Earlier this week, a number of leading broadcasters piped in on a scenario whereby Pandora and other online radio services would be measured alongside radio in Arbitron’s supposedly forthcoming Total Audience Measurement report, and the most telling word was this one: “Frightening.”

Indeed it is “frightening,” the thought that a stable ecosystem of radio brands with huge barriers to entry could be penetrated overnight by a theoretically limitless number of present and future online radio brands all nibbling at the same presumably finite trough. Forget the fact that any reasonable observer has seen this coming for years, that doesn’t make it any less “frightening.”

And it is that fright which is driving the conversation in radio circles. It’s that fright that is motivating broadcasters to argue that Pandora and others are “not radio” or to create manifestly arbitrary distinctions like “one-to-one” versus “one-to-many,” a distinction which means as little to advertisers as it does to consumers.


Read all of Mark's article on his blog, Mark Ramsey Media.