Thursday, May 9, 2013 - 12:10pm
There's (literally) a world of competition online, and RAIN Summit attendees are always looking for strategies to increase their service's share of the online audience. Several of Europe's leading online and broadcast radio experts will take up this very topice at RAIN Summit Europe, May 23 (that's in two weeks!) at Brussels' Hotel Bloom.
The "Growing Your Online Audience" panel will cover topics from simulcasting on-air content, customized online radio, and on-demand streaming.
Radionomy's Alexandre Saboundjian (left) and 7digital's Ben Drury (right) are both CEO of their respective companies, and will take part in the discussion. Calling itself "The Radio Experience," Radionomy provides a tech platform for amateurs and professionals to create their own online radio stations for free (the company even covers music licensing). When a station's audience reaches certain levels, Radionomy then shares advertising revenue with the station creater. Apparently a busy guy, Saboundjian also heads (and founded) MusicMatic (an in-store media company), and Jamendo (which is a platform for royalty-free music).
Ben Drury co-founded 7digital, a UK-based digital media company, which sells music downloads to consumers, but also provides branded products for traditional media companies, consumer brands, and social networking services. Some examples are powering Samsung's Music Hub, and the music store for Songbird. He also founded dotmusic.com, later acquired by Yahoo.
Kjartan Slette (at left, he's head of music at WiMP) and Steve Whilton (director of product at Last.fm, right) are both tasked with crafting a product that ensures audience growth. WiMP is an on-demand music streaming service with a library of 18 million tracks (and growing). Based in Oslo, the service employs local editors in the countries in which it's available (Norway, Denmark, Sweden, Germany, Poland and in the Netherlands) to help ensure it meets the demands of these different markets.
Last.fm, founded in the UK in 2002, is known for its music recommendation "scrobbling" system that integrates with other services, and for its online radio service and social networking features.
KISS FM and rs2 general manager Christian Schalt (left) is the panel's representative of the broadcast world. He's based in Berlin, from where KISS FM has been broadcasting nationwide as part of the Germany's DAB digital radio system. He's a career broadcaster with experience at Planet Radio in Frankfurt and Energy in Vienna. He was also Program Director for Kronehit, Austria's only national commercial radio station.
"Growing Your Online Audience" will be moderated by VP/Europe for RCS Sound Software, Sven Andræ. Sven's also experienced in broadcast radio, and later joined RCS to launch its Scandinavian division. RCS, of course, is the well-known (and largest) broadcast software company, with products at over 10-thousand stations worldwide. It's known for its music and promo scheduling, digital playout, automation control, and traffic and sales management software (Sven's pictured right).
The RAIN Summit Europe agenda also includes five "feature presentations" (that's not including Kurt Hanson's "State of the Industry"). One will be "The Do's and Don'ts of Social Media Branding," to present tactics for online radio to better encourage discussion among, and connection with, listeners.
Our social media expert making this presentation is Paula Cordeiro of Lisbon. She's the radio ombusdperson for Rádio e Televisão de Portugal (RTP), Portugal's public service broadcaster. A visionary of radio's future, she also coordinates the Radio Hub, which is a project for training, research, and radio production at the Universidade Técnica de Lisboa (where she lectures on radio and digital media).
This year's RAIN Summit Europe promises to top even last year's inaugural Berlin event. Space is still available for this year's event. All the details, including registration links, are on the RAIN Summit Europe page here.