ASIA

Streaming and podcast solutions provider StreamGuys has announced SGcontrol, a powerful new managed service that makes it easier for media enterprises to control how audiences access their content. Providing flexible, centralized management of stream access mechanisms including geo-targeting, geo-restriction, and tokenized authorization in a single, unified service, SGcontrol enables broadcasters and content providers to improve their market-based monetization initiatives and ensure compliance with rights restrictions.StreamGuys will showcase SGcontrol alongside other innovations at the upcoming 2022 NAB Show (April 24-27 in Las Vegas), where they will co-exhibit with technology partner ENCO. The event will also be covered by Radioinfo Asia.“In today’s complex media distribution and licensing landscape, enterprise customers increasingly need more than just a single access control mechanism,” said Robert Minnix, product manager, StreamGuys. “SGcontrol lets them flexibly combine multiple control models to ensure their business requirements are fully met and that the right audience members get the right content. Plus, as a managed service backed by StreamGuys’ renowned operational support, SGcontrol frees customers from the time-consuming effort, implementation complexity, and steep learning curve they would face if managing these access control capabilities themselves.”SGcontrol’s geography-based features can improve accuracy beyond IP address lookups with player-provided latitude and longitude. They flexibly support decision models including country, state, city, DMA, zip code, or radius distance from specified coordinates. The latter is ideal for distance-based content licensing arrangements commonly seen with sports that may not align with traditional broadcast boundaries. SGcontrol’s geo-targeting uses audience location to deliver appropriate regionalized stream variants or in- and out-of-market advertising, while geo-restriction blocks audience members outside the defined region from accessing the content for licensing compliance or audience pruning.Leveraging the latest advances in StreamGuys’ SGpasskey technology, SGcontrol’s tokenization controls lock content behind incredibly flexible protections baked into a simple token delivered alongside the stream. Tokenization is the industry-standard way that pay-per-view and subscription-based streaming is offered to consumers, requiring content to first be authenticated before it is allowed to be delivered to the consumer. Ideal for premium content enablement and secure third-party distribution, SGcontrol supports token validation rules including long- or short-term timed expiry, username lists, valid referrers, and IP lockdown.“Due to licensing, we only stream our stations in specific countries. StreamGuys’ geo-restriction capabilities keep us from getting into any legal issues with the royalty companies by preventing our streams from being accessed in unauthorized regions,” said John Whiteside, Technical Director at Houston-based RFC Media. “StreamGuys’ geo-restriction service has given us and our clients peace of mind that our streams will only be accessible in the countries where we have legal rights to allow access. And as a managed service, it is easy for us to set up geo-restriction for new stations and StreamGuys always implements our requests in a timely fashion.” […]

The Recording Industry Association of Malaysia (RIM) has launched its Chart shows on Astro Radio stations for the first time.RIM is a non-profit trade association which represents 300+ recording businesses and companies registered in Malaysia. Its members are involved in the production, manufacturing, and distribution of local and international sound, music video and karaoke recordings.Every week, the RIM Charts, compiled by global music technology leader, BMAT, list top local and international songs that Malaysians are listening to, based on verified data submitted by major digital music service providers including Spotify and Apple Music.So far, the RIM charts were only listed on RIM’s website and social media. Now, they will also be available on Hitz FM, ERA and MY on air and on SYOK app.According to Astro Radio CEO Kenny Ong, through Astro Radio platforms, the charts will now be accessible to 15.6 million weekly listeners.On the Hitz RIM Chart Show, listeners can enjoy a countdown of top 20 local and international English songs comprising Top 10 local English songs from the RIM charts, and an additional 10 songs from various Hitz FM segments including Hitz Throwbacks, featuring first throwback local song on Hitz FM; Hitz Rising, featuring upcoming local and South East Asian songs; Hitz Chart Request, songs requested by listeners; Hitz TikTok Viral, featuring viral songs on TikTok, and Hitz Worldwide, showcasing trending international English songs.On RIM Chart ERA and MY RIM Chart shows, listeners can enjoy top 10 local Malay songs and top 10 local Chinese songs respectively based on the RIM charts. […]

According to a study by Rephonic, YouTube continues to rise as a platform for podcast discovery and consumption.YouTube searches for the term ‘podcast’, which were steadily growing since 2012, increased dramatically with the Covid 19 pandemic.Google Trends data over the past year for certain countries suggests that searches in Japanese surged at the start of 2022. While searches for English term ‘podcast’ are increasing at a steady rate, they remain pretty stable in Korean.The average number of estimated weekly listeners for podcasts with a YouTube account have a slightly smaller audience on average than those without one. However, this could change in the future with YouTube reportedly offering podcasters grants of up to $300,000 to produce videos.Rephonic also calculated that for each weekly listener of a podcast with a YouTube account, there are 15 YouTube subscribers.But this could change in the near future with YouTube incentivizing podcasts by offering podcasters grants of up to $300,000 to produce videos.Across categories, Wilderness comes out on top with 19 percent of all podcasts in this category having a YouTube channel. This is closely followed by Video Games at 17 percent.On the other hand, only 2 percent of podcasts in the Chemistry, Mathematics, and Education for Kids categories have YouTube channels. […]

Selling Radio Direct with Pat BrysonI was on a market visit with one of my stations a couple of weeks ago. We were discussing how to sell a sports team whose games we carry. Traditional sponsorship offered the choice of day games or night games. Take your pick or buy both. There are many more night games than day games. But, guess what? More people bought day games thinking that “everyone will watch the night games on TV.”Since the night games are only carried on cable in that area, my first thought was,“How many people have access to the night games on TV?” No one knew the cable penetration in their market. My second thought was, “Why give a choice? Why not package both day and night games into one sponsorship?” You have to buy both. The answer was, “We’ve always done it this way.” In further discussion, I discovered the derivation: the games were carried on an AM daytimer. Until the advent of the translator, they could not carry night games. When the translator made night games viable, they simply added another package instead of integrating night games with the day games.I was reminded of the old story about roasting a turkey. The daughter watched her mother prepare the turkey for the oven all during her childhood. The first step was to cut the end off the turkey. When the daughter grew up and began to roast her own Thanksgiving bird, she began by cutting the end off the turkey. Finally, her husband asked her why she did that? She said, “Because that’s the way we’ve always done it.” When his in laws came for Thanksgiving dinner, her husband asked her mom why she cut the end off the turkey. The answer: because that’s the only way it would fit in the roasting pan she had.Maybe it’s time we examine how we sell our products. When was the last time you evaluated all your sponsorships, rate cards, programs, and events to see if they make you money? Is there a better way to sell them? Do the rates need to be increased? Decreased? Do certain shows/programs/events even need to be continued? Let’s make sure that we aren’t cutting the end off the turkey simply because “we’ve always done it that way.” Business evolves and changes for our clients. It evolves and changes for us too. 2022 is the year to rebuild, to recover, to move forward. Evaluating our structures may be a good place to start. […]

The New York Festivals® Radio Awards competition has announced the 2022 Radio Awards shortlist across 14 category groups and 15 entries from Asia have made it to the list.India leads with 11 shortlists, including five for Club FM and two each for India Vision Foundation, Radio City and Sri Sri Publications Trust.Mediacorp Singapore had two entries and Radio Rango from Iran and Radio Taiwan International from Taiwan had one shortlisted entry each.The United Kingdom led with 75 entries shortlisted followed by the United States with 57, Ireland with 56 and Canada saw 35 entries.World-class audio entries created by storytellers from 24 countries around the globe were judged online by the 2022 New York Festivals Radio Awards Grand Jury. Shortlisted entries include audiobooks, dramas, documentaries, breaking news coverage, entertainment, and music specials from radio stations, networks, prominent production companies and independent producers.Shortlisted global broadcasters include BBC, Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, CBS News Radio, NBC News, RTÉ Ireland, Deutsche Welle (DW), Australian Broadcasting Corporation, and Mediacorp.New York Festivals Radio Awards honors storytellers from around the globe. Since 1957 NYF has celebrated excellence and innovation across all genres and platforms, keeping pace with industry-wide developments and global trends. The mission of the competition is to honor the achievements of the men and women who make up the global audio storytelling community. To view the 2022 shortlist, visit HERE.Award-winning entries will be announced during the New York Festivals 2022 Storytellers Gala virtual event on April 26th. All winners will be showcased on the Radio Awards winners gallery. […]

Content from BPRIn times of crisis, we are reminded of the importance of radio. When all else fails, radio is the medium to which people turn first for reliable and accurate information. Radio has the ability to transition from an entertainment medium to one that provides listeners with a lifeline of news and information.In Ukraine, some stations have switched from regular programming to round-the-clock news and information services. Stations incapable of addressing this need have simply gone dark. In the face of incredible odds, Ukrainian journalists are risking their lives to provide listeners with critically important information.Crises come in all forms – tsunamis, earthquakes, pandemics, floods, civil unrest, tornadoes and wars. If the Internet goes down, broadcast radio remains on the air. If electrical power is cut, radio can still be accessed on battery-powered devices including smart phones. People who may not necessarily listen to radio on regular basis often turn to a local station when things turn bad.In an era when local radio news departments are being decimated by cost-cutting, we are reminded that information has always been one of the pillars of radio’s identity. Of course, radio has a multitude of audio competitors. However, when a crisis occurs, many of radio’s competitors fall short of providing people with the critical information that they need.Podcasts and music streams have their place but when it comes to delivering immediate news and information, nothing beats radio. Social media may pretend to provide its audience with information but is it reliable and accurate? Hardly. As we know, fact and rumour exist side by side on social media platforms.Information is at the very heart of what we do. It is time that we give our news presenters, editors, street reporters and interviewers the credit that they so richly deserve. Stations large and small need to take the necessary steps to ensure that their news and information capabilities are ready to meet the challenge when the next crisis occurs.By Andy Beaubien, BPR […]