The Infinite Dial

When ABC/Disney agreed to sell its radio stations to Citadel several months ago, it was quietly mentioned that Disney would be hanging on to its owned stations for Radio Disney and ESPN Radio. While many (correctly) commented that Disney was not about to cede control of anything connected to its brands to an outsider, perhaps we all missed the point on just how smart these two brands are.

On an Infinite Dial, with endless choices for audio entertainmnet and information, the power of the brand goes from important to crucial. Think about the Internet. While billions of pages are available and used, there are only a handful of brands that truly mean anything -- Google, Amazon, MySpace, etc.

The same is almost inevitable for audio/radio. A limited list of brands will dominate the space. When one thinks of sports one already thinks of the uber-dominant ESPN brand. No matter the platform, ESPN Radio is increasingly THE brand for Sports news, talk and play-by-play. Only a handful of powerful local brands are competitive.

Similarly, when one thinks of family entertainment, Disney is of course by far the most potent brand. Radio Disney is an under-appreciated powerhouse. While the fact that Arbitron (currently) produces ratings ages 12+ limits what one sees for Radio Disney stations in the numbers...enormous numbers of 6-11 year olds simply must be listening. Want proof? The top selling CD of the year so far is the "High School Musical" soundtrack. With music that has not appeared on the radio anywhere on AM or FM but on Radio Disney.

It is worth noting the platform agnosticism of each of these brands as well -- both are on Satellite (each is on BOTH XM and Sirius!) and they are streamed as well. And they would, in many markets, make for much better radio for HD than many of the offerings currently out there.

The deep thinkers of media increasingly argue that 'synergy' didn't work. Guess they haven't looked at these two strong examples.