Stay Tuned! An Investigation of Content Substitution, the Listener as Curator and Other Innovations in Broadcast Radio

Abstract

This paper demystifies listeners' wishes with respect to broadcast radio innovation (with a specific focus on radio-mediated music consumption). Our study encompasses an ideation workshop with radio experts, an exploratory survey and a mixed methods empirical evaluation. The empirical evaluation uses two concrete concepts (i.e., letting listeners on-the-fly replace radio content with preferred content and fostering participatory radio production by involving listeners as radio content curators) as a lens to zoom in on the questionable desirability of radio innovation. It is learned that a significant consumer group exists who will stay loyal to broadcast radio even if it does not evolve substantially, whereas others need disrup-tive incentives to start listening to radio (again). From our results we distill design recommendations to educate the radio production community about how best to approach radio innovation.