From Wikipedia:
A killer application (commonly shortened to killer app), in the jargon of computer programmers and video gamers, has been used to refer to any computer program that is so necessary or desirable that it proves the core value of some larger technology, such as computer hardware like a gaming console, operating system or other software. A killer app can substantially increase sales of the platform on which it runs.
For example, one killer app was Lotus 1-2-3…the spreadsheet program that fueled sales of the original IBM PC.
I have argued for a while now that HD Radio needs its own killer apps to be successful — “super-niche” programming that is so compelling for some listeners that it motivates them to go out and buy HD Radios.
Finally, radio is seeing the light. I was heartened to see this item today on the Inside Radio email:
A 24/7 all-Eagles football channel is being planned to launch next summer, in advance of the 2010 season. Eagles 365…would be a side channel to active rock WYSP, flagship of the Eagles Radio Network.
Which followed this item:
Three months after launching online and on HD2, Penguins Radio is gaining ad traction. Branded around last year’s Stanley Cup champions, the station has grown from six advertising partners at its October 1 debut to one dozen now.
If you’re not a sports fan or just a casual fan, this may be hard to fathom. Certainly, “Eagles 365″ or “Penguins Radio” would fall short of a 1.0 share, even on “big sticks” in Philadelphia or Pittsburgh. But that’s one benefit of HD Radio — it can serve niches that might not be viable for FM or AM, but still represent a lot of bodies in bigger markets.
It seems that sports and other highly specialized talk formats would be best suited for this “super niche” approach. For example, even though Liberal Talk radio has never aired in most markets, there are enough “lefties” in even the reddest states to support an HD2 channel.
And there are certainly music formats that would be viable super niches. For example, imagine a station that plays Christmas music year-round. Mariah Carey’s “All I Want For Christmas” would sound great on a steamy August afternoon.
These super niche stations could sell a lot of HD radios. You might argue that radio isn’t in the business of selling radios, but new HD radio owners would soon discover its benefits beyond “Eagles 365.”
I have never thought that HD Radio would be any kind of “magic bullet” for the industry. But what HD can do is make radio as a whole more compelling…no small thing given the level of competition the industry faces today.
Super-niche stations like “Eagles 365″ can be the killer app to help make it happen.
December 29th, 2009 at 1:04 pm
“Harvard Business Review: Should You Invest in the Long Tail?”
“Chris Anderson, editor of Wired magazine, argues that the sudden availability of niche offerings more closely tailored to their tastes will lure consumers away from homogenized hits. The ‘tail’ of the sales distribution curve, he says, will become longer, fatter, and more profitable. Elberse, a professor at Harvard Business School, set out to investigate whether Anderson’s long-tail theory is actually playing out in today’s markets. She focused on the music and home-video industries — two markets that Anderson and others frequently hold up as examples of the long tail in action — reviewing sales data from Nielsen SoundScan, Nielsen VideoScan, the online music service Rhapsody, and the Australian DVD-by-mail service Quickflix. What she found may surprise you: Blockbusters are capturing even more of the market than they used to, and consumers in the tail don’t really like niche products much.”
http://www.citeulike.org/user/mmkurth/article/2984768
Consumers don’t like niche progrmming.
“We Might Want to Keep an Eye on ION”
“If the commission embraces the notion that secondary digital streams really do constitute separate licenses that can be separately assigned, one could easily argue that radio stations that have opted to transmit digital streams (i.e., ‘HD Radio’) should also be permitted to sell those streams as separately licensed stations… For one, the number of radio stations could theoretically double or triple overnight. This might not have the cataclysmic effect of, say, the injection of nearly 700 new FM allotments through the notorious Docket No. 80-90 a quarter century ago, but you never know. At a minimum, if the law of supply and demand were to hold true, the overnight doubling/tripling of stations would likely depress each station’s value. And such a rapid increase in the number of stations would logically lead to a similarly rapid increase in competition for audiences and revenues. Are we all ready for that?”
http://www.rwonline.com/article.aspx?articleId=76922&mnu_id=14
“HD Radio…Watch What You Wish For…And What Is It You Want?”
“Radio continues to chalk up very good cash flow to revenue margins, but revenues are down. Do the business plans of broadcasters include selling smaller audiences on more (HD) signals if HD actually succeeds? Broadcasters have complained about the proliferation of more signals over the past couple decades. Now those same broadcasters are introducing 2 to 3 times the signals with HD.”
http://tinyurl.com/yfqquhh
Extra HD channels will only serve to dilute the analog channels.