ASIA

Selling Radio Direct with Pat Bryson.“If they won’t give you their time, they won’t give you their money.”How true this is!Through the skillful use of “grabbers” we can get the attention of potential clients.

Remember to use emotionally evocative words in your “grabbers”. People buy emotionally and justify it with logic. If we approach people with words that make them call to mind problems their business is experiencing, and, if they think we might be able to help them to solve those problems, they will give us their time. They must give us their time before they will give us their money.These “grabbers” can work in person or over the phone. How are you dealing with voice mail? In addition to “gatekeepers” our clients now have another way to prevent unwanted interruptions. (read: hide from us!)Scenario A: You’ve been calling and calling a new prospect, trying to schedule an initial appointment to assess his needs. You’re being ignored by the use of voice mail.The next time you reach his voice mail, schedule an appointment. Leave the date, time and place of the meeting (his office). Ask him to call you back only if the arrangements are inconvenient.

While many potential customers won’t call you back to schedule an appointment, they will call you back to prevent one.Scenario B: You’ve had trouble reaching a prospective client. Again, you get his voice mail. Try calling before or after regular business hours. Much of the time, the top decision maker will be at his or her desk long after the staff has gone home. You’ll be talking to a real, live person.Scenario C: One of your current clients has given you a referral. It’s usually not every effective to leave your number on a prospective client’s voice mail. Instead, tell him you have been asked to call by Mr. ___ and that you will return the call the next day at ___O’clock. That way, he’ll be expecting your call and will know that you were sent by one of his acquaintances. Also, you can truthfully tell his gatekeeper, “Mr. ___ is expecting my call”.Previous article:The 3 little pigs and the rule of three in sales […]

GMA Network’s flagship radio stations, Super Radyo DZBB 594 kHz and Barangay LS 97.1 Forever!, further strengthened their dominance in Mega Manila for March 2025, based on data from Nielsen Radio Audience Measurement (RAM).Super Radyo DZBB 594 kHz, GMA’s flagship AM radio station, posted a commanding 53.6 percent audience share, marking a 1.4 percent increase from the previous month. DZBB’s strong performance firmly puts it far ahead of its closest competitors, DZRH (11.5 percent) and DWWW (11.3 percent).Barangay LS 97.1 Forever!, the Network’s flagship FM radio station, also widened its lead in March with an audience share of 43.2 percent, up 0.6 percent from February. It continues to outperform its nearest competitors, 90.7 Love Radio (18.5 percent) and Wish 107.5 (9.9 percent). […]

Thailand’s National Broadcasting and Telecommunications Commission (NBTC), said that after it announced the criteria for granting permission to use radio frequencies for temporary testing and experimentation, many interested operators applied for permission. After going through the applicants, it proposed to consider approving two operators to conduct temporary testing for a period of six months.Dharma Radio Station Group, applying under the name of IFZ Innovative Co., Ltd., has been granted permission to use radio frequencies, Block 9A (Center Frequency 202.928 MHz) in the Bangkok and surrounding areas. The radio stations participating in the testing include Dharma for People Station and Santi Radio Station.Khon Kaen Station Group, applying under the name of JKP Engineering Radio Co., Ltd. Permission to use the radio frequency, block frequency 6C (center frequency 185.360 MHz) in the areas of Khon Kaen and Maha Sarakham, with radio stations participating in the test, such as Khon Kaen Mahanakhon Radio Station, Sai Fah Radio Station, and Thai Local Radio Station.

To meet the license conditions, the licensee must establish a digital radio network by installing standard transmitter equipment according to the NBTC announcement on technical standards for digital broadcasting transmitters, and use the frequency as permitted by the license, with the installation of 4 antennas as specified to cover the specified area. Up to 16-18 programs (radio stations) can be broadcasted, depending on the specified sound quality or bit rate.For the radio stations participating in the test, they must be FM radio stations that have been authorized by the NBTC to be able to broadcast in parallel with the DAB+ system without any content modification, and are prohibited from seeking additional income from this test. The licensee must be responsible for all costs of installing the test equipment, including providing digital radio receivers so that the public can listen to the broadcast.“The permission to test the digital radio system DAB+ this time is another step forward in the development of the broadcasting business in Thailand. It is an opportunity for general operators who are ready to join together to test and experiment by themselves. This allows such operators to learn both the technology of the system and learn about management and economics that follow the market mechanism. As the NBTC, I have a duty to promote and support under free and fair competition. Although this permission will start at the local and regional level, it can be expanded to broadcasting at the national level if additional networks are established. Currently, Thailand does not have a truly national broadcasting system that can broadcast programs from a single station so that people can listen to that station simultaneously nationwide. This must be urgently pushed for to benefit the country’s public communication, especially in warning of disasters or other emergencies, such as the recent earthquakes, if other telecommunications systems cannot be used in the future,” said Air Chief Marshal Dr. Thanapan (NBTC). […]

Steve Ahern walks through the 2025 #NABShow to discover some of the equipment and programming trends at this year’s exhibition in Las Vegas.Some of the trends I’ve found here while walking around NAB 2025 are:
Cloud storage and cloud workflows are coming of age, there are more reliable high level services being offered from cloud providers and they are more secure. AI suppliers are paying attention to security and are building AI inside their tools and locking it to the client on-prem or in secure cloud services.
Equipment is moving more off-premises into the cloud, supported by cloud SaaS.
RCS has revealed a better ZETTA. They’ve had cloud services for a while with the Zetta Cloud and Selector Cloud products, but these were initially developed as emergency backups. Now RCS has perfected them to the point where, now they’ve expanded all your playout and integrated functions to a browser based product in the cloud. It even works in unstable internet connectivity environments.
Prominence in cars is just as important an issue here in America as it is in Australia and Europe.
Audience measurement – a very interesting trend. Radio ratings are shifting from 5 minute measurement chunks to shorter measurement – 3 minutes. This is in recognition that advertisers believe that online social and search services are more up to date because they can see minute by minute data. Never mind that this so called minute by minute data may create a false impression, it is still a negative perception for radio, so the industry is moving to fix that perception.
Voice cloning is coming of age and also, particularly in this market, people are thinking about the ownership of your voice and your image. Rights management for music in film has been a thing for a long time, but now it’s coming to radio and podcasting and the AI tools in some of the recording equipment are being set up to help us automate rights management via AI recognition of who was speaking and whose image is in the shot on air and in social media.
The cost of imported transmission and studio equipment imported to America may rise, but locally manufactured equipment will stray stable, resulting in the benefits that President Trump is promising… more purchasing of American made equipment.
Apple has got ahead of the tariff war by moving some of its iPhone manufacturing from China to India to avoid the huge tariffs that have been imposed as part of the tariff war between the two countries.
Transmission companies are offering maintenance and monitoring contracts when you buy the equipment as a direct response to having less broadcast technicians available with broadcasting expertise because a lot of people in the technical area of radio stations now come from the IT side. It is a very interesting solution to the problem of less trained broadcast technicians and a new service support product for transmitter manufacturers.
Also in transmitter developments is the idea of plug-and-play transmitters where everything is in the transmitter housing, including the exciters, encoders, compressors. This is now possible when the transmission process is all IP based so can all be integrated into one computer and control centre. Content comes via internet not STLs (backups still needed) and once it arrives at the TX site clients just plug in the blue cable and turn on the transmitter.
The media industry expects that President Trump’s tariffs are going to affect sales in areas like cars and retail, because prices may go up and cheaper products may not come into the country because they’ll have to pay higher tariffs. The businesses that sell those products may not have as much money to spend on advertising.  Fears of a recession are also increasing in America at the moment, which some analysts have predicted will mean consumers may cut back on subscription services such as music streaming and video services as they tighten their belts. This may lead them back to ad-supported entertainment media such as free to air radio and television.

Something I’ve been raving on about for years is the inconsistency of levels and monitoring over streaming. All outputs should be the same level and have similar processing. AM broadcast, DAB broadcast, the stream to your app, the stream to your website should sound the same, especially when cars and phones can dynamically switch between sources… and yet they’re often not. Companies are now introducing monitoring across all their streams and that allows broadcast Ops Centres to integrate program fail alarms and more active stream monitoring with their broadcast monitoring system.Another trend talked about here is that radio people are under-selling themselves. In radio we know digital, we’re dealing in digital on the digital platforms and yet advertisers, agencies and people who talk about radio forget that we’re digital. Radio people themselves don’t champion that point enough either.AI now will allow online advertisers to make multiple versions of ads tailored to very specific audiences. Radio creatives should be making more versions of radio ads. It’s something radio used to do and we’ve forgotten it, but AI is bring it back in focus. It’s one of the strengths of radio that can help radio take on this social media advertising trend.In a divided world, local radio is very strong here in America. Local stations are retaining their audiences and advertisers. Local radio owners have told me that is because they’re very anchored in the community. There’s political division in this country and in the world at the moment, but when people are sick of listening to the big competitive aggressive networks taking one side or the other, they return to their local radio stations to ground them in their local communities or to music stations to bring them entertainment and help them escape from the polarisation. […]

Radioinfo Asia spoke to Siddhanta Pinto, the founder of OfSpin Media Friends from Mumbai, India at Radiodays Europe 2025.Founded in 2004, OfSpin produced a wide range of radio content in its initial years.It has now evolved to an audio-only content creator that develops shows in a number of genres from drama to sport and everything in between, all of which is done in-house. It focuses particularly on audio books.

With its own dedicated audio suite, it has the advantage of efficiency and control over the entire creative process from idea to finished product.“We have three verticals. One is audio books – which is a huge incentive for me to attend this conference in Europe despite being from India. We also focus on podcasts and audio advertising, but in particular on audio books. There is a shift in the entire business model. The traditional model is the Audible model, where they spend on producing these audio books with partners like us, but then they keep that audio for life despite the rights resting back to publishers or authors. I’ve been trying to float a model which is more inclusive where we understand who owns the actual audio apart from the audio rights from day one and therefore, we can control it for the life of the product. And if we can share royalties with not only the author but also the voice artists and the producers,” Pinto told Radioinfo Asia.[embedded content]“It’s a big struggle because we are up against large players. It involves a lot of educating authors who are now smartening up to the audio space and keeping audio rights to themselves. Educating publishers, but they always have large business interests in mind with bulk deals, so its slow but I think we are moving in that direction. Audio books are here to stay,” he added. […]

In the Podcasting session of this year’s NABShow, John Wordock  quoted the just released, Edison Research figures (March 2025) “showing 55% of the U.S. population consumes podcasts, 48% are audio and 7% are video.”Here are John’s top tips for podcasters:
Your podcast strategy starts with quality – Storytelling, Talent, Audience and Reward
Best practices for Apple and Spotify – Name of Show, Strong keywords in titles and descriptions, Colourful and clear cover artwork, Correct Metadata (eg. primary category), Multiple Podcasts, Create a channel on Apple.
Podcasting things to think about – Start a podcast for your radio show and include behind the scenes content; Have a mission statement  for your podcast and develop a launch plan; Start a local news podcast and update the feed several times daily; Team up with your local sports bar or brewery and host your podcast there; Create a public affairs podcast and cover government; Hold special live podcast events in your city.
John’s reasons for a having YouTube host your podcast:
YouTube is ruling the roost – One billion monthly podcast users; Top podcast platform; Generated buzz during 2024 election; Attracting top talent for shows.
Most often used podcast service – YouTube 33%, Spotify 26%, Apple 14%.
YouTube invades your living room – Viewers watched more than 400 million hours of podcasts on smart TVs in 2024 (YouTube, 2024).
Here are John’s suggestions for optimising YouTube:

Best practices for Youtube – Channel mission; Strong keywords in titles and description; Clear and eye-tempting thumbnails; Quality lighting and Mic; Acceptable camera (even iPhones); Heroes, How to, Headlines; Tap into the moment, Get recommended.
Build and promote your YouTube channel – Full shows, YouTube Shorts, Clips; Behind the scenes; Bonus content; Special interviews; Live events or breaking news.
YouTube things to think about – Start a YouTube channel for your radio station, TV station or podcasts; Publish special interviews that are too long for air (20-30 minutes); Create a sponsorable weekly feature (eg. First responder Friday); Create a public affairs show (eg. Ask the mayor); Hold special live events on your channel (eg. campaign debates); Live stream important daily shows or events.
“Polinate everywhere and make it easier for audiences to find your show”, John said.“The podcast consumer lives in a hybrid world so you need to play to both audio and video audiences.“Here are are some ways that video blazes revenue paths,” said John.

John’s tips for using AI tools:
Use AI tools – Time saving programs; Budget friendly tech; Research and writing tools; plus Promotion and Marketing.
AI tools to think about – Opus Clip (Video and social clip editing); Descript (Audio and video editing); VidiQ (titles, thumbnails, audience data); Headliner (Video, Audio, Clipping); Ausha (SEO and Keywords).
“The future trends to watchout for are podcast listening in cars, podcast viewing on smart Tvs, podcast live events and world domination by YouTube,” said John.In addition, Adobe has recently added a video conversion tool called Adobe Express. The tool is free and open-use, for creating and editing video content. It is available online here Adobe Express’ Online Video Converter. […]