ASIA

Content from BPRThere have never been so many ways for us to communicate with each other than in 2023.Mobile, email, text, What’s App, Zoom, Teams, Instagram, Facebook, Linked In…oh, and face to face.In the business of radio, we communicate internally with other team members and externally with our listeners and clients.But despite the technological revolution in communication platforms, are we in radio any better at actually communicating our message than we were ten years ago?I still hear poorly worded, confusing promos on air.I still hear positioning statements that conflict with the actual on-air content.I still get reports of executive emails that recipients didn’t quite understand.I still hear some Talk hosts giving their opinion in a rambling, convoluted way that doesn’t make sense.I still hear talk breaks on music stations that have so many “thoughts” in the one break that they all go missing in action to the listener.Successful communication of a message is not as easy as it seems. On one hand, there’s the ability of the person sending the message to do so in clear, concise terms and on the other, there’s the ability of the person receiving the message to comprehend what is being conveyed.Here are some common factors that contribute to poor communication:1. Lack of Skill or Education. Some people may not have been taught effective communication skills or may not have had the opportunity to develop them. This can be due to a lack of formal education or training in communication. It can also be a result of the family environment growing up.2. Lack of Confidence. Low self-confidence can hinder a person’s ability to communicate effectively. When we are unsure of ourselves, we often struggle to express our thoughts and ideas clearly, especially verbally but also in written form.3. Emotional Barriers. Emotions, such as anxiety, anger or fear, can interfere with effective verbal communication.4. Inadequate Listening Skills. Effective communication involves not only speaking but also listening. Poor listeners may interrupt, not pay attention, or fail to understand the perspectives of others, leading to misunderstandings. As programmers and broadcasters, it’s important for us to listen to the audience, so we understand what they like (and don’t like) and the way they like content to be presented. One of the key attributes of being a great interviewer is being a great listener (Sir Michael Parkinson).5. Cognitive Differences. Differences in cognitive abilities, such as processing information, can affect a person’s ability to communicate. Some people may struggle with organising their thoughts either in conversations or in written form. Cognitive bias also plays a part in poor communication skills.6. Lack of Empathy. Empathy is crucial for effective communication. People who lack the ability to understand and relate to others’ feelings and perspectives often have difficulty communicating effectively with others.7. Lack of Practice. Effective communication is a skill that requires practice and refinement. Those who do not engage in regular communication or social interactions may struggle to develop their communication skills. This applies to both verbal and written communication.8. Communication Technology. Overreliance on short form digital communication, such as texting and social media, can lead to miscommunication and misunderstandings.There are some simple ways to improve communication skills.
Listen….and listen again
Always factor in the people with whom you are communicating
In face-to-face situations, body language matters
Check that email before you hit send. And check it again.
Be concise. Be specific. Spell the message out in unequivocal terms.
Sometimes it’s better to pick up the phone.
Think before you speak. Don’t say the first thing that comes to mind.
Where possible, in verbal communications maintain a positive attitude and smile.
Effective communication is a vital skill in both personal and professional relationships. In radio, it is at the very heart of what we do. Unfortunately, the same issues surrounding poor communication that have been around for thousands of years are still with us, despite the wealth of communication platforms that exist in 2023.I’ll leave you with a quote from Dr. Andrew Grove, a former CEO of Intel Corporation: “How well we communicate is not determined by how well we say things but by how well we are understood.”By David Kidd, BPR […]

The Radio Days Europe ’24 conference schedule is packed from early morning til late night for the conference days, but if you fly in early, we continue our series of articles highlighting some suggestions  of how to spend an extra day in Munich, from well know radio industry locals.Morning show presenter Indra Willer-Gerdes together with Wolfgang Leikermoser are the morning show hosts from Antenne Bayern and they warmly welcome visitors to Munich.Here is Indra’s personal program for a wonderful time for anyone coming to Radio Days:Start the day with…A short jog through the English Garden, or go for a walk with a coffee to go as the English Garden is the largest connected park in the world and really beautiful! The northern part in particular is often deserted.https://www.muenchen.de/sehenswuerdigkeiten/top-sehenswuerdigkeiten/englischer-gartenLunch…At lunchtime go to the Viktualienmarkt to Fisch Witte, eat a snack and drink a glass of wine or two.https://fisch-witte.de/Sights, favourite places, insider tips…Afterwards, simply stroll through our beautiful city centre to the Town Hall and discover that Munich’s architecture is a bit like a fairy tale. A coffee in between…Make a detour to the Bar Centrale. There’s always so much going on here on Saturdays that guests stand in the street with their cappuccino and Aperol Spritz in hand – pure Italo feeling!https://www.bar-centrale.com/Dinner…If you want to go out for something to eat in the evening, I recommend Kull, a French bistro in New York style, just round the corner from Bar Centrale. Or a cheaper option a simple cuisine, but right in the heart of the Glockenbach district (there’s a lot going on here in the evening): Pizzeria Monaco.https://www.buffet-kull.de/https://www.pizzeriamonaco.de/index.htmlRound off the evening…If you want to party: there are parties for younger people around Lenbachplatz (e.g. 089 Bar), in Kunstpark Ost or in the Glockenbachviertel. Here you’ll find lots of small bars and restaurants as well as my favourite club: Paradiso.https://089-bar.de/ https://www.paradiso-tanzbar.de/Morning show co-host Wolfgang Leikermoser was eager to add his suggestions to the one day in Munich program.Start the day with..The perfect start to the morning begins with an oven-fresh Bavarian pretzel! You can recognise the really good ones by the fact that they are always a little puffy at the thickest part.Sights. favourite places, insider tips…While you’re here, you should definitely go to Nymphenburg Palace Park, a real work of garden art and beauty. Architecturally, this place is also emblematic of Bavaria’s splendour and magnificence.Above all, you can go for a wonderful jog here and enjoy a very long lap.For those who feel romantic, there’s also a real Venetian gondola perfect for lovers.https://www.gondel-nymphenburg.de/Lunch…Hungry again? It’s actually impossible to eat badly in Munich!If it’s not too cold, make sure you go to the Taxisgarten, a traditional and cosy beer garden where many Munich residents always sit. It’s been around for 100 years and the beautiful old trees have probably been there even longer.https://www.taxisgarten.de/You can round off the evening…In the evening, the best place to go out is near Stachus! There are lots of charming restaurants, bars and clubs there. You’re guaranteed NOT to meet me there, because as a morning show host I naturally go to bed a little earlier than one or the other.Have a great time in Bavaria!About Indra and WolfgangIndra Willer-Gerdes has been delighting ANTENNE BAYERN listeners as a radio presenter and weather expert since 2011. In the programme “Guten Morgen Bayern” on ANTENNE BAYERN, Indra, together with Wolfgang Leikermoser and the Guten-Morgen-Bayern team, ensures a good mood in the morning with Bavaria’s best music mix and lots of fun. In her private life, she likes authentic people, children, animals, spontaneous celebrations and Christmas. She dreams of seeing the Northern Lights one day, showing her children the wildlife of Africa and writing a book.Wolfgang “Leiki” Leikermoser began his career at ANTENNE BAYERN back in 1988 and has become one of the most recognisable voices in the German radio landscape. With his charismatic manner, he currently delights ANTENNE BAYERN listeners in the morning show “Guten Morgen Bayern” on ANTENNE BAYERN with Indra at his side. In his private life, Leiki enjoys steak with potatoes, self-irony and working classic cars, while he likes to spend his time with anything that drives – like cars, motorbikes and boats.As usual, radioinfo will cover the Radiodays Europe Conference in Munich this year, so watch for our reports next month.Last year’s conference reports are here. Previous conferences here.If you are getting excited about this year’s event and make a last minute decision to attend, good news. Registrations are still open, click here.Related article: One day in Munich at Radio Days Europe 24: Natalie Diel, Gong 96.3 […]

Content from BPRThis title is from an article by the international consultancy firm, McKinsey.  The article centres around an interview with John Horn, author of the new book Inside the Competitor’s Mindset (The MIT Press, April 2023) and explains how to predict competitor actions. Horn is a professor at Washington University’s Olin Business School in St. Louis who helps companies maximize the value of competitive insights.The core message of his book is this:

The big idea is that many companies do competitive intelligence, but where they fall down is in turning that intelligence and data into insights about what the competitor will do. Many of my clients say that their competitors are irrational, but this is because they are not taking the time to look at the world from their competitors’ point of view. Once they do, those competitive actions start to make sense.Now I’ve written articles about Game Theory before. The mistake we in radio make in trying to predict what the leadership team at Station XYZ will do is that we base our predictions on what we would do if we were running the station..As John Horn says:One reason is that we assume our approach and the way we look at the world is right. When someone does something differently, it creates a dissonance with what we think is the correct answer. The other reason is that with more seniority, power, or status comes greater difficulty in being empathetic. We made choices that got us promoted, so we assume they had to be right choices. Any others don’t make sense to us.In my article “Game Theory Revisited” I said:Knowing what you would do in a certain situation is one thing. But the other key aspect of Game Theory is correctly defining what your competitors would do. This is not easy. You need the ability to reverse-engineer the moves of competitors and predict what they are likely to do, what they will avoid doing and what they are actually capable of doing.Getting inside your competitors’ heads is difficult because radio stations (and their decision makers) are usually very different. They often have different cultures, different theories on programming strategy, different budgetary pressures and always…..different talent in their line-up.John Horn has a four step plan designed to understand your competitors:The first step is to pay attention to what competitors say and do by downloading earnings calls or annual reports and scanning media releases. The second step is to find out what assets, resources, and capabilities they have. That’s where you start to differentiate the competitor. The third step is to consider the person making the decisions. What do you know about them? When someone with a marketing background becomes the CEO, they won’t suddenly start optimizing the footprint of factories. That person will likely focus on marketing to help the company grow, partly because they will think, “My background is why the board hired me.”The fourth element, which is really important, is making a prediction and then tracking it to see how it lines up with what happens. If you paid attention to what the competitor said and did, considered all its assets, and understood the leaders’ backgrounds, you can say, “I think they will do this in the next three to six months.” If what they do is in line with what you expected, you know you are on the right track. If you’re off, then go back and ask, “What did I miss? Maybe they engaged a new consultant or hired a new person to make decisions.” That updates what you pay attention to going forward to help you make better predictions. The objective is never to be 100 percent accurate, but it’s a lot better to be 30 percent accurate than to be 0 percent accurate in predicting what your competitor will do.Finally, he makes a very good point about where competitor insights come from:One of the challenges with competitive insight is that you can’t talk to your competitor, so you have to intuit outside in, from second- and third-party resources. A colleague of mine said, “It’s similar to a homicide detective who can’t ask the victim, ‘Who killed you?’”Most of us in the radio industry have worked for at least more than one network. We see the differences in strategic decision making processes and the varying internal pressures on revenue and resources from network to network that impact these decisions.As Sun Tzu said: “If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.”By David Kidd, BPR […]

In collaboration with the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, Prasar Bharti, and Seeking Modern Applications for Real Transformation, UNESCO New Delhi held ‘The Radio Festival’ at the India International Center on 13 February 2024 to celebrate the World Radio Day 2024. This year’s radio festival followed the global theme of “Radio’s remarkable past, relevant present, and promise of a dynamic future.” The inaugural session consisted of a letter sent in by the President of India, Droupadi Murmu, which highlighted the importance of radios in an ever-changing technological landscape as a conduit of gender equality and a revitalizer of local languages. “The World Radio Day is a celebration of radio in mass communication and in promoting the diversity of culture across the globe. It is an opportunity to emphasize the importance of local languages in communicating with the audience, and to highlight the extraordinary role of women in radio’s journey,” said her message.The other dignitaries who were in attendance were Sanjay Jaju, Secretary, Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, who, in his inaugural speech, spoke about the importance of The World Radio Day and the paramount role the ‘Radio Festival’ plays in highlighting the relevance of the radio in current times. His speech highlighted the importance of radio, especially as a means of information dissemination at the local level.

Vasudha Gupta, Principal Director General of All India Radio, concurred and added to the importance of the radio as a means of information sharing and sustained that “Akashvani, Vividh Bharati continue to serve the citizens of India in regional languages by sharing pure information, news, regional music and other programs on the radio and nothing can take place of the sound waves.”Tim Curtis, Director of UNESCO New Delhi, added to the importance of radio in his inaugural speech by commenting on its ever-changing importance in a dynamic technological world.“Studies show that radio remains popular despite increased challenges such as the popularity of social media. Therefore, it is only reasonable to expect radio to evolve and take advantage of these digital technologies. Its democratic value sets radio apart, and it acts as a grassroot catalyst for bringing communities together,” he said.The festival had multifarious panels to discuss the different aspects of the radio. Some topics discussed included gender equality and female emancipation in the radio space over the years, the linguistic influence of radio, and the historical relevance and its ever-changing future. The session on the Diversity of Sound, which RJ Nasir moderated, was particularly well received as it discussed the radio as a medium with a diverse array of audiences spanning different geographical, language, and expression. The festival had over 400 attendees, including members from a myriad of community as well as local and national radio stations and experts from the media industry.World Radio Day is an international UN day that was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in 2012. 13 February, since then, has become World Radio Day to recognize the importance of the radio as a means of communication and technology and as an enabler for information dissemination and a promoter of human rights. […]

The Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) and the Tonga Broadcasting Commission (TBC) have exchanged a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU), recognising their longstanding relationship.The signing of the MOU builds on the spirit of friendship developed over many years by the two national broadcasters, recognising the cultural significance of both organisations and their role in connecting and informing Tongan and Australian audiences.Under the agreement, the ABC and TBC acknowledge their shared history as public broadcasters championing the public interest and supporting democratic values across the Pacific region as well as their functions as emergency broadcasters, offering their citizens access to timely information in times of crisis.

The MOU underpins further collaboration and sharing of knowledge, content and technical expertise while welcoming the ongoing exchange of skills and strengthening of media practices.ABC Head International Services Claire M. Gorman said: “We’re thrilled to be undertaking this MOU with TBC, having worked together over many years. As public broadcasters, we share a mutual understanding of the importance of collaboration and offering informative, educational and entertaining services to our audiences.”TBC CEO Viola Ulakai expressed gratitude, saying: “We extend our sincere thanks to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation for their support throughout our enduring relationship.” TBC currently supports the ABC’s broadcast of ABC Radio Australia in Tonga on 103FM and is a partner with ABC International Development in media development initiatives in Tonga, aimed at developing journalism and content making skills to tell Tongan stories through Tongan voices. […]

The Radio Days Europe ’24 conference schedule is packed from early morning til late night for the conference days so if you fly in early here are some suggestions of how to spend an extra day from a well known Munich Radio industry local.Morning show presenter Natalie Diel from Radio Gong 96.3 loves Munich!

The mountains and lakes around it and life in the city. Bars, restaurants, pop-up stores… She loves discovering the latest spots and trends for the radio and passing them on to listeners. And she knows what you should definitely see and do in Munich.We asked Natalie to give us her recommendations of what do do in Munich for anyone coming in for Radio Days. She recommends:Start the day with…A classic Weißwurst breakfast at the “Herrschaftszeiten” in the Tal. A young and fresh pub where you can enjoy a classic Weißwurst breakfast with pretzels and sweet mustard. And for those who don’t eat meat: It’s also available in vegan 😊https://herrschaftszeiten-muenchen.de/Sights, favourite places, insider tipsViktualienmarkt: Fresh flowers, the smell of coffee, lots to see. Not to be missed when visiting Munich.Marienplatz with the town hall and carillon…And then it’s up to the Alter Peter, the tower from which you can look out over the whole city… On a clear day you can see as far as the Alps…https://alterpeter.de/turmbesteigung-alter-peter/ A detour to the Bayerischer Hof, where most of the stars who come to Munich spend the night. From Michael Jackson, Robbie Williams and the Stones.From Odeonsplatz we take the U5 to Ostbahnhof, because this is where the Werksviertel-Mitte is located, a little insider tip for a visit to Munich. Everything here is very urban: small shops in colourful containers… Mostly Munich start-ups and brands. You can take a ride on the Ferris wheel… With a view of the sheep that live on a roof here in the Werksviertel 😊A coffee in between…at “Alrighty”, the new sustainable coffee brand made in Munich with its own roastery…https://alrighty.coffee/Dinner…at Fitzroy, an Australian restaurant with Munich’s highest roof terrace. You can eat delicious food on the glazed fronts and also have a spectacular view indoors…https://fitzroy-munich.de/You can round off the evening…From the very top to the very bottom 😊 In the cellar bar “Call Soul” in Schwabing in the English Garden. Here you’ll find the most unusual cocktails in town…https://www.callsoul-breakingbar.de/About Natalie DiehlNatalie Diehl gained her first experience in TV & radio during her studies in Munich and developed a passion that has stayed with her to this day. In 2005, she started as an intern at Radio Gong 96.3, Germany’s first private radio station. This was followed by a traineeship. She worked as an editor on the morning show for several years before switching to presenting the morning programme in 2015 and has been waking up Munich and the region every day between 5 and 9 a.m. and accompanying them into the day ever since. Speaking is her thing, not only on the radio but also at events or as a podcast speaker. […]