Radiodays Asia 2025 officially opened today at the Hotel Aryaduta Menteng in Jakarta on Monday with a highly successful day of educational workshops.
The three day international conference was not disrupted by the protests in the Indonesian capital.
Last week crowds gathered to protest concerns about the proposed hike in housing subsidies for members of parliament and frustration with perceived corrupt political elites getting more weaalthy while ordinary citizens struggle with rising costs of living. The protests escalated with students, labor unions, and activists demanding broader reforms in government accountability and came to a head last week on Thursday, Friday and Saturday after a ride share driver was killed by police. Roads were closed around the protest areas last week.
Sunday, the day before the conference, was quiet and on the first day, Monday, there was no visible sign of protests near the confernece hotel. All roads near the conference hotel were open on Monday night. Some restaurants and public buildings closed as a precaution, but in the end it was unnecessary. Government workers were asked to work form home, reducing traffic and people in the heart of the city.
Inside the conference hotel, delegates joined both in person and online for practical, skills-based workshops covering:
Mike Russell presented a workshop on AI Tools for broadcasters and creators. Software explored in the session included video and audio creation and editing Ai tools.
Steve Ahern led a workshop where participants explored approached for business sustainability strategies for the audio industry, using Ai tools to improve productivity and positive communications strategies to communicate the evolution of radio into new audio platforms and products.
Podcast planning and creation methods were taught by Deutsche Welle and Method Kit (main picture).
A workshop on self-promotion and personal branding for audio professionals was led by Nessa McGann.
The sessions drew enthusiastic participation, offering actionable insights, hands-on learning, and lively discussions. Networking between attendees added to the energy, as the global audio community connected ahead of the full conference launch this morning.
Steve’s workshop covered:
- Business Sustainability Goals
- People, Planet, Profitability
- Transmitters, Studios, Podcasts
- Financials: Cash & Growth
- Ai Tools
- Privacy & Productivity
- Messaging, Marketing
- Tools and trends
- Understanding changing listener habits
- Confidence in Audio
After examining radio businesses around the world in various practical exercises, participants discovered that broadcast radio is still bringing in the most revenue for companies. Unlike some predictions about radio death, revenue is not plummeting to zero, it has stabilised and now forms the core of commercial radio businesses, which are using that base to expand into new audio growth areas such as podcasts and digital streams.
“The smartest audio media companies have now diversified from a core mass audience revenue base, to include niche marketing growth business segments through podcasts, personalised ad insertion and targeted advertising,” said Ahern, who urged the radio leaders present in the workshop to project confidence about their business and not believe the disinformation coming from competitors who wrongly say that radio is dead.
