ASIA

The Digital Radio Mondiale™ (DRM) Consortium welcomes the announcement by Indonesian authorities to adopt the global, open and ITU endorsed DRM Digital Radio Standard for national adoption in a country of over a quarter of a billion people.This news was announced during the DRM IBC Showcase event in Amsterdam. DRM is the only digital radio standard to serve all coverage needs for the national and local public radio stations as well as for commercial and community broadcasters. Going forward, DRM-based digital radio services can be introduced in the medium wave (MW) and FM bands, as well as in VHF band-III, for all of Indonesia’s 18 000 islands.275 million Indonesians can soon enjoy a whole new radio experience with better audio quality and more choice, Journaline text news and, above all, an extra level of protection against disasters through DRM’s Emergency Warning Functionality (EWF). The introduction of modern digital radio services will stimulate the entire radio ecosystem and broadcast industry, and it will energize the Indonesian as well as global receiver manufacturing.

The DRM Consortium is looking forward to further working closely with the Indonesian broadcasters and stakeholder groups, the governmental agencies, as well as the receiver, automotive and mobile phone industry in Indonesia to ensure a successful roll-out of DRM digital radio services throughout the country for the benefit of the entire Indonesian population. […]

CML Microcircuits (CML Micro) has announced at the IBC 2023 DRM Showcase Event, the full release of the world’s lowest-cost, lowest power, and smallest sized Digital Radio Mondiale (DRM) broadcast receiver module (DRM1000). DRM is the world’s leading digitalradio broadcast standard able to provide rich, high quality digital content over vast areas using medium-wave (MW) and short-wave (SW). In addition to high-capacity local broadcasting at Very High Frequencies (VHF).The DRM1000 is a complete ‘antenna to speaker’ module, containing all hardware, software, IP and patent licenses required for a radio equipment manufacturer to easily realize a dual mode (digital and analogue) DRM capable receiver.The module offers a 60% cost reduction and 80% power reduction over existing DRM technologies in the market. The device can run effectively from solar or wind-up rechargeable batteries: in addition to small primary cells. Low power operation directly improves accessibility to vital educational and public digital radio services across many emerging nations and opens the great features of DRM to many millions of potential listeners around the world.

In offering the DRM1000, CML Micro wish to enable their customers to design a complete DRM /AM /FM broadcast receiver solution, which is attractive, highly featured and accessible for all. The module allows these innovative receivers to be manufactured locallyin emerging nations in addition to traditional technology manufacturing locations.In addition to announcing the availability of the DRM1000; CML Micro is also proud to announce that the device has been adopted by Gospell Digital Technology Ltd for two new DRM portable radio families to be shown for the first time at the IBC 2023 DRM ShowcaseEvent.Haochun Liu, Head of Research and Development at Gospell, said: “At Gospell, we’ve always held a steadfast belief in the pivotal role that the accessibility and ubiquity of DRM radios play in enabling people to access high-quality information. This unwavering commitmenthas driven us over the years to design and manufacture user friendly DRM receivers, constantly pushing the boundaries to make them more accessible and attainable for all. The introduction of the DRM1000 module, with its impressive low-power consumption, costeffectiveness, and high performance, has been a game-changer. We are truly honored to collaborate with CML Micro in launching two groundbreaking DRM receivers based on the DRM1000 module, namely the GR-220 and GR-221. We’re confident that our combined efforts will not only deliver unparalleled value to people but also pave the way for the next chapter in DRM technology.”One third of the world’s population remains without an internet connection. Many millions of people will benefit from widespread DRM adoption. Increasing access to DRM enhances public services in remote areas, or where an internet connection is very expensive. Thisincludes a disaster and early warning service that can be used in the event of interruption to communications caused by natural disasters.CML Micro’s VP of Global Marketing, Matthew Phillips, said: “The benefits of DRM are already being enjoyed by listeners in the Indian market with 70% of the population covered by DRM broadcast services and 6 million new cars already fitted with DRM capablereceivers. We believe the market for DRM capable receivers is set for significant growth over the coming years. The DRM1000 provides an ideal platform to serve this emerging market with low cost, battery-powered portable receivers sold in millions of units.”

DRM in the medium-wave or short-wave band delivers FM-like quality to listeners spread over many thousands of square miles, from a single transmitter. This makes DRM the optimum digital radio solution for emerging nations. DRM uses existing long-, medium-,short-wave and very-high frequency (LW, MW, SW and VHF) radio frequency bands, operating seamlessly alongside current analogue services. […]

“We are over the moon in my country at the moment. It’s boom, time, but where is the money for radio?” asked Abe Thomas at Radiodays Asia.With India’s Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft recently completing a successful landing on the Moon’s south pole, the country is on a high as it joins the space race. Big FM’s CEO Abe Thomas wants to see India’s radio and audio industries capitalising more on the buoyant mood in his country.“Radio revenue is growing but is not maintaining its relative share in competition with other media. We need to win today’s race, while also running tomorrow’s race.”

Attention is the new currency, according to Thomas.“Brands want to be at the centre of consumer engagement. Brands want to sit in the intersection of content, community and commerce.”With this in mind his network is “maintaining our revenue core, but also expanding to other revenue sources.” He is building up revenue from podcasts and other audio offerings while still focusing on existing broadcast radio revenue.Attention: “Attention is the new currency… brands want to sit on the intersection of content, community and commerce. “We are unlocking multiple revenue streams, either breakthrough in our traditional zones, or breaking out of the traditional broadcast revenue space and breaking through to new areas.”

Abe Thomas’ 4 main radio brands deliver about 80% of the company’s revenue, to get growth he is extending into new audience and advertiser segments such as:
Brand Solutions
Gamification of popular topics such as singing and cricket
Marketing Solutions for advertisers
Creative Intellectual Property that we can licence and monetise
Audience Cohorts that go beyond radio such as events
Podcasts on specialist monetizable topics such as cooking, medicine, truckers and motor dealers.
Podcasts: India is the third largest consumer of podcasts in the world, but Thomas wants to see revenue growth keeping up with listenership growth.“We are working hard to monetise this new form of audio. Talent in our 58 cities are keen to create content… we identify their opportunities and create branded podcasts for clients, then amplify them through radio. “We have created over 200 podcasts so far. All brands are looking for cohorts… we are becoming a client solution business to solve those client problems and I believe we will be able to expend out new revenue opportunities.” […]

Media Prima Audio CEO Nazri Noran shared insights into the power of disruption in his presentation at RadioDays Asia.Radio has faced many challenges and continues to do so as new technologies try to put it out of business, but radio continues to adapt.“The pandemic was the biggest challenge recently. Isolation, working from home, the rise of delivery services, content creators grew like mushrooms to entertain themselves, and the question was raised if people were still listening to radio… Radio is still alive because we have the ability to adapt and be hyper-local.”

Noran pointed out that music is “no longer the denominator for radio,” saying the future success of radio lies in “seizing the moment in big events, topical content and trendspotting.”The company has five broadcast brands – Hot FM, Kool 101, Molek FM, Fly FM and 8FM, plus Audio+, an app that supports all five radio stations, podcasts and other engaging content.He gave three examples of how his stations are seizing the moment, trendspotting and embracing topical content.When the smash hit girl group Black Pink came to Malaysia, the station jumped on the hype with welcome billboards, a mapped arrival route for fans, pink drinks, activations and concert sponsorship. “We took ownership of the event which grew engagement and audience for Fly FM.”Fly FM has also introduced the first Malaysian A.I. DJ. While the announcer is artificial, the program that she presents is fully produced by a team of real people behind the A.I DJ to gain good publicity while still broadcasting a quality program using a combination of live and artificial content.

The third example was grabbing the “sassy political heart-throb figure” KJ, a former Cabinet Minister with a huge following and turning him into a radio icon. When the station put him on air “socials blew up, it got huge attention to our brand.”The former Health Minister KJ was sacked from the government in January this year. When he was offered a radio shift, suddenly everyone was tuning in and everyone became aware of Hot FM. “This is the power of disruption,” said Noran.Photo: Media Prima on air teams […]

Imagine all the songs disappearing from your playout system before your very eyes while you are on air.This was the situation for one of RCS’ clients a few years ago when the radio station was hacked.It prompted RCS to invent a cloud based backup and recovery system for its clients so that they could stay on air, even if their computer infrastructure was compromised, then recover quickly once systems were restored.

At Radiodays Asia, RCS President and CEO Philippe Generali described the system that protects stations from natural disasters, hackers and viruses taking down IT infrastructure.RCS Disaster Recovery is a safety net that gets broadcasters back on-air, easily, efficiently and quickly.It runs in the background, sending all of a station’s audio, metadata, schedules and SQL backups to the cloud, allowing real time backup playout and giving stations time to recover. Voicetracks can be done remotely during the disaster phase and, when the station’s own systems are restored then all the old logs and whatever was played during the local outage can all be put back to the station’s own systems.“With the cloud, your station can stay on air and fix its systems… It’s better than having a redundant hardware system on site, which can also be infected during a hack,” he told Radiodays conference delegates.

Disclosure: RCA is a radioinfo advertiser. […]

Pioneering streaming and podcast solutions provider StreamGuys will demonstrate a new metadata workflow with Xperi (NYSE: XPER) at IBC that will help radio broadcasters publish rich visual content alongside their online audio streams. The demonstration will prove how broadcasters are assured consistency across their terrestrial and streaming platforms through the reliable integration of AIM Rapid and SGplayer, StreamGuys’ HTML5 solution for consumer playback and content navigation. Both solutions support reliable metadata throughput and delivery to multiple consumer platforms.AIM Rapid delivers visual content, notably album art, to radio stations alongside music track details, enhanced show information, news alerts and more. It can do so for FM, DAB+, and HD Radio™ delivery systems, as well as connected cars, websites and mobile platforms. Working with StreamGuys will ensure that the same album artwork is used across all delivery platforms, including websites and mobile platforms using SGplayer. StreamGuys’ SGmetadata service for metadata management enables reliable handoff between the middleware (AIM Rapid) and playout (SGplayer, mobile app) workflow elements.“Xperi has provided metadata solutions to broadcasters for more than 16 years,” said Chris Gould, vice president for All in Media, the Xperi division that manages AIM Rapid. “We have a wealth of experience building middleware that is reliable, simple to use, and can also interface with a wide range of third-party systems such as SGplayer from StreamGuys. The interoperability between AIM Rapid and SGplayer ultimately means that the online audio consumer enjoys a richer experience with track metadata and artwork approved and delivered from the broadcaster, who will no longer worry about a lack of consistency across different audiences. Working with StreamGuys, we have made the process of delivering rich visual content to online platforms as simple and reliable as possible.”

Eduardo Martinez, Vice President of Technology for StreamGuys, explains that the workflow originates within the playout automation system, which feeds Xperi Rapid. The Rapid middleware grabs additional metadata related to the track from Xperi’s TiVo® music library, including album art, and feeds the streaming encoder. The SGmetadata service then pulls and converts the standards-based metadata for translation to SGplayer and mobile apps, which display the album art and other visual content alongside track information for the consumer.“This is an intelligent and interoperable metadata workflow that solves a very common problem for the broadcaster,” said Martinez. “Many broadcasters have immense song libraries with incomplete metadata, and Rapid intuitively steps in to provide that missing metadata as needed. Interoperability with SGmetadata extends these capabilities to the broadcaster’s online audio streams, ensuring reliable transport through the CDN ecosystem and to the output for presentation on SGplayer. Working close with the Xperi team, we developed, tested and confirmed a solution within one week that is simple to setup, quick to deploy and consistent in service.”StreamGuys will demonstrate the interoperable workflow between AIM Rapid, SGmetadata and SGplayer at the ENCO stand (8.C73), where StreamGuys is an official IBC co-exhibitor. IBC begins Friday and runs through Monday, September 18. […]