Happy Birthday Digital Radio

Did anyone notice Digital Radio's second anniversary?

The first Saturday of August marked the second anniversary of digital radio in Australia.

It slipped by un-noticed by most in either radio or advertising and without even one candle, or a party noise-maker being blown.

At AudioNET we are excited about the possibilities that digital radio brings with it - even if they're not yet apparent.

So - let's look at what we should have been celebrating on the second anniversary of digital radio.

Radio Commercials With Vision

Firstly, all the major metropolitan stations and all the new digital radio stations are now offering advertisers synchronised multi-media commercials. Any radio advertiser can have a 'premium' spot that carries an image (most likely a logo) and tagline that is displayed on the station's website and mobile phone app, as the radio commercial is broadcast.  You can see an example on the front page of the AudioNET website.

The flexibility for advertisers is fantastic, because each spot can have taglines customised for daypart, or geography or any other purpose that suits the campaign.

The website streaming and mobile phone technology is station agnostic, so advertisers can have visual ads on their AM, FM and digital radio campaigns, as well as regional and community ad schedules.

That's great news for national advertisers because the one multi-media campaign can be broadcast on metro and regional stations.
 
Media agencies love the campaigns, because clients can get a visual profile on a known and trusted medium, with no added complications to the buying and booking processes.

Digital Radio Creativity

With the introduction of digital radio stations, radio copywriters and producers are freed from the usual perceptions of audience. Ads can now be for 'country music lovers' or 'comedy lovers.'  With digital radio, all the rules fly out the window. And with fledgling audiences tuning in, the digital radio stations have allowed creative agencies and clients to let their imaginations run free.

Images, text and even animated images are being enthusiastically deployed on air, by radio advertisers as happy as a kid with a new toy.

Piñata Party

Production studios and radio stations are wondering how they ever survived before they started using the Piñata file format.

In the past 12 months, production studios have been able to compile  APRA and AMCOSS data and track voice talent payments within minutes.  Ditto for radio stations, whose production engineers have realised the value of being able to store vital information with the audio file it belongs to.

Audit logs for tracking changes to internally-produced promos have made sharing network resources an efficient reality, rather than a hide-and-seek nightmare.

Sales reps absolutely love Piñata because it transforms their smart phone into a powerful client tool. They can receive client approval of spots while they're on the road, and then release the approved ads straight into the broadcast system, ready to air in the next ad break.  

Even reception can use Piñata - now the copywriters are putting keywords in the Piñata files, those annoying phone calls from Mavis about "which TV is on sale?" can be answered with a quick computer search.

Knowledge is power - and getting access to knowledge fast, is even more powerful!

Standards and Respect

One of the most satisfying impacts of digital radio has come from the introduction of standards.

Audio standards, key number standards and proper procedures for advising material instructions and making any changes to material have made advertisers and agencies realise radio is taking itself seriously.

When stations started returning sub-standard audio, and telling agencies that MIs were too late, and material hadn't been scheduled, agencies stopped treating radio like the last thing on the 'to do' list.

Radio station staff in traffic and carting gained new-found respect for bosses. Finally, no more chopping key numbers at the last minute to fit them into the broadcast system. No more Material Instructions on spreadsheets that look like the federal budget. No more guessing which version is the latest Channel Blah promo because they can't be bothered putting a slash and Revision number on the end of the key number.

What's Next

Looking back on the gains from the past two years of digital radio era- we've now laid the foundations for the next era - smart radio. Smart Radio allows listeners to vote on songs, enter contests and gives advertisers and listeners interactive radio opportunities. Interactive radio allows listeners to ask for extra program content or advertising information, and for radio stations, it provides next day data on listener engagement throughout ad breaks.

All this flowed from adding logos and text to radio commercials - and then using the visual elements as the listener call to action!

Waking Up to the Realities of Radio Today

The radio industry is technically capable and could have already implemented these innovations listed above...but they will only happen when the market is aware of them and advertisers and their agencies demand them for their campaigns.

Most metro stations are already streaming their stations over the web and via mobile phone applications and could be broadcasting multi-media commercials any day now.

Australia's commercial radio stations should be at the forefront of the Smart Phone revolution, foreshadowed in February by WPP's Sir Martin Sorrell as the 'holy grail' of advertising.

It's completely realistic for at least one network to be broadcasting multi-media commercials by the time of the National Radio Conference in October. (It was perfectly feasible - but they didn't do it.)

Imagine the respect from the rest of the advertising industry if all the major networks were doing it!

It would be great to come away from the Conference in awe of Radio's ambitious program for the next 12 months. And confident the foundations for achievement have already been laid.