One of the features of Radiodays is the 30 ideas in 45 minutes session, where a selection of speakers summarise the best points from their presentations.

When your boss asks you to justify your trip and talk about the best points from the conference, just use these points.

Niall Power, Head of Station Sound at Beat

1. Listen to the crazy voices – just because you’ve done it before don’t discount the idea if it comes back again in a different form. Bring in young voices, the receptionist, unexpected people to your ideas brainstorming sessioins.
2. Work out what you’re good at, then make it bigger – we had a popular radio segment and wondered how to move into podcasts. So we took the ‘daily dilemma’ segment and turned it into a podcast called Daily Dilemma Uncensored, we gave it a little more bite and made it bigger by talking about adult themes that we couldn’t talk about on the breakfast show.
3. Shake hands – how many presenters do you know who hate the public, they don’t want to spend time with them. Change that. Every hand you shake, every listener you meet brings you a loyal listener. Politicians know this, our personalities should think in a similar way.
4. Get down with the kids – get them hooked on a radio listening habit. Example, a media literacy campaign in Ireland that taughnt media literacy an d took the station into direct contact with schools.
5. The best time to repair the roof is when the sun is shining – think about the future now, not when the crisis hits (when it is raining).

Lauren Grandbesancon, Radio France International  (kids podcasts)

1. Take extreme care of the first 3 minutes of your podcast, that is when you hook the audience to stay with you.
2. For kids podcasts don’t think that just anything will do, use quality sound design techniques and good production
3. For kids podcasts add things that also engage the parents – for example adult jokes wrapped in a kids narrative
4. Don’t be afraid of historical complexity – complexity builds good stories.
5. Turn complexity into plot twists and story elements. It makes people listen again and again.

Andrew Davies, ABU Head of Radio  (leadership success tips)

1. Drawing on access and expertise – reach out to organisations and experts to expand your views and ideas about how to do things.
2. Save time and avoid mistakes – learn from other colleagues. Example: when the ABC started a true crime podcast they learnt from the BBC and CBC to do an umbrella podcast on true crime rather than an individual series on one crime, followed by another individual series on another crime, etc
3. Collaboration comes in many ways – work with other media and other sectors. Example – cross promotions swaps between ABC and CBC podcasts.
4. Capacity building – gain new skills and share them within your organisation
5. Pool resources to save money

Bari Finkel, Audacity Pineapple Street Studios  (tips for directing talent)

1. Ask a question that sets up the narration, the answer will be generate more natural speech then a formal script
2. Leave the beginning for the end – do the rest of the script, then write/deliver the intro last
3. Set the scene – Give the presenter a set up, for example tell them ‘a person has just put on headphones and this is the first thing they hear.’
4. Read it, put the script away, then just tell me what’s happening, don’t read it word for word
5. Playback is your friend

Christos Papadas (5 principles for managing radio)

Radio is just waiting to be reinvented, think beyond formats and frequencies

1. Don’t compete. Create.
2. Build culture, not just playlists. People don’t follow stations they follow identities. Authenticity matters more than the format, create something people connect with. Program emotions, moods and stories not just music
3. Know your audience like never before – radio should feel special with a human soul, every listener must feel like the station was built just for them
4. Strategy over tradition – if your strategy is ‘how we have alwys done it’ you probably have already lost. Winning radio brands don’t just play songs they build businesses
5. Think beyond radio – The best stations won’t be stations, they will be ‘evolving living soundscapes.’ Tomorrow’s audiences wont ‘turn on’ radio they will just say play… Interaction, voice control and AI will be incorporated into what is coming. Let’s reinvent radio, let’s make it magical.

Emma Lawson, ABC Australia. (five rules for successful video)

1. Get creative and elevate – think beyond the webcam, make it authentic, it doesn’t need to be expensive.
2. Be strategic – not all podcasts need to be video, be selective of the ones that will work in video. Don’t make your channel a dumping ground for everything, research what works and upload those videos
3. Optimisation is a must – Youtube is topic based, so input information on what it is about. An SEO friendly title, add chapters, make a vertical video for Youtube Shortsto link to your longer horizontal video. Verticals attract younger audiences
4. Think beyond just clips from the show – expand to voxpops, behind the scenes clips etc.
5. Refine and learn – learn from your mistakes, look at the data, examine retention graphs, make informed decisions based on the data.

After the 30 ideas session, the next RadioDays events were announced.

RadioDays Asia 2025 will take place in Jakarta between 1-3 September 2025. Registration details coming soon.

RadioDays Europe 2026 will happen 22-24 March 2026 in Riga, Latvia.