The Infinite Dial

Is it the platform or the programming that younger listeners are no longer responding to with radio? There was evidence for both in Wednesday's much-anticipated Jacobs Media/Arbitron presentation, "The Bedroom Project." Going just by the enthusiasm that the study's interviewees showed for texting, iPods, and their mobile phones, but not radio, one might have despaired for the prospects of finding anything that would make an AM/FM radio compelling again for a 20-year-old. And yet, as Fred Jacobs pointed out, those respondents who did have something positive to say about radio were usually motivated by personality--KROQ L.A.'s Kevin & Bean or KPWR (Power 106) L.A.'s Big Boy. Which means that radio still has to figure out whether 12-to-24s left radio or whether radio, through its failure to target that audience, left them.

Not that "Keeping Adults on the Radio" was considered a slam dunk either. Some tidbits from that multi-format panel:

* CBS Radio "Jack-FM" format captain Kurt Johnson noted that legendary WLS (and now WZZN) p.m. driver John "Records" Landecker had been his inspiration for the imaging of his Jack-FMs.

* Johnson also spoke to the New York Times Magazine comments by Columbia's Rick Rubin that rankled many in the industry. In response to the suggestion that younger audiences no longer cared about radio, Johnson asked, "Why did no one challenge Rick Rubin." He also noted that Columbia's label reps were still asking CBS stations to play their records--so perhaps radio mattered after all.

* WQDR Raleigh, N.C., PD Lisa McKay characterized voice-tracked radio as "fraudcasting." Her take on younger audiences' disinterest in radio: "Kids are holding up their hands to be high-fived and nobody is slapping them back." And in a world where few broadcasters see a middle ground between high-profile personality and jocklessness,,McKay told the panel that WQDR was able to forge its relationship with the community without a lot of talk--less than three minutes at a time in morning and primarily over the music in afternoon drive.