According to an article on AppleInsider.com, Needham & Co.’s Charlie Wolf recently wrote that in its attempts to compete with the smashing success of the iPhone, “The smartphone industry is betting that it can meet this challenge and continue to lure feature phone users through more powerful hardware.”
“More specifically,” says AppleInsider.com, “Wolf believes the ‘misguided’ obsession with differentiation through hardware features will leave many smartphone makers treading water because ‘hardware is essentially a commodity.’
“That is, no manufacturer can achieve a sustainable advantage through hardware because the components in most smartphones are simultaneously available to all competitors.”
And Then There’s Radio.
“HD radio, that will save us.”
“Passing a law requiring all new automobiles to be equipped with HD Radio, that will save us.”
Radio is losing ground not because of inferior hardware. Radio is suffering because for decades it had a virtual monopoly on its core content (primarily music, followed by local voices).
Then came Consolidation, complete with “Economies of Scale” — which, unfortunately, the Corporate Geniuses That Be applied not just to the delivery of the product but to the product itself. They reduced Content to a commodity.
Almost immediately afterward, along came the Internet.
Having chosen to peddle an increasingly available product (homogenous music presented without a meaningful context) and having abandoned the last vestiges of “community service” and “civic responsibility,” American radio was shocked at how disloyal its previously captive audience turned out to be.
“But HD Radio Means Multiple Channels, Which Means More Choice!”
Uh-huh. Just as Consolidation meant more choice for listeners. (Hey, some of the richest, least competent radio CEO’s still publicly proclaim that without the slightest hint of irony.)
Multiple channels consisting of slivers of pre-packaged formats will not lure back the listeners Radio held in such low regard for so long.
Yes, I know glassy eyed HD proponents also promise more programming “diversity.” Just as Consolidation presented listeners with “greater choice.”
