“When we dropped the bird sounds and launched Stardust, I put my desk phone number on the digital radio screen for people to call. I didn’t expect much response, but when I got to work my answering machine was full of messages… This proves two things. A lot of people are listening to digital radio and listeners love Bird Radio,” said Jaime Chaux, commenting to radioinfo on the launch of Stardust and the demise of the test station Bird Radio at the recent digital radio OB.
“The birds may come back, they have got a life of their own on twitter, we’re having fun with it,” he said.
The station that replaced the birds, Smooth has a format based on songs from The Great American Songbook, jazz and timeless classics made famous before the rock n roll era. The station’s name, Stardust, is inspired from one of those songs, the classic Hoagy Carmichael song of the same name.
Following up our chat at the OB, Peter Saxon put a few more detailed questions to Jaime:
I was just wandering about the strategy behind SCA’s digital channels. Is it experimental? How much of it is trial and error versus scientific evaluation?
It’s about giving it a red hot go. It’s the new frontier, let’s use our spectrum to have a play with new formats and sounds that we otherwise wouldn’t be able to try on our analogue radio channels. SCA has the most Digital Radio spectrum amongst all commercial broadcasters, why not use it? It’s been great having a play!
Can you run through what you have at present and what was their evolution…
Our current three brands – Radar, Buddha, Stardust – are very different from one other and it’s great to have that diverse portfolio to play with. We’re approaching our spectrum with flexibility, trying new formats that we think will work best for Australia’s Digital Radio audience that keeps on growing every day. Any format is possible. All current and future formats will be a reflection of that.
How did you decide on Stardust? How will you measure its success?
Internally we are always in constant discussions about what we can do with the spectrum. The main filter is that what we do has to be different to what we do now on our existing channels, that’s how Stardust came up as the next full time brand.
I have been displaying my desk number on Stardust’s Digital Radio scrolling text display for listeners to call in and let me know what they think. The reaction was instant, very very passionate and very very positive – it blew me away. A truly amazing response considering we haven’t yet promoted it anywhere – we just popped it up and waited to see if anyone noticed first up. Digital Radio listeners know new formats can appear, they look out for them and really get into them. It bodes really well for Digital Radio’s future.
And what’s with the bird noises. Is that now the SCA signature placeholder? Are there people who actually leave it on all day like they do other formats? Is there a large playlist, and if so where can you find a decent catalogue of birdsongs. Are there any stand out performers? Would it count towards your Australian quota (if there was one for digital)?
“Signature placeholder” – I like that phrase, thanks for that Peter, I’ll use that in meetings now. Yes.. I know there are people who pop it on and leave it on all day.. My desk number was also displayed on Bird Radio’s scrolling text display for listeners to call up and let me know what they thought. Listeners have told me how they relax to it waking up or relax to it going to bed, it relaxes their own birds, it helps calm people around their office.. and they’re not crazy people (at least not all of them).