ASIA

Jacqueline Bierhorst has been elected as President of WorldDAB, the global industry forum for DAB+ digitalradio. Bierhorst was previously the Vice President, and has represented Digital Radio Netherlands on theorganisation’s Steering Board since 2015.She takes over from Patrick Hannon, who is stepping down after ten years in the role. The handover took place at the annual WorldDAB Summit, held this year in Munich, Germany.Speaking at the Summit, Bierhorst paid tribute to Hannon’s work as President. “His leadership, enthusiasm, and vision helped shape the course of WorldDAB for the past ten years. We have witnessed an exponential growth of DAB+ across the globe and how DAB+ is now included as standard in every new car in Europe and beyond.”

Bierhorst added: “It is a privilege to be part of a mission that not only has the potential to revolutionise the way the world listens to radio but is already making a huge impact helping radio thrive and making sure every person can enjoy free-to-air digital radio on the move, at home or at work, with DAB+ at the heart of this listening experience.”Elsewhere at the conference, the President of Bavarian regulator BLM, Dr Thorsten Schmiege, gave his prognosis for radio’s future. “If DAB+ continues to develop in this way, it seems likely that in two or three years more people will listen to radio in Bavaria via digital delivery methods than via FM,” he said. “Reason enough for us the Bavarian Regulatory Authority, as part of its ‘Audio Strategy 2025,’ to work together with broadcasters on concepts for a migration to DAB+.” Schmiege stressed this cooperation was critical: “The switchover to DAB+ can only be undertaken jointly and with the greatest possible regional coverage – it should involve as little loss of daily reach as possible,” he said.Meanwhile, Hervé Godechot of French regulator Arcom, highlighted the rapid growth of DAB. “In France, a total of 556 stations, from major networks to smaller ones, including the public service Radio France, have been authorised to broadcast on DAB+, and 110 multiplexes are currently on air. Since the summer more than half of French listeners are in areas where they access DAB+.” Godechot added that 300 new transmitters will increase population coverage to 62.2% by next March, while the DAB+ trial in the French overseas territory of Martinique has been extended to next summer. Godechot said the forthcoming “white paper” on radio would review the economics and technologies involved, alongside the evolution of uses and roads to success.Over 400 attendees in Munich and online heard speakers set out the continuing global growth of DAB, with updates on the significant progress being made in Ghana, Indonesia, Bahrain and Australia.DAB’s importance in Android Automotive’s latest release was discussed by Joseph D’Angelo of Xperi and Gregor Pötzsch from CARIAD, Volkswagen Group. The increasing role of DAB+ in providing emergency warnings also featured, with the Chair of WorldDAB’s Technical Committee, Lindsay Cornell, giving an update the work of an Emergency Warnings task force, set up to define requirements and testing methods for receiver features ahead of international implementation. Media DAB presented Italy’s first use of DAB+ in an emergency, in this case displaying an image of a missing girl on receiver screens.Summit sessions also included the red-hot topic of AI with Luigi Troiano of data company Kebula and Yann Legarson from Radioplayer exploring how DAB+ can work with AI, and how it can help personalisation, while BMT’s Mathias Küfner described how it was using AI to generate content cover art for DAB+ displays. Dr Lawrie Hallett of the University of Bedfordshire in the UK previewed his forthcoming report on smallscale DAB+, setting out how it can “grow the digital radio cake” by helping to promote DAB in previously under-served sectors. […]

Content from BPRTalk radio has been a mainstay of both commercial and public broadcasting for a very long time.It could be called “the original social media platform”……..giving listeners the chance to express their views to a wider audience and engage with the hosts.

Yes, Talk radio is expensive to run compared with music formats, but unlike other formats the content is difficult to replicate.That’s a USP!There are many reasons why Talk radio will survive and remain relevant in the future.Here are just a few:Audience Engagement. Talk radio offers a unique form of engagement, allowing listeners to speak with their favourite Talk personalities through talk back, social media or online chat. This interaction creates a sense of community among the audience, which is not found in other media formats.Local Relevance. Talk radio stations focus on issues and topics that matter to their listeners, again, providing a sense of community. Local news, weather, traffic, politics and discussions about concerns that are close to the listener equate to building a strong bond with the audience.Diverse Content. Talk radio covers a wide range of topics, from politics and current events to entertainment, health, lifestyle, sport etc.Accessibility and Convenience. Radio in all formats, talk or music, has always been easily accessible through traditional radio receivers, but it has also adapted to the digital age, with online streaming, podcasts and mobile apps. This adaptability ensures that listeners can tune in anywhere and at any time.Companionship. Great Talk radio hosts develop a personal connection with their audience, creating a sense of companionship. Listeners often turn to their favourite hosts for comfort, advice and entertainment, especially during long commutes or solitary moments. The personalities make the “complicated sound simple”……they explain the issues impacting their listeners’ lives in clear and concise terms.Zero Screen Dependency. Now we programmers already know this but it’s worth mentioning again. Unlike television, Netflix (etc) or YouTube, talk radio doesn’t require constant visual attention. People can listen while driving, working, exercising, or doing things around the house, making it a flexible choice for multi-tasking.Entertainment. Great Talk radio is highly entertaining (to fans of the format) not just informative. Regurgitating information without presenting it in an entertaining manner is a recipe for disaster in the digital age. This entertainment factor, driven by high profile personalities who understand the issues that matter to their listeners, is a powerful point of difference that provides longevity to the format.Challenges to Newer Mediums. Let’s face it…..many people like it when someone else does the work for them! While streaming services and on-demand content have gained in popularity, they also have some downsides. Subscription costs, choice overload and the need to actively select content can lead to decision fatigue. There are many podcasts available that attempt to compete with Talk radio BUT the advantage Talk stations offer is a CURATED experience….it takes taking the decision making burden off the listener. Oh….and you can’t interact with a podcast!Loyal Listeners. Many talk radio shows have established a loyal fan base over the years. These devoted listeners often identify strongly with specific hosts or stations, making it less likely for them to abandon the medium in favour of newer alternatives.Aging population. Talk radio’s strength lies with the 50+ demographic, listeners who when they were teenagers never thought that one day they’d be listening to a Talk station. It’s just part of the lifecycle of radio listening. Now, the good thing for Talk radio is that, as we all know, the population is aging. In 1993, the 50+ demographic made up 25% of Australia’s population; in 2023, that figure is now 35% and will continue to grow.Opinion based Talk Radio. Opinion based (especially political) talk radio has a dedicated following due to its focus on specific beliefs and perspectives. Usually this defers to the conservative wing of politics. Listeners seeking a platform that aligns with their views can find solace and validation in talk radio shows that echo their beliefs.The late Rush Limbaugh is an excellent example of how to create great Opinion based Talk radio.And please remember, Rush started his career in radio as an announcer on CHR stations.His initial success as a Talk host in the US spawned a nation of imitators. Throughout the country hosts and executives heard Rush and concluded that the key to success was bashing the “liberal left” for three hours – or all day!Oddly that wasn’t Rush’s original mission. When Ed McLaughlin, the boss of ABC Radio Networks, launched Rush’s show an article appeared quoting Rush and his role.Rush said, “I’m here to inform, inform, inform.”Walter Sabo, the respected Talk programmer, was with Ed McLaughlin the day the article quoting Rush appeared.Walter Sabo: “Ed said to me, “I will have to talk to Rush about that. His most important job is to entertain.Following Ed’s conversation with him, Rush carried out his mission, he entertained while also informing.Rush did not get ratings and cash for espousing conservative views. There were other spokespeople who did that very well such as William F Buckley – an erudite conservative who never got ratings.Listening hard to Rush airchecks, he was mostly entertaining.How did he do that? First, he never offered duplicate arguments for his opinions. Every single day he presented brand new evidence and facts and stories to support his point of view. Secondly, he riffed.There were long periods featuring funny, human stories. Cat stories! Third, Rush understood radio to a pristine point of science. When he had nothing to say, he used the medium’s most powerful tool… silence!He understood the essential bond with the listener and therefore we never heard his producer on talkback, rarely, rarely, rarely a guest interview. Phone calls were extremely well screened, coached and ready for air. Sharp produced bits were designed to drive the conversation. The show was a show not a lecture.Today’s winning hosts don’t waste time forming political opinions, they invest their time in building an entertaining show.”As long as Talk radio continues to be in touch with the values and lifestyles of the audience and simultaneously entertains & informs i.e. inform entertainingly and entertain informingly, the future of the format looks great!!By David Kidd, BPRMain Pic: Shutterstock […]

Streaming and podcast solutions provider StreamGuys has launched its second-generation SGreports solution, a robust log processing and content analytics toolset for live streams and podcasts. The updated solution, part of StreamGuys’ growing SaaS suite of analytics and monitoring services, offers a much-improved user experience through improved data aggregation and presentation, along with quicker access to streaming analytics. StreamGuys has initially made the updated solution available for small-to-mid sized clients, and will soon expand availability to larger enterprise accounts that require higher levels of customization.SGreports helps broadcasters and media companies access metrics to understand how audiences interact with streaming content, and then leverage the resulting data to make intelligent business and programming decisions. The software presents visualizations on user dashboards to help them quickly filter and compare data on program streams and podcast episodes, for example. In its previous iteration, users manually parsed data through SGreports’ expansive filter options to build reports. While the process of exporting data was straightforward, the data aggregation process could grow time consuming as the number of sources of metrics grew.“Broadcasters with varied streaming portfolios often have specific reporting needs that weren’t easily services by the prior iteration of SGreports,” said Robert Minnix, head of product, StreamGuys. “SGreports now offers a more cohesive environment to aggregate data from different subsets to achieve a singular view, as opposed to managing data across many dashboards. The simple explanation is that users have a more consumable view of everything in one place, which is especially useful for larger media networks and market-based streamers who have a lot of ground to cover. We have now centralized all this data to a single pane of glass.”

As with before, SGreports also allows users to flexibly drill down for greater detail and customize their views for maximum efficiency. However, SGreports also now offers a “snappier, more responsive user interface” that offers more visually distinctive metrics and with greater speed. That includes more insightful charts and graphics versus columns of numerical information. “Some of the SGreports metrics that our users value most, such as geolocation information from users in difference cities and countries, are now presented in ways that are simply more appealing to view and quicker to digest.”On the quality-of-service side, StreamGuys has migrated SGreports to a Kappa software architecture that better supports real-time processing for analytics. This allows SGreports to aggregate data quicker, with event metrics often available within minutes of completion. “We’ve integrated the analytics stack into our infrastructure so that the host and client servers are processing data in real-time,” said Minnix. “There is no more waiting until tomorrow to access metrics on user traffic, as there is no more batch processing data across different intervals. The information populates as viewers and listeners disconnect.” SGreports’ advanced reporting capabilities now include enhanced user agent and device-level analysis based on the Open Podcast Analytics Working Group (OPAWG). Support for OPAWG – a cross-platform initiative to standardize podcast download tracking and measurement – bolsters IP and user agent blacklisting, bot identification, and filtering to provide higher-quality podcast reporting through community-based specifications. SGreports also now directly integrates with StreamGuys’ flagship SGrecast podcast management platform and will soon support SGrewind time-shifting service to help users spot trends in traffic and consumption of rewindable content. […]

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 […]

Juan Jumalon, a radio broadcaster in Mindanao, southern Philippines was shot dead in his studio while he was on air.Jumalon, 57, also known as DJ Johnny Walker was in his home-based 94.7 Gold FM Calamba studio, when a gunman entered the studio pretending to be a listener and shot him twice in the head.A video of the attack on the station’s Facebook page, where the broadcasts are also aired, shows Jumalon pausing and looking upward at something away from the camera before two shots ring out. He slumps back in his chair as background music plays on.

The attacker snatched his gold necklace before fleeing. Jumalon was rushed to the hospital where he was pronounced dead on arrival.The police said they were investigating a motive for the killing and were not aware of any previous threats against Jumalon’s life.Jumalon is the fourth journalist to be slain since President Ferdinand Marcos Jr took office in June 2022, and the 199th journalist to be killed in the country since 1986, the National Union of Journalists of the Philippines (NUJP) said, condemning “the brazen killing”.President Marcos Jr strongly condemned the shooting and said he had ordered the national police to track down, arrest and prosecute the killers.“Attacks on journalists will not be tolerated in our democracy and those who threaten the freedom of the press will face the full consequences of their actions,” Marcos said in a statement.With an average of three or four journalists murdered every year, the Philippines is ranked 147th out of 180 countries in RSF’s 2022 World Press Freedom Index.It is ranked seventh on CPJ’s most recent Impunity Index, which spotlights countries worldwide where journalists are slain and the killers go free.Photo: Facebook […]

Futuri has announced the launch of Futuri AudioAI™, formerly known as RadioGPT.
The end-to-end content system, which combines automation system integration, Futuri’s TopicPulse story discovery AI, large language model (LLM) technology, and AI voice, has enhanced multiple features and added new capabilities. In response to industry demand, it’s also now accessible to television broadcasters, digital publishers, streaming stations, and others wanting to capture growth opportunities in live audio.
The new Futuri AudioAI™ integrates multiple LLMs — beyond the GPT-4 integration that was a component of RadioGPT — to develop content based on up-to-the-minute TopicPulse insights. Using multiple LLMs means the content Futuri AudioAI™ delivers is even stronger, and it better enables Futuri to improve the system continuously.

This enhancement also benefits Futuri AudioAI™’s weather report capabilities, which enable stations to strengthen their live and local positioning by running sponsorable weather reports with live conditions around the clock — even overnights and weekends.
Futuri has also partnered with a network of powerhouse voice AI companies to augment its in-house AI voices, including ElevenLabs, PlayHT, and Resemble AI, to make voices from their portfolios available alongside those powered by in-house Futuri voice AI. These selections are all housed in Futuri’s Voice Choice Library™, giving users access to a broad array of best-in-class options all in one place. Futuri AudioAI™ users can continue to clone their own talent to add to their own AI voice libraries.
“AI is evolving at warp speed, as are Futuri’s capabilities,” said Futuri CEO and Founder Daniel Anstandig. “Futuri AudioAI™ takes the best of RadioGPT, which has received an extraordinary worldwide response, and makes its core features more powerful. Plus, adding these esteemed AI voice partners to our Voice Choice Library™ gives our users unparalleled options to differentiate their sound. Futuri is proud to lead the way in AI innovation for media companies and content creators.” 
Anstandig and other members of the Futuri team have recently delivered keynote addresses on the power of AI at conferences in London, Zurich, Oslo, Toronto, Copenhagen, Kuala Lumpur, and more, and Anstandig recently led a discussion on AI capabilities at the NAB Show New York’s Radio Insights: Executive Seminar.
The launch of Futuri AudioAI™ follows the July launch of SpotOn, the state-of-the-art AI solution that delivers end-to-end production — original scripts, music, and voiceover — for radio and television broadcasters looking to streamline the production of promos, spec spots, and commercials. In its first three months, SpotOn has generated more than 150,000 different pieces of custom audio with original, never reused scripts for its partners. […]