Radiodays North America officially got underway last Wednesday as part of the inaugural Departure Festival + Conference, a “reimagined” Canadian Music Week (CMW) encompassing music, media, tech, art and entertainment.

This year’s sessions kicked off with an exploration of what radio might look like in 2040, featuring radio futurologist James Cridland and market researcher John Parikhal that tackled everything from what kind of shelf life AM radio might have to the need for better measurement and less restrictive regulation.

Moderated by CHUM 104.5 afternoon host Josie Dye, Cridland didn’t waste anytime in addressing AM radio’s uncertain future.

“To be fair, I’m not sure that AM has a particularly fantastic future going forward,” said Cridland. “I bought a new car earlier this year. It does not have AM in it, and I would suggest that many of us in this room don’t own AM radios at home…but the future of radio, I think is more than just technology.”

Cridland said the industry needs to grasp “what radio is now, rather than what radio once was.”

“Radio isn’t the place where we break new songs. That’s TikTok these days. Radio isn’t, where we give you travel news – that comes from Google or Apple straight into your car. Radio isn’t a connection with the stars anymore. That’s Instagram. Radio isn’t nonstop music for your work day, that’s Spotify. Radio isn’t your better music mix from the ’80s, ’90s and now. What people want from the radio has clearly changed,” said Cridland. “And as we look into the future, I worry that we haven’t realized how much radio’s unique selling proposition has changed. And I’m worried that we look back too much into the 1980s when what we wanted from radio was different. And that goes for the CRTC as well. We can’t talk about radio in 2040 if it’s still regulated for 1973.”

“Radio’s future is two things that we can offer that no one else can – a human connection and a shared experience. That’s it,” he asserted.

Parikhal challenged current industry measurement models based on demographics, saying that listeners have gone from being a mass culture to a tribal one. He added that the current PPM ratings system is “only designed for profit.”

“If you listen for three minutes, you listen for a quarter hour? I’d be 111 years old if that were the case,” said Parikhal. “How can we fix this? Well, you have to stop selling demographics. I mean, quite simply, it’s a 1940s concept…everybody else is selling very specific audiences. It’s unfair to radio, unfair to the program directors who are sometimes bonused on ratings.”

Cridland affirmed that what audiences ultimately want from radio has fundamentally changed over the last 20 years.

“The advice that I’d have for anybody here is, remember what makes us different as a media,” said Cridland. “We’re not different because we play a better mix of the ’80s, ’90s and now. We’re different because we have that human connection and that shared experience. We have respected people on the air, who other people would like to be their friend. That’s how radio works. And the more of that, the better. We will not get that from bad AI voices or from nonstop music sweeps…we will get that from understanding what radio is there for, that human connection and that shared experience.”

More Radiodays North America coverage to come. Check out our Radiodays photo gallery in Thursday’s edition of The Weekly Briefing.