Media Assignment: Popularity & Use Of Radio Advertising

Question

Task:
Media Assignment brief:
Traditional media played a very important role in reaching the masses in the 20th century. However, since the year 2000, many of these medium platforms have lost some of their shine, audience and revenue. They have not performed well, and the way ahead appears dim.

Choose a traditional media platform and analyze its popularity in the past century, supporting your analysis with media theories. Evaluate its viability today and outlook for the platform going forwards.

Answer

Introduction
As per the research on media assignment, traditional media is defined as the media that was the most effective medium used during the 20th century and has played the most vital role in reaching out to the masses back then. This media was one of the medium that took place before the introduction of the internet into the world. The chosen traditional media for the assignment is Radio Advertising. However, at present, the rise of the digital world has taken over the popularity and use of Radio Advertising.

Therefore, the main motive of this assignment is to bring out the popularity of the traditional media in the past and changes in the same at present. With reference to the chosen medium, the assignment will focus on the analysis of the media, analysis of trends, and the implications. The assignment will provide some strategic recommendations regarding the strategies to be implemented by the chosen media platform for improvement in today’s world. As a whole, the overall assignment will provide a better understanding of the Radio advertisement and its popularity at part as well as at present.

Media Analysis
Radio Advertising refers to the traditional medium, which was widely used during the 20th century in order to reach out to the people. Based on the human voice, radio is a uniquely personal medium invoking the imagination of the listener in order to fill in mental images around the broadcast sounds. In the early decades, businesses used to prefer radio advertising for promoting their products and services in the market. As there were no internet and digital types of medium, the radio played an important role in broadcasting the promotions of much successful business (Skretvedt & Sterling, 2019).

As per the fact that the 'Uses and Gratifications Theory’ focus on the study of the processes used by the public to consume media, it can be said that the use of radio was wider at those periods and the target of the business firm while advertising was fulfilled through this medium (Porismita Borah, 2016). The target audience of this medium was the entire citizens or population of the country. Hence, using the radio-advertising medium, businesses used to be successful in reaching out to the masses in the country and attract consumers from every corner of the country (Mehrad, 2016).

Figure 1: Advertising through Radio Advertising
Source: (Mehrad, 2016)

As shown in the above-mentioned figure, it indicates that the use of Radio advertising was widely effective as scale rises from the year 1930 and continues up to the year 2010 at an increasing rate. This shows that the business promotion is used to reach out to the entire targeted audience or target consumers successfully. In addition to that, with the use of radio advertising was able to hear the commercials of the business products or services before opting for a particular company. In those decades, short advertisement through radio also used to be very effective for the consumers as well as the company in particular. As such, it has been analyzed that this medium has helped most business organizations to be a success in the market.

Trend Analysis and Implications
As per the research, it has been found that the media environment has changed recently as compared to the traditional media at the previous era to an extreme level. The changes in the new media include electronic video games and entertainment and the internet that includes social media (Ogidi & Utulu, 2021). With the rise of the internet, the overall media environment has been rapidly developing into an advanced environment, which has made the life of people easier and simpler. New technologies have developed so quickly that executives in traditional media companies often cannot retain their content. The involvement of the internet has changed the way people make and experience nearly all media. At present, the act of consuming media creates an entirely new form of it, such as the social data layer that portrays the story of what people like, what they watch, who and what they pay attention to, and their location when doing so (Hatem Alsridi, 2019).

As such, these changes in the media environment have brought the fourth set of opportunities as well as challenges for the traditional media, especially in terms of the printed newspaper. The advertising revenues are plummeting because of the heavy economic downturn, whereas the readership habits of the people have been changing as the consumers have turned to the internet for cashless news and updates. Almost every individual on the planet is dependent on the internet and social media in terms of seeking valuable information, news, and updates, business advertising, conveying messages, and many more. Hence, this has led to a massive decline in the popularity of traditional media. The use of rational media such as radio, newspaper, etc., has been taken over by social media and the internet extremely (Hirshberg, 2014).

The changes in the media environment have also led to some challenges in traditional media because of which the medium platform from traditional media has almost vanished at present. The traditional media has been suffering from the effects of the new technology, such as the traditional media is dealing with inconsistent customer revenue because of the increased development of new mass media (Rajendran, 2021). Traditional media has been struggling to attract customers, as they are not able to reach the level of new technologies. In addition to that, with the help of the traditional media and its features, business organizations are not able to promote their brands or product and to reach out to a vast number of audiences, whereas, with the help of the internet and social media, companies can advertise their businesses throughout the world. Additionally, since the internet and social media and the new technologies have taken over the popularity of traditional media, the traditional media has been dealing with the high cost such as printing cost, paper cost, employee cost, etc. The sales revenue is less, and the expenses are higher in care of the traditional mass media (Collins, 2018).

Figure 2: Changes in the Traditional Media
Source: (Collins, 2018)

The direct competitors of traditional mass media are Facebook, Twitter, Telegram, Google Ads, and Instagram. These are considered as the top listed advertising and medium platform in the world. These competitors can advertise or promote business-related advertisement to the entire world, can enable people to communicate from any parts of the world. Additionally, it works in every smartphone with which people can use the medium handily. Thus, these are the features provided by the new medium that cannot be provided by the traditional medium environment. Hence, these developments have taken over the popularity of the traditional mass media (Studholme, 2018).

Strategic Recommendations
Since radio advertisement has lost its popularity after the rise of the internet and the digital world; there are various changes that the traditional mass media can do in order to improve its reach to that audiences even in the highly competitive world:

Effective Contents- In order to come into the light again, traditional mass media should incorporate new and effective content such as providing various advertising options to the businesses, to the influencers, etc. This means that traditional media should incorporate digital technologies in order to advertise business products and services to audiences all over the world.

Reach Target Audience- The traditional mass media should try to reach out to the target audiences not only within the specific country but also across different countries all over the world so that the business can attract consumers internationally. In order to reach out, the traditional media should bring some changes in the features. For example, radio advertising must explore their channel out of the country as well so that it can reach out to a varied number of audiences.

New Media- Since the existing media world is involved with the most advanced and digital world, traditional media should involve with the advanced media world in order to bring back its popularity in the exiting era. Therefore, for this purpose, the traditional world must include some new media as well as new features in their existing media platforms with which the medium could help the people to convey their messages to the world virtually or help people to seek important updates and information without having to run from one door to another (Madondo & Chiguvi, 2019).

Conclusion
The overall assignment is based on the traditional media platform for which one of the media that has been chosen for the assignment is Radio Advertisement. The overall paper has analyzed various factors such as analysis of chosen media, analysis of the trends of the media at present that has been affecting the chosen medium, and in addition to that, the paper has provided a measurable recommendation for the selected medium to be effective even in the present world of media.

As per the overall analysis, it can be concluded that Radio Advertising has been one of the most effective medium platforms for business advertisements during the 20th century. However, as soon as the digital world of business came into practice in the corporate world, the popularity of the chosen medium declined to an extreme level. However, radio advertisement can still be effective and survive with the higher competition with the use of effective strategies.

References
Collins, M. (2018). [Survey] The Four Challenges That are Killing Traditional Media Companies. Retrieved May 31, 2021, from www.collaborativegrowthnetwork.com website: http://www.collaborativegrowthnetwork.com/blog/bid/95009/Survey-The-Four-Challenges-That-are-Killing-Traditional-Media-Companies

Hatem Alsridi. (2019). The Adoption and Use of Social Media and Its Impact on Mainstream Media in Bahrain. Journalism and Mass Communication, 9(1). https://doi.org/10.17265/2160-6579/2019.01.002

Hirshberg, P. (2014). OpenMind. Retrieved May 31, 2021, from OpenMind website: https://www.bbvaopenmind.com/en/articles/first-the-media-then-us-how-the-internet-changed-the-fundamental-nature-of-the-communication-and-its-relationship-with-the-audience/

Madondo, E., & Chiguvi, D. (2019). Assessment of the Effectiveness of Traditional Media for the Promotion of Tourism in This Digital Age in KwaZulu-Natal South Africa. Business and Management Studies, 5(4), 36. https://doi.org/10.11114/bms.v5i4.4598

Mehrad, J. (2016, March 22). 2.2 Media Effects Theories (P. Tajer, Ed.). Retrieved May 31, 2021, from Umn.edu website: https://open.lib.umn.edu/mediaandculture/chapter/2-2-media-effects-theories/

Ogidi, O., & Utulu, A. (2021). Retrieved 31 May 2021, from https://www.researchgate.net/publication/298734776_Is_the_New_Media_Superior_to_the_Traditional_ Media_for_Advertising

Porismita Borah. (2016, January 4). Media Effects Theory. Retrieved May 31, 2021, from ResearchGate website: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/314119579_Media_Effects_Theory#:~:text=Abstract

Rajendran, L. (2021). (PDF) The Impact of New Media on Traditional Media (P. Thesinghraja, Ed.). Retrieved May 31, 2021, from ResearchGate website: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/309014723_The_Impact_of_New_Media_on_Traditional_Media

Skretvedt, R., & Sterling, C. H. (2019). radio | Definition, History, & Facts. In Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved from https://www.britannica.com/topic/radio

Studholme, L. (Ed.). (2018, June 24). Traditional vs Digital Media? Which Should I Use in My Accounting or Bookkeeping Firm? Retrieved May 31, 2021, from Boma website: https://bomamarketing.com/2018/06/24/traditional-vs-digital-media-which-should-i-use-in-my-accounting-or-bookkeeping-firm/