Pollack Media Group Vice President of New Media Jim Kerr joined the company in 2004 after fifteen years in the print and broadcast industries. At PMG, Jim is responsible for integrated new media strategies, working with Pollack Media's traditional media clients on maximizing new media technology, while also working with new media and Web 2.0 clients as they look to expand their reach and connect with consumers. He is also the principal author of PMG's yearly new media trends report, "The New Media Landscape." It’s a position that Kerr says is “50% product development, 50% business development, and 100% bridge-building.”  We caught up with him for this week’s eQB cover story. 

Over your last three years as a consultant, what has been the biggest surprise in your role while working with radio stations?
The biggest surprise has been the real openness and lack of ego I'm finding in program directors. They honestly appear to be looking for answers to difficult questions in a difficult time. It doesn't matter if it's a Senior VP/Programming, a PD in a top ten market, or a PD in a tiny, unrated town; nearly all of the PDs I talk with like to hear honest criticism and to have their opinions challenged.  

What do you feel is radio’s biggest strength as it leverages itself in the competitive multi-media landscape?
The single biggest strength for radio is its extraordinary reach. While listenership is down, the reality is that more people listen to radio today than listened ten years ago. Look at it this way: If you take all of the listening from Internet radio, satellite radio, and iPod and MP3 player users and combined them, you'd still end up with less than half the number of people that listen to radio in an average week.
     Of course the real issue looking forward is how radio companies can leverage that reach and successfully migrate them to other co-owned distribution channels, from HD broadcasts to cell phone streams to Internet web site usage. Radio has thus far been very ineffective at doing this, especially when compared to the newspaper and, more and more, the television industries.

What tech platforms do you see as the most useful and profitable for radio in the near term?
Ultimately, mobile will be the real opportunity for radio, because radio has long been considered an "everywhere" medium – you could get radio at home, in your car, in your gym, at work, and elsewhere. That image has taken a beating because radio is not the most personal device a person owns – his or her cell phone. That will change, and Pollack Media Group is on the forefront of that in our discussions with mobile tech companies that solve this very problem for radio companies.
     That said; you simply should not and cannot dismiss the Internet. It is the convergence of all media as we know it, and the opportunity for radio there is enormous. Beyond its reach, large radio groups have such strong assets to do well on the Internet at both the market and national level. The key is to get beyond thinking of simple station websites. Today, if your radio company Internet strategy is nothing more than making local radio websites look good, increasing their page views, and improving Internet NTR through things like creating car dealership microsites, then your strategic vision is too myopic.
     On the Internet, radio companies have to strategize in a new way, not just at the station level but at the local cluster level where radio stations of all formats need to work together more actively than they ever have in the past. At the national level, corporate executives need to understand how to leverage formatic assets. It is almost mind-boggling that the leading rock, hip hop, and pop music sites on the Internet have no relationship to a radio company.  

There is a generation growing up without terrestrial radio. What are your thoughts on how it will affect the medium? And how can radio turn this trend around to reach the younger end?
Well, I think it is inaccurate to say that a generation is growing up without radio. Teens continue to consume radio at a rate of over one-and-a-half hours a day and over 9 out of 10 teens still listen to the radio every week. I will say that it is accurate to say that teens are growing up without the LOVE of radio that we may have experienced when we were younger. Video gaming, networking online, MP3 players, text messaging – all of these things vie with radio for the primacy in the lives of youth today, and radio often comes in second, third, or worse.
     In terms of how this will affect radio, well we are seeing it today with teens: Teen listening is down significantly. Radio will continue to see TSL decline well into the future as new generations become even more distracted by new technologies and media possibilities. The only real solution is to do what network television did when it was faced with the sudden onslaught of cable television and a significant decline in viewership – move into new distribution channels either by buying in or developing on their own. Radio has to do the same thing with the Internet, mobile, and video gaming.

Do you see HD Radio as a viable entity?  What are your thoughts on the initial ways radio is utilizing HD?
The audio medium is very competitive right now, so it makes sense for radio to overwhelm upstart competitors in their space and co-opt it for their own. The questions are: Which distribution channel is HD Radio disrupting? Is disrupting this distribution channel worthwhile? And has the disruption been effective?
     Well, HD Radio isn't disrupting mobile or the Internet, as HD Radio wasn't rolled out to be delivered via the Internet or cell phones. It's not disrupting the iPod, because HD Radio is not on-demand. About the only audio competitor left, other than terrestrial radio itself, is satellite radio, and it certainly looks like HD Radio was rolled out as terrestrial radio's answer for satellite radio.
     Does this make HD Radio viable, and was this a smart move? Well, at this point in time it certainly appears that HD Radio has yet to achieve any of its goals. It hasn't noticeably hurt satellite radio, and its potential as a revenue-producer is found on whiteboards and not on balance sheets. It is even arguable whether the satellite radio threat was worth prioritizing, as the impending distribution of audio via cell phones and the growing popularity of Internet streams appear to be much more compelling threats.
     Part of the trouble with the HD rollout is that it compares unfavorably to satellite radio. While the diversity of musical content on HD Radio is wonderful, it simply pales in comparison to the sports, family, and entertainment options offered on satellite radio. For the consumer the final decision comes down to "free and not really everything I want" versus "paid but has all the content I'm looking for." For the early adopters who drive technology like this, compromising and making concessions aren't really what they are about.

Pollack Media has been involved in social networking almost since the concept’s inception. In what ways do you work with radio to help them utilize this platform?
You're right, we've worked with social networking since the 2002 French launch of Skyblogs.com, which is now known simply as skyrock.com and is the second most-trafficked website in France behind Google. That network predates both MySpace and Facebook, and we learned a lot from them in the process. Today, we are working with the Skyrock Network on expanding their platform to other countries.
     In the United States we are working with the premier white label social networking hosted platform, KickApps. As a hosted platform, KickApps provides the entire infrastructure for a company to get up and running with a comprehensive social network in weeks or less. It is truly a white label solution, so all of the hosted social network pages look exactly like they are part of the radio station's own site.
     Much of what I'm doing now is taking radio stations and helping them integrate their current site to the KickApps platform. While KickApps is flexible enough to be quickly launched as a plug-and-play solution, we work closely with stations to make sure that there is a strategic framework to build around. You don't just build a social network because it's the hip thing to do.
     So we look at a station's website, its listener database, its airstaff, its current online revenue strategy, and how they all currently work together. We then work together with the station to give its large broadcast community a home on the Internet. Again, this is not just "build it and they will come." I work to make sure that the execution at the station level includes plenty of interaction and content originating with the jocks, the on-air content of the station, and the needs of the sales staff.
     Beyond individual station integration, we work with corporate and market managers at creating the ability for a specific radio station social network to eventually flow into a market-wide or national network. Luckily, this ability is built into the KickApps platform, so you can build a comprehensive individual station solution with the knowledge that a wider national or market-wide implementation can easily be grown from it.  

What are your thoughts on radio’s performance in using text messaging and other forms of reaching listeners through mobile entertainment tools?
Well, radio is lagging behind practically every other medium and country in the world in ALL new media tools, and text messaging is no exception. The potential of text messaging is just huge for radio at both the content and revenue level.
     For sales departments, they finally have the ability to offer coupons, and they can send the coupon directly to the most intimate device a person owns--his or her cell phone. It's better than direct mail. Beyond that, text messages are nearly always read and when integrated well with a station promotion can deliver an astounding reach.  Things will only get better as radio stations improve their databases, which can lead to geo-targeted and behavioral advertising done with cell phones. On the client side, you are actually starting to see advertisers request text messaging elements to buys, and if my comments here don't convince you, that fact eventually will.
     For programmers, you have a direct line to a listener wherever he or she is. This provides you with an incredibly flexible and creative platform for communication. We've all heard of upgrading tickets at concerts via text message winners, but that concept works everywhere. The cell phone becomes both the ticket and the messaging platform for any kind of local promotion or event. And the ability to send out messages with immediacy means that you can be even more creative and of-the-moment in promotion planning.
     Finally, text messaging provides another way for a listener to communicate with the radio station. I have yet to hear anyone tell me that giving the listener more ways to be heard is a bad thing.