What newspapers can learn from radio

Tribune’s hiring of executives from Clear Channel is an interesting idea, but hiring programming executives seems like a mistake.
The competitive instincts of radio might do the newspaper industry some good. But no media industry treats its audience with more contempt than does commercial radio. Then there’s this:

Meanwhile, at Tribune, the hirings suggest that Mr. Zell, who himself owned a radio broadcaster for a time in the 1990s, may put more emphasis on the broadcasting side of Tribune, a side of the business that generates higher profit margins and doesn’t face the same rapid falloff in advertising as the newspaper business.

Yes, and oranges are juicier than apples.
Not to mention the fact that broadcasting is being teed up for its own day of reckoning.
Where could radio’s cutthroat competitive instincts do newspapers the most good? Radio advertising executives understand how to sell locally and competitively in ways that newspaper ad teams only talk about in PowerPoint charts.
Originally published on my blog at JupiterResearch.