Page 21 - AdNews May-June 2020
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  “I’ve been very humbled and I feel very, very fortunate that I work in a time when radio mat- ters,” he says.
“I don’t take myself seriously, but I do take the opportunity seri- ously, and that’s an important dis- tinction. I don’t overvalue my words or anything like that, but the opportunities that I have to provide something which is needed right now and to use that responsibility well, is a joy. I’m very, very lucky.
“My job in the morning is to entertain and to connect, really more than entertain. It reminded me that actually the most impor- tant thing I could do on any day, is listen to the audience.
“Now we’ve got to remind our- selves of gratitude, of hope, of optimism, and the other things that are going well in the world and what we’re enjoying, rather than feeling the lack of. Otherwise we’re going to suffer from two pandemics.
“There’s the actual coronavi- rus and then there’s the anxiety, depression, those kinds of things that are actually going to affect us day to day.”
He believes in laughter. The absence of it is terrifying. “Life’s best coping mechanism is laughter.”
A tentative market
Radio, like other media, was hit hard from around the end of the second week of March with retail, entertainment and leisure sectors pulling campaigns. Revenue went faster than it was coming in.
Advertisers in radio look to a short window, perhaps only 12 weeks ahead and much of the advertising is a call to action, push- ing a sale, a deal or an experience.
Peter Charlton, NOVA Entertainment’s chief commercial officer, was getting updates almost hourly in those first weeks. It was painful.
But that changed in April, he says. The advertisers started returning. “The core staples of commercial radio -- Harvey Norman, Woolies, Bunnings, eBay -- are spending. And government, both locally and nationally, plus telecoms, utilities and motors. But short term so they’re booking for across the month.”
“What we really needed in these desperate times, truly extraordinary times, terrifying times, dark times, is human contact.”
Christian O’Connell
Charlton calls it a tentative mar- ket, but one prepared to spend.
In terms of audience, listening during the day has grown. “Our streaming hours are up something like 13% across the day and they’re using all sorts of devices -- 38% of that is desktop, about 35% mobile and the rest through smart speak- ers,” says Charlton.
“Traditionally people turned to the radio in the car, now they are using more devices.”
Listening habits have changed. People are tuning in slightly later in the morning because they’re not having to get up earlier and start driving. They are at home and using devices. And people are con- necting more with radio.
“If you talk to a producer of a radio show, the interaction is pretty big,” says Charlton. “If we start looking at other avenues of how people are listening, and if you then model that across, it’s up pretty significantly.
“I’ve had a lot of senior agency conversations and intuitively they too felt the medium, digital audio, radio in general, will be the go-to for a consumer.”
Charlton talks of trust with the audience, something he’s con- firmed with third party research.
“Radio ranks as the number one most trusted medium,” he says.
“And then we had over 80% of Australians agreeing that radio presenters play an integral role, balancing that delivery of news, but also entertainment. Over 90% said they were happy for brands to keep advertising, but 84% expected them to change or adapt their messaging through this period. And similarly the research was suggesting that we’ve got a massively increased workday lis- tening and probably slightly less at commuter time.”
Adaptability and speed have worked for radio. “On the second weekend in March we were rewrit- ing copy and getting to air within hours for government around the country, particularly local govern- ment, and had built and adapted a booking process for after hours and weekend service.
“We even wrote creative for VicGov that they were using on pub- lic transport and wasn’t even broad-
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