Pam Atherton is one of our favorite human beings here at Competitive Futures. She talks for a living. She knows Weird Al Yankovic. She lives in New Mexico, an inherently cool place to be. And she knows a ton about the past and future of radio. Pam is the host of a wonderful, eclectic radio program entitled A Closer Look Radio. She has had me on as a guest regularly since the release of Future Inc, and as punishment, I have insisted on interviewing HER about where the media is going in the next twenty years.
Her insights on future trends in media are, as expected, fantastic, not to mention useful for business people, intelligence analysts, and everybody else:
- We’re exiting the era of absolutely everybody producing media and thinking it’s of equal quality. Whether it sounds elitist or not, Andrew Keen is right.
- Why podcasts and long-form journalism will return intellectual depth to the media ecosystem.
- Market research is usually wrong, and sends the media professionals in the wrong direction when creating content.
- As counterintuitive as it sounds, the era of the big audience is over – business people should cultivate small, committed audiences with which they have actual engagement.