ASIA

GatesAir, a subsidiary of Thomson Broadcast dedicated to wireless content delivery, continues to build out its Flexiva GX transmitter family, adding new models that support the most common power levels requested by customers worldwide. New for NAB Show 2024, GatesAir is adding the new Flexiva GX2K, supporting 2000 watts (2 kW) of analog FM in a compact 2RU chassis. NAB Show 2024 also marks the North American debut of the GX50 (50 watts), GX1K (1 kW) and GX3K (3 kW), all of which debuted at the IBC2023 show in September.The compact, high-density architecture of the GX2K accentuates the value proposition of the Flexiva GX line for the FM engineer. Flexiva GX transmitters provide radio customers with a strong power-to-size ratio for all six power levels — including the higher power 5 kW and 10 kW models — by leveraging the latest LDMOS technology. The design packs exceptional power density into a compact chassis, with overall efficiency ratings up to 76 percent. The engineering breakthroughs in power density, efficiency and footprint are made possible through the GX’s design, enhanced by GatesAir’s third generation PowerSmart high-efficiency transmitter architecture.“GatesAir has carefully engineered all six GX transmitters to maintain the highest possible overall efficiency even at the lower power levels,” said Ted Lantz, Vice President, Product Line Management for GatesAir, who adds that new GX models will continue to align  with customer and market demands.New for NAB, GatesAir has enhanced the GUI for all six GX models, including integrated audio playback and a supporting playlist manager. Options include GPS receivers for SFN support, and GatesAir’s Intraplex IP Link 100e (IPL-100e) module. The IPL-100e integrates within Flexiva GX transmitters, enabling direct IP connectivity of FM audio and data from the studio. This further reduces rack space requirements inside RF facilities with limited open real estate. The IPL-100e also provides support for optional integrated professional ten-band audio processing software, which can save users thousands of dollars in auxiliary equipment.The Flexiva GX family is available worldwide, and can be configured to serve large national or regional FM single-frequency network (SFN) deployments. Flexiva GX transmitters also support N+1 configurations, enabling large national network operators to build very flexible and consolidated transmission sites that meet stringent uptime requirements.GatesAir will also demonstrate low-power Flexiva FAX air-cooled transmitters and its FMXi 4g all-in-one embedded HD Radio solution at NAB Show 2024, which takes place April 14-17 at the Las Vegas Convention Center. GatesAir exhibits at Booth W2730. […]

At the end of each Radiodays conference there is always a fast wrap from some of the best presenters in the show.First presenter was Paul Sylvester, CD of Absolute Radio Network, who contributed 5 ideas to be brilliant at breakfast:
What is your show’s superpower. If you work it out you can dial it up so that listeners know what makes your show different and special.
Your listeners are the most important celebrities you can interview. They will deliver more gold than any ‘famous’ guest. They are unfiltered and will give you the best radio gold.
What makes your listeners late for work? The best shows have people sitting in their cars listening before they can get out and go to work.
Is your commercial activity integrated enough? Commercial promotions should feel as seamless as any other content on the station.
How strong are the personalities on your show?
Marketing coach and CEO of the Radio Embassy Lenja Faraguna’s  tips are:I believe in love and connectionHow do we get the attention of people who are hard to reach?Audio marketing is the hero of brand building.If you have a big idea, send it, but keep in mind that the people you are pitching to are bombarded with ideas. Here are some tactics to get your pitch noticed:6. STATOY – saw this and thought you7. Please stalk us – go check our campaigns, what can we do if they add radio8. 2 for 1 – if they specify what they want, and it’s not going to be successful, send them the response to their idea, but also send your idea. They will get two ideas for one and will often like your idea better.8. Unique link – send link with their name10. Human Billboard –  their quote on a T-shirt with their nameWade Kingsley, the Creative Coach said:
Bring people together… like Taylor Swift, who creates shared experiences between the people in the crowds at her concerts.
Make mistakes on purpose. Be ok to make mistakes and learn from them.
Create your own flow. Do what is core to you.
Make it funnier. Things can always be funnier, nobody ever says make it less funny, everyone always loves something unexpected and funny.
Surf any wave you can. Sometimes we want to stick to our lane, but don’t be afraid to stray from your lane if there is a good enough reason.
Iram Ansari, from NRK – Norwegian Broadcasting CorporationHow to ensure diversity in your sources as a journalist?16. Give new people who are not trained in media chance to be in your story.17. Have regular source meetings and participate in events that have topics where many multicultural people participate.18. Get a digital visitor card with a QR code that you can give easily to your source.19. Use your sources correctly: Let them answer about topics they are professionally good at.20. Get to know someone who is dissimilar to you privately! It’ll give you different perspectives.Des Paul, from Greatest Hits Radio UK gave tips about music presentation.
Be more human, less robot. Look for every opportunity to be yourself on air, your audience will feel that you are keeping them company, robots can’t do that.
Prep, Prep, Prep. You need to know how you will get in and out of your talk break. Give the audience things to think about every time you open the mic. You can’t do that by just turning up and winging it.
Be bright and warm. Leave negativity to the news, be the nicest person in the room.
Keep it nice and tight.
Always move forward.
Arielle Nissenblatt Community Marketing ManagerIdeas for creative digital marketing that come from my podcast world:26. Collaboration over competition: tap into existing audiences and reaching out with a genuine ask?27. Make mountains out of mole hills – Promote yourself and tell everyone what a great job your doing.28. Data transparency – is super important to deliver on ads your trying to deliver.29, Be the creator in your circle30. Go to where your listeners are ready to consume31 (bonus). Be on the lookout: how can we grow the pie and know it’ll come back to you some day.As the conference ended, Radiodays CEO Peter Niegel announced the venue for next year’s Radiodays Europe. It is… … ATHENS. Between 9-11 March 2025 […]

Prolark Media’s Lee Price hosted a session at Radiodays Europe showcasing the range of offerings form audio production companies that can make your station sound great in 2024.Three passionate music and jingle producers took to the stage to show off their audio and share thoughts about making great station imaging in a fast moving panel discussion. Some of the key points from that discussion are:What is sonic branding?Branding is an emotion and a feeling. We add a layer of emotion to a brand.Sonic branding says who you are to the listener and gives them a feeling for the station.Jingles are the gearbox for the presenter, allowing them to shift the tempo and flow of the program.The goal of any jingle is to become an ear worm. Something people will instantly be able to recall and remember the name of your station, that’s the holy grail that we are all striving for in sonic branding.Tom Van der Biest, the Creative Director of Brandy was the first to play some audio samples[embedded content]
Why should a radio station invest in branding?Radio is an audio medium, so it should use audio imaging to brand itself. We should use the power of the medium we work in.Adapt your sonic branding to the platforms so you can use it beyond just your radio signal. If you do that you need to adapt it, for example you need to make the jingle shorter for Tik Tok, Youtube has longer form content so your Youtube imaging can be longer. Adapt your audio brand jingle to work across all the platforms you are on.In the past radio’s competition was other radio stations. Now it is so many more audio platforms. Use sonic branding to stand out on all the platforms you are on to build your brand with the various audiences.If you have the chance to work with the strap line of the station incorporate singing it into the jingle. Some station’s only want the name sung for maximum recall, but if you want to add a message as well that’s where the strap line can be used.If you get the sonic branding right it becomes part of your sonic universe, you can build on it for years to keep it fresh. A good strap line can add to the elements that you can use. You will know it’s right when you play it and it gives you a goosebumps moment.Thomas Giger, Branding Consultant & Partner at Pure Jingles presented his set of audio samples, which are in German.
What should stations consider before commissioning jingles?Start with strategy first, what do you want the package to do for you, are you aiming for it to enhance the current brand or do something new?The brief will come in an emotional form, then it’s our job to translate that into notes, instruments and song.Find songs in the station’s playlist that most resonate with the audience and say something about the station’s identity. Listen a lot to the music on the station’s playlist, understand the effect that music has on the audience to inspire the jingle creation.You don’t always have to be big and bold, you can also go minimalist and then change and build that over time.The biggest thing we have been asked lately is to create an audio brand that will work on air, on socials, online, across all platforms. The more platforms there are the more important it is to have sonic brand consistency.Marc Vickers the Senior Producer/Composer at Wisebuddah  & No Sheet Music has a song writing background. These are the audio samples he brought to the session.[embedded content] […]

2024’s Radiodays Europe conference started its final day with sessions addressing bringing youth back to radio as listeners and presenters. Familiar to Australians, Emily Copeland, the former General Manager of CADA, hosted a session called Revolutionising the Search for Radio Talent with German program director of 98.8 Kiss FM an York Strempel. This was followed by Head of BBC radio 1 Aled Haydn Jones and What Gen Z Want From Radio.Emily Copeland had some statistics she’d gathered prior to the launch of CADA almost exactly two years ago. They were that Gen Z:
Felt overlooked by mainstream media
Are always searching for content 
Dislike ads but don’t hate advertising
Enjoy live radio and participation
Trust certain content creators more than traditional media
and, fascinatingly, can find commercial radio anxiety inducing

Aled Haydn Jones
Aled Haydn Jones said from the outset of his session that he didn’t have one key answer but that BBC Radio 1’s approach included:
Reaching out of the bubble, that is increasing the breadth and platforms by which new listeners gave find BBC Radio 1. Jones said the very nature of broad-cast is that radio aims to appeal, broadly, to as many people as possible. But the more broad the BBC became, the more 15-24 year olds were turning off.
Know the strength of what live radio can give you, BBC Radio 1 decided not to let presenters use the generic BBC social accounts but rather build their own via also incorporating and tagging the singers/actors and other stars the on air presenters interview or have performing. Leveraging fan bases has worked well, as has connecting an experience to an event. An example was fans lining up at a music festival at the BBC Radio 1 photo booth to get a picture with musical stars. The image, QR code to access it and the promotion around it all featured the station.
Hearing themselves reflected on radio, similar to Emily’s feeling overlooked by mainstream media above, Aled talked about how radio, and the connection to presenters, can provide a guide to how to feel. Queen Elizabeth’s death was the highest listenership day to BBC Radio 1 in 2022. Presenters were able to allow listeners to call and try to describe their feelings, and they did this on radio more than on socials or television.
Interestingly Aled said that part of his research found that Gen Z watch or listen to something to relax, different to Emily’s finding that commercial radio can be anxiety inducing. Perhaps the hatred of ads is the difference between Australian commercial and the BBC.
York Strempel
York Strempel was a passionate ball of energy which is reflected in the staff he employs and the creativity allowed on Kiss. He played us audio of a deep voiced male presenter who was his “mystery” host. I and the audience thought it was an AI creation. He then showed us a picture of a baby faced 15 year old called Eddie who was the producer of the Morgan Freeman-esque audio. This shy young man had interned at Kiss and York had meet him in a meeting where, as he put it, “his brain couldn’t comprehend the boy and that voice together“. But he took a chance on him, and others, because he saw something in their energy, voice, humour or social presence.His message to the audience was:“Radio is becoming for parents and grandparents. We need to invite youth to come back to radio. Find them. Get them. Train them. Celebrate their talents. Make them stars.”To establish CADA Emily used techniques that aren’t a normal part of radio culture.
CADA sought out content creators who had a social media presence and following. They did not have to have a radio background.
Advertising was integrated into content and had to be cohesive with the presenters, many of whom view themselves as a “brand”, not an individual. This also allowed a selling opportunity for a brand to be integrated into the CADA culture
The cast of CADA was 60% female and 80% non-anglo.
There is a video and radio studio. Presenters were able to have flexible hours and contracts with Flex and Froomes only able to record together one day a week but, for every one hour they recorded, three hours of content could be created.
And, most counterintuitive, the talent’s contracts were flexible too so that existing brand relationships, and future ones, could be integrated into their on air role with CADA, or not.
The last creative idea, which Aled described as “ridiculous” at the time was that four years ago BBC Radio 1 created Presenter Uploader. Over Christmas and New Years, when the regular presenters took their breaks, young people were invited to send in an aircheck to take over hosting the station. More than 1500 entries were received. 30 were chosen. Over the three years since 120 new presenters got a change to skip through agencies and hierarchies to create their own show on BBC Radio 1 and a great many of them continue to do so within the BBC.I’ll leave the last word with York who said:“Please give young talent a chance. When you offer them responsibility, they will perform.”  […]

At Monday’s opening session of RadioDays Europe 2024 the General Manager of the conference Peter Niegel said alongside the programmed hot topics of AI and technology, podcasting, attracting youth to radio he had also responded to attendees feedback from 2023 which was more sales related sessions and also feedback for more feedback.The evening previously I had met Roy Strømsnes from Norwegian strategic communication and marketing company Strømsnes Røe. He and business partner Knut Røe were facilitating several of the daily airchecking sessions in a designated Audio Room at the conference. They were all fully booked before the event started.What Roy had identified in the Scandinavian broadcast industry was not just a lack of feedback to on air talent, but also a fear to speak honestly and the recurring chestnut of people receiving a “great show/bulletin/interview” with no additional details.He and Knut run whole day and longer masterclasses where the entire working team come together to learn how to offer constructive feedback and then implement those standards into the regular workings of the company.Within the Hippocratic Oath there is the phrase in Latin: Primum non nocere, or first do no harm. This is central to the values of Strømsnes Røe, Creating a work culture that is safe, and defending oneself is unnecessary.I found it both positive and contrary to my own expectations that the radio industry is yearning for feedback and what they are receiving is superficial. I asked Roy if he would mind me sitting in on one of the sessions, they are closed door safe spaces for participants, and he kindly said yes.There were three tables of five people plus a facilitator. The introductory question was how long people had worked in the industry and again, to my considerable surprise, more than 50% had two decades plus under their belts.They were then asked how much feedback was given in their current environments, which in this instance was a high and positive figure, with Roy saying that is not usually the response and making the distinction between evaluation and feedback. Often, for example, the Monday Breakfast Show will have a post show evaluation but due to lack of time or set benchmarks by which the show is measured, individual feedback goes by the wayside.Knut said, and I felt that many will relate to this, that when he started in radio in 1974 his boss said:“You will never hear from me unless you make a mistake.”The trepidation you then must feel any time you see your manager walk towards you!The groups then were introduced to the concept of positive and alternative behaviour. You speak to what was great in the audio output and then the group could put forward alternative ways it could have been delivered. Roy said that in his masterclasses alternatives offered by a news reader for example to the breakfast DJ could offer a way they’d never thought of before.The other concept that particularly resonated was that feedback be thematic, that is focused on one aspect at a time and not repeating the same criticism each time which builds a culture of defensiveness.With all the techniques the groups went through, Roy and Knut said for a working culture to be changed then feedback needs to become frequent and part of editorial routine.All the participants loved the session, and at just 40 minutes long, lingered as if they wanted more. I don’t think most knew each other and as a team building and bonding exercise it was wonderful to watch.I have no doubt these sessions will return in 2025, with some of this year’s facilitated by the kind of industry voices you might dream of presenting your aircheck too. My feeling is that this sort of masterclass would do wonders for media organisations in Australia. Perhaps we too are yearning for feedback.Jen Seyderhelm is a writer, editor and podcaster for Radioinfo. […]

“It’s all about being creative”, said Niall Power Head of Station Sound, Beat 102-103. “Big budgets aren’t everything.”The following is his list of top 10 international radio promotions:
Q music, Netherlands – Forbidden word – The DJ is not allowed to say the forbidden word. Everytime the presenter says the forbidden word the jackpot increases for the listener.
Radio 1 drop BBC – A Halloween promotion. Presenter Jordan North needs to work out who he can trust and who controls the button that can drop him into the water. His co presenter Greg James has planned this act of revenge based on a previous promotion.
Radio Rock – Korporaatio 100 – Two hosts of the breakfast show both turned 50 and decided to take a trip lasting 100 hours, based on a suggested itinerary from listeners. They travelled 3,000 km around the Finnish peninsula and broadcast live every day for 12 hours. Listeners were on hand to greet the presenters and every hand shaken became a new loyal listener.
KIIS iHeartRADIO with Kyle and Jackie O – Cash Cock promotion where listeners had the opportunity to win money for riding the Cock. Host Kyle also had a go at riding the Cock. Great opportunity for laughter and innuendo at rider’s expense.
Beat Breakfast Campout – Presenter hadn’t camped out before so the promotion came about to organise a mini summer festival where listeners could get tickets to join the presenters, listeners joined them. Clients were eager to to come on board to sponsor and they arranged entertainment for campers.
Hit Radio FFH – FFH Lie detector competition offered 10,000 Euro prize to the contestant who could tell the truth, even with an interrogation expert, while being strapped to a lie detector, was asking  extremely awkward questions? Promotion took place on air and through socials.
Promotion 98FM’s Dead Air – Halloween promotion where presenters were told one of them would be murdered. Over 9 days listeners tuned in to collect clues. On Halloween Presenter Suzanne Kane was electrocuted and had been murdered! Interrogations were hosted online and on socials. Murder update bulletins  ran on air throughout the day. Killer was revealed the following day and winners announced.
Hometime with Bush and Richie on Tesco mobile – Bush and Richie’s bonus day – One listener had the chance to have a special day organised on the leap day, so chose to do a tour of the haunted underground tunnels. He then had lunch with the  presenters at the Hard Rock Cafe.
Promotion 94.5 Km Capetown South Africa with Carl Wastie – KFM Mystery Mic. Winner of the South African Innovation award. Four non singing celebrities were put in a studio with an audio producer to record their favourite song. Listeners heard one singer per week and had to identify celebrities on Mystery mic to win a cash prize and an experience.
Gold 104.3 Melbourne, Australia, 48 hours of Groundhog day. Sixteen listeners were brought into a cinema to watch the same movie on repeat for 48 hours. The last person left standing would win $20,000.
Power’s key takeaways include:
Ensure the mechanic is not overly complicated.
Give it the “serial effect” – people want to know what happens next.
Ensure the 360 approach but always bring it back to on air.
Big budgets aren’t everything.
It’s all about being creative.
Finally, Power shared advice from Derek Bargwanna Group Content Director, KIIS network, Australia, “The greatest radio promotions should be explained and understood in the title alone. The build and hype is everything.” […]