As a life-long radio guy one of the things about our industry that has always annoyed me is how we are often ten or more years behind. So, when you’re living in the present many within our industry will say you’re ahead of your time when in reality you’re accurately seeing what’s currently happening around you. While it’s understandable since we’re a hundred year old media with legitimate practices and processes we’ve honed over that time. This being stuck in the past is especially problematic at times when things are changing rapidly. Now is no doubt one of those times. In just a few short years smart glasses will replace smart phones as the dominant technology people are addicted to. This change could happen as soon as five years from now but will certainly happen within ten years. Just as smartphones changed the game for media, smart glasses will as well. Here’s what radio as an industry can do so we’re ahead of this change instead of being behind it.
Understand that it’s coming. It’s easy to look at how silly the first versions of smart glasses looked, and how expensive they were, and laugh off this prediction. But, remember, this was the first cell phone I ever carried.
It weighed too much to carry in my pocket unless I was wearing the world’s strongest belt and it cost $3,995 when it came out ($12k in today’s money). Because I work in radio mine was traded of course, but it took a LOT of inventory to pay it off. Believe it or not it worked pretty well actually, as a phone at least, no texting, no clock, no weather forecast, no games and certainly no apps that could play a radio station. At that point people thought the idea of everyone carrying around a cell phone was ludicrous. But, as technology does it evolved rapidly and soon we all were not only carrying one around, we were staring at them for hours a day. The average American’s daily screen time is 7 hours and 3 minutes per day, across all devices of course. Just like the phone, smart glasses will get better and we’ll all adapt to wearing them because it will cut down the need to stop and stare at those little screens so often. They do also have speakers which are conveniently located close to our ears and are easy to pair with wireless ear buds as well.
The main way radio can prepare for this technological shift in our listeners daily habits is by making our stations more visually appealing. This starts with capturing much more video content by putting cameras in the studio, as well as every remote setup, and teaching all talent to podcast and capture content on their phones everywhere they go on their own. Utilizing AI tools to 10x the volume of content we can affordably create out of all of that. Redesigning our station websites, apps, streaming player and our in-dash players to better house and utilize that content. Then pushing out that content to all of our station social feeds (short-form) and YouTube )long-form) to drive traffic back to the platforms we own. Finally, finding creative ways to incorporate sponsors into all of that content to take them along for the ride and underwrite the trip.
If we do all of these things we’ll be a viable option when smart glasses are more widely adopted by the public. Not to mention the fact that this also has the side benefit of helping us look better on today’s devices that everyone is already using.
However, my confidence level that our industry will take these steps isn’t particularly high because we don’t have a good track record for doing so. But, what gives me some hope is that many within radio are fully aware that they’re behind the times. They just think they’re powerless to do anything about it because of outside competition, their local economy or the state of the broader media industry in general. I can’t tell you how many broadcasters I talk to that fully admit their websites look like they were designed in the mid-90s, they don’t have anywhere near enough of a presence on social, haven’t gotten into video or podcasting and their stations have been programmed essentially the exact same way for decades because if feels comfortable and safe. All of which leads them to understand that there’s a problem that they’d like to address, they’re just unsure what the solution is or where to even begin. That’s where we can help and it starts with scheduling a free 30-minute consultation here.
What do you think, is radio ready for smart glasses? Comment below or email me at Andy@RadioStationConsultant.com.
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