“Once a new technology rolls over you, if you’re not part of the steamroller, you’re part of the road.” – Stewart Brand

Mediapost put up a blog that gives us insight into our future. Younger people aren’t liatening to radio as much as previous young generations. It’s not a pretty picture, but it is an accurate one.

Radio isn’t losing ground because it’s uncool or passe’, it’s losing ground because there are so many alternatives, and there are still only 60 minutes in an hour. The new media listening has to come from somewhere, and it looks like we’re it. We’re especially impacted because so much of the new media can be personalized to individual tastes.

Fortunately there are different people with different needs. Our unique content isn’t the music anymore, it’s everything else packaged around the music. That doesn’t mean the music is unimportant, it means that it’s not the end-all. Our future success lies in creating a specific experience that can’t be duplicated on an iPod-especially our talent. In other words, content that is unique and compelling.

Unfortunately radio in general has been doing the opposite. We’ve been stripping that airwaves of creativity and talent. Then we think that a station Facebook page and streaming of the terrestrial signal is new media.

I’m reminded of that old Pogo cartoon that read, “We have met the enemy and he is us.”