Panellists included Josef El Mahdi (SR, Sweden), Sarah Hartley (Google, UK), Diego Joaqim Pruneda Paz (PRISA Radio, Spain) and Fabien Apheceix (Waynote, France). Together, the group discussed creative ideas and examples from across Europe – covering new forms of distribution, the importance of audio, advanced technologies and innovation financing.
Sarah Hartley, from Google in the UK, talked the audience through huge spectrum of voice products across the world that the DNI innovation fund supports. “The fund opens up whole landscapes of innovation that helps journalism to flourish” she said. She also discussed the application process, in the hope that some of the Radiodays Europe audience would apply for the next round before the deadline on April 9th. “We are looking for a specific product rather than a company, but the IP always remains with the recipient – it is purely a fund to stimulate innovation.”
Next we heard from Diego Joaqim Pruneda Paz (PRISA Radio, Spain). His station reaches 30 million listeners everyday across news, entertainment and sport. Diego said that “in the digital realm we face a problem: despite creating new fresh content everyday we get less traffic than newspapers”, Why does this happen? Diego attributes this to search engine and algorithms being harder for users to stumble upon audio. Diego talked the audience through how they are innovating to overcome this – broadcasters need to enrich on demand audio content with “good enough” audio transcriptions and tags.
Fabien Apheceix, from the French start up, Waynote, told the crowd about how they are innovating. It launched in 2016 with simple features – audio notes with geotagged audio content. “Waynote hopes to change travel on the motorway and make it a meaningful experience.” Fabien said.
Overall, this fascinating talk provided much food for thought. The world is a changing place, broadcasters need to react!
