Will the radio be eliminated?

Theoretically, there is still a lot of room to be tapped in the national broadcasting market. In 2004, the national broadcast advertising revenue was 3.89 billion yuan, accounting for about 6% of the total media advertising; According to TNS, an American research company, American radio advertisements accounted for about 8% of the national media advertisements in the same period. However, the reality in China is that many radio stations are already full of advertisements. Only by changing the daily 24 hours to 25 hours can we meet the needs of advertisers and increase the advertising revenue of radio stations. However, the frequency space in many cities is limited. If any FM is added in Beijing, it will interfere with other frequencies. And there is basically no possibility of increasing the frequency. In this case, according to the past and present development of broadcasting, it is predicted that there will be five development trends in the future broadcasting market competition.

First, the floating population competing for a fixed place.

At the end of last century, the broadcasting market was basically dominated by music stations. The music played by FM radio station has the effect of sound quality and less interference, and its accompanying media characteristics have attracted the favor of many listeners. At the beginning of this century, with the improvement of people's living standards, the number of private cars began to soar. At the same time, the traffic situation can't keep up with the increase of vehicles, which leads to more and more serious traffic congestion. Drivers urgently need to know the road information anytime and anywhere, which gave birth to the second spring of the broadcasting industry-the rise of traffic broadcasting. In Beijing, Chengdu, Shanghai and other big cities with a large number of private cars, traffic broadcasting creates an output value of hundreds of millions of yuan every year. Many radio stations aim at the huge market for cars and people. Many radio stations aim at this group of people, and even regard the audience share of private cars as the core competitiveness of radio stations. The swarming competition leads to the division of market space, serious homogenization of positioning, increased operating costs and reduced profits.

Due to the limited potential market space of the mobile crowd on mobile vehicles, it can be predicted that another market with great potential-the mobile crowd in fixed places will be the competitive target of the future broadcasting market. The so-called floating population in fixed places refers to the floating population in fixed public places such as major shopping malls, shopping centers, KFC and McDonald's restaurants, mainly referring to customers in these places. This market is relative to mobile people on mobile vehicles, and its potential is very huge, because:

1. Every city has countless shopping malls, shopping centers and other public places, and the number of customers shopping and spending in them every day is amazing; 2. This part of the people who are shopping and spending have strong spending power, which is the goal of many advertisers and the effectiveness of advertising is high; 3. Due to the accompanying media nature of broadcasting, the arrival rate of broadcasting in public places will be higher than that of building TV and mobile TV; 4. Because this group of people are implementing consumption behavior, accompanying broadcast can play an immediate guiding role and the advertising effect is good; Compared with building TV and mobile TV, radio is cheaper and easier to install.

Now some radio stations are more or less aware of this potential market space and are increasing their penetration into these places. During the Athens Olympic Games in August, 2004, China People's Broadcasting Station "Voice of the City" broadcast the Olympic program "Voice of the City" in all McDonald's restaurants in Beijing. During the May Day holiday in 2005, City Voice contacted some shopping malls and parks in Beijing to broadcast programs in these places. Moreover, many large markets, such as Building Materials City, are also broadcasting the programs of the Voice of the City. The Voice of Music of China Central Radio has taken similar measures. But in general, these measures are sporadic and unsystematic, and have not yet formed a scale.

In order to compete for the floating population in fixed places, we must first realize the change of program content. Today, due to the influence of traffic station mode on the broadcasting industry, many radio stations now locate programs, program styles, program schedules, advertising time slots, advertising varieties, etc. according to the needs of floating people on vehicles. It is all to meet the needs of the moving people in the car. In order to compete for the floating population in the fixed place, the broadcast must meet the needs of the floating population in the fixed place, and the program content must be adjusted to adapt to the floating population in the fixed place. For example, in music, we should emphasize accompaniment, focus on light music and soothing music, highlight service content, adjust advertising varieties, increase overall advertising time, reduce the duration of individual advertisements and so on.

Second, segmentation and anti-segmentation

Since1early 1990s, the national radio station has been gradually specialized and subdivided. Broadcasting is also on the road to revival because of subdivision. By the end of 2005, there were 273 central, provincial and provincial radio stations in China (excluding Hongkong, Macao Special Administrative Region and Taiwan Province Province), providing 2 146 sets of radio programs and producing 1. 1.9 million hours of radio programs. A number of excellent frequencies, columns and programs have emerged in radio stations at all levels, such as CCTV's The Voice of China, The Sound of Music, Qingdao Radio News Channel 1377 Morning News, traffic frequencies of some local stations, etc., which have become spiritual pillars and life companions of listeners. At present, the national broadcast population coverage rate is as high as 94.48%, and more and more listeners begin to value this traditional media with strong "accompaniment".

With the further refinement of broadcast frequency, the trend of program content specialization and audience segmentation of specialized radio stations will become more and more obvious, and more frequencies will position programs as serving only a certain audience. In the reform of frequency specialization, Beijing, Shanghai, Guangdong, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Shenzhen and other radio stations introduced specialized frequencies earlier, and many frequencies became strong brands with distinctive features in local media. According to the survey, since the frequency specialization reform, many radio stations have been favored by advertisers, and the media arrival rate is as high as 40%.

But in general, the degree of subdivision of the radio and television market is not enough. The frequency of professional radio stations in many cities is only a relatively subdivided frequency. For example, the music broadcast of Beijing TV Station is a typical and efficient professional frequency in China, but it is only a "comprehensive" professional radio frequency compared with foreign professional radio stations. A mature broadcasting market should be very meticulous in content positioning. Even music frequency can be divided into many frequencies or time periods, such as classical music, pop music, country music and rock music, to meet the needs of listeners with different interests. However, many radio stations are still competing for the integrated frequency, trying to catch all the listeners. Some radio stations have embarked on the road of segmentation, but under the pressure of short-term competition, trying to win as many listeners as possible and returning to the old road of comprehensive stations is not satisfactory.

In the media environment with diversified information sources, it is difficult to impress the audience if the broadcast is "broadcast" and becomes a mass media. Only by relying on its own characteristics and grasping specific people in specific occasions is the way out. It can be predicted that the broadcast market space will be more subdivided, and the special preferences of the minority will be satisfied through more subdivision frequencies, so as to win more audiences and occupy a larger market share through more subdivision.

After the segmentation is completed and a stable audience is established, it is necessary to implement anti-segmentation. The "subdivision" of professional frequency is the greatest common denominator of locking the target and finding the needs of the target audience; "Anti-subdivision" is the basis of broadening frequency. Only by satisfying the minority's preference for the greatest common denominator, grasping the target audience and satisfying the common interests of both the minority and the public can we win more target audiences.

However, anti-subdivision can only be implemented after subdivision is completed. At present, there is a phenomenon in the broadcasting market, that is, the subdivision process can't wait to be in line with the comprehensive frequency, which is caused by many radio stations' quick success and instant benefit. In order to expand the space of broadcasting market, it is necessary to grasp the correct implementation of segmentation and the opportunity of anti-segmentation.

Third, regionalization and anti-regionalization

In the broadcasting market in the next few years, the trend of regionalization and anti-regionalization will develop simultaneously. Regionalization refers to the regionalization of broadcasting. Similar to newspapers, broadcasting is a regional media, and listeners in different places have different tastes and needs. Service information and traffic information are only applicable to local listeners. Therefore, only local radio stations can gain people's favor. The fourth program of CCTV was changed to "Voice of the City", aiming at the urban population in Beijing, in order to highlight the regional characteristics and urban features.

Anti-regionalization refers to the cross-regional operation of radio stations. Including syndicated mode and cross-regional cooperation management. Because the broadcast program is easy to copy and the coverage area of the broadcast is limited, it will not cause trouble if the program played in place A is repeated in place B; Therefore, realizing the syndication mode of program resources can reduce the production cost of broadcast programs and improve the utilization efficiency of program resources. Radio stations in various cities have joined forces with Lian Heng to enjoy radio programs, and the programs are anti-regionalized, which conforms to the objective law of broadcasting development.

On May 18, 2005, Voice of the City led 82 city radio stations across the country to establish the "China City Broadcasting Union". Wu, director of City Voice, admitted that China City Broadcasting Union is only a mutual aid organization now. As for whether it will be marketized in the future, it is not in the topic now. The key is to "set the stage first", because this cross-regional program cooperation is the general trend.

Fourth, diversified development and industrial chain development

Compared with newspapers, the development of broadcasting is limited by time. It is impossible to change 24 hours a day into 25 hours, and it is impossible to increase too many advertisements. A single frequency can't increase the total amount of advertisements like newspaper expansion. Disney, News Corporation and other internationally renowned media companies all take the road of expanding media extension space based on brands.

Realizing industrial diversification is conducive to expanding the space of radio and television market, integrating resources and dispersing business risks. This will be a major trend of broadcasting development in the future. Now the national radio stations are actively implementing the diversified development strategy. Liu Xiaolong, director of the Voice of Music of China National Broadcasting Station, is very interested in developing extension products: "After five years, the main income of broadcasting business must not be advertising, but extension products, because listeners listen to programs, not advertisements. If listeners like this frequency more and more, it should be that there are more programs and fewer advertisements. After the brand of' Sound of Music' is formed, what we have to do is to extend it to broadcast products, such as operating local frequencies. "

Beijing Music Broadcasting is a radio station that implemented diversification strategy earlier, and its director Shao Yun's goal is to establish all-media communication based on broadcasting. Through broadcasting resources, operating performances, membership, wireless services, magazines, music promotion and other secondary development. We will establish a new broadcasting industry chain.

The Voice of Music and the Voice of the City of China Central Broadcasting Station also have relevant measures. The Sound of Music changed the original CCTV magazine International Music Exchange into The Sound of Music. Although advertisements are still in the cultivation stage, magazines are out of stock. Director Liu Xiaolong also intends to use the brand influence of The Sound of Music to manage artists' performances.

5. Digital broadcasting will become the leading role in the market.

Because the operating cost of the radio station is relatively low, the profit space of the radio station is large. Many radio leaders revealed: "As long as you give me an FM, I can make money." However, the current situation is that the FM space in many cities is full, and adding any FM will cause interference to other frequencies. The emerging digital audio broadcasting only needs to occupy 64K bandwidth, and the ground transmission power covering the same area is only 1/6 to110 of FM broadcasting. A region can accommodate hundreds of digital broadcasting frequencies, so in the future, due to this characteristic of digital broadcasting, countless frequencies will be added to realize the ideal of broadcasting segmentation and become the protagonist of the market.

Digital broadcasting (DAB) is the third generation broadcasting after traditional AM and FM broadcasting. Compared with traditional broadcasting, digital broadcasting not only has the characteristics of narrow channel, but also has the advantages of high-speed mobile reception, multimedia reception, excellent sound quality, small transmission power, large coverage area, high spectrum utilization rate and strong anti-interference ability, and can greatly improve the broadcasting coverage by using satellites.

Wang Xiaohui, deputy director of Voice of China, believes that in the era of digital broadcasting, broadcasting will no longer be a single media, and its meaning will also change. Digital broadcasting breaks through the limitation that traditional broadcasting only transmits sound programs, and can also provide multimedia services including audio, video and data. Receiving devices are not limited to radios, and mobile devices such as notebook computers, palmtop computers and mobile phones can receive digital broadcast multimedia programs.

In network digital broadcasting, the emerging "podcast" has become popular. Foreign countries, such as BBC, CBC Radio and Boston Radio, have successively set up "podcast" channels, which broadcast the content uploaded by "podcast" through traditional radio stations and make their own programs into sound files for people to download online. Apple's iTunes(MP3 player) has started to support listening to podcasts. On July 28th, 2005, China Central Broadcasting Network Galaxy Network Radio started broadcasting.

The biggest limitation of digital broadcasting is the popularity of receivers. The price of digital broadcast receiver is on the high side. Car receivers and mobile phones that can receive digital broadcasts are new products. However, with the development of industrial chain, new industries related to broadcasting will be formed in terms of content, equipment and related data services. The R&D Center of Shanghai Oriental Pearl Company predicts that Shanghai digital broadcasting will bring 200 billion industrial chain value in the future. Qin, general manager of Yuelong Digital Broadcasting, said that digital broadcasting will bring more resources and more development possibilities to radio stations. (Author: Xinhua News Agency)