Digital Radio Benefits for All Radio Advertisers and Radio Stations
From July 1st 2010 all radio campaigns will have to comply with Commercial Content Standards and Operating Practices introduced by Commercial Radio Australia.
These Standards and OPs come from the Commercial Content Standards Group (CCSG), which was set up by CRA's Digital Technical Advisory Committee (DTAC) to investigate technical standards for radio commercials and work practices for sending and receiving commercials.
Members of the CCSG included radio staff involved in scheduling and production of radio commercials, and representatives from audio production studios and professional dispatch services.
The CCSG determined any recommendations to be adopted had to be:
Equally well deployed by
- Creative agencies
- Production studios
- Dispatch services
- Broadcasters
- The client
Be simple to implement and maintain and
Be pre-emptive in their functions to minimise/eliminate errors going to air
Above all, the recommendations had to maintain the integrity of the audio quality and any other creative elements in radio commercials.
To keep all the file elements together, the CCSG conceived the Piñata: a software tool which will package up all the elements for each digital radio commercial.
However, Piñata goes beyond just keeping things neatly together.
Piñata also maintains an audit trail of who added which elements, it allows creative agencies to preview the completed commercial for approval, and checks to ensure that each element meets the relevant standards for audio, text and images.