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For decades, I have been intensively involved in securing the future of the radio business, or more precisely the advertising business of private radio publishers. It is a difficult one, as we know. The media landscape is changing just as quickly as the predictions about business development and the future of traditional radio. Sometimes it is online audio that will supposedly replace radio. Sometimes it's media convergence, sometimes AI is hyped as a game changer. The analyses, forecasts and recommendations change and often contradict each other. Nevertheless, the "experts" usually sell their concept as the only right one.

Online booking and programmatic are currently being touted in the industry as the sole and revolutionary saviors for the radio business. Everything is to be turned upside down, the current systems replaced or abolished and the entire advertising business shifted to a single online platform. No stone is to be left unturned. All of this would work "quite simply" and even more cheaply, as certain platform operators claim. Such grandiose and unsubstantiated promises rightly make people suspicious.

So what to do? Which path to take? Which business model to rely on?

After 30 years in business and consulting, I can humbly say that I know the radio and audio industry inside out. As co-founder and managing director of the market-leading advertising management system "amily" in the DACH region and one of the first digital trading platforms for linear radio advertising "amy", I would like to say that there are simply no "one-size-fits-all solutions and patent remedies". The market participants, their interests and business models - from mini local stations to global media groups - are far too heterogeneous for that.

The reality of the radio advertising business consists of many models with many nuances. All of them together have been securing advertising revenue and thus thousands of jobs for years. Experience teaches us not to throw these models completely overboard in favor of a supposedly current trend. The same applies to IT programs and systems that radio stations and marketers may have been using for decades.

I am therefore firmly convinced that there is no high-risk "either-or", but only a solid "both-and" that is sustainable in the long term. The traditional radio advertising business is still a strong source of income that must not be jeopardized under any circumstances. This is shown, among other things, by the advertising revenue from online audio, which grew far less strongly than its protagonists predicted.

Instead, I recommend that every publisher embark on a continuous, sustainable and low-risk process of change and modernization that takes the teams with it, optimizes proven processes and systems and harmoniously integrates new approaches, technologies and models.

Integration and evolution

I am convinced that an integrative, evolutionary approach is the best way to drive forward the further development of a functioning business. Integrative means that existing and new business models can coexist. Harmoniously coordinated. The existing continues to produce, new things are integrated and new things are created from them

This is not "revolutionary", but evolutionary, risk-minimized and therefore realistic. In this way, change is feasible and sustainably successful for every company at its own pace. deswegen realistisch. So ist Veränderung für jedes Unternehmen in seinem individuellen Tempo machbar und nachhaltig erfolgreich.

Convergence

Let's not kid ourselves: After 15 years of online audio marketing, this source of monetization has developed into a good supplement at best. Imagine if you, as a radio publisher, had thrown the traditional radio business (IO) overboard to put all your eggs in this basket. That would probably have been your financial ruin. Because, as mentioned above, traditional radio is still the mainstay of our business.

My recipe is therefore: expand and integrate. Open up new sources without neglecting radio as a central source of income. Embark on new marketing channels without throwing proven ones overboard.

Networking

Every company is a complex structure in which many players and systems fulfill their function and are interconnected. Through clever networking and smooth communication, different strategies and the best solutions for specific tasks and functions can be combined. This is the basis for everything else and guarantees greater flexibility and independence than relying on a single solution.

Automation

Automation is not everything. But everything is nothing without automation.

It's certainly not quite that dramatic, but if you want to survive in a fast-moving competitive environment, you can't do without highly efficient, automated processes and functions. And this applies to all areas of business operations: from lead generation to billing.

Programmatic

The automation of sales and booking processes plays a central role. In my opinion, programmatic trading of linear advertising inventory on online platforms is certainly not the "one true future" of the radio business, as some claim. However, it is an additional source of revenue for the radio business that every radio publisher should tap into if possible. A third, largely automated way alongside the tried and tested local and national marketing that many advertisers and agencies already prefer for their campaigns.

It will be easiest for publishers if "real" radio inventory can be offered directly and automatically from their existing advertising management system and bookings made electronically can be entered directly back into the campaign management system. And, of course, it must be ensured that the sellers or publishers retain control over the use of their inventory. Only they should decide which part of their inventory is released for e-commerce, when and under what conditions. And which customers advertise in their program or not.

Any automation approach would be incomplete if it did not map the entire process. In other words, the advantage of automated or programmatic inventory marketing only really comes into play if the advertising sold in this way is also automatically transmitted to the broadcasting systems, played out and billed.

In my opinion, "programmatic" for radio is a seductive but risky hype if publishers abandon their business model overnight and radically adapt their marketing to it. Programmatic, on the other hand, is a huge opportunity to reduce the gap to the digital competition (keyword GAFA) and win new customers. Provided that the technology is integrated into the existing business model in an evolutionary way and developed further.

Stay tuned for the future.
Yours, Nico Aprile 

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