The Public Radio App

Happy Monday!

As a media professional, lately I’ve been asked — no solicited, begged, beseeched — by several classical music organizations for help with their media needs.  It’s getting harder and harder for groups to promote their music in the traditional media.

Their local radio station sees the chance to compete in a bigger global space because of online streaming, so it gets big ideas and leaves the local groups behind.  The newspapers are shrinking local arts coverage as they wither up from lack of ad dollars.  Websites are proliferating like bunnies, so it’s harder and harder for individual groups to get attention.  There are so many websites out there that users end up going to aggregators to find what they’re looking for — a good reason for radio stations and arts orgs to think about collaborating.

Ironically, it’s getting easier and easier for everybody to promote themselves on new media.  Whether that promotion reaches their audience is another matter.  That’s where strategy comes in.

As technology marches on, we have more and more choices of where to get our classical music.   If you’re in front of a computer all day or have the right kind of mobile phone, you can listen to literally thousands of live performances on InstantEncore or whole orchestra broadcasts from the Chicago Symphony or the New York Philharmonic. And if you have an iPhone you can listen to hundreds of radio stations on your phone.  Check out the multitude of choices you have available on iPhone at American Public Media’s Public Radio Tuner.

The latest digital media conferences I’ve attended have been all a-twitter about social networking and getting arts orgs to use Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, etc. ad nauseum.  I have to laugh when I think about someone sitting all alone in a room at midnight talking to friends on Facebook.  Connected and disconnected at the same time.

You would be right if you think it seems like way too many choices. At some point, how do you turn off the noise?

And how do the arts orgs reach their audience?

Today I’m throwing out the questions, while I ponder the answers that the arts groups are desperately seeking.  Got any good advice for them?  I have some ideas, and I think you need to try a lot of things and constantly adapt, but I want to hear your ideas first.  Can we start a conversation?