Smart devices drive changes in UK radio listening habits: Infinite Dial UK

28 May 2025 The latest Infinite Dial UK study offers insights into content and technology consumption trends, highlighting the growing influence of smart devices and the surging popularity...

Radio gets more control of Smart Speakers with Alexa’s DIY skills kit

10 December 2024 Alexa has introduced a Smart Speaker ‘do it yourself’ skills kit for radio stations, reports Steve Ahern. The kit, introduced earlier this year, gives radio...

Radio prominence on smart speakers: the clock is ticking

28 October 2024 There is just a couple of weeks to go before submissions close on the government’s proposals paper about Radio Prominence on Smart Speakers. Last year...

Alexa, who should I vote for?

11 May 2022 Hey Google, who will win the Australian election? Steve Ahern checks what smart speakers are telling voters, and is not impressed. 5.6 million people...

5.6 million Australians now own a Smart Speaker

13 July 2021 Edison Research and Commercial Radio Australia have released the finding of the Smart Audio Report for Australia revealing that 26% of Australians or 5.6 million people...

33% of all Americans now own a Smart Speaker

9 March 2021 Thirty-three percent of all Americans now own a smart speaker, a 22% increase from 2020, according to the latest research from Edison Research and Triton...

Radio sees an increase in listening via mobile phones and smart speakers

14 February 2021 The commercial radio industry has reported a strong year on year increase in the number of Australians listening to radio on their mobile phones. Nearly 2.5...

Smart Speaker consumption grows by 29% in the US

22 January 2021 Triton Digital have released new data around the consumption of U.S. AM/FM streams on smart speakers. Triton compared the consumption of U.S. AM/FM streams on smart speakers in December 2018, December 2019, and December 2020, reporting growth of...

Radio’s mix of music and talk is a format people want to hear on smart speakers

15 November 2020 Geraint Davies talks streaming apps, smart speakers and podcasts Geraint Davies was at ARN for just over ten years, before leaving recently as...

Big plans for Community Radio to expand to digital platforms: CBAA Conference

29 October 2020 The community radio sector is going digital big time next year with the planned launch of an app that will carry all community stations and...

SCA’s live streaming now reaches 1.5 million

9 September 2020 SCA’s digital audio platforms have reached new highs with more people tuning into Hit and Triple M than ever before, recording a record 1.5 million...

The personality of voice assistants

17 June 2020 Siri is "disingenuous and cunning," compared to Alexa, who is "genuine and caring," according to voice designer Phoebe Ohayon. Speaking at today's Voice Global virtual...

Smart Speakers move beyond a novelty and radio is benefitting in the US

29 April 2020 Voicebot.ai have released their Smart Speaker consumer adoption report for 2020, and the major finding is that Smart speakers in the US are clearly more...

ABC News flash briefings get smarter

29 February 2020 Analysis from Steve Ahern A while ago, in an article on smart speakers, one of my observations was a criticism of ABC News for...

Is Alexa being unfaithful?

12 December 2019 Analysis from Steve Ahern I have been using my Amazon smart speaker all this year. I set her up so that she knew my...

We can reach listeners in new ways: Andrew Morris discusses community radio’s iHeartRadio alliance #CBAAConf

29 October 2019 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...

Different devices have different audience behaviours: James Cridland #CBAAConf

25 October 2019 James Cridland begun his presentation to the CBAA Conference with a history of radio and technology changes, and debunked the myth that video, and all...

Face recognition, voice control and more: The Datafication Project #RadioAlive2019

18 October 2019 Douglas Nicol, leader of the Datification project at The Works, discussed in-depth research about how Aussies are using voice interfaces and what marketers have to...

Australian radio partners with Google #RadioAlive2019

17 October 2019 CRA has made a third announcement at the opening of this year's Radio Alive conference, revealing a new partnership with Google to make it simple...

Smart soundbars are coming

8 September 2019 As smart technology continues to gain pace, digital technology supplier Frontier Silicon has launched a new control card to make sound bars smart. The...

China’s smart speaker market doubles it’s growth in Q2

26 August 2019 The global smart speaker market grew by 55.4% in Q2 of 2019 according to a new report from Canalys, with the Chinese Baidu replacing Google...

Smart speaker home invasion?

31 July 2019 A study conducted last year by the US based organisation Consumer Watchdog found that Google and Alexa have patented a range of eavesdropping functions associated...

Smart Speaker ownership grows by 75%, but is the government listening?

27 June 2019 The NPR and Edison Research Spring 2019 Smart Audio Report is showing that the number of Smart Speakers in households across the US is now...

One third of US households will have a smart speaker this year

20 June 2019 In their latest estimates, Loupventures research team has updated their estimates for smart speaker ownership in the US, predicting that one-third of households will own one...

How to train your smart speaker

29 May 2019 Analysis from Steve Ahern. Smart speakers are not quite as smart as we are led to believe. I have no doubt that coming generations of smart speakers...

Taking control of news on smart speakers

28 April 2019 Steve Ahern examines the issues around disaggregating radio news content for delivery over smart speakers. How we connect to news and information is...

Interactive documentary making for smart speakers #RDE19

12 April 2019 Thanks to smart speakers, audio documentaries are about to evolve to the next level. Newspapers are rapidly moving into the audio documentary space, previously dominated by...

Fast and Curious discussion about smart speakers #RDE19

1 April 2019 One of the highlights of Radiodays Europe is the first day's Fast and Curious session, where participants move tables every nine minutes to quickly discuss...

Australia vaults past U.S. smart speaker adoption – Voicebot.ai report

20 March 2019 Voicebot.ai has released its Australia Smart Speaker Consumer Adoption Report 2019 that now places the country ahead of the U.S. in user base, relative to population,...

Divergence and convergence of listening: smart speakers and the age of audio

9 March 2019 Steve Ahern's assessment of the continuing evolution of audio devices and consumption. A few years ago I started tracking the divergence of media consumption devices,...