Month: September 2022

Community broadcasters from two countries demonstrated how ingenuity, creativity and smart technology keeps them connected and engaged with remote, indigenous, and hard to reach listeners in a showcase session titled ‘Connecting with ALL your listeners’ at RadioAsia.Jon Bisset, Chief Executive Officer, Community Broadcasting Association of Australia (CBAA) said the purpose of their organization is to make community radio stations stronger and more successful by providing support and resources, products and services that deliver economies of scale, communication and collective representation and networking and peer-to-peer support.The community broadcasting sector in Australia is powered by 22,000 volunteers and 900 employees, 99 percent of whom find value in working in community radio.He discussed the importance of community radio news and info as a crucial service for undeserved audiences, which are under-represented by mainstream media and how in regional areas community radio provides an essential connection in times of crisis.He gave an example of Braidwood FM, a community radio in New South Wales, where during the bushfires, “there were people that had the radio on 24 hours a day every day just to hear what was happening. There was no on ground local coverage from the ABC here.”Speaking about going beyond on-air broadcasts to reach local audiences, he said: “We want to keep community radio relevant in the next five to ten years. Without integration with other platforms, it is not possible.”Bhumiraj Chapagain, Audit Committee Coordinator, Association of Community Radio Broadcasters (ACORAB), Nepal, discussed various way in which they tried to reach local communities during the Covid-19 pandemic.They created an audio center which allowed listeners to contact the through IVR, took audio messages from audience as well as from member stations to disseminate information and updates.“We are trying to receive voices of disadvantaged people from remote areas and take them to the authorities,” he said.He also discussed plans to involve more girls and women in community radio journalism as ACORAB aims to create 35,000 volunteer journalists over the next five years. […]

On the second day of the ongoing ABU RadioAsia conference, a showcase presentation titled ‘Show me the money!’ discussed if radio stations have really made money out of their social platforms.The first presentation about this was made by Vickneswaran Kajindran, Head of Business Development, Media Prima Omnia and Nadiah Sanchez Yu Strategy Planner, RMG.Yu discussed how monetization and an improved product offering go hand in hand in offering more value.“Going beyond tapping into radio listeners involves leveraging on creative solutions to extend a campaign’s reach,” she saidShe discussed various case studies like the launch of Disney+ Hotstar in Malaysia, for which FlyFM, HotFm, 8FM & BuletinFM  all became Disney+ Hotstar FM leading up the OTT launch starting with teasers, followed by a countdown and the final launch, which saw 26.4 million impressions and their site crashed due to an overwhelming response.FlyFM, HotFM and 8FM hosted an online contest for FoodPanda, a food delivery service which had a reach of 7.2 million.In another case study about Central Sugar Refinery, key announcers from FlyFM and HotFM interviewed 30 frontliners over 30 days on how they cope with the pandemic. The campaign reached 71. Million people, overachieving its target by 195 percent.Kajindran said: “From a client servicing perspective, with these kind of results, it’s easier to go to clients and pitch more ideas involving social media.”Richard Phelps, Senior Digital Producer, All in Media spoke about leveraging Station Apps to generate revenue.According to him, “Radio is an amplifying platform. It works well when integrated with social media.”A great app should balance your business objectives, create simplification for users, focus on your strengths, grow consumption, only collect meaningful audience data and give opportunities to monetise content.He discussed various content monetizing opportunities on station apps, including display advertising, digital ad insertion, ad replacement, vouchers, rewards, in app messaging or push notifications and pop-up sponsored content. […]

On the second day of the ongoing ABU RadioAsia conference, Anna Dixon, Senior Service Designer, ABC Innovations Lab gave a showcase presentation titled ‘The smartest things you’ve never seen’.She discussed an exciting new project at the ABC Innovations Lab which started with the thought of being able to choose some articles from the ABC website and have them read to you as you drive into work or head out for a walk.The pilot objectives were to develop a custom ABC synthetic voice to a level capable of reading out articles, evaluate voice capabilities by comparing a custom ABC branded voice and an off the shelf voice, apply synthetic voice in a text-to-speech trial to understand audience appetite and deliver insights into potential accessibility benefits as well as translation capabilities.Dixon took the audience through the steps involved in developing this voice, giving a history of voice synthesis, which kicked off in the 70s with format synthesis, followed by a technique called concatenative synthesis, where recorded chunks of sound are reassembled in different ways and through to the modern voices of our smart home assistants and phones today produced by a few big tech players.She discussed developing a voice using neural networks – a series of algorithms that endeavours to recognise underlying relationships in a set of data through a process that mimics the way the human brain operates.She spoke about taking samples of three of their presenters and how they ended up developing an ABC virtual voice in partnership with Microsoft and applied it in a ‘text-to-speech’ trial at the ABC News website and app.Discussing the viability of the pilot, Dixon said: “Is it practical or useless? We try to learn via tracking analytics, a survey that is attached to the feature, and some specialized usability testing with accessibility experts.” […]