Calling radio “the most effective, least obtrusive and least harmful medium available,” industry publication FMBQ thinks a ban on iPods in the workplace will save radio. We’ll forgive them for not realizing “effective,” “obtrusive” and “harmful” are entirely relative terms to the advertising strategy, and resulting choice of media, at hand. We’ll also help say what they really meant which was “a ban on iPods will force people to listen to radio, thereby saving our industry.”
So maybe using iPods to steal company secrets as they were last summer at Los Alamos National Laboratory, the topic picked to make the article’s point, is not such a good thing. Calling this event a dramatic example of what is possible on a smaller scale, FMBQ states an outright ban on the device would be “much simpler and far less costly” than the creation of policies or technical solutions limiting iPod-like device usage in the workplace.
With iPod-like devices and cell phones likely to dramatically infringe on “mainstream” media, it’s not surprising FMBQ would support a ban to save radio. We’re sure broadcast TV would love cable to go away but that’ not going to happen and a ban on iPods certainly won’t be met with gleeful acceptance. We love radio but the cure isn’t banning competition; it’s ridding the medium of Clear Channel-like homogenization.
