EBU/SWR “Future of Radio” Virtual Workshop

Music streaming services pose a challenge for radio, and SWR have been working on a solution to bring radio into the digital age.

In this session, they would like to present to you the “Future of Radio” based on their new mobile apps. Through these apps, users can like songs while listening to the live simulcast or enjoy alternative songs in the “Playlist” section of the simulcast. Liked songs are added to a favourite list/user library that can be played “on-demand”. Users can play the list starting from any track and the list will then be played in shuffle mode thereafter, as often and whenever they want.

The record labels see this feature as a "music on-demand" service. SWR has consequentled reached agreement with the major labels (Sony, Warner and Universal), the 'Indies' and the German collection society GEMA to cover it with their licence. The app is free to consumers with NO advertising and no linking to premium music streaming services.

Furthermore, users can leave the simulcast anytime by skipping to a song (selection of 1,500 songs currently from which to choose). As soon as the simulcast has moderation, news, traffic report, weather or other NMC programme elements, the alternative stream stops (even in the middle of songs) and is merged with the simulcast.

The app is available worldwide on iOS and Android. All app commands can be remotely configured by the SWR API on a per-user basis. The interactive functions of the app are deactivated if the user is connected with a non-German IP address).

After the successful launch and the ramp-up-phase, our colleagues at SWR are now ready to share this innovation with other public service organizations in Europe. During this session, they will present the app, its technical structure and the modular content architecture in more detail and then will be open to answer any questions you might have.
 

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