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‘iPod killed the radio star’: Lessons for publishers?
January 6, 2007 | 8:00 pm
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By David Rothman
So is this guy, or at least his local equivalents, in danger?
“People simply don’t have that big of a use for the radio anymore,” says The Mac Mind. “The iPod is more convenient.”
The TeleRead take: The radio industry’s agony raises the issue of whether e-books will eventually displace p-books by reducing the print runs of the latter—so that publishers go more quickly for an all-electronic approach. That’s not the exact same situation as with radio. But you get the general idea, which has been discussed on some e-mail lists.
No, I myself don’t think e-books will suddenly make p-books vanish completely. However, with the print-run factor, the decline of paper books might happen faster than expected. I see both good and bad. Yes, I love paper books. On the other hand, with e-book more common, libraries and bookstores will be better able to serve people with many different tastes and not fret so much over shelf space.
Related: Will free ebooks lead to a general adoption of ebooks by the masses?—a discussion on the eBook Community List.
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Comments:
It’s not “convenience” that pushes people to use MP3 players over radio. It’s selection.
Part of the problem with radio that most radio stations are owned by large corporate groups who control what gets played. So most radio stations play the same old drivel all the time.
This makes MP3 players even more attractive because they only play songs that the owner likes. Which is must better than the drivel on the radio.
I think you are right on when you equate this to eBooks. Publishers – with limited resources – will no longer select what gets published and what won’t and we, the readers, will get to choose what we are able to read.
“This makes MP3 players even more attractive because they only play songs that the owner likes.”
Reword this to “they only play the drivel the owner likes,” and I think you’re right.
“Publishers – with limited resources – will no longer select what gets published and what won’t and we, the readers, will get to choose what we are able to read.”
Radio stations are more like bookstores or libraries than publishers. Publishers are like record companies.