Industry News

The author of this commentary is CEO and founder of AdTonos.

Audio is an innately powerful and personal medium that delivers the soundtrack to consumer lives.

When listeners tune in to their favorite radio stations, they build trusted relationships with presenters — feeling like they’re being spoken to directly. When music is streamed, keen subscribers can access meticulously curated playlists full of meaning and memories. And when a podcast is carefully selected, the audiences’ personal knowledge expands.

As we move deeper into 2021, audio is in the midst of an interactive transformation that will ensure the listening experience is even more personal and engaging.

Spurred on by the increased adoption and acceptance of voice assistants and smart speakers, this presents an exciting opportunity for advertisers to truly connect with listeners at a one-to-one level.

Listening to audio is no longer a passive activity as consumers are increasingly comfortable integrating their voice assistants and smart speakers into their everyday lives. A Juniper report revealed that consumers are expected to interact with voice assistants on 8.4 billion devices across the globe by 2024, up from 4.2 billion at the end of 2020.

Smart speaker adoption is growing particularly quickly, indicating that users trust the technology and find it beneficial.

Worldwide smart speaker sales reached almost 147 million in 2019 — an increase of 70% on the previous year — and by 2027 the global smart speaker market is projected to be worth an impressive $19 billion. In the U.K., more than a quarter of consumers already own a smart speaker, and this proportion looked set to grow over the 2020 Christmas period, with almost 20% of people planning to gift a digitally connected device. Whether it’s Amazon’s Echo, Google’s Nest or Apple’s HomePod, smart speakers are becoming an accepted feature of the modern home.

Smart speakers and voice assistants can respond — in a conversational manner — to hundreds of different commands, meaning audio is gaining a strong sense of utility for users. Asking Siri for an update on lockdown restrictions or instructing Alexa to play a favorite radio show is no longer a novelty, but a practical and productive use of established technology.

And the audio landscape is set to develop in more complex ways, with a view to provide smart speaker users with greater flexibility, such as booking doctors’ appointments, purchasing event tickets or adding items to shopping lists.

Audio interactions are still largely initiated by the user, however with advances in artificial intelligence and machine learning, as well as the connectivity promised by the arrival of 5G, the potential for smart speakers to start the conversation first isn’t far off.

We’re already seeing brands experiment with the potential of two-way communication. For example, interaction triggers within audio ads can be inserted into commercial radio content, inviting the listener to respond using a pre-defined voice invocation and initiating the process of interaction between voice assistant and listener.

We developed our YoursTruly technology to do exactly this and deployed it for the first time last year in partnership with Octave, for Omnicom Media Group’s PHD client, Audi.

[Read: “AdTonos Promotes Interactive Audio Ads”]

When played through a smart speaker, the first ad of a commercial break featured a verbal call-to-action, to which interested listeners had the ability to engage with the voice assistant to complete a specific task, such as booking a test drive, before the listener was returned to the live radio station.

Interactive audio advertising not only allows brands to nurture one-to-one customer relationships and deliver highly engaging advertising experiences, it also delivers valuable measurement data. Brands are able to see precisely how users interacted with their audio messaging and compare campaign results with other digital marketing channels. Additionally, interactive advertising provides publishers with a new way to monetize content, making audio even more attractive as an advertising medium.

Audio is already an incredibly emotive and engaging channel. As adoption of smart speakers and voice assistants escalates, the sense of utility will become more established and new technologies will further enable true two-way communication, welcoming a new age of audio interactivity.

Comment on this or any story. Email radioworld@futurenet.com.

The post Entering the Age of Audio Interactivity appeared first on Radio World.

iHeartMedia and Cumulus Media vet Don Pollnow is heading for Alabama’s capital city to oversee Cumulus’ six Montgomery radio stations. As the new vice president and market manager he’ll have his hands on WMXS(FM), WLWI(AM/FM), WMSP(AM), WXFX(FM) and WHHY(FM).

Pollnow comes over from iHeartMedia where he most recently was market president for Wichita, Kan.. He has been with Cumulus previously, running the Green Bay, Wis., operation.

He has also worked for NRG Media, Renda Broadcasting and LM Communications.

Send your people news to radioworld@futurenet.com.

The post Pollnow Moves to Cumulus Montgomery appeared first on Radio World.

Packaging together a small digital recorder with its own TM-10L lavalier microphone, TASCAM has introduced the DR-10L.

Housed in small lav bodypack-style case, DR-10L specifics include 48 kHz/24-bit BWAV recording along with MP3 recording at both 128 kbps and 192 kbps. Recording is done to an SD card. Onboard features auto gain, a limiter and a low-cut filter.

[Check Out More Products at Radio World’s Products Section]

An OLED backlit display details information about recording levels, SD card status and more. Chiclet buttons provide basic physical controls. The lavalier connects with a locking 3.5 mm-1/8-inch plug.

The DR-10L has a polyfile feature for recording a lower-resolution backup copy when activated.

It ships with iZotope RX Elements audio processing and noise removal software.

The DR-10L uses a single AAA battery. TASCAM says that with 10 hours of operation from one alkaline battery or fifteen hours via a lithium battery.

Info: www.tascam.com

The post TASCAM Releases Mic/Recorder Combo appeared first on Radio World.

HIALEAH, FLA. — The nation’s largest Hispanic-owned media company superserving Latino audiences through radio, TV and digital properties has launched a senior secured notes offering.

The offering is designed expressly to repay its 12% senior secured notes … due four years ago.

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HIALEAH, FLA. — They’re just preliminary numbers, but they are certainly worth a gander.

Spanish Broadcasting System (SBS) on Friday offered a sneak peak of its Q4 2020 results. What does the company led by Raúl Alarcón Jr. have to say?

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GroupM released a blog post on Friday that shares more details on how it is operationalizing data ethics with a proprietary scoring logic, criteria, and standardization tool.

The topic could be of key interest to broadcast TV and radio executives. As such, we are sharing it in its entirety to RBR+TVBR Members.

Data collection in advertising is accelerating faster and the ability to responsibly use that data is becoming more and more crucial. Advertising’s responsibility is to ensure we are protecting the data of our customers, members and audiences.

As a result of the increased collection, we’ve seen increased privacy protection laws worldwide over the last couple of years. While that reflects the growing interests and concerns from consumers about how their data is used, the reality is that regulations and legislation are usually one step behind what consumers really want and how they’re feeling.

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With suspended or smaller quarterly dividends and double-digit ad revenue declines still being seen across the radio broadcasting industry’s big publicly traded players, one may mistakenly believe that all is not well with the oldest form of social media in the world.

The Radio Advertising Bureau has released new data that thwarts such chat.

“Years of refining digital strategies” paid off for the radio industry in 2020, it says.

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According to RAB data compiled in association with Borrell Associates, digital ad revenue in 2020 hit $1.1 billion.

This accounts for greater than 14% of total ad sales.

Local radio stations saw digital sales increase nearly 12%, with growth forecast to accelerate 18% this year.

“The due diligence the radio industry has put into expanding its digital platforms and advertising offerings over the last few years contributed mightily to the 2020 bright spot of digital growth,” said RAB President/CEO Erica Farber.

And, says Gordon Borrell, “The pandemic actually delivered a gift to the radio industry last year. Stations saw very clearly how digital products can be a linchpin, especially when core-product sales are challenging. Digital kept the conversation going.”

The report also shined a light on how additive digital revenue can be for a radio station. The average station made $290,150 in digital revenue in 2020; the average market cluster made $1.3 million. The average revenue for the top five performers ranged from $2 million for top-performing clusters in the smallest of markets, to $17.8 million in the largest.

The findings are included in RAB and Borrell’s report, “Defying the Gravity of 2020, Radio’s Digital Sales Rise 11.8%.”

It is being released today to RAB members and analyzes online ad revenue from 3,621 radio stations, as well as survey responses from 944 local radio buyers and a survey of 238 radio managers.

Among the topline findings:

• 80% of stations offer digital sales training at least once a month
• 81% of stations are offering some form of digital services in addition to digital advertising
• Nearly 2/3 of radio sellers try to include digital offerings in every sales pitch
• More than half of stations flipped their sponsored events in 2020 to virtual events

The report and upcoming live-video presentation are both sponsored by Marketron.

On June 21, 2007, a group of AM and FM radio stations were placed into the Aloha Station Trust.

It involved properties owned by iHeartMedia predecessor Clear Channel Communications, which was forced to divest of the properties after it became a reconstituted operation through a now-infamous investment by private investment groups right before the great economic downturn of the late 2000s.

Nearly 14 years later, the last station to be placed in that trust, originally overseen by the late Jeanette Tully, is heading to a new owner.

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With esteemed WFAA-8/Dallas VP/Station Manager Carolyn Mungo pinch-hitting following the retirement at the end of 2020 of John Remes, TEGNA’s NBC affiliate Minneapolis has been seeking his formal successor.

TEGNA has now found that individual. As such, its KARE-11 is preparing to welcome the News Director since 2018 of Sinclair Broadcast Group’s ABC affiliate in Seattle.

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LOS ANGELES — The largest independent sell-side advertising platform has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire SpotX from RTL Group for $1.17 billion in cash and stock.

SpotX is one of the leading platforms shaping Connected TV and video advertising globally.

And, it is poised to become a part of Magnite.

When combined, Magnite and SpotX will create the largest independent CTV and video advertising platform in the programmatic marketplace.

“Sellers have been looking for a scaled independent alternative to the giant companies who dominate the CTV marketplace,” said Michael Barrett, President/CEO of Magnite. “The combination of Magnite and SpotX will make this a reality by bringing together the best CTV technologies and teams at a critical time. Ad-supported CTV is just beginning to draw budgets from linear TV and we will be well-positioned to participate in the strongest segment of industry growth for the foreseeable future.”

Mike Shehan, Co-Founder and CEO at SpotX, added, “As CTV flourishes and the media industry continues to turn to programmatic, there is a huge opportunity for an independent scaled company to offer the single most comprehensive technology in the market. We built SpotX with the mission of becoming the leading global video advertising platform, and our goal is now coming to fruition with Magnite. I am thrilled about what we will achieve together.”

Together, Magnite and SpotX will serve some of the world’s leading programmers, broadcasters, platforms and device manufacturers, including A+E Networks, Crackle Plus, The CW Network, Discovery, Disney/Hulu, Electronic Arts, Fox Corporation, fuboTV, Microsoft, Newsy, Philo TV, Pluto TV, Roku, Samsung, Sling TV, Tubi, ViacomCBS, Vizio, Vudu, WarnerMedia and Xumo.

Transaction Details

Magnite is targeting in excess of $35 million in run-rate operating cost synergies, with more than half of the synergies realized within the first year of combined operations.

Magnite plans to finance the transaction with cash on hand, 14 million shares issued to RTL Group and committed financing from Goldman Sachs. The company expects the transaction to close in the second quarter, subject to receipt of regulatory approvals and satisfaction of customary closing conditions.

Until the transaction closes, both companies will continue to operate independently.

Goldman Sachs and LUMA Partners acted as financial advisors to Magnite and Goldman Sachs is providing committed financing for the transaction.

Gibson Dunn provided legal counsel to Magnite.