Martina Rihova, CEO of Active Radio, touches upon the challenges which the audio industry is currently facing. “We often start to forget about the concept we are creating and rather focus on the technology,” she comments and adds that a technology-focused approach can lead to many mistakes. According to Rihova, the biggest challenge for her own company is to be able to create content appealing to the listeners. Rihova also reflects on the role of AI in the audio industry: “It’s a tool for the time being, but I don’t have the answer for what will happen next.”
She also discusses the present trend seen in commercial radio: “People tend to be tired of the news.” She explains that as a result, commercial linear broadcasting focuses more on entertainment, whereas podcasts provide more space for current affairs.
“Produce less, distribute more,“ says Charles-Emmanuel Bon, the Secretary General of Radio France. According to him, the key to do that effectively is the interaction between the marketing and the programme teams that are very closely linked in their work, because there is nothing such as one general audience. He offers us a fresh take on the segmentation of the audience. “The aspect is not really whether the listener is young or old, the main two things we are interested in are the usage of digital platforms and their view of the public space,” he says.
Cathinka Rondan, the Head of Radio at NRK, shares her experience of how NRK fought against the division of radio and podcast within the organization and how they eventually brought both groups together with one common goal: the NRK Radio app. “We had to take a bold decision,” reflects Rondan on NRK’s step which proved to be successful. They put their podcasts solely on their app and did not rely on third-party platforms.
Guy Fränkel, the Director of Rock Antenne from Germany, sees combining analog and digital technology as the key point. As we see so many brands on the market producing content on the social platforms, we basically ended up establishing there is no digital and analog anymore, it just became one thing that we use one process for, ” he reflects on their recent switch in system. “We learnt that in the changing market it is hard to be the voice of the community, so we basically switched the whole perspective and are now part of it,” he says.
