I recently attended the 2017 NABA Future of Radio Symposium
and the NPR Metadata Summit and listened to a number of really good
presentations on a wide range of topics. In my role as a software architect
with the Public Radio Satellite System (PRSS) distributing content to public
radio stations, I tend to focus on distributor-to-station-to-listener data
flows and less on the content production flows but these two events highlighted
the complexity and opportunities that exist on both ends of the content
lifecycle and how they are intricately linked.
I’ve been reflecting on a number of common themes that I
heard throughout the various presentations and how they can apply to what I do
in content distribution and what our member stations can do as the conduits to
listeners. Our listeners, their habits, and their technology aren’t standing
still, and neither should we.
Radio (or more generally broadcast audio) still has a lot of life in it, but it needs to continue to evolve
This isn’t a surprising conclusion from a meeting of a bunch
of radio people but it was good to see some hard numbers and listener feedback.
Radio is still incredibly popular even with a huge range of other media
options. We’re now seeing an interesting blend of podcasts, streaming audio,
and radio combining to give listeners a customized experience on various
platforms. While data prices remain high (at least in the US) and network
coverage isn’t great (at least in the US), broadcast audio is still an
extremely reliable and cheap distribution method. When cell towers get
overloaded or power goes out, broadcast radio is still a go-to critical
emergency service.
However, with more streaming options, connected devices, and
autonomous vehicles making progress, radio needs to continue to evolve to
provide a richer experience that, with quality audio content at the core,
leverages connectivity to provide metrics, two-way communication,
interactivity, and accompanying visuals.
Listeners want an easy to use and enjoyable user experience when accessing content
As anyone with a car knows, the in-dash device experience is
anything but great. The auto industry has been plagued by low resolution
screens, complex interfaces, poor responsiveness, and slowly evolving feature
sets. There are plenty of reasons for this including long development cycles,
lack of prioritization, lack of competition, cost, product lifespan, etc. but
it seems like the industry is finally starting to turn things around.
With big tech companies getting into the mix with Andriod
Auto and CarPlay and competition from mobile devices, auto makers seem to be
finally putting some effort and money behind more advanced in-dash systems. However,
this means traditional radio needs to start providing content for these systems.
Traditionally a 200x200 pixel cover art image might have worked just fine in a
car but now it just looks silly in a world with 1280x1024 dashboards. Similarly,
an 8 character RDS string is embarrassingly non-informative to a listener who
was just using a streaming service on their computer with artist, title,
biographies, and related content available at the click of a button.
The combination of better interfaces, integrated controls,
and content is what is going to win over (or at least maintain) listeners and
if that content can arrive at the device for free (or near free), all the
better.
There are many ways that listeners are accessing content on many different devices with many different interfaces
While cars may be one of the largest listening groups for
pure audio content, there are a lot of different devices out there from mobile
phones to computers to home assistants (think Amazon Echo and Google Home).
This means the content produced and distributed has to work on many different
platforms, some of which might not even exist right now. Trying to build and
maintain a custom solution for each platform is going to be challenging even
for the biggest producer or station.
At the same time, listeners want a consistent experience
across all these devices regardless of the interface. For example, a listener
wants to be able to say “play WAMU” to their device, be it a car radio, phone,
home assistant or whatever and have it just work. They want to know that they
can continue to listen to a story that started in the car on their mobile
device as they walk into the house. They want to find related and recommended
content when possible.
If content is distributed in such a way that it is available
on all these platforms and described in a consistent way, these concepts are
possible. A consistent interface and experience doesn’t mean “the same app on
all platforms” because the user interfaces vary so wildly that this approach
may not be possible or cost effective. Instead, we have to think about how we
can package the content so the listener can be given an expected and enjoyable
experience regardless of the interface or application driving the interaction.
Metrics rule the day
Content producers love metrics (duh!). Not only do the
metrics help sell advertising/underwriting, but it helps inform the content
production process. NPR had some interesting demonstrations of how metrics from
their NPR One application showed where listeners dropped out allowing the
content production teams to make decisions about show structure, transitions,
and the placement of “spoiler alerts”.
Traditional radio and even modern podcasting have a poor
track record around metrics. Listener diaries and listener sampling are still
primary methods for metric gathering. Streaming content can do much better
because of the one-to-one connection of a listener and the backend service with
the obvious trade-off of data usage and scalability.
There are some solutions coming to the broadcast space for
better metrics including mobile applications that behave like streaming
services but use prerecorded or broadcast content as well as open standards
that dictate how players and receivers can report metrics in a common format.
As with all metrics, the key is balancing user privacy
concerns while collecting the data producers and advertisers want. Questions
like who owns the data, how is the data anonymized, who is the data sold to, do
users opt out or opt in are going to be very important going forward. As we
recently saw with Vizio TVs, collecting too much data without informing users
can lead to a lot of bad publicity, lawsuits, and financial damages. It is
critical to understand the responsibilities around metric collection in order
to gain the long-term benefits.
Stations need to see the benefit
While it is great to talk about how the user experience can
be and needs to be improved, stations are also asking how they can benefit from
advancements in listening technology. The most obvious answer is better metrics
(see above), but richer interfaces with more listener friendly experiences
means more consumption of the media which means more opportunities for
underwriting, linking, and community involvement.
People don’t want TV for the commercials (with the possible
exception of the “big game”) but rather for the content. However, once they are
there for the content, you can intermix underwriting and local announcements.
The same holds true for the non-core content experience. If listeners get
accustomed to looking at the screen for the program and story title or the
related visuals, they will be more likely to look at the screen when an
underwriter’s logo is displayed or the station is advertising a local event or
a membership campaign.
As it is now, listeners may ignore their in-dash display
because it is too complicated, only displays an FM frequency, displays 8 sad
characters, or has outdated static content. The first step is getting
compelling content in-front of the listeners so the display becomes a valuable
part of the experience which then opens up another medium that can be leveraged
to benefit the station, producer, and ideally the listener.
But that’s not all! Stations can also benefit by reducing
their workload by automating the flow of information through all these various
systems. Many public radio stations have limited staffing resources so trying
to develop or even populate applications on so many different devices and
interfaces is near impossible. Centralized streaming and cataloging services
(think TuneIn, iHeartRadio, Stitcher, iTunes Radio, etc) have popped up to try
to fill the gap but just keeping these services up to date can be challenging.
Ideally a station publishing this additional information to end listener
devices could use the same information to keep all of these centralized
streaming services up-to-date. Stations get a reduced workload through a common
production workflow while listeners get a more consistent and enjoyable
experience even though they are using multiple devices, interfaces, and
applications.
Metadata glues it all together
So how does this all come together? Through metadata of
course! There has always been a strong focus on the quality production and
distribution of the core content but as broadcast radio evolves, metadata is
becoming a key component in supporting all of the scenarios discussed so far.
For example, a single application isn’t needed to provide a consistent user
experience if various devices from cars to phones to home assistants can access
the same metadata about the content.
The listener can expect that “play WAMU” will work the same
everywhere if all the devices know about the same “WAMU” via the metadata.
Similarly, the display on the head-unit should show the same program and story
title as might be read by my home assistant when I say “what’s playing now”.
Not only does good quality metadata and open, standard distribution enable this
functionality, but it also enables functionality that hasn’t been broadly seen
before.
How great would it be if my car stereo could tell me the
next story that is coming up without having to wait for the announcer to read
it to me? What if I could get a station list with genres and logos without
having to use the “scan” button and listen to each station for 10 seconds? What
if I could skip a broadcast radio piece by seamlessly switching from the radio
to a stream and back again? What if I could share a radio story right from my
home assistant? What if my “driveway moment” could seamlessly hand off to my
phone so I can continue listening in the house? What if I could quickly
determine the next time this story is going to play or where to get it online
or do a deeper dive?
These topics are huge (as the two days of events discussion
them barely scratched the service) and there are a number of associated topics
like archive management, rights issues, privacy issues, funding, autonomous
vehicles, etc. which makes this a very interesting space to be in right now. As
the caretakers of public radio, we want to continue to provide a great product
to listeners which not only means great content, but great distribution, great
presentation, great user experience, and so on. While AM/FM broadcasting may
not be the hot new technology on the block, there is a lot of innovation
happening and a lot more to come.
Note that these
statements are my personal opinion based on my attendance at the mentioned
meetings and do not represent the opinions or strategy of NPR or PRSS.
