ASIA

The French audio specialist and equipment manufacturer Digigram has announced the release of a new Dante sound card as part of its ALP-X range. Launched at IBC Amsterdam 2024 and available from Digigram’s network of distributors early October 2024, ALP-DANTE-LE is the eighth addition to the fast growing range of sound cards launched in 2022.
Capitalizing on the success of the ALP-DANTE, Digigram has developed ALP-DANTE-LE, a lighter version of the PCIe sound card that benefits from its most prominent features.
ALP-DANTE-LE was designed using the same sturdy hardware platform as the rest of the ALP-X range,  whose proven design is a synonym for legendary reliability. The card also features the famous low-profile form factor, coupled to a fanless design to address audio applications where space and reliability are at stake. ALP-DANTE-LE operates under Windows and Linux drivers and is compatible with AES67 and SMPTE 2110-30 protocols, increasing its versatility to address countless applications regardless of the environments. Lastly, the card seamlessly integrates Dante networks thanks to the usual Dante Controller interface, and Digigram’s signature reliability and low latency coupled with the audio quality inherent in the Dante protocol.
ALP-DANTE-LE capitalizes on Digigram’s decades of expertise and naturally comes as the new extension of  the ALP-X family, while being a cost-effective addition to the range.
“We have concentrated all the acclaimed benefits of ALP-DANTE in its lighter version ALP-DANTE-LE, and kept the main functionalities that are essential to most projects where audio is critical. The slim form factor, Dante compatibility with other protocols, 64 channels in and 64 channels out, plus support for Linux and Windows operating systems – are among the card’s highlights” states Stéphane Bert, Digigram’s Presales Manager.
ALP-DANTE-LE comes with adjusted connectivity, while keeping the same number of channels. This optimized card will power a larger array of 365/24/7 run applications that require recording, playout or real time processing.
“It is important for Digigram to cater to all of our customers’ projects, regardless of the application or budget, and provide them with untouched quality. All these benefits now come at an optimized price for improved cost-effectiveness,” concludes Bert. […]

Asia Pulse is an Asia Collective podcast series hosted by Elliott Danker in collaboration with M Group Asia, which take a look at what’s behind the pulse of Asia right now.This weekly show aims to advise on business strategy in the region, with a focus on geopolitics, tech and business expansion within Asia.Topics include defence cooperation and partnerships, Singapore’s place in ASEAN, cybersecurity and AI as well as growing a global leader. Audiences will be able to lean into insights to what businesses are thinking about when considering regional expansion and also see the link between geopolitics and how it affects trends as well as business considerations.The show provides a good mix of industry experts and academics and you are able to get the different types of opinions from the experts as well as the tough questions that academics tend to ask.Danker, who hosts the show, I left the radio scene after close to 20 years. He has pivoted several times within the media industry in Singapore from starting as a broadcast journalist to pop radio to sports tv and also as a part of the start-up team for Money FM 89.3 where he anchored the morning drive time show for over five years.After leaving the stations earlier this year, he started his own media consultancy with an aim to help businesses build their brand through podcasting.Danker says: “I believe that the data analytics that you can get from podcasting represents a more accurate way of building your content as well as meeting the clients’ needs. In the world of “on demand” podcasting represents an opportunity as there is a low barrier of entry and the convenience of the “pause button” is something that appeals to consumers. They are able to multitask while listening to the podcast and are not bound to their driver’s seat to only be able to complete content while driving like how radio tends to depend on. The ease of sharing a podcast via social media is also a great way to gain new audiences and of course, it makes access to guests so much easier. With that in mind, I think podcasting is a great tool for brands to build and reach audiences as a great marketing tool.” […]

CGTN Radio won the Podcast Publisher of the Year award at the Asia Podcast Awards 2024.It won in the Major category, which was open to registered businesses that publish more than 10 podcasts and have more than five staff.Formerly China Plus and still publishing under the brand in the podcast world, CGTN Radio has been China’s pioneer in providing podcast content to a worldwide audience and is the largest podcast publisher in the country. With a portfolio of approximately 60 original podcasts, it offers diverse content across various categories, including news, commentary, business, society and culture, music, arts, sports, history, education, and audiobooks, widely distributed on popular platforms such as Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, and more.The year 2024 saw CGTN Radio embracing and proactively adopting AI technologies to expand the scope and reach of its podcast content. Using text-to-image, text-to-voice and text-to-video and other forms of generative AI technologies, it tells stories from China and with Chinese perspective in multiple formats. Users can not only hear but also watch our stories on their mobile devices.From June 2023 to June 2024, CGTN Radio released new shows including Echoes of Kuliang and Climate Watch. The former honours the true story of American physicist Milton Gardner and his profound connection to Kuliang, China, and represents the broadcaster’s first attempt at an original radio drama series and the wish for better understanding between the peoples of China and the US, despite rising tensions on the geo-strategic level.According to Apple Podcasts, China Plus (CGTN Radio) is the largest podcast content provider on the Chinese mainland, leading in terms of the number of shows and categories.According to podcast analytics platform Chartable (using Chartable’s IAB V2-certified measurement of audience size), a variety of China Plus podcasts consistently rank at the top spots of Apple Podcast Charts and Chartable Podcast Industry Charts. […]

Chinese Folk Tales won the Best Children’s Entertainment Podcast award at the Asia Podcast Awards 2024.It won in the Major category, which was open to registered businesses that publish more than 10 podcasts and have more than five staff.Classical tales, rich with timeless wisdom, always resonate with people from diverse cultural backgrounds. Chinese Folk Tales aims to creatively connect global audiences with these stories, to foster better understanding and more effective communication.It is a multimedia series which targets children audiences and the global story-lovers. The series presents more than one hundred traditional Chinese stories such as “The tale of China’s Valentine’s Day,” “Brave heroine Mulan,” “The extraordinary inventor Lu Ban,” all imbued with traditional philosophy and wisdom with universal human values.To help children have a better understanding of the stories, the team ventured into creating animated videos using cutting-edge AI technologies. This innovation allows global audiences to experience these timeless stories in both audio and video formats.The series has attracted over 50 million views on social media through AIGC animated videos, podcasts and beyond. In Apple Podcasts market, it has entered the top 20 Art podcasts charts in Malaysia, Chile, Türkiye and many other countries. Moreover, Chinese Folk Tales is enthusiastically recommended by listeners worldwide as a must-listen for its universal themes of conveying moral lessons in a simple yet profound manner. […]

Ghost Maps: True Southeast Asian Horror Stories won the Best Fictional Podcast award at the Asia Podcast Awards 2024.It won in the Indie category, which was open to individuals, sole traders and registered not-for-profit organisations, with a staff of less than 5 people.Ghost Maps follows a mysterious narrator as he chronicles the supernatural in Singapore and around Southeast Asia. Inspired by stories shared by real people, the podcast is a classic and well produced true crime podcast focused specifically on horror stories in Southeast Asia.The podcast features two formats: longer episodes (around 1h45min) called Dead Air where they interview people around their supernatural experiences and shorter formats (around 13min) where a horror story is told by a narrator, often in several parts.The release schedule varies but it is released on average weekly. The audience averagesaround 33k per month. […]

Big Take Asia won the Best News Podcast award at the Asia Podcast Awards 2024.It won in the Major category, which was open to registered businesses that publish more than 10 podcasts and have more than five staff.Every week, the Big Take Asia podcast from Bloomberg News brings listeners the most important story from the region. With a team of award-winning producers and editors, it takes the audience inside some of the world’s biggest and most powerful economies, and the markets, tycoons and businesses that drive this ever-shifting region.Each 15-minute episode gives an in-depth look at what happened, how we got here, and why it has financial and business ramifications across the globe. It draws on Bloomberg’s unparalleled network of reporters, from Beijing to Bangalore, Seoul to Singapore and Tokyo to Kuala Lumpur, to deliver original reporting and give context to stories that can move markets.Asia is key to understanding how the global economy and the worlds of business and finance tick. It’s at the centre of increasingly fraught geopolitical tensions and is where the only real threat to the US superpower status will rise and is rising. With this in mind, The Big Take Asia launched in May, to help international listeners make sense of the diverse, dynamic and complex issues in Asia.Within several months of the launch, the show has netted over 200,000 downloads in less than three months, demonstrating our broad reach and ability to provide valuable insight to help decode this vast region covering some 40 countries and more than 2,000 languages.Our launch episode, “The Rise of Modi, Part 1: Why India’s leader Is So Popular – And Polarizing,” is the first episode in a two-part deep-dive series into the life and motivations of India’s divisive leader, Narendra Modi.The episodes, released ahead of the world’s largest election, have been downloaded more than 65,000 times so far. […]