Interview: GMG Radio working on a ‘hybrid’ digital future for radio
The digital revolution raging through traditional media is accelerating and radio is no different: there are growing numbers of digital and internet listeners, meaning that the business model and consumption trends are changing fast. Yes, people mostly listen via AM/FM and the stations sell advertising (or get publicly funded via the BBC) but the next few years are crucial.
As James Cridland points out, the combined audience of the Radioplayer online radio platform in the UK is 5.7 unique users a month, with more than 22 million individual sessions, a bigger audience than ITV and Channel 4 combined.
And the possibilities are huge: according to RAJAR, radio listening reached its highest level ever recorded (91.6 percent of the UK population) in the first quarter of this year.
But the BBC still looms large with an audience including more than 55 percent of the UK adult population, making the job of commercial radio brands – facing the threat of platform shift and the BBC – a tough one indeed.
One man charged with understanding all that is James Rea, who was last month appointed Guardian Media Group’s deputy group programme director. He still retains responsibility for for news output and special broadcasts, but with a lot more besides, including “developing new partnerships in the digital arena to extend the group’s content to new audiences,” according to the company.
According to figures from last October, one in four listeners of GMG stations (which comprises Rock, Real and Smooth radio) audience are tuning-in via a digital/online platform. I caught up with Rea to ask him what the plans are…
AOP Microlocal Media Forum Part 1
We did intend to live blog this event via Cover It Live but unfortunately we couldn't get onto the Olswang Wi-Fi or get a mobile signal for a dongle. Instead I made notes in Word and rushed them online in the interval. The event now been covered elsewhere so I've decided to keep the notes in a relatively raw format. At the end of this post is this part recorded it-its-entirety.
Sarah Hartley Presentation
Definition of microlocal
Reasons why microlocal exists - technology and closure of local papers
In US quote from Techcrunch: "Hyperlocal sites are becoming a hot commodity"
Examples in UK
Daily Mail - Local People
conversations community gossip rather than small news sites
Foming collaborations
CN group recuiiting citizen journalists - Carlisle get share of advertising on pages
ITN proposing grand alliance - hoping for topslice money from BBC licence
PA are looking into Public Service Reporting pilot (wire service for courts and councils)
Free to anybody for public subsidy
The Guardian :beat blogger
Financial return
Trinity Mirror exploring hyperlocal advertising in the North East
And paywalls
Second trend
Public organising themselves
Collaborating for investigations: crowd sourcing
And some getting fuinding from 4iP
They Work For You
Anything you want to know on local or national Mps.
VentnorBlog
Cover local council meetings - husband and wife team
Help Me Investigate
Investigate issues - using technology to change activity
The Culture Vulture
What do you want? Backstage access that you might normally get
Live events
People’s Voice Media across many media in NW
Salford TV
Pull Jeff Jarvis quote ‘ecosystem of many players with varying motives'
Opportunities
Potential for new partnerships
Possibility of state subs funding
Creation of new revenue streams/business models
14.48
Presentation: Paul Bradshaw
Monetising micro local
No one is selling content - What are they selling?
Platform: About My Area - pay to have hyper local platform
Ads: half hyper local efforts are selling adverts - more using Addiply service
Services: Talk About Local blog itself not making money effectively - helping authorities and PR services and unions with Social Media strategy
Products: t-shirts mugs events BiNS
Low cost = low profits
Multiple revenue streams - print is high cost entry and high profits so spread out streams - NY blog quarter comes from events
New effiiciencies - collaborating with audience process as product broker audience and vendor
New advertising models - based on performance big per thousand people click or complete a sale - Goggle sells on performance
Legacy as handicap
Decoupling + end of monopoly
People never paid for news they paid for package
Niche advertising separate from prices
Platform already paid for
Membership - engage in that online community
Convenience
The 90 degree shift - moving from vertical to horizontal - spend 3 hours 40 on community sites- 2 minutes on newspaper- starting to engage with online communities
Independent’s view
Networked approach - being covered elsewhere I won’t cover it. Link is the content
Process as product - activity of going around area becomes content
Quality not quantity - spend a week on it because think it’s worth more
15.04
You can right click 'save target' for the MP3 here or you can listen to it below.
[audio:http://dandavies23.wordpress.com/files/2009/12/aopmicrolocalpt1.mp3]Part two can be found here.