Futuring

What's this you say? What does my future bring, what is the future of media, of radio, of television and of print? 📻 📺 🗞️

If you're to visit the many forums (is that even a thing anymore?), or groups or pages on social media, it's all doom and gloom, "radio is dead" or "consolidation killed the medium". It's like the old man yelling "you kids get off my lawn!".

With years, comes change, with change comes advancement, with advancement comes the possibility of consolidation. It's not the Mary Tyler Moore Show anymore. And what's with the blame game anyway? Let's keep the momentum going and keep this fantastic medium afloat, shall we?

I'm still getting calls from excited managers looking for new ways to keep their audience informed. And they're not complaining that the audience is thinner, if anything, they are still ear to the radio, especially if there's a local event or tragedy they want to know about. You can't get that on Satellite radio folks. And you lose the immediacy if you're waiting to read it online. But I should add, you need your local newspaper too, especially online.

I am most definitely welcoming other mediums that align with radio, with open ears (and eyes). And I am not talking about A.I., but it does have its place (or so I'm told 😏).

I read a great story in the Columbia Journalism Review about a young woman who said she didn't know what was going on in the news. She said she was inundated by what she was reading/seeing on social media, but it wasn't penetrating. So, she went about reading news out loud on TikTok, ya know like back in the day when we gathered around the radio or TV set to find out what was happening in the world around us?

And so Kelsey Russell quickly became a thing. Reading from actual newspapers and magazines and telling her tens of thousands of followers that it's much more fun to read news the old-fashioned way. Who knew?! She went heavy, and she went light, sharing news about the Congressional budget bill and the latest from Sports Illustrated. I love how she outlined that it's a healthier way to consume news, because it's not force fed to you by an algorithm.

It doesn't mean everyone needs to run and get a TikTok account ya all (but, why not?), it just means, paying attention to non-partisan news, news that has nothing to do with politics, and sometimes does, news that matters to humans everywhere, especially local news, is always going to be important. And having that news delivered to you by a human with thoughts and feelings, and blood and skin, is crucial.