The third Radio Festival was held in Delhi on World Radio Day 2020. Steve Ahern was there.

 

“Radio has emerged as the ultimate survivor,” said host Lina Misla from All India Radio, before handling over to one of All India Radio’s music groups to open the conference with music.

“Music on radio unites our cultures,” she said.

Along with the usual exhibitors, partners and sponsors at CRA’s recent Radio Alive conference, there was a new logo on the partner screen.

Primerchord, a production music company.

We had never seen it before, so we located the founder of the company, composer Amara Primero, and asked her about it.

Originally founded as a company composing film music, Primerchord is now branching out more widely.

Anthony Dockrill reports

In a plenary session on the future of radio at the Radio Asia conference in Bangladesh this week, Steve Ahern took a glimpse forward 20 years in a live audio simulation of the changes ahead.

Putting on a pair of wearable earbuds, a thin strip of plastic that attached to the ear lobe, Ahern explained that the vibrations from the wearables work like headphones, expect that they stimulate the ear canal to put sound directly into his head, and use skull cavity resonance to generate the bass sounds.

Ryan Rathbone, National Content Director of MediaWorks NZ’s Edge network gave tips on how to get great the best results for your radio station through winning strategies at this week's Radio Asia conference in Bangladesh..

One of Ryan’s tips is about low cost audience research:

Reply to audience emails, and when you do, ask them something about what they thought of the programs today. It is a simple way to get research from your listeners.

Dynamic data and being able to be found outside your listening area, are two of the big wins for the community radio sector since collaborating with iHeartRadio to add community stations on that app.

The CBAA’s Manager of Online Products and Services, Andrew Morris, spoke to radioinfo’s Steve Ahern at the recent conference in Melbourne, about the success of the alliance with iHeartRadio so far.

Manipulation of images and audio is becoming so sophisticated that it is producing chilling fakes with the potential to cause discontent and influence elections.

The phenomenon, produced with a combination of editing technology and artificial intelligence, is known as ‘deep fakes’ and is one of the biggest media disinformation trends this year.

Discussing the ever evolving medium of radio at this week's Radio Asia conference in Bangladesh, the ABC's Andrea Ho reminded delegates that radio was the first social medium and, if used well, is able to challenge the new social media of today.

“Humans are hard wired to talk. We talk to share. Sharing is at the heart of society.

“Radio with talkback was the first social medium,” she said.

Andrea Ho reminded participants that radio was first in its use of talkback, something to be remembered as radio takes on the new social media platforms.

Ally Newton offered her audience chocolate prizes as they focused on how they could work towards the big prize of winning CBF grants for their station, at a CBAA Conference session on funding.

She began by outlining, who is the CBF and who do they fund, then discussed key principles for writing a grant.

The primary purpose of the CBF is to support community media by offering grants for content, development and operations.

In a session on volunteering, hosted by Geoff Sharp from Volunteering Victoria, a range of topics were discussed from how to get more volunteers to engaging young people.

“It is really easy to write a cheque or make a donation but there is nothing more valuable in this modern age than time. When you volunteer you give your time, that has high value,” said Sharp.

Asked the most important thing they have learnt from managing volunteers, the two panel members said: