Have you ever wondered what keeps the CEOs of the mass media field awake at night? Steve Ahern, the CEO of Radioinfo/AMT, welcomed four other professionals on stage for a top-level discussion on what are the current pressing issues they need to cope with on an everyday basis. Kostantinos Fotopoulos (CEO of Audiomax Inv SA & President of Directors of the Association of Private Radio Stations Owners of Attica), Baiba Zūzena (Chairperson of the board Latvijas Sabiedriskais Medijs), Vivian Mohr (President of Audio Bauer Media UK) and Charles-Emmanuel Bon (Secretary General of Radio France) joined to narrate their worries.
Konstantinos Fotopoulos
Konstantinos seemed to be highly concerned about the production of new radio shows, the way to comprehend strong personalities, financial distresses and reporting to stakeholders. He highlighted, though, that the main worthy of attention theme is managing people, especially the strong personalities and the way to build a team you can truly believe in and count on. On the other hand, financial problems are here to sound the alarm over the brand management, as an aftermath of the Greek economic crisis, since as CEOs they are utterly in charge of the funding resources, dealing with stakeholders and finding their to navigate the market.
Baiba Zūzena
Baiba was worried about the role of their radio in the future digital ecosystem, the development of local radio projects and the attraction and retaining the young audiences’ engagement. Her main concerns have to do with the way with which the public media, especially the local ones in native languages, can be instrumental so as to understood and listened to by the wide audience. It is of great importance to embrace the local talents and cultivate an authentic climate with strong personalities and emphasize networking as a way to deeply understand the reality of the field.
Vivian Mohr
“For me radio is more than music”. For Vivian, radio is an opportunity to connect. Given that each country has its own language, its own “code”, it is essential to show respect to locals and their way of communicating, as well as cultivate mutual understanding. However, he is concerned about AI affecting the radio production and the ability to truly connect with the audience, specifically about the AI generated and polarized content, which gives a more negative note to the story. On the other hand, trust in the brand the audience itself may save the case. That trust and connection to the audience can touch off great economic success.
Charles-Emmanuel Bon
Charles seemed to be more concerned over the funding of radio production and the available sources of money to support it, while addressing matters that have to do with the perceived reality from social media platforms, that is in contrast with the authentic democracy and values, which public service media need to represent. It is of great importance for him to find ways to keep public audio and radio attractive to the audience and face algorithms and editorial control.
Taking all the above into account, maybe CEOs are way more worried and occupied with ideas and solutions than we think they are!
image © Hedda Axelsson
