US

Fixing Radio: What Are Your Priorities?

Asked what one step they would take to improve radio right now, a lot of Ross on Radio readers would indeed turn their attention to spotload. Recently, I decided that if broadcasters only had the focus and resources for one thing, commercial load was “The First Thing That Radio Must Fix,” because it undermines all […] […]

US

North Country Public Radio Upgrades In Glens Falls

St. Lawrence University’s Public News/Talk “North Country Public Radio” is acquiring Classic Country “K94.1” WNYV Whitehall/Glens Falls NY from Loud Media for $50,000 and then selling 97.3 W247BJ Glens Falls to Loud Media for $15,000. NCPR will begin operating WNYV via LMA on Monday, November 13 moving its programming in Glens Falls from its 38 […] […]

US

Audacy To Launch Quarterly News Town Halls

Audacy has announced it will launch a new quarterly town hall program, “Audacy Conversations” on a dozen on its News and News/Talk stations. The show is described as featuring “a robust week of coordinated local coverage in Audacy’s News markets, a live town hall broadcast rotationally hosted by one of its brands and a syndicated […] […]

US

Short-E Moves From Fort Myers To Rumba 97.7 Boston As Program Director

iHeartMedia Spanish CHR “Rumba 97.7” WZRM Brockton/Boston has announced the appointment of Eliseo ‘Short-E’ Cierra as Program Director. Cierra joins WZRM from the dual role as PD/afternoon host at Rhythmic CHR “105.5 The Beat” WBTT and PD of Hot AC “Y100.1” WZJZ Fort Myers FL where he has been since 2018. He began his career […] […]

ASIA

A First for German Radio: bigGPT launches AI DJ

Content from BPRLaunched in August 2023, Germany has a new Radio Star as bigLayla becomes the main personality on bigGPT. the first station in Germany to feature a fully functioning AI driven radio personalityAudiotainment Südwest – the company behind one of Germany’s most successful youth stations bigFM is behind the launch of this new AI web radio “bigGPT”.  The station is available online at https://www.bigfm.de/webradio/bigGPT or on DAB+

Andy Abel, Digital Head of Audiotainment Southwest  says: “We were immediately hooked. Not because synthetic moderators are combined here with a selection of music, but because RadioGPT tries to implement three things in broadcasting: Live, local, and AI-assisted”First comments from bigFM listeners who have already heard the new synthetic presenter “It’s almost scary how good it sounds”.“bigLayla”, as the new moderator is called, is programmed interactively, and can also answer listeners’ questions.bigFM moderator Kristina Fixemer, who also moderates her own web streaming channel on bigGPT.de: talks about her new AI colleague. “Sometimes bigLayla still sounds a bit strict and technical, but at other times flirty and almost human.”bigFM’s Rolf Vogl adds, “It’s so exciting to hear that the AI can generate content and answers from the Internet in seconds and then, thanks to its learned character, she also talks to our listeners.”Music on the station is also a new challenge “We only play top 40 songs on bigGPT all day long, but that sounds easier than it is. It’s not the top 40 of the usual radio hits, but based on music videos and songs that are most streamed every day on platforms including YouTube, Spotify, Shazam, TikTok etc. we balance the sources and the sequence, then AI then selects the songs that run in the bigGPT music mix.” according to music producer Lukas Spannbauer.Alexander Heine, responsible for the development of the AI prompting, has been training both bigLayla and other male AI ‘DJs’ for weeks in a moderation camp: “our goal is, to have Layla absorb as much good, selected content and impressions as possible…..In the last weeks. She has listened to podcasts, scientists in Germany on the subject of artificial intelligence and has developed an understanding for the concerns that AI will take work away from other media professionals. Now, for the first time, she will step on the thin ice of interacting with a real audience.”For the CEO of Audiotainment Südwest, Kai Fischer, “It’s an open learning laboratory for media professionals,.. We can only judge how we use this technology for the day-to-day broadcasting of our radio stations when we understand the technology 100 percent and can use it responsibly.”Program manager Valerie Weber on the world of synthetic voices: “Our greatest challenge is to make it clear that it is not a human. As bigLayla learns almost exclusively from and through people, the AI voice sometimes very eloquently conveys the impression that it is a human being. We wanted to focus on maximum transparency, letting synthetic language models act reliably from their own recognizable role will be the exciting task for the future development of AI personalities.”You can sample bigGPT and the radio stream for yourself at https://www.bigfm.de/webradio/bigGPT […]

UK

Drystone Radio expands to East Lancashire via small-scale DAB multiplex

North Yorkshire-based community service Drystone Radio has added itself to the newly launched East Lancashire small-scale DAB multiplex. The station says it is launching a new station for East Lancashire after extending and rebroadcasting its output on DAB in Bradford earlier this year. Drystone Radio was founded in 1998 as a registered charity to promote […] […]