Radio stations really need to start rethinking their business and
how they deal with the online aspect of it. In recent years we
have seen locally that radio stations like 5fm embracing online
more through forcing their DJs to engage with their audiences online
via twitter and facebook, but in my opinion local radio stations
still have not woken up to the internet.

This morning I heard a song on radio but never heard who the artist was or
what the name of the song was. I turned to their website for the answer and
to my disappointment I couldn't find it. The only option I had left was to submit
a query which would be manually answered by someone in their office.

In today's day to still not have an automated system that tells people what the
song is playing on the radio at a given time for an organization who's main job it
is to do that is simply unacceptable. This made me think about the radio business
and it's current state in South Africa.

At the moment radio stations make their revenue from advertisements and they
build an audience through playing music. In the case of 5fm they put out a couple
of CDs every year and they make a extra buck by selling them at local music stores.
All of a sudden the question emerges...has no one ever considered at these radio
stations to sell the music they play in digital format online?

I mean in terms of organizations perfectly located to start one of the biggest
online music retailers in South Africa it would be 5fm. They have a huge listener
base and they have the perfect target market already to their disposal. Why on
earth are they just letting 100 million rands revenue stream go untapped?

Thinking 5fm would ever be capable of pulling something like this off is a bit idealistic
perhaps, considering of course the horrendous state of their current website. It has
sloth-like loading speeds and looks like it was slapped together in a day by a
part-time geek with terrible googling skills.

5fm and all other radio stations are sitting on a goldmine, but I fear one
that will never be tapped considering their current digital disability.