Year: 2022

“Covid was a wake-up call, a shock to the system. Radio brought a sense of community, a sense of connection to the outside world. It could be the beginning of the golden age of radio in the 2020’s,” said Ben Cooper at a session titled ‘Reinventing Radio’ at Radiodays Asia 2022.Cooper is Chief Content and Music Officer, Bauer Media Audio, UK – Europe’s largest commercial radio group. He was introduced by Francis Currie, International Radio Consultant.The session discussed how you can successfully transform from a traditional radio company to a digital audio business.Cooper, who could not make it personally, was interviewed earlier by Currie and made a video appearance.He said that radio has been predicted to die many times – by TV, by video, by CDs, by MP3, by streaming, but it’s still around and growing.“Radio sleepwalked through the smartphone era, but is fighting back with the smart speaker era. This moment in time is the key to reinvent radio,” said Cooper.According to him, in order to reinvent a radio business, top content priorities should be 3A’s – Audience, Artists and Advertisers.“Commercial radio has been focused on getting a famous name for breakfast and following it up with a playlist for the rest of the day. We need to provide more content, as audiences are demanding more.”“For Artists, radio is a great way of telling audiences about music. Catalog music makes up 80 percent of music labels. Being useful to the music industry is important. Even more so for new music. Labels know how important radio is for introducing new music.”“Advertisers want a merger of content, advertising and marketing. Social media and video content allows us to be creative in new ways.”Summing up his presentation he said, “The best way to predict the future is to invent it yourself.” […]

Arielle Nissenblatt, Founder, EarBuds Podcast Collective, USA, spoke about how to best use social media to help more people find your audio: and get closer to your audience at Radiodays Asia 2022.Nissenblatt, whose session was titled “Social Media – #winning for podcasting and audio”, listens to over 40 hours of audio content per week. She is a podcast industry futurist and believes in the power of audio to break down cultural barriers.She said the social media can be powerful, but one should use data and tracking to see how effective is it for your content. If it’s not working, let it be.She also stressed on regularity, saying: “you need to be active on social media so people know that you’re alive. If they see your content and share it, it means that it is valuable.”“A big mistake that podcasters make is that they follow only other podcasters. You need to follow and quote other influencers in your niche, who are talking about the same things as you.”She also discussed how not to use social media. Spamming your link, using only Apple podcasts link, changing your content’s appearance post to post, being everywhere all the time and irregularity should be avoided. […]

ARN’s Chief Content Officer, Duncan Campbell, has addressed Radiodays Asia, and talked about radio’s connections to its listeners.He says radio’s continued success and longevity is the result of powerful personal connections that listeners make through the unique personalities they listen to every day.Campbell says that even with a focus on new technologies that some claim are ‘radio killers’, it’s important to remind ourselves that radio is still incredibly strong and will evolve and adapt as it has since it was born.He says that for each person “…the reason for their connection can be different, and what’s interesting is that people can’t describe it easily either.  It’s a feeling or a sensation, or a psychological state…powerful emotions that are enduring. “Every day emotional connections are being formed or reinforced by radio personalities around the world …and these connections can be established one content line or over many days or weeks that we call story art.” […]