Presentation about the RadioConnected TSB Research and Development project

1. Internet Radio
“Radio Connected” Research
Project
Paul Dwyer
CAMRI, University of Westminster

3. Internet & Radio
 Being the gatekeeper was the most profitable
place to be, but now we‟re in a world half
without gates. Digital distribution gives everyone
worldwide, instant access to music. And filters
are replacing gatekeepers Courtney Love (2000)
 “radio in the digital era will produce new forms,
battles over gateways and increased
interactivity on the part of listeners … rather than
a fundamental reorientation: a limited increase
in choice for the listener, and greater industry
concentration among producers” David Hendy
(2000)

5. • substitution mass
audiences/advertis
ers switched from
radio to TV as main
medium
• Radio delivers a
continuous linear
stream of live (real-
time) or pre-
recorded music
audio
• differentiation Costs
of operation
enables tailoring
services to niche
audiences/advertis
ers

6. Audience
Research
Advertiser
s
Record Selection Playlist Niche
(format Call
Company Audience
(Catalogue) )
Music
Knowledg
Music
e
Sales
Data

7. Problem: Playlist Selection
 Music Knowledge - Recommendation
1. personal taste/musicology – genre experts
search and recommend new/quality music
2. „professional‟ – search & recommend on tastes
of „typical listener‟ Ahlkvist (2001)

8. Problem: Standard Formats
 economies of scale (share marketing, audience
research and advertising sales) and scope (developing
standardized music formats and playlists (for stations in
different markets) favour networks over stations
 Target most profitable demographic groups
 networks succeed vs independents/small groups
 standard formats succeed vs diverse or niche content.
 Many case studies Canada (Berland, 1990, 1993;
Grenier, 1993), Sweden (Wallis and Maim, 1993),
Britain (Bamard, 1989), France (Miller, 1992), and
Australia (Tumer,1993)

9. Playlist (chart)
 Established music selection was responsibility of network
management
 music selection based on audience research/advertising sales
not music knowledge
 DJs/presenters (at best) responsible for the non-music elements
 reduce diversity by reducing the number of different songs
played
 Select songs with big sales (hits) or airplay or industry promotion
 Tendency for playlists to become shorterand more similar to
other stations/the charts (Alkhvist and Fisher 2000)

10. Internet & Digitisation
 Reduce economies of scale and scope
 technical and 'on air' staff costs are low, presenter costs
can be nil
 cost efficient to serve very small niche musical tastes
 Server logs provide instant, free 100% accurate
audience research is (e.g. songs/playlists with biggest
audience )
 enables the listener to interactwith music databases to
select their own playlist
 reduces radio networks power as gatekeepers between
record companies, advertisers and audiences

11. Niche
Audience
Music Meta
Record Advertiser
data
Company Pull Pull Playlist Audience
(Catalogue) Data
Music
Listenin
g Data
Music
Knowledge

13. Long Tail and Internet Radio
 From selecting ‘hit’ songsfor playlists to making all
music available for listeners to create customized
continuous music playlists of almost unlimited diversity
 A niche of one – last.fm
 internet radio stations compete on:
 ‘findability’/discovery
 control/customisation
 cost (amount of ads/subscriptions)
 size of songs database

14. Findability& Customisation
 Music metadata (e.g. pandora 400 music genes
– find „genetically similar‟ songs)
 Fan metadata (e.g. folksonomies “love/ban”)
 Audience metadata (e.g.
last.fm‟saudioscrobbler which tracks your music
habits across devices – PC, ipod etc.)

15. Supplier Power
 Big Four record companies want new royalty
stream but don‟t want „radio‟ to compete with
„music download‟
 Only cooperate with internet stations which
mimic functionality of radio – live streaming not
free „on demand‟
 Limits to skip and pause functions

16. • Live radio provides
communication
and company
which music stream
cannot
•
entertainment, com
fort,security
•Mood
management
– Getting you up or
calming you down
• Information – esp.
music
Ofcom (2004) iPod
generation

17. DJ Chat (Monologue) Twitter
1. “fun atmosphere” (mood 1. “playful self”
management)
2. daily chatter
2. “what I‟m doing now”
(company, communication) 3. reporting news – leaders and
followers
3. comments on topical issues,
pop music, sex and
relationships (information) 4. Conversations (peer to peer)
4. Phone-ins (interact with
celebs)
5. Dave says hi to Maggie (peer
to peer)
 Brand &Scannell (1992)  Java et al. (2007)
 Ferguson & Greer (2011)