Hear 2.0

This chart should look familiar to anyone who’s followed technical analysis in the financial markets – it’s a classic double top – which is a market test and often a harbinger of substantial decline.

While that’s an interesting factoid, the bigger question is what does it mean for the radio industry.

If one looks at Anderson’s data it’s quickly apparent that rise of ‘hit albums’ parallels the rise of purchasing power of that demographic bulge called the baby boom. In fact even with the current decline we’re still about the level of the industry when the Beatles first landed on America’s shores – when many in America started that switch from singles to albums that drives this chart.

If this is true – maybe it doesn’t have anything to do with what’s ‘wrong’ with the music industry, or for that matter radio, and everything to do with changing interests and spending habits of a huge group of people who have reshaped almost everything they’ve touched – the baby boom.

Are there parallels in radio – sure – and evolution towards talk (a format that appeals to an older listener), an opportunity to engage the echo generations and maybe a message that power is shifting, slowly, from the music industry back to radio, and the single (MP3), as the way for local acts to engage audiences they actually play live to as well.