The second day of the Radio Assembly on Friday, 16 April began with Session III, chaired by Clare Duignan of RTÉ, entitled “Quality, creativity, cost – how to embrace them all?”

Clare Duignan, RTÉ  

The various topics broached were Streaming on all platforms – creating a focused image, presented by Francis Goffin, Director of Radio, RTBF; How to manage creativity / Can cost be prohibitive for creativity?, presented by Rebecka Ioannidis Lindberg, Head of Marketing, SR 3; and Advertisement in public radio: how to package attractive offers, presented by Esther Raff, General Manager, AS & S Radio, ARD.

These subjects captivated the attention of participants by the novel approaches to promotion adopted by public radio broadcasters. The issues of budgets and resources needed were taken up in the open discussions which followed the presentations. It was apparent that while the financial piece is an important one, creativity is the key element in helping organizations differentiate their profile.

Rebecka Ioannidis Lindberg, Head of Marketing, SR 3   

Session IV, which concluded the morning’s proceedings, was devoted to best practices in communication and interactivity. Several case studies were featured, in particular Romanian Radio’s experience, presented by Camelia Teodosiu of ROR, and that of RTÉ, presented by Joseph Hoban, who described the revamping of his organization’s image. He pointed out that RTÉ’s actions needed to be qualified and that while the results were beginning to be felt already, it was a long-term process.

After lunch, Sergey Kurokhtin chaired Session V, which centred on branding football in public  radio. Replacing the Controller of BBC 5 live, Adria Van-Klaveren, to speak about radio football broadcasting on mobile phones, Graham Ellis provided outstanding examples of adapting content to technology. Tewfik Khelladi of Algerian Radio talked about his organization’s wonderful results during the African Cup within the context of the enthusiasm for football shared by all his compatriots.

Joseph Hoban (RTÉ)  

Josep Marti concluded by noting that the historic performance results of Spanish football clubs and the national team were still having an impact on SER’s audience figures. He also discussed the coverage of the upcoming World Cup by his organization, which will go far beyond solely sports reporting, with features on South African society available on all the platforms.

Several speakers and delegates remarked that even for televised matches, many football fans listened to the radio because they appreciated the quality of the commentary. Experiences and studies had confirmed the relevance of radio as a reporting and commentary medium for sports events. Nonetheless, the competition from television and commercial radio stations remained stiff, and there was still much work to be done.

In their closing remarks, participants praised the quality of the debates at this Radio Assembly and looked forward to the next one, to be hosted by Vatican Radio.