first descended on the world.

Sadly for us, we had signed a long-term lease (what could go wrong, right?) in 2018, so it’s been an expensive and frustrating few years.  Finally, it’s all been sorted out.  We’re in the same space, but it is now been tri-vided with two other companies.  For both of our companies, we occupy less space, and it’s better all the way around.

I know a lot of your radio stations are trying to figure out a way forward as it pertains to space, culture, and expense.  I walk into cavernous stations, once bustling with activity, but now looking more like abandoned businesses.

Trying to configure new space and dealing with buildings and landlords can be a messy practice.  I hope your organizations are able to come to grips with your own office space dilemmas in the coming year.

Then it off to New York City for Radio Ink’s “Forecast 2025” conference.  This was a challenging event to book this year given the many forks in the road being faced by the radio broadcasting industry in the U.S.

In fact, if “inflection points” was a drinking game, there would have been a lot of hammered broadcasters at the Harvard Club this week.

As we near the 5-year mark since COVID began, it was clear to me radio has still not recovered from the throes of the pandemic.  Session after session at “Forecast’ was full of verbal hand-wringing, trying to navigate through the economy, the expanding media landscape, and broadcast radio’s increasingly smaller role in the grand scheme of things.

Even radio veterans know the medium has long-struggled to attain a level of respect amidst media giants.  In the old days, radio battled newspapers and television – the media behemoths of the last half of the last century.  Now, of course, it’s the Internet that has assumed the star role, continuously sucking more dollars out of the pie.

Radio has been reduced to a bit part in this fast-moving mass media production, carving out a measly 5% of the pie, depending on whose forecast you believe.  Even the experts aren’t sure of where we’re headed.  Forget the next five years – no one’s feeling any certainty about the next five months.  And with a new administration assuming power in just a few weeks, there was only a fair amount of cautious optimism about its potential effect on declawing the FCC and ushering in a period of new deregulation.

Oddly enough, I moderated an executive radio panel at the FCC exactly five years ago.  At that session, leaders from Jeff Warshaw to Albert Liggins to Caroline Beasley expressed the need for a relaxation of ownership rules.  With a new/old President moving back into the White House, that might actually happen.

But to what end?  Who would be the buyers in a newly deregulated radio broadcasting industry?  A number of panels debated station valuations moving forward, and bullish predictions were somewhere in the slim-to-none category.  While it never was mentioned during these discussions, the only buyers I’ve noticed these past few years have been Christian networks and organizations.  And I can tell you even they are questioning that logic moving forward.  What’s the best way for them to get The Word out?  Christian radio audiences are aging right alongside commercial and public radio cumes, a fast-moving train the industry simply cannot slow down.

It was hard for this glass-half-empty grizzled consultant to find a whole lot of optimism in these “Forecast” prognostications.

So, when it came time for my discussion with the Consumer Technology Association’s “futurist,” Brian Comiskey (pictured above), we kept it upbeat.  We talked about instilling an innovation culture into our station organizations, how all companies are becoming tech companies, and corporate pivots that make the most of technological opportunities.

By all accounts, we hit goal.  As one attendee wrote me yesterday, “There was so much ‘sky is falling’ conversation. True innovation is the only real path to make radio valuable again.”

It’s hard for me to argue with that logic, another reason we’ll be back in Las Vegas in just eight weeks to soak in that atmosphere of optimism Paul and have enjoyed these past 17 years via our annual vigil to CES.  If you walked out of “Forecast” (or this year’s budget meetings) looking for a ray of sunshine and some much-needed positive vibes, you’re invited to join us in January.  Details here.

In my session with Brian, we unfortunatey started on a down note.  Brian had told me months ago the Forecast invite was fortuitous because CTA was holding an event in Manhattan the day before.

It turned out to be the grand announcement of a new keynoter for CES 2025:

SiriusXM

That’s right. Satellite radio will take center stage this year at C Space, now held every year at the Aria.  C Space is a series of fascinating panels, conversations, and keynotes from some of the biggest media and marketing companies in the U.S. and the world, always revolving around that notion that “every company is a technology company.”

The SXM keynoter will be their CEO Jennifer Witz, soon to be celebrating her fourth year leading that company.  Witz formerly held executive roles at MGM and Viacom before taking over the reins at the nation’s only satellite radio operation.  While she has directed many initiatives since assuming the corner office at SXM, Witz is has focused her efforts on streaming and the company’s multi-faceted mobile app.

She has also made her mark on elevating the SXM brand, and that figures into her plans at CES.  By navigating into a keynote position, Witz will welcome the bright light and the buzz at “the world’s most powerful tech event.”

Paul and I have witnessed the process over the years – lower-profile companies or brands you don’t associate with tech all of us a sudden position themselves on the CES stage.  In recent years, John Deere, Delta Airlines, and L’oreal hit goal.  Last year, it was Walmart who, in our opinion, took “best of show” honors in 2024.  Interestingly, Delta is back this year, promising a “first of it’s kind” keynote at Sphere, a landmark our tour took in this past January.

So, for SXM, their keynote will undoubtedly be a great showcase for their efforts to better position themselves as a burgeoning media franchise.  Early buzz indicates Witz will be interviewing Ashley Flowers, host of the SXM podcast “Crime Junkie.”

You can expect more announcements and guests at the event, as keynoters typically keep this content close to their vests.

Symbolically, this is an important moment for SXM, who will udnoubtedly send more staffers to CES as keynote companies always do to maximize their presence and their investment.

And that raises the question, “Why couldn’t broadcast radio do the same thing at CES 2026?”

The optics of these appearances are uniformly fantastic, and they are always successful at commuicating evolution, change, and innovation – three attributes radio is in dire need of if “Forecast 2025” is any indication of the industry’s slumping posture heading into what may be, at best, another challenging and unpredictable year.

I know there has been strain between CTA and NAB over the past several years, and particularly lately with the “AM For Every Vehicle Act,” creating opposition and even acrimony between the two organizations.

Maybe the play is to put together companion keynotes:  the NAB at CES, and CTA at NAB.

Let’s put the gloves down and come to the obvious conclusion each side would benefit from key exposure at the other’s signature event.

“Forecast” doesn’t prescribe solutions; its purpose is, by definition, to “forecast” the year ahead.

Congrats to Deborah Parenti and her fine staff for another strong conference during a most difficult time for broadcast radio.

So, now let’s stop talking about it.

Let’s fix it.

This could be the year you check CES off your “bucket list.”  Join our curated CES 2025 tour.  You’ll learn, be inspired, and have fun.  Info here.