TECHNOLOGY: ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE AT THE SERVICE OF RADIO

Artificial intelligence is the topic of the moment: it will change the world of work and also radio. Two American companies already propose AI-based programmes not only to automate functions, but to create content and free up energy for programming.

The American company Futuri offers a suite of software that interacts to create live programming featuring AI voices and delivering locally relevant news content.
Source

In Italy, the m2o network has called it the radio killer, but American Futuri says that with RadioGPTTM it wants to simplify program creation and create local content suitable for any radio format. The U.S.-based company was the first to gain publicity by capitalizing on the chatbot’s notoriety launched in November 2022 (as of March 14, 2023 to version 4). Futuri combines three AI-based software: GPT-3 writes program texts based on stories and trending content that the Topic Pulse software extracts from the web (it scans Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and 250,000 other sources), and finally has them read by a digital voice. One can choose from a catalog of entertainers, create shows with two or three hosts, or instruct the software to “copy” radio speakers.

Today, two out of three programs are automated

Futuri’s intention is to make the power of artificial intelligence available to radio publishers to better manage the 70% of programming hours that are already delegated to automation systems.
Source

But the platform does more than just create the schedule (which can be customized for any area, leveraging news fished from the Web). It can automate other processes for the station to interact with listeners: such as feeding a blog on the website, creating social media posts, making short videos, and then converting program content into podcasts. Daniel Anstandig, CEO of Futuri, says his company created RadioGPT to save radio because in many stations 70% of broadcasting is already automated. While with the help of artificial intelligence, live and local content can be increased. A demo can be heard at this address. Impressive!

Program Director is more management-oriented

Program Director automates scheduling and advertising, uses artificial voices, and enables the management of differentiated content and advertising, even of stations operating in different time zones
Source

On a different front is American Super Hi-Fi, which offers Program Director to automate scheduling and reinvent the traditional workflow. Based on artificial intelligence, among many things it curates playlists, does intelligent music rotations, creates shows with artificial voices, and visually shows how the time slot is scheduled. It manages music catalogs, tags songs, and can run an unlimited number of stations simultaneously (useful, for example, for broadcasters who offer dozens of thematic web radios on their site to build listener loyalty). Designed for professionals, it has features that can manage stations operating in different time zones, syndication of stations, and the flow of advertisements.

Written by Fabrizio Carnevalini

BOOKS: THE RADIO ECOSYSTEM IN EUROPE AND NORTH AMERICA

Released in a free edition, thanks to a collaboration with the EBU, the study produced by RAI’s research office, where experts, professors and researchers of different nationalities draw the future of radio

The cover of the volume, downloadable as a PDF, made available to practitioners by the EBU on its website
Source

Presented on March 29, 2023, in Rome, at the Universi Sonori conference, Audio-Sound Ecosystem is the English summary of the volume Audio-Sound Ecosystem published in July 2022 by Rai Libri, the publishing division of Italian public radio and television. Italian and European experts, professors, and university researchers shared their perspectives on their areas of expertise, drawing future scenarios of the radio and audio landscape in Europe and North America (USA and Canada). Collaboration with the EBU-European Broadcasting Union (an association representing various public and private operators), made it possible to produce an English summary of the publication (230 pages, compared to 512 in the original) to make it available to the entire industry. The book can be downloaded for free at this link.

The competition is getting tougher and tougher

RTL 102.5, the first network by an Italian audience has developed a very sophisticated radio broadcasting model
Source

Although radio is the most listened-to source of sound (over 50% of daily listening time, in Europe and North America), it must evolve to respond to competition from increasingly sophisticated audio products. It knows how to stand up for reliability and authority: ingredients that during the pandemic have allowed it to maintain important listening shares, and combined with the ability to entertain that have allowed it to consolidate a strong bond with audiences bombarded by bad news. And for years it has also innovated, creating a new editorial product, radiovision, which in Italy and Belgium has been developed in an original and more mature way. However, the situation is different in France (where it remains unconvincing in terms of ratings) and the United States (which does not consider it fundamental) or Sweden (which has excluded it from its strategies).

The big players

Photo montage made by COMK (Comarketing-News) website at a hearing of the four captains of the hi-tech biggies, questioned by U.S. congressmen as part of one of the investigations into possible anticompetitive practices
Source

But the challenge coming from the network giants (Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon) is insidious: these platforms, which act as intermediaries between the public and radio stations, structure their offerings based on the enormous amount of information collected from users. To counter them, operators need more effective and detailed listening detections that deepen the knowledge of their audiences, and new professionals who can make information adapted to the digital challenge: streamlined but dense and producing a positive feeling. Network presence can be leveraged to increase notoriety, but there is a risk of losing control of programs, so much so that major broadcasters are creating proprietary platforms to establish direct contact with audiences.

Podcasts and streaming

To manage proprietary content without intermediation, the British public broadcaster has launched BBC Sound, where listeners can listen to radio stations, digital thematic channels, and podcasts
Source

In the (steadily growing) podcast industry, radio stations are prominent publishers, particularly in Europe, which allows them access to a younger audience, including children and Generation Z. However, the music streaming market is highly competitive, with platforms witnessing increasing consumption among the 16-34 age group. This demographic is gradually shifting away from radio, though the pace of this trend varies across different countries. Despite the challenging market conditions, leading broadcasters like BBC and Radio Canada are taking measures to counter the trend by launching their proprietary platforms.

Changing modes of listening

Platforms such as Spotify offer superior sound quality to FM, but radio can respond with DAB+
https://open.spotify.com/

If the car today is the main listening space for radio, it is increasingly undermined by other media, accessible from the infotainment system. And when all cars are connected, it will have to contend with Google, Apple, Amazon, and Spotify. To meet the challenge of mobile listening, the main weapon is digital radio (DAB+ or HD Radio in the United States), which with its improved sound quality allows it to keep up with technological innovations, such as those in sound reproduction (spatial and immersive) from Apple and Sony and which will innovate fiction and other areas of entertainment. Regarding home listening, smart speakers will supplant traditional receivers: EBU research estimates that 60 percent are already being used to follow radio. To take advantage of this trend, some broadcasters are making specific and often interactive programs specifically for these listening devices.

(Written by Fabrizio Carnevalini)

LISTENING: WHO ARE THE LISTENING QUEENS OF THE WORLD?

A company that assists radio stations to climb the ratings charts publishes on its website the share of the top radio stations

The thirteen rankings present the top twelve broadcasters in each market, indicating their current share, the company that owns the station, the format, and the link to the site
Source

Which radio stations are the most listened to in New York, Paris, or Sydney? To find out, consult the rating page of Radio Intelligence, a radio consultancy that has put online the rankings extrapolated from audience surveys in thirteen markets. For the United States there are: New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, San Francisco, and Miami (Nielsen Audio data); for Europe: France (Médiamétrie); UK and London (Rajar); Italy (TER); Berlin (Media-Analyse); Holland (NLO) and Spain (AIMC). Last but not least, the Australian hit, with the city of Sydney (GFK). A useful resource provided by the consultancy, which wants to ‘ensure that every minute of programming is focused on the broadcaster’s audience’ and cites success stories in which it has helped clients quickly climb the rating charts.

(Written by Fabrizio Carnevalini)

TECHNOLOGY: The evolution of receivers

The evolution of receivers
An old vintage radio from Philips, a company that began producing tube radios in 1927 and became the world’s largest manufacturer of medium-wave radios. Photo by Gerhard C from Pixabay
Source

An article written by a researcher from EuroScience (European Association for the Advancement of Science and Technology), traces the evolution of radio receivers. Debojit Acharjee, a software engineer and “geek,” as the author likes to call himself, starts from the prototypes invented by Guglielmo Marconi to digital ones. Novelties that have come since the 2000s: from the first pocket radio for listening to the DAB digital band (launched by Pure in 2003), to one for listening to broadcasters streaming on the Web (3com’s Kerbango, which debuted in the 2000s). To arrive at those without the tuning knob, there are the SDRs (Software Defined Radio): receivers that in their more advanced versions (but sold at a price comparable to that of the “transoceanic” radios of the 1970s, such as the Grundig Satellit) allow you to see the full spectrum of the FM band and record 24 MHz. The impetus to innovate? Behind every discovery is the improvement in listening quality, such as that which prompted General Electric in 1940 to invent frequency modulation, demonstrating that it was less susceptible to electromagnetic interference than amplitude modulation, used on medium waves.

GLOBAL: Saturday, February 13, 2021 is the 10th World Radio Day

Saturday, February 13 is the 10th World Radio Day
Launched in 2011 to celebrate the 65th anniversary of the first broadcast of the United Nations radio, World Radio Day is now in its tenth year
Source

World Radio Day (WRD) was established in 2011 by Unesco member states and adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in 2012 as an International Day. The date of February 13 was chosen to commemorate the anniversary of the first United Nations radio broadcast, which occurred 65 years earlier in 1946. The proposal had been made the year before, in 2010, by the Spanish Academia de la radio, and the project was endorsed and supported by the major broadcasting associations, including the Arab States Broadcasting Union (ASBU), the Asia-Pacific Broadcasting Union (ABU), the African Union of Broadcasting (AUB), the Caribbean Broadcasting Union (CBU), the European Broadcasting Union (EBU), the International Association of Broadcasting (IAB), the North American Broadcasters Association (NABA), the Organización de Telecomunicaciones Ibeoramericanas (OTI) and major international broadcasters, such as the BBC and Vatican Radio.

The function of radio

The official video can be seen here
Source

“Radio is a powerful medium for celebrating humanity in all its diversity and provides a platform for democratic discourse. Globally, radio remains the most widely used medium. This unique ability to reach the widest audience means that radio can shape a society’s experience of diversity, serve as an arena in which all voices can speak, be represented and heard. Radio stations should serve diverse communities by offering a wide variety of programming, viewpoints and content and reflect the diversity of audiences in their organizations and operations”.

2021 WRD is about Evolution, Innovation & Connection

Unesco provides copyright-free materials and more information about Radio Day on its website
Source

Broadcasters are also offered 13 ideas for organizing initiatives: talk about your evolution; open up the debate; broadcast a special program; open your doors; engage (interact with your audience); have fun!; organize a quiz; renew yourself (offer a workshop with your team around the theme “new world, new radio”); produce a radio series (a specific podcast); imagine the future; remember your “radio”.

Counting the days until Christmas with RadioReporter’s Advent Calendar

Happy 1st of December! Let’s bring the Christmas time on.

For this years anticipation to Christmas the RadioReporter community has created a special surprise for you! We have collected our favourite radio stations and put them in an online Advent Calendar for you.

We proudly present the RadioReporter Advent Calendar. Stay curious and explore a new radio station every day until Christmas. We hope you enjoy our special selection and share it with your loved ones.

Advent Calendar online 2020
RadioReporter Advent Calendar 2020
Source

What is the advent time and an advent calendar?

The advent time is a Christian tradition and spans over the period before Christmas. It covers the four Sundays before the Christmas Eve (24th December), starting with the Sunday closest to 30th November, the feast day of Saint Andrew the Apostle.

In the late 1800s the tradition of counting down the days til Christmas started in form of lighting candles or marking the days with chalk. “The first printed Advent calendar originated in Germany in the early 20th century with Gerhard Lang. When Gerhard was a little boy his mother made him a calendar with 24 small candies attached to cardboard, one for each day before Christmas.” (Source)

For more encyclopaedic information click here.

The DABLIST app – a global directory of Digital Audio Broadcast

DAB has finally become very popular among broadcasters and listeners, the number of radio programs (“services”) available is continuously increasing, and so is the coverage. New cars will have to be equipped with DAB-enabled infotainment systems, and consumer radios are now available in all sizes and price ranges.

DABLIST coverage area
DABLIST coverage area
Source

With the growing number of programs and broadcast packages (“multiplexes” or “ensembles”) available, it is not always easy to keep track of “who is on air, where, and how”. Where should one look for comprehensive, up-to-date (technical) information about services, transmitters and station details?

The website of WorldDAB, the official lobby organisation for DAB, provides only generic information in their „Country information“ section. On the internet, there is a variety of lists and overviews on national level, with various levels of reliability and technical content. 

DABLIST.org brings all available sources together, and blends them with data obtained from real monitoring. Data from hundreds of receivers and monitoring systems is compiled, reviewed and amended with additional information by a team of dedicated editors. The result: An up-to-date, comprehensive directory of Digital Audio Broadcast.

The App …

… has been designed as a web app. Therefore, it does not require installation or download. Just navigate to app.dablist.org and create an icon on your desktop, on your home screen – on any current device running iOS, Android or Windows. 

DABLIST Start up
DABLIST Start up
Source

The start screen provides numbers of multiplexes, services and countries covered. Data is updated continuously, and the timestamp of the last update is also shown. The start screen lists all countries covered by DAB in alphabetical order. 

When clicking any country link, the App will check the users current geo-location to know in which country he is located. For the current country, he will then have immediate access to the list of multiplexes, both in channel (“block”) order and in multiplex name (“ensemble label”) order.

DABLIST country details Germany
DABLIST country details Germany
Source

To access data in other countries, the user must log in with his FMLIST account. FMLIST is the global database of radio stations and powers many web sites and solutions. If he does not have an account at FMLIST, he can register directly from the app – making sure to follow the indications of the two-step registration process. He may want to save the credentials for later use.

From the multiplex list, one can then enter into the multiplex details: These consist of a list of services with all essential data fields and details. The station logo is displayed for reference, and a rich list of URLs is provided, allowing quick access to websites, social media and streaming URLs for each service.

DABLIST Multiplex Details
DABLIST Multiplex Details
Source

The services list is followed by a transmitter list which includes all known transmitters with technical details. When clicking on the transmitter site name (“location”), it will be displayed on a map.

DABLIST Transmitter list
DABLIST Transmitter list
Source

More features are planned and will be added to the DABLIST app in due course, so stay tuned!

The DABLIST app is free for private, non-commercial use, and for broadcasters. Commercial users can obtain a license for 120 EUR/year per user (net excl. VAT). For questions, comments, suggestions, updates and commercial licensing, please contact glorenz@fmlist.org

Find DABLIST on Facebook & Twitter

BOOKS: Women in radio

The volume is expected to arrive in the bookshop before Christmas. The cover price is 10 euros
The volume is expected to arrive in the bookshop before Christmas. The cover price is € 10,-
Credits

In the history of radio there have been important female figures, even if the story almost always recalls the male protagonists. Umberto Alunni, a former manager of the banking sector (he has been director of important credit institutions, but has always cultivated the passion of a collector of antique radios and a divulger) has reconstructed in the book “Le donne della radio” the biographies of ten characters. From Annie Jameson, Marconi’s mother, to the anonymous steno-typist of the steamship Lusitania, to Lisa Glauber, the only living protagonist, daughter of the owner of the Unda Radio factory. Alunni thus gives back to the female gender the role of protagonist that it deserves.

RadioReporter invites you to ‘WRITE WITH US’

RadioReporter’s World Radio and TV News Blog has been running since 8 months now. We hope you enjoy our topics and articles! Please know, we are always open to receive your feedback either as a comment or via e-mail: blog@radioreporter.org

Some news to share with you

We decided to open up our blog for our community and are inviting guest writers to publish their articles on here!
Our goal is to engage more and more with fellow radio enthusiasts and make people curious about radio itself, especially those coming from outside the industry.
Help us grow our community and join us! Write with us!

Are you a (hobby) writer, a journalist or simply a radio-lover who has interest in writing about radio and / or TV?

RadioReporter gives you the opportunity to publish your article in your mother tongue right on here.
A multi-cultural blog on radio and TV news of international relevance hosted by a community of radio enthusiasts from all around the globe. Your contribution will be in a voluntary capacity. 

Get in touch with us blog@radioreporter.org

Who invented radio – and how did it all start?

When Guglielmo Marconi started practical experiments with wireless communication, he had a problem to solve: How could one communicate with ships on sea, or with a remote place somewhere on this planet, where no cable telegraph line had yet arrived? Fast communication already then was essential for business because a lot of time could be saved. The first „radio“ transmissions were business communication, in the form of telegrams transmitted in Morse code.

Marconi’s practical work started in 1895 and was based on research by Ferdinand Braun, Heinrich Hertz, Nikola Tesla and Alexander Popow. In 1903, the first trans-Atlantic messages were exchanged.

Guglielmo Marconi, 1901
Published on LIFE / Public domain
Source

On Christmas Eve 1906, the first program consisting of talk and music was transmitted by researchers in Brant Rock (Massachusetts). Listeners were seamen on ships in the Atlantic.

Tube-based transmitters were patented in 1913, and the first real radio programme was broadcast in November 1919 in the Netherlands, from a private apartment. Commercial radio started 1920 in Pittsburgh (USA), and Westinghouse provided the first receivers. Between 1920 and 1924, radio transmissions started also in Europe. This website has many dates and details from this period.

In the beginning, the number of listeners was really low. Not only did you have to buy or construct the equipment, but in some countries you also needed a license to be allowed to listen. By 1926, easy-to-use tube-based receiver had replaced the “crystal detector” which had required some patience in tuning and a headphone for listening. 

Precision cat’s whisker detector
Alfred Powell Morgan / Public domain
Source

During WW2, radio was popular – not only because it was the cheapest form of entertainment – but as it reached everyone, it was used as a means of mass communication and propaganda. After the war, radio continued as mass media, entertaining, informing and educating the listeners. While tube radios were still used in the 1960s, the invention of the transistor allowed small receivers that could run on battery, and the radio made its way into the car and into our pockets.

Two tiny transistor radios, shown with AAA size battery for size comparison
Own source
Tube-based desktop radio with Bakelite case
Own source

Günter Lorenz

Translate »