Affordable listener communication system from Broadcast Launch

Broadcast Launch, a software provider specialising in listener communications and radio station management, has released its first package, ideal for internet radio and smaller stations.
 
It allows stations to receive unlimited SMS messages from over 15 countries worldwide via any web browser enabled device, along with email handling, Facebook and Twitter integration amongst other highly valuable broadcaster centric tools.
 
The company’s founder, James Davey, is a 25 year old tech expert from Melbourne. He has told radioinfo:
 
I previously lived in Hobart and started volunteering for the community station Edge Radio 99.3FM. I later moved to a temporary role as a technical and website director; and later expanded to Energy FM back when it was at it’s peak.
 
“The majority of the inspiration for this product came from my work at Edge Radio, the community there was fantastic and there were some pretty passionate people there from all walks of life. 
 
“Edge was going through some financial trouble around 2009 when the state government announced a funding cut to community projects, which included Edge’s funding). There were protests and gatherings thanks to the wonderful station manager at the time, Melanie Page. They managed to re-negotiate funding and continue broadcasting, but budget cuts were necessary. Anyway, the studio had some old equipment which needed to be replaced, so I developed an SMS solution for them which eventually turned out to be Broadcast Launch.

“I figured I could expand the use of the SaaS software and develop it into a service to sell to other radio stations. I started developing it part-time in 2017, testing it with my university radio station (3SSR), and here we are today launching to the world.”
 
As well as Edge Radio, JOY Melbourne has just started using the platform, 96.7FM (2GHR) has been using it for the past 6 months, and Davey’s university station 3SSR has been using it for a while now. He says there are also a few other stations from the UK and Europe using it so far, and hne is hoping more will give it a try.
 
“Feedback from a few other small Australian stations has been very positive, mostly in regards to affordability and ease of use, most are new to the platform this week but are rapidly settling in,” says Davey.
 
The software enables radio listeners to communicate with presenters, accept song requests, generate ‘now playing’ social media posts, and run competitions across a wide range of communication methods including SMS, email and social media. All incoming messages are completed free using Broadcast Launch after the monthly radio numbers are settled. Additional communication methods are included in the monthly subscription.
 
If stations have ‘now playing’ information and extra data fed to their stream server, they can use that data (along with show scheduling data) to send out automated social media posts. “In future we aim to build much more interactive stuff into the platform that utilises the data available.”
 
The software was designed to be a convenient, streamlined approach for radio communication and interaction with interested listeners across a range of communicative devices.
 
Smart features built into Broadcast Launch include smart codes for running competitions on air, auto-responders, and advanced blocking to stop unwanted listeners and spammers from sending you messages.
 

Asked how his product compares with Hootsuite, Tweetdeck and other platforms, James Davey told radioinfo:
 
We’re more broadcaster centric, which basically means the communication methods available on Broadcast Launch are made to compliment your station rather than be a separate add-on. This is what we envisioned from the start.
 
“I personally used Hootsuite for social media management at my old station. It was a long and unnecessary journey just to generate reports for each show (for interaction statistics when the show was on air we would have to generate reports using date/time constraints, week by week). Broadcast Launch has a built in show schedule which everything is built around, which means radio shows are automatically tagged for each SMS message, email, Facebook post and Tweets.
 
“It just makes listener interaction so much more trackable and identifiable. Not to mention it brings all 4 communication methods (SMS, Email, Twitter, Facebook) together on one screen in real-time. Hootsuite and Tweetdeck are suited more towards their targeted use cases, you can’t get SMS or Email via any of those services.”
 

A free trial of the software is available for one week to interested stations.

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