With radio audiences shifting from traditional listening to more listening on mobile devices, radio companies around the world are looking for ways to continue to engage the new audience while continuing to make money.  On RadioAsia’s second day, radio executives from around the world discussed “Radio on the Move”.
 

Former CEO of Southern Cross Austereo Australia, Rhys Holleran, began by breaking down how you approach the challenges based on whether you manage a single station, or one of the biggest in your region.

For single stations:

• It’s about the radio business
• And focusing on the 4 R’s – research, ratings, revenue and results

Duopolies:

• Look to introduce shared management of key areas
• Begin to move the stations to “brands”

“You can dominate a demographic with brands…it could be better to compete with yourself rather than someone else”, Holleran said about forming duopolies.

What about the focus when building a small network that then grows to a bigger network, and becomes the largest network in the country?

The small network

• The introduction of leveraging scale
• Strong local brands with commonality
• Content takes on local, regional and national dimensions

The large network

• Scale brings opportunities in national sales
• Best practice across markets
• New business opportunities emerge

Being the biggest network

• Cradle to grave opportunities emerge for talent
• The dilemma of central versus decentralized control
• Your voice in the space creates influence and opportunity to shape the sector

Holleran also talked about his immutable rules when it comes to building radio station, no matter what size station or market you operate within.

• Revenue is driven by content
• Strong local revenue is driven by strong local content
• Great local shows will beat great national shows
• Great local shows are hard to build and harder to retain

“Spend the time building and maintaining good local shows”, Holleran says.

In discussing the future of radio, Holleran says tomorrow’s radio stars are more likely to come from places like YouTube, organize and authentic content will beat formulaic content, and that the connected car will continue to move audience and the battle of the future may well be the battle of the dashboard.

One of the challenges that face Asian broadcasters is looking for talent who can engage with audiences as they continue to become more mobile.  Ms. Yuko Asano, Multilingual Media Division with NHK Japan, spoke about their ability to engage audience through popularity voting.

NHK’s Chinese service ran a competition inviting pairs to compete in presenter “talent” search where each pair was given 3 minutes to address a question that was sent in from the audience.  This competition was presented live, with 200 people voting for the winner, with the real winner being chosen via the NHK website.

Leveraging the popularity of talent style quests in Asia, traffic to their website doubled within the first week of the contestant videos being uploaded.

Radio penetration in China is not as high as some of its Asian neighbours, however they are still facing the same challenges as audiences continue to spend more time on mobile devices.  Mr. Huang Xin, Deputy Director General and General Manager of Jiangsu Broadcasting spoke about his companies’ strategies in facing this growing challenge.

When working through their strategies, Mr. Huang posed two questions to his senior managers. 

Question 1. Can we abandon the existing broadcasting system now?

Question 2.  Can we develop independent new media products out of existing broadcasting system?

The clear answer to both questions was “No”.

One country that knows too well about the penetration of smart phones is South Korea.  Recent statistics show that 83% of South Koreans own a smart phone – one of the highest figures in the world.  This means that South Korean radio companies have more of a challenge to engage with audiences on this platform, as traditional radio listening has fallen from 19 minutes per day, to 17 minutes per day.

Mr. Yoon Sok Oh, Director of Radio Programming and Planning at KBS South Korea briefly outlined their strategy in moving with the audience.

KBS strategy includes:

1. Create a radio listening app (“Kong”) which provides several radio channels
2. Restructuring radio content formats
3. Evolving content to be heard, read and seen
4. Visualising through highlight videos and live music
5. Activating share function, making content easy to share.

“Car radio is becoming the new smart device”, Mr. Yoon said in concluding his presentation.

Finally, Ms. Shanthi Bhaghirathan from Capital Maharaja Org Sri Lanka delivered some home truths about today’s radio audience.

“They have busy lives, spend less time at home, they live in a borderless world…and they are married to their smart phone”.

Emergency broadcasting plays a vital role in radio in Sri Lanka.  People come to radio to find breaking news and updates – they want to be informed, be able to react and share, and provide feedback.

Being able to hear content when you want is another important selling point for listeners choosing a radio station.

“When we do our content, we make sure our content is made available in podcasts,” adds Ms. Shanthi.

“Make sure you leverage content creating to maintain interest….and to engage with moving audiences on mobile platforms.  Focus on content development (concept, ideas, initiative to extend and share on multi platforms.”