ASIA

In the session titled ‘Emergency Broadcasting’ we heard from Australia and Japan how the ABC and NHK have innovated their readiness and organisation to function at the very best when urgent and reliable information is needed the most in case of natural disasters.Seiichi Kuriki, Senior Producer, Global strategy division, NHK WORLD, Japan, was fascinated by radio since childhood and that’s why he chose to join NHK’s international division when he grew up.He made a presentation about NHK’s innovations to provide foreign residents and visitors with more detailed disaster emergency information through broadcasts and webcasts.At first, NHK established its foreign language service for an overseas audience, but in recent years, the number of foreign residents in Japan has been increasing. NHK has included an initiative in its 2021-23 corporate plan to target them for the first time.However, there’s a dilemma that the foreign language service faces. It reaches overseas audience as well as foreigners in Japan, and information for both targets is delivered in the same foreign languages. But the needs of the two audiences are not the same. For the overseas audience, overdetailed disaster emergency info may be boring, although it is very important for foreign residents in Japan.They are addressing this issue in two ways through automation – Code table conversion for fixed pattern information, and AI Translation for freestyle, pattern less, real time information.In order to make it effective, Japan Meteorological Agency is linked with NHK and automatically shares immediate updates in case of strong earthquakes and tsunamis on the public broadcaster’s app and website.Along with automated bulletins, manual updates are also important as they’re more efficient in conveying information flexibly to meet the demand.At the moment, NHK’s technical team is considering applying text-to-speech technology to its multilingual service. In the future, automated bulletins and AI-translated subtitles may be used for podcasts, webcasts or radio broadcasts.Patrick Hession, Emergency Broadcast Lead, ABC, Australia, said that fired and floods are the biggest emergencies that need to be covered in Australia and “we’re focusing on those whose life and property are under immediate threat.”He said that coverage in natural disasters involves doing a bunch of fairly simple things properly and structuring them together to make it useful. It involves maintaining key contacts on ground, for which preparations should be made well in advance keeping in the mind various capacity constraints. It’s also very important to communicate plans clearly with teams and debrief them.“Audience respond and turn to trusted sources in emergencies as events become more serious, and radio is the most trusted source in Australia,” he said.In the last couple of years, ABC has launched an emergency website, which contains some timeless information which can be accessed anywhere, anytime. It also allows one to search for nearby incidents by linking to ABC Radio and digital coverage.He also stressed on managing growing audience expectations, better managing constraints and targeted coverage as important factors in emergency broadcasts. […]

As radio’s audiences are getting older, how do you successfully engage with the younger, future audiences?On day 2 of Radiodays Asia, Anna Dixon shared some of the work and experiments focused on younger audiences that has been explored by the ABC Innovation Lab.Teens and tweens remember what they watched in their childhood and they think about what their parents watched, but one of the things that was found in this study of younger audiences, is that in the main, this younger audience has no real connection to the ABC.By 2032 two-thirds of the Australian population will be made up of Gen Z, Millennials and Alpha.Teens and tweens care more about the content than the publisher. They rely on the algorithms of their social media feeds to give them the content they like, and this means they are less likely to undertake their own discovery for new content.It also means that if content providers are not already in their feeds, they are unlikely to get there.The under 30’s are also less likely to recall media brands and more likely to remember talent and influencers.The ABC looked at the explosion of TikTok and, along with the establishment of the Talent Fund, were able to employ young new diverse talent to work on their 3rd party platforms.TikTok has provided the ABC with a cost-effective way of testing a broad range of content on the one account, and this has allowed different teams within to organisation to create content, test it and see what works and what should be discarded.Looking at what is so enticing about TikTok, Anna says what stood out is “…that they have a huge range and variety, short modular segments, a continuous flow of content and they serve a unique set of content to each person.” The ABC has now added a new audio product, ABC Streams, and like TikTok, it is a collection of skippable short ABC Podcasts and radio segments of between 1-3 minutes.This allows listeners to access a broad range of topics in a small amount of time while also allowing for links to longer versions of podcasts and radio segments.Anna’s broad takeaways from what the ABC has learnt about this young emerging audience are
They love video. How can you create video to support your audio
Don’t wait for them to come to you, go to where they are
How can you leverage influencers? Think about what the benefits are for them to work with you
Create a model that suits experimentation, and allows things to be abandoned when they don’t work. […]

Podnews proprietor James Cridland surveyed some of the new technology being used by radio broadcasters and podcasters in a session today at RadioDays Asia.SpoolerSpooler is a new CMS for publishing audio that gives creators flexibility to edit and re-edit podcasts quickly and easily, making timely updates feasible in a way never possible before. Spoken, text based, instantly updatable content is the key to Spooler’s offering.The technology is built on the creation of individual digital story modules that can be updated and effortlessly packaged together in a way that is seamless and adaptive, resulting in a finished product that sounds as polished as highly-produced podcasts which can take many hours to create and edit.AdoriAdori allow visuals to be added easily to audio podcasts, for publication on Youtube. “Youtube is the second largest search engine on the internet, it has lots of audio, but needs pictures to make it even better.”Cridland expects that YouTube will increase its emphasis on podcasts in the near future. About half of the content on Youtube is audio content. He urged broadcasters to think about adding pictures and text that can be displayed if people are ‘watching’ the audio on YouTube, and gave the example of True Crime Reporter’s podcast as an example of how this can be done.Adori intends to be usable for TikTok and other platforms in time.SquadcastSquadcast is a Zoom-like tool that records at the person’s own end, ensuring that the quality of each speaker is consistently high, rather than the variable quality that is common in Zoom. Once the recording is finished, audio at the guest’s end will automatically be uploaded to teh broadcaster’s studio computer.Veritone VoiceArtificial voice company Veritone Voice uses familiar voices from the station team to deliver other content when they are not there. For example the synthetically generated voices of the breakfast team are used out of hours to deliver overnight weather, and then the voice reminds people that the team will be on air soon, at 6am.Other technologies mentioned include:The syndicated music countdown show 10 most wanted uses a system developed by the host Gav Richards that allows localisation content to be easily added into the syndicated show.RCS cloud based radio stations allow broadcasters to instantly expand their radio station offerings, such as a range of Kids stations offered by one broadcaster to serve its young audience. […]

Founder and Executive Creative Director, Eardrum, Ralph Van Dijk (pictured below), addressed Radiodays Asia, speaking about Love, the emotion that trumps all others, with the most successful brands those that are loved and shared at warp speed.He says consumers want to be engaged, entertained, and inspired, and the fastest way to a consumer’s heart is through their ears, but for too long “radio has been associated with one-night flings. It’s been the medium that shows up for one night, shouts a few things at you, and the advertising disappears after one night.” These ads have often tried too hard and are “…the audio equivalent of the cheap suit and too much cologne.” Ralph says audios lack of pictures gives it a massive advantage and “…advertisers on audio get to be with listeners all day, every day, at home, while they are on the move, in the most intimate and one on one environment.“We need to help our advertisers create long term campaigns that form long term relationships with our listeners. And if we do, those advertisers will come back time after time to radio.” He says barking lists of prices and talking at listeners doesn’t work, “…because 75% of consumers say they make their decisions based on emotions so if you can find a way to connect with your audience emotionally you are more than halfway to converting them into loyal customers.” […]

Talent recruitment has become harder due to increased competition from competitors poaching staff and social media providing a new avenue for people to build their personality profiles. There is now more competition for talent and wages. How are radio broadcasters coping and what strategies are they using to find and hold new talent? Steve Ahern, Head of ABU Media Academy led a panel discussion called ‘The Tussle for Talent’ with radio leaders to discover the extent of the problem and what they are doing about it.The panel included Duncan Campbell, Chief Content Officer, ARN, Australia, Amanda Lee, Content Director – Melbourne’s 101.9 The Fox, SCA, Australia and Abe Thomas, CEO, Big FM, India.Introducing the topic, Steve quoted the example of an anonymous employee who contacted Radio Today arguing for increased pay in an open letter to the industry. The reactions to it were polarized. Someone found it soul crushing to work really hard for perks which were few and far between and then hear that some people were earning obscene amounts of money, while someone else commented that if you don’t want to leave radio, you don’t need a six figure salary to “be comfortable”, learn what you can do with what you make.Steve then discussed comments from Malek Ali, Proprietor, BFM, Kuala Lumpur on what does it mean for retaining talent, now that people have other options. Is it a problem?Ali said: “Just the last few months, we have lost several people to other organisations seeking content creators. These are not media companies, just normal companies seeking content creator talent for their verticals. The only thing we can do is say it takes a team, not an individual, to create this great content, and then focus on our culture and environment to retain people. If an individual is motivated heavily by financial rewards and leave us, then we wish them well, but tell them to get back to us if anything changes.”Amanda said: “Yes, there’s a lot of other opportunities and not having to do the kind of hours we do in radio is a factor.”“You can make $40,000 a year with a YouTube channel as against $60,000 as a radio producer. You’ll stay in the business if you love it. It’s always been an issue,” said Duncan.Abe spoke of two new phenomena  he has noticed after the pandemic, when there were a lot of job cuts and it changed the way talent looks at work as they seek a better work-life balance. “Ghosting is when people just disappear after their first salary and become uncontactable. The other trend is ‘Quiet Quitting’, when people just do the bare basic minimum to keep their job, there is no effort to try to achieve anything more,” he said.“In an industry with a shallow talent pool, it is our responsibility to help them develop talent,” said Duncan. […]

“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.” […]