Year: 2024

At the start of Erin Callaghan the Director of Enterprise Partnerships for Futuri‘s talk at RadioDays Europe 2024 she spoke of people’s reticence the year previously to acknowledge AI, and it’s potential to replace sales, copywriting and on air talent. This year is different with Callaghan speaking to the importance of “live and local”, not necessarily “alive and local”.Futuri offers a selection of Audio AI solutions including Topic Pulse, which can create show prep and talking points based on what is trending on social media and even can predict future trending topics. They also have Spot On, which can create a commercial, to the length you require, AI voiced, in literally seconds – even creating A & B options for the client. They can additionally make AI voiced current news and weather spots for dayparts that might otherwise have no presenter, and the option of having it “voiced”, using the technology, by the familiar news presenter of the station.Of course that has ethical implications, and Callaghan also spoke to the lessons Futuri have learned through progressing the options they are rolling out to US radio stations. Top was transparency about any AI being used. But Futuri’s position is that AI must be incorporated into radio scheduling as a net cost saving option, rather than replacing people with Callaghan saying:“It is possible, and essential, to come out swinging and for us to claim AI.”Callaghan mentioned the statistic that the top US influencers on social media have a bigger audience than TV and radio stations, and how that shows that we are still invested in what people are saying and doing. From that she said that no day part should be a throwaway, ie devoid of local voices and current news and information, as that is our ongoing point of difference.What AI can do is shorten creation time, take over repetitive non human tasks and provide an immediate and current audio solution when a station is unmanned. Radio stations and audiences are ready for that now. […]

AI is a big theme of RadioDays Europe 2024 with Max Brandl from Bayerischer Rundfunk demonstrating a targeted and localised news service delivery option that is being trialed in Germany.This backend technology, using geolocation information, allows people to be able to select the suburb they live or work in, with the Remix Regional metadata then creating a circle around that area you have personally targeted of a size you determine, lets say a radius of 20 kilometres, as you can see in the image.What this AI summariser does is break down audio news bulletins into individual stories taking key words, in this instance relevant to location. A person can then get five stories that are specifically targeted to where they are. They can set the age of the stories, and this information is kept and reapplied the next time the person seeks their local stories.This summariser doesn’t have to be geolocation based. The metadata could be set to political key words, names of people or industries, sports and so on. It allows for current news, on topics of interest, targeted to the individual, who can change the subject or location as they wish. […]

According to local sources, two private radio stations – Shamla and Dehkada, were temporarily closed by the Taliban municipality on March 10 in Ghazni province in Afghanistan.The stations were shut down for not possessing the required municipal licenses, although they had licenses from other government entities. This was the second closure of the stations for the same reason in a week.The closures, which lasted for three hours, led to protests from media officials and local journalists and an intervention from the Information and Culture department.They were permitted to resume operations, provided they agreed to meet the municipality’s taxation demands within one week.Taliban municipal officials have conveyed to the media organizations that pressure from Kabul authorities necessitates the enforcement of municipal law, which includes an annual “license tax” of 7,000 Afghan afghanis, approximately US $100.This action, according to the Afghanistan Journalists Center (AFJC) places undue pressure on media organizations, effectively subjecting them to double jeopardy by demanding additional licensing when they already comply with broader regulatory and tax requirements.Photo: AFJC […]