Event reports
Director of the Wits Radio Academy, Franz Kruger, was part of the conference’s opening panel. He identified the upcoming trends of Radio 2.0: technological development will play a major role, especially the rise of the smartphone. That makes podcasts, radio streaming and alternatives to FM-broadcasting ever more important. Ravi Naidoo, Station Manager of South Africa’s 947 asked if radio has lost its one-to-one-relationship with its listeners due to all these changes. He is certain that presenters will be crucial for radio to keep its core identity. They need to preserve and revive their relationship with the audience and be more accessible through social media. Eric Chinje, CEO of African Media Initiative, emphasised that changing circumstances in every aspect of life will sustainably affect radio and its development. Pippa Green of the University of Cape Town agreed, arguing that economic and political groundwork will be needed to enable radio to cope with these challenges, most important of all: freedom of the press.
The BBC’s Jonathan Wall represented the international guests during the opening panel. His message: you have to believe in your strengths and allow failure among your people, that’s the only way to foster creativity and innovation. Under his guidance, BBC Radio5 Live broadcast a heart transplant live on air; check out the full story, including pictures and videos here. He stressed another important insight: radio needs to stimulate all the senses; videos and social media will belong to each station’s daily life in the near future.
Kris Kropp, CEO of the German radio station BigFM, goes even further: he produces a radio show on a streaming platform called Spotify. Instead of competing with the music streaming program he wants to cooperate - partnering up with Spotify enables the audience to have the best of both worlds: the platform’s music as well as BigFM’s presenters.
Another conference highlight was the visit by Deputy Communications Minister Stella Ndabeni-Abrahams. She spoke about the challenge to introduce digital radio in South Africa and its neighbouring countries, saying it would be a revolution that would benefit future generations. Moreover, she asked the delegates to take themselves seriously and criticised that 70 percent of the music radio stations play is international music. Her appeal: be creative, original and investigative.
Just like Gareth Cliff. The former 5FM presenter started his own digital streaming project Cliff Central a year ago. He produces 35 radio shows a week and offers them as downloadable podcasts for free. This will be the future, he says, no one will turn on the radio to listen to music anymore. That’s why his shows are based on specific topics that enable branded content advertising. Nevertheless, Cliff admitted he can only pay a few of his presenters a regular salary so far.
After three days at Radio Days Africa 2015 one imagines the radio of the future somehow like this: it is all about multimedia and accessible through various channels, mostly via the internet, anywhere and anytime. Smartphones, digital radio and podcasts will play increasingly important roles in developing radio. The radio of the future is original and authentic, telling stories that capture and inspire the audience. Radio will change, however it will stay an essential medium to distribute information as well as to entertain.
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