Radio, Television (Electronic Media) - The Impact of New Media on Marketing Communication

Radio

Radio’s main advantage over the other forms of media is the fact that ‘it is everywhere’. There is hardly a place in the world beyond the reach of radio. There are more than 520 million radio sets in the US, at least 2 sets per person. Radio is so pervasive in our lives that we jog, commute, drive, and even wakeup to radios. Some people build their day around popular commentators and hourly news schedules. A study of 260 metro markets by Arbitron in 1999 revealed that every U.S adult spends an average of 2 hours and 48 minutes every day listening to radio. Unlike print media that requires undivided attention from the reader, radio does not require the much literacy, and it can be played in the background. In comparison with print media, radio has the extra advantage of being live and timely. Radio advertising became a reality in the 20s when a New York station (WEAF) a local real estate developer paid $50 so that he could get 10 minutes of airtime to pitch his new Long Island apartments. After this, many local businesses sought the similar services and within months, companies were buying airtime. Even if radio-advertising revenue comes fourth after that of newspapers, television and direct mail, its share is steadily growing and success rate for radio advertising is higher than newspapers, magazines and direct mail. Between 1986 and 1992, it recorded a 30% increase. Choosing radio as a marketing media offers the advantage of the large numbers of people that listen to radio.

Television

The distinguishing factor between and the other forms of mass media is the fact that it incorporates all the defining characteristics of the other media. It qualifies to be a multimedia channel because it can be used to show text, still pictures, sound as well as moving pictures. It adds motion to the capabilities of radio. The introduction of television did not transform marketing communication in the same way as the Internet has done in the last 5 years. The cost of TV content production was prohibitive in the initial years and recorded video was not possible until much later. The emergence of TV as a marketing medium that would replace the then traditional media (radio and print) was slow and reserved to organizations that were well off. Cost of production has since dropped and this has democratized the use of TV for marketing. Even if almost anyone can produce an advertisement for TV, the quality of the production and the ratings of the network on which the advertisement is broadcast have connotations about the product or service being advertised. In order to deliver TV signals to locations beyond the reach of broadcast systems, CATV systems came into existence. These were initially community setups that were meant to receive signals using antennae in elevated locations and distribute it to the community using coaxial cable. These were the first forms of cable TV as we know it. The TV industry depends on the sale of airtime to advertisers to cover their operating costs. So as to get good money for the airtime sold to advertisers, TV stations strive to have as many viewers as possible during a particular time so as to increase ratings. They achieve this by improving the quality of programming. Ratings are used to determine the price of airtime. The prime of this kind of advertising is during popular sports season and specifically the super-bowl night. On that particular day it costs 2.2 million dollars for 30 seconds of airtime. It is estimated that there are about 200 million viewers at such a time, hence the high cost of airtime.

In 1981, Ted Turner predicted that TV would make newspapers obsolete within 10 years. Although he was wrong about this, he was right that it would continue to ‘rob’ the old media channels of their advertising quotas.