Everything Everywhere All At Once

As traditional media audiences fragment under the assault of new digital platforms, consider this hypothetical:

If you could, would you license your station(s) to stream on Spotify, SiriusXM, or even Netflix?

That’s not just a thought exercise—it’s essentially what’s happening with broadcast TV in France right now.

Television ad revenue has fallen by $900 million across Europe’s biggest markets in the past decade. In response, two of France’s biggest broadcasters—TF1 and France Télévisions—have struck distribution deals with Netflix and Prime Video, respectively.

Why would such dominant media players cede part of their audience experience to tech giants located half a world away?

One word: discoverability.

Rodolphe Belmer, CEO of TF1 Group, put it plainly in Netflix’s announcement:

“As viewing habits shift toward on-demand consumption and audience fragmentation increases, this unprecedented alliance will enable our premium content to reach unparalleled audiences.”

In other words: we need to be where the eyeballs are.

France Télévisions president Delphine Ernotte Cunci echoed that sentiment in her company’s release:

“…Our group is taking a historic step to strengthen the visibility of its public service offering, and thus allow all audiences to rediscover and discover the unique richness of france.tv in new environments.”

Let’s bring it back across the Atlantic to the question posed at the top of this prose.

Discoverability is increasingly becoming a U.S. problem. Edison Research’s latest Share of Ear study shows that listeners aged 18–29 spend only 14% of their audio time with radio.

If a 25-year-old wanted to hear your station, would they know how?

Podcasters have already solved this problem. By putting their shows on Spotify, YouTube, and other major platforms, they’ve multiplied their reach and made access effortless. Radio needs to think the same way: if the audience is on different platforms, the product should be too.

For radio, we need to ask if that’s the right avenue for our brands as well.

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