A digital tsunami is overtaking traditional media. Mark Ramsey is helping broadcasters navigate the technological change.

Through his platform at Mark Ramsey Media, Mark observes forces and trends, reports on strategies for implementing successful new business models, and cajoles the slow-to-respond.

Adapting to change is getting tougher, by the day it seems.

An interview Mark did with Seth Godin brought that home. In it Seth warned about not having a plan for the future.

Without a transformation, “Traditional, terrestrial radio is clearly headed towards a dead end,” Godin said.

With thousands of Christian communicators and hundreds of companies attending the National Religious Broadcasters’ Convention in Nashville, I thought it was a good time to talk with Mark about the road ahead.

Mark, you are radio’s best friend. And friends tell friends when there’s danger ahead. What’s the main threat to broadcasters?

The main threat is that we see our future too narrowly. We see it through the lens of our past. Whenever you see the future the way you see the past and it’s a time of turbulent change and opportunity, transformation and disruption, you’re putting yourself at great peril.

Now, it could easily be said, wait a minute, we’ve got this huge model built around the notion that we make money a certain way by doing certain things. All true. All correct. In fact we’re the only ones legally sanctioned to make money that certain way doing those certain things. All true. All correct.

You know … it’s going to get tougher.

It’s going to require more creativity. It’s going to require less dependence on built in assets like towers. And its going to require more leveraging of our fundamental asset which is the relationship we have with our audiences, and in the commercial sector with our advertisers.

What would you say is the number one mistake made in addressing the threat?

A lack of investment in the future and a lack of experimentation and innovation.

There’s some, but there’s not nearly enough. In talk radio for example, where’s the bench? The biggest morning show in most markets has been on the air in many cases for ten, twenty years or more. Where’s the back-up plan? Where’s the next generation of talent?

Someone needs to be thinking ahead to what you do when you have all these relationships with consumers and advertisers.

How do you leverage them? How do you monetize them? That kind of thinking is not happening nearly enough, in large part because, again on the commercial side, the money is more expensive. If I monetize my stream I don’t make as much as if I monetize my ad agency.

The national and local content that used to be exclusive for Christian stations can now be accessed from a variety of sources. Could the unique advantage for attracting audience be slipping away?

If you have a big advantage today in grabbing an audience, then the question is, what do you do with that audience? Do you fret about having just as big of an advantage tomorrow? Or, do you leverage a unique capability of that audience while you have it? That’s the issue.

No one ever said that you need to survive and thrive on the basis of an ever increasing audience. If I’m a local church, guess what? Now, I’m in the local media business. If I’m a national ministry, guess what? I’m in the media business internationally.

So I would ask you the local broadcaster, what are your unique capabilities? What can you do that these other folks can’t do? What can you bring to the table that they can’t bring? How can you help them do what they’re doing better?

Many stations don’t have the staff to create content. They’re already working really hard, wearing two or three hats.

Ultimately, local teaching stations will have to decide what business they’re in. Are they strictly a distribution point for someone else’s content? Are they a creator of content? Are they an aggregator of audiences?

Each of those three things represents different consequences.

For the foreseeable future, the distribution provided by radio will be really important to national partners. But, if you’re just a distribution point; if you’re just the manager of the local K-Mart, great. Set your aspiration accordingly. Don’t be surprised when corporate doesn’t allow you to arrange the clock radios the way you want to.

If you are an aggregator of audiences, then I would say that you have the ability to do all kinds of things with those audiences that relates to their interests in the local community.

And third, if you’re in the content business, then you’re nuts if you don’t create content.

It’s a shift in what these stations are.

What does a sustainable digital business model look like for religious broadcasters? Has anyone gotten there yet?

The whole point is that people should re-conceptualize what they do. Mark Ramsey

You know, I don’t think anyone has fully gotten there. It’s a moving target. It’s a process. It’s a mind shift. It’s a head shift. It’s a gear shift. It’s a people shift.

It’s online. It’s in person. It’s in the community. It’s over the air. Ultimately the business model is people paying for value, whether that comes over the air or elsewhere.

Digital is about communities. If Egypt proved anything, it proved that. Communities interacting with each other in the presence of whatever concerns them.

Towers and transmitters will be diminished over time. But the clock is ticking for opportunity not tragedy. We need to see the glass as half full.

Every partner of radio, every show that wants to be on radio recognizes the value and importance of radio. That’s present today, now. If we can’t use that then we’ll deserve whatever happens.

Thanks for being such a good friend to radio Mark. Enjoy the NRB.