The radio manifesto
Posted on June 12, 2009 by Julius | Share |What started in 2002 as a weekly radio show on a local radio station kept on evolving throughout the years. If I am still proud to produce shows for FM radio stations (thanks to FM Brussel and 057 radio for giving us this opportunity), I also decided in March 2008 to create an online radio station on the Radionomy platform as a way to expand the Laid Back project.
So far more than 20 deejays and numerous guests collaborate on LDBK and help us broadcast 24/7 the best in urban music from the last 40 years. But our goal with LDBK is more ambitious than being a jukebox. We want to make the best use of the new technologies in order to shape the future of radio.
In December 08, willing to balance my DIY experience with some “corporate” views, I collaborated with Cleverwood to organize a conference about the future of radio. Many meetings, brainstorming sessions and prototypes later, we released - together with Central and Datasmart - the first public version of the LDBK desktop player.
Next to the desktop player and it’s upcoming iPhone version, I also wanted to explain the theory behind our experiments. Hence this manifesto listing 11 recommendations on what could be done to offer a new radio experience to listeners.
Download the Radio Manifesto (pdf version)
Slideshow FR - Slideshow NL
Each point of this manifesto corresponds to a group of functionalities we might consider adding to our players. Let’s take #10 for instance: “Listening to the radio doesn’t require 100% of the listener’s attention. But once you catch their attention you’d better give them something nice.”
This pop up - implemented in th latest version of our player - appears when we have something more to offer to our listeners be it an exclusive article, a free track on download or an invitation to participate to a contest/game.
Manifesto:
Layout - Diane d’Andrimont
French translation - Olivier Beaujean
Dutch transaltion - Jurgen Noel
Text - Julien Mourlon in collaboration with Fabian Tilmant
Players:
Programming - Anthony Janssens
User Interface Design - Ali Nassiri & Geoffroy Delobel (Central Design)
Concept - Julien Mourlon
Top picture:
“Retro Radio” by Francis Bourguoin
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The big wuestion is why do people still need a radio host? What is his/it’s addwd value?
There are a million non-hosted stations. Last.fm lets you listen to the kind of music you like, much more than any station (discovering new music in the process) Spotify lets you listen to anything you want to (well…. 70% of what you want to at least ;-)
A friend told me to listen to deMaxx from StuBru…. but I still have so much albums of artists I know, but haven’t listened to on Spotify that I’m listening to…. I don’t have the time. I am my own music expert!
Maybe I am too much of an active listener, but I, for now, don’t see the added value
[...] Hunee. Laidback Radio heeft trouwens ook z’n radio player (juist) geupdate en doet een heus manifesto over (online) radio. Ow, en check je Future Vintage? [...]
@koningwonig That’s a good remark indeed.
I’m biased because i’m a radio guy for the last 7 years. But I think - and we witnessed that yesterday when Nalden hosted his show on twitter - that next to on-demand services there is a place for editorial content…
Great content hosted by strong personalities!
I am not sure about a radio host in the sense that I don’t want voice or ads cutting through the playlist.
But I think there is still a massive appeal in curated content: I don’t always have time to dig and prepare a playlist, and sometimes you want to listen to smth out of your comfort zone.
I think the major added value is in the interactions around the track: give me the comments, link it up to artists bio, history of the recording, link to further reading/listening/viewing (e.g. artists interview on youtube). So you feed me some new tracks and help me dig further. And that’s not even talking of the community aspect.
I don’t think last.fm/spotify/deezer/… provide you any of that so easily. And in any case you don’t need to compete with them: there is a place for all kinds of different services.
@Mathieu: Thanks for your reaction. Couldn’t agree more. No voice in the stream: that’s why we experiment around twitter so dj/host can write their comments and share them (with links!) to their followers.
Although it is a bit too Jetsons for me at time (conventional radio won’t die that easily) I agree with a lot of things it states. Conventional radio stations miss out on way too much of the possibilities the web provides. Please send this manifesto to the heads of radio and IT at our national broadcast companies because they are still living in the Jurassic radio era. I can provide you with their emails if needed.
I would love it if someone could upgrade conventional car radio’s to decent online ones. Would be banging. The car is where most people listen to the radio. Connect that with GPS, traffic reports and everything and you’ve got something nice. Maybe it already exists but it should become standard.
Anyway, this manifesto makes me even prouder to be part of LDBK. I’ll think about a project / show over the weekend. I’ll make it something special with interviews, exclusive music and lots of interaction. Lets cook up something special.
We’ll prove there’s still need for a host. You need it to discover new stuff. And a strong opinion makes a show special. Gives it character. Nice to see some efforts in that direction with the Nalden show. Which was nice.
Big one Julien. Keep up the good work.
And didn’t know you were civil engineer. Nice to know there are some other cool ones. Haha. Like myself, if I may say so.
Haha i’m trying to hide the fact i’m an engineer as much as possible.
Seriously now … would love it if you could share me your contacts, can’t wait to help traditional radio stations to do some online experiment.
And regarding LDBK, it’s just the beginning. We have so many things to try an ddiscover. This is gonna mad exciting!
We need hosts! We need people like you who have stories to tell about music. Content without context is weak.
so, I’m a little late - but I love this!
being a radiohost (who also studied radiojournalism) myself I think it’s very important to think about new ways of radio (audio). A new generation demands a good online/mobile service. I’ve just downloaded the LDBK, and think its great that different people collaborate on this project, since there are quite some great podcasts worldwide these days, but not a lot of stations I like.
as far as the added value of a host - I remember the first radioshow I was addicted to (a Dutch hiphopshow presented by Kees de Koning) was not only good because of the music, but also the interviews, jokes in the studio - it felt like something special. I think the human element in a world where everything starts to work in the last FM / Amazon way makes you discover things you maybe wasn’t looking for. And that’s what I would expect from a good radioshow.
Let me know if I can contribute somehow.
Thanks for your comment Radna. I totally share your views and i’m glad you suggest contriibuting. Let’s do that. I’ll contact you.
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It’s all about the emotional link between offline & online. When you have this synergy with Radio & Social Media your on the right path in my opinion. People will always need guidance by a host, friend, dj, curator, whatever, introducing people to new experiences. I love to be involved in such a great experiment / revolution with Laid Back improving (online) radio. Let’s not forget Radio has to ‘look’ good as well and the LDBK radio player is one of the most sexiest adobe air apps around hahahaha!
Respect to all you guys at Laidback or otherwise involved in putting together the player. Many good points made in the manifesto and the ensuing discussion.
Re: hosted radio v. non-hosted radio, I think you want to have both. First off, we shouldn’t forget that the average listener isn’t as music-savvy as the average poster here. Personally I’ll sometimes read reviews and actively seek music on the web; but if I wanna get any kind of work done to sustain my comfortable lifestyle, I would turn to (web) radio for background music. I also liked Mathieu’s comment about moving out of the comfort zone. Hosts will challenge the way you listen to music. And credit to them if they can retain the listener’s attention for more than 2’30″. Today the industry has to deal with the dwindling attention spans of its audience, which, incidentally, it encourages with single-track downloads that have all but killed the album. As for live hosts, there is still room for shock jocks and let’s not forget spoken word, news and commentary, satire… Those have always been and will remain some of the mainstays of radio.
On another subject, the manifesto alludes to the global community of web radio v. terrestrial radio. This is providing copyright laws don’t make it prohibitive to broadcast music online. Copyright is still very much territorial, and a quick look at recent developments over at last.fm show that user permissions are segmented and currently favour listeners in the US, UK and Germany with other users being restricted to 30s samples.
I believe radio will have to change soon. I believe the usage of my media has changed, but radio has kept a certain emotional tangible place here within. I need to be fair, i’m not always active searching for new music, but always open to new suggestions.
I keep the radio as a place for inspiration about new music. I want to be inspired by people who, for me, obtained a certain level of authority for me. I agree with matthieu that the time to create a playlist isn’t always there.
As for example twitter is a place for me to gather new information about certain topics, I would like to connect with likeminded peers, who can inspire me in my choice of music. This could be a radiostation with user generated playlists for instance. where i could also provide my content to interested peers.
hope this is a point of view that’s interesting for the debate
this is difficult.
i listen to radio (up to two weeks ago anyway) primarily in my car on the commute to work. only at the weekends in dublin do we really have a decent radio station (powerfm) and even then it leaves a lot to be desired.
as well as links to where to buy the tune, videos, etc. I think there should be some kind of link to a page where there is aggregated info. on the artist/release, etc.)
as such it would be the laid-back page for the artist, with links/ snapshots from everywhere that has posted about or tagged content on that artist as well as twitter, myspace, etc. kinda like netvibes for that artist and/or member.
you now have people registering, saving favorites, playlists, etc. that can become user generated shows.
from the manifesto:
“More and more, listeners will filter, recommend and produce content. Soon they will also generate their
own personal program grid, gathering audio contents from all over the web.”
if all that has to be manual then thats too much work but if you can gather all that then the radio station and ur shows become a springboard for artists beyond (online) radio play.
i think people always want selectors. its easier that way. a lot of us enjoy digging and digging but we also enjoy have stuff handed to us.
i have enjoyed exploring new music thru online radio stations in the past while as it has increased my exposure to new sounds. rather than just relying on what my online stores recommend i can tune into my trusted advisers online also.
dunno, if this contributes or helps.
just my thoughts right now.
cheers
c
Thanks a lot for all the those deep comments.
Great food for thoughts giving me the energy to keep on improving our player and radio stream.
I think the Laid-Back player is a good step forward. Unfortunatly it’s not possible to broadcast mixed shows yet (which i always prefer as a dj). I think it would be great - and i already talked to Julius about this - if we could record a one hour mix and then tag the mix where new tracks come in so that the Laid Back player can provide the info for that track.
Or what would be really great: a plugin for serato so that we could broadcast a live set from home and the info from the tracks in serato gets send to the Laid Back player so it can show all info on the artist the way it does now in real time.
Off course a good show needs a good host but if you put a “mute voice” button on the player you can make everybody happy ;)
Hey Azer. Great summary. Technically and financially speaking we’re not able to implement the solution you suggest (which is the best of both FM and online world) … but we’ll do our best to achieve that in a near future.
Cheers,
J.
I totally agree with Azer. I only need a radio host when he tells me something about the music. I don’t want him to tell stupid jokes or stories about his (mostly dull) life. A one hour mix with tags and information about the tracks would be perfect of course!
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