“I can play Spotify but I can’t find my local radio station”
Digital Listening Habits Transform Radio Landscape
AM, FM and DAB+ radio transmission are not going anywhere, at least in the short term. But the same can’t necessarily be said for radio audiences.
So where are they going?
They’re not leaving altogether – community radio audiences are staying strong. In 2024 community radio reaches almost 5.2 million weekly listeners – up almost 10 per cent on 2023. (note: this is not necessarily a trend).
But the way audiences are tuning in to radio is evolving, and fast.
People are increasingly listening to online streams, podcasting and on-demand catch-up audio.
Smart Speakers Replacing Traditional Radios
Sales and ownership of “regular radios” is in decline. This Christmas the tree is much, much more likely to have a smart speaker wrapped underneath these holidays. Smart speaker ownership has doubled in four years to 34%. Online streaming of radio services is increasingly popular. Radio streaming among 25-54-year-olds has doubled in three years.
CBAA’s Fight for Digital Prominence
CBAA is working to support stations to reach their audiences through the maze of modern media devices. We are doing this through advocacy to influence policy settings that make sure radio is readily available in the future and by providing easy and affordable tools to help your station be competitive in the modern audio marketplace.
New legislation is being proposed by the Federal Government to secure the prominence of local radio services on smart speakers. This is really important to make sure listeners can easily access local radio services for free on audio devices. It is a vital safeguard to ensure these devices don’t unfairly prioritise streaming services or other sources of audio over local, licenced broadcasters.
CBAA is working closely with Amazon’s Australian staff to increase the audio command skills of Amazon Alexa to provide consumers with easy access to diverse community radio station services from the source. At the moment however, Apple and Google devices take listeners to a stream provided by third party app TuneIn – which add their own ads to your stream.
We don’t think smart speaker provides should be able to add their own, or a third party’s broadcasting, advertising or other content to your station’s stream, not without the consent of the station anyway.
Protecting Local Radio in Cars
We are also working with ABC, SBS and commercial radio to include devices in cars. In-car radio listening is really significant and streaming radio listening in cars rose by 75% in two years to 28%.
Read CBAA’s Submission: Radio Prominence on Smart Speakers
AM,FM and DAB+ remain the dominant form of listening in 2024. But technology is changing fast and we want to make sure stations relationship with listeners is future-proof.
Four Steps to Future-Proof Your Station
CBAA is keen to help you navigate these changes at the station level too.
So, what can you do to make sure your service is best practice on internet connected audio devices?
- Have a secure stream. Smart speakers require secure streams. If your station needs help to establish a secure stream, contact CBAA and we can provide one for you as we already do for 96 stations.
- Having a modern, always up-to-date and user-friendly website to help listeners access your online stream and on-demand content.
- Make sure your radio meta-data is up to date. This is the digital information that helps audiences find your station on digital devices and provides your station name, now playing information and other information audiences want to see on visual displays. CBAA can assist you to do this for Community Radio Plus, Alexa and Sonos smart speakers. Update your info here.
- Promote the Community Radio Plus App – it is free, exclusively for community radio and you can access the listener data via our dashboards. We have a new competition running with everything you need to promote listening on your station here.
Learn more about how to Grow your Listener Audience Online by viewing our recent webinar.