Matt Deegan, creative director at Folder Media, talked about the magic of radio, how the medium is hugely loved and has massive consumption in many markets around the world because the medium has such a deep connection with its audience.  He talked about why audio is at the heart of a lot of modern thinking within many broadcasting groups , both in Ireland and internationally.

Wireless Group in the UK have focused on their national radio brands, taking their audience understanding and combining this with the might of their cross media platforms. The launch of Virgin Radio was based on building a station around the two biggest talents on UK radio, Chris Evans and Graham Norton. A few weeks ago, Wireless Group launched Talk TV, with Talk Radio providing 80% of content. It is about taking the skill of audience understanding within the organisation and pushing it to more places to create a great multi-platform entity.

Bauer run a subscription radio services in the UK which provides content ad free and gives the listeners the ability to skip live songs, and get exclusive content and bonus stations – it is about super serving a certain type of audience. Radio has the ability to create different things on different platforms in different ways to satisfy a listener.

BBC Sounds, the second largest audio listening app in the UK after Spotify, is leaning more into a BBC Sounds first view of radio – radio channels are supporting Sounds rather than Sounds just being an app for the radio stations. The reason they are doing this is to be consumer led, focusing on what an individual needs, tracking their app use to provide more relevant content to that listener.

In America, iHeart with over 1,000 radio stations is now a key digital audio player acquiring Triton, which is a digital adserving system for streams and podcasting. Now the dominant player in streaming audio and podcasts, they are now doing  content deals that their digital ad network allows them to do.

It is a golden age for audio. Listeners have never had so much quality choice. And the developments in technology allow organisations that have listener engagement learnt over many years, apply this skill to an increasing wide range of new platforms.