Learnings from RadioDays Europe 2024 - Radio | Audio | Podcasts.
Radiodays Europe took place in Munich from 17th to 19th March and Learning Waves Network Manager, Teresa Hanratty, along with colleagues from across the sector attended the conference. The conference brings together radio experts from across the world and with 1,000 delegates attending in Munich, it was one of the biggest to date.
The conference theme for 2024 was ‘Radio | Audio | Podcast’ and across this theme topics and presentations focused on the power of audio, the opportunities with podcasts and the challenges and opportunities presented by AI.
Speakers this session included Florian Herrmann, Germany, Thorsten Schmiege, Bavarian Regulatory Authority for New Media, Katja Wildermuth, Bayerischer Rundfunk, Edita Kudlacove, EBU, Kara Oehler, Institute for Climate and Sound and Society at metaLab Harvard and Lars Bastholm, Bastholm Creative Consulting
In this session we heard that...............
- Radio, audio and podcasts inspire and entertain us everyday and investment is key
- The magic of traditional radio to connect people is key and cannot be lost - creating relationship with content among your audiences
- Radio is fun, Radio is key for democracy, People to become informed citizens and Radio is also good business - the business of radio is different to other businesses
- Technology doesn’t kill radio not just enhances what we can do - video didn’t kill the radio star
- The end of language barriers - investing the reach as translation tools now allow us to do that
- You should master the tool box - you won’t be replaced by AI you will be replaced by someone who can use AI
- Radio is always on time, radio is trusted by everyone - radio is the drummer in the band
- AI is like the box of chocolates, you never know what you are going to get
- Radio is the trusted guy in a changing world
- Never been a more important time to check online content
- AI generated audio, this is a huge area of concern and as audio creators we really need to be on the front foot on this
- AI generated audio is a real concern, particularly in election year
- Why remove the immense joy of being creative and give it to machines - resistance is futile
- Uncomfortably excited - this is how people feel about AI - do we understand what we are doing because of the speed of which AI is moving
- Made by humans - human Creative will be a thing of the future and as media companies we should be clear about what is made by humans etc
- AI is heartless
From the Podcast Summit we learned that……………
- There is money in the podcast market – in 2023 this was worth 3.5bn and the trend is rising
- Big podcasts are doing well at the minute but money needs to get to smaller podcast producers
- Podcasts very popular among youth across the EU
- Youth listening to radio down 22% between 2022 and 2023!
People are listening to audio content to............
- Learn something new
- For entertainment
- To relax
In addition to this…………..
- Podcasts offer people something they can’t get on the radio
- People prefer listening to podcasts rather than reading about a topic - 69%
- Marketing your Podcast is hugely important, an email with New Episode Out Now is not sufficient.
To increase the reach of your podcast you should:
- Be aware of the greater landscape
- Meet listeners where they are now
- Strategic borrowing of existing audiences
- Advertise in podcast listening apps - Apple and Spotify have forms you can fill out
- Advertise in podcast newsletters - a lot of them need content
- Advertise at events -QR codes to link to podcast
- Guest opportunities - be on other podcasts
- Set up some non-monetary ad swaps - give a mention to other podcasts on your podcast
- Have to be on YouTube
This session featured Maria Lorenz from Pool Artists, Matthieu Rawolle from the EBU, Arielle Nissenblatt from Descript, Sam Bonham from the BBC and Remi Horgar from NRK.
In the Advertising Summit we learned that………….
- If your advertising goes unnoticed everything else is academic
- If something isn’t listened too it can still be heard
- If something isn’t watched it won’t be seen
- Attention is a creative opportunity
- Power of combining audio with what people are doing eg ad about driving too fast
- Think dialogue not monologue
- Audio ads must be consistently distinctive
- Music brings audio ads to life, causes huge increase in retention
- For those who weren’t paying attention - thanks for hearing anyway !!!
- Audio is a powerful thing to get peoples attention
- Attention is something you have to earn from the consumer
- To get it (attention) you have to break through the distraction people face
- Radio is the Marathon and takes more time - TV is the sprint
Speaking at this session were Mark Barber from Radiocentre UK and Sheng Song from Ster.
Some advice from the Youth Summit for younger people looking to get into the sector from the conference included….
- You have to open the door
- You have to be patient
- You have to try it also
- Don’t nag al the time
- Don’t act like you are a star already, one show doesn’t make you a radio host
- Don’t think that you know everything
- Take advice from everyone
The importance of diversity when recruiting took centre stage in this session also and looking at multicultural competencies and how this helps organisations to become more diverse was interesting angle. The key thing is the importance of having diversity in the room, leads to more diverse content and conversations, representation and innovation is very important.
You must delight people with content
Multicultural competencies were defined as:
- Language
- Perspective
- Networks
From the Summit on The future of local radio and podcasts we learned that…………..
- Storytelling – allow local people to see and hear their lives being reflected back through local radio
- Stine – TV – create local podcasts that go national, good local stories, we tell local stories that we want the whole country to talk about
- Podcast first – main story that can be covered on all platforms
- Podcast second – main story on regular media and second on podcast
- 5 stories per year
- Use your expertise wisely, know your strengths, co-operate with external production companies for sound design et
- Local radio has a connection with its audience that no-one can replace it with, this will remain for a long time
- Radio is not the only player in town now
- Decline in 2013 because of choice – you have the give listeners a reason to come, local is about people and place
- Teams are passionate about people, stories and news in their community
- Sport is hugely important – follow local heroes from grassroots to glory
- BUT we cant just rely on linear – also need it on social so audiences can follow us as well as listen
- We live the lives of our listeners and our audiences
- BBC launched ‘Make a Difference’ where they shone a light on the good people do in their communities, they run annual awards and in this way it helps them connect with communities
- Need to serve existing audiences but also need to serve them on digital too
- Harness the power of digital and radio to serve local audiences
Chris Burns from the BBC concluded this session by saying ‘radio was my window to the world’ and this once again reinforced the power of radio to leverage all other content and content platforms.
A sales summit was held for the first time at RadioDays Europe and the key takeaways from the sales summit were:
- Radio is getting more competitive
- Listening time for radio in Germany is decreasing, this is greater for younger people
- Radio will survive because of its relevance in cars (82% of car trips involved listening to radio in Germany),
- Radio ads are the least likely to be avoided, brands using radio get their money back nearly eight times on average €7.70 average ROI,
- 84% would follow their favourite personality to a new station, 77% would try a brand of product recommended by their favourite personality.
- Audio is a powerful influencer whether you are paying attention or not.
Speaking at the Sales Summit were Christian Shalt, Chief Digital Officer, RTL Radio Germany and Dirk Ritters, Chief Revenue Officer, RTL Radio Germany
Spotlight on 'Ours to Protect' Project.....................
Live 95 journalist, Aislinn Kelly brought the 'Ours to Protect' Project to the European stage and opening her presentation she said, “our mission is to empower rather than scare listeners by following the principals of solutions journalism.”
As 81% of Irish adults listen to the radio every day (Reuters, 2023) and 52% listen to their local stations daily, the strategy was to produce weekly content in a regular time slot. The weekly segment reflects their audiences’ climate action experience and the need to knows about climate change.
Stations highlighted local community, voluntary, NGO and state organisation representatives discussing topics such as the climate impact of energy, travel, food, waste, the circular economy and factual plus informative pieces for local radio audience.
Read more at: https://radioinfo.com.au/news/radio-campaign-grows-community-awareness-on-climate-change-rde24/
In this final piece we share with you some of the tools we learned about at the confernce.............
- Rephonic.com -
- Listen notes
- Player.fm - will give you a list
- Audiostack for Audio Production
- Creative Fix for ads/voice
- Benztown Listener voice generator
- Suno – create songs
- Buzzsprout Co Host AI
- Kapwing for Video Content
- Adobe Podcast AI
- Lalal.ai lets you split stems
- AuPhonic.com tidies up/processing for podcasts
- Wavacity free audio web based edits
- Podcast :Liveitem tag
- 11Eleven Labs
- Spooler – continually update your podcast so it is always fresher – news podcasts
- AI voice – news scripting and news writing is a fine art that AI cannot replace