“Now is the time to start working together on digital strategies”. Jamie Chaux, Head of Digital, Commercial Radio Australia gave the audience at Radiodays Asia a view of where things are going with digital. 67% of people in Australia who have a smart speaker ‘Have ever listened to the radio’ on their smart speaker. The CRA have identified seven problems related to listening to the radio on their smart speaker. Firstly the Australian radio industry hasn’t worked well on smart speakers and stations changing brands has been a big issue with discovery. Radio stations have been trying to get data on who is consuming digital rations. Another problem is the change in play out systems and how this has affected the commercialistation opportunities. He noted that ‘the future’ is a problem – how can broadcasters work guide their listeners for the future. And finally ‘Big Tech’ something that the industry and the goverment have also been concerned with. Jamie told the audience that solving these problems started with a RadioApp, getting radio to work on the Sonos and then working with Amazon. Alot of work has been done on how to ask for stations in a way that Australians can understand. This is a world first and changed the culture within Amazon in the way they thought about radio and radio discoverability. Top tips: Build relationships with smart speaker creators, the easier you can make it for these companies the better (e.g. one national solution), the value for them is not in radio listening, there is no easy AI solution and data sharing isn’t easy and on-going maintenance is very important. He said that there are certain things as a broadcasters or an industry this is a new area which has to be developed, it’s a long process and shouldn’t be the whole story for a country as this is just one small area of radio but work does need to begin to ensure radios place in the smart speaker.
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