Interview with 3mbs operations manager Joel Carnegie
Transcript:
What changes are 3mbsFM making in order to stay relevant in the Digital Age?
Yeah, so we’re really looking closely at digital radio at the moment, and we are fortunate enough to have access to a digital service. So listeners can receive a better and more consistent quality of audio. And what we’re thinking about from a program perspective is what sort of material we can put on to digital radio. What are people looking for? What is the community looking for? What we feel we can provide and we can achieve in a difference area. I guess digital at the moment is a really emerging thing, a lot of our audiences are still switched onto FM but we consider ourselves at least a three-platform broadcaster. That’s FM 103.5, that’s 3mbs digital, and online via our website 3mbs.org.au. So it’s all about the difference access points that people can hear us through and we have the opportunity to look at how we can diversify our streams so we can really cater to what the audience wants.
What does the audience want?
Well I guess you’re in a medium where it’s actually very challenging to obtain concrete data as to what the audience actually wants. So in some ways we have to look at what our objectives and our vision, the station’s vision is, and that’s to be a leading fine music broadcaster that supports our community of listeners and composes and performers. From that we then look at what our products are, that we “sell” and that’s a brand, an entertainment point, it’s something to listen to when you get in the car. From the digital perspective, as for what people are looking for, well that’s something we’re really exploring at the moment. We’ve got one digital program that has 3 episodes thus far, Sketching Impressions, which is a digital only program. So that switches our studio points at 7 o’clock every third Tuesday of each month. And that’s a digital program going out online and our digital service, and that’s really focusing on Australian composition and education and those two link together. It’s a curated program essentially, we have notable people coming in from the music community and hosting that program and then they invite their guests in and they perform live. It’s a very interactive program, the amount of backend work we’ve done with that program to get that to a really good point from a technical perspective is something we’ve been really focusing on. It’s a really dynamic way to structure a radio program because it all happens in the 3mbs performance space and everyone’s talking to each other in the cans. It’s certainly a far-flung idea, concept and reality than what you might think it is, which is turn mic on, announce and then just put a cd on. That’s certainly the reality for other programs but the mechanisms from getting a program such as Sketching Impressions to air on digital is a completely different process. So it’s very exciting for us, and now we’re really looking at what are the other opportunities that are out there so that we can expand our product into digital radio and look at online and see what audiences really want.
As a traditionally audio-based medium have you had to consider incorporating other medias?
Certainly, and we’ve started experimenting with that, we’ve just put a new project up online called Recitals on Demand which is all about recording visually performances that go live to air and we package them afterwards and they go on our website. So people can actually see that there are real musicians in here playing. And that really adds a different dynamic to the performance and I guess that’s a really good opportunity for performers to, not only have to perform live, but have a camera thrown in their face as well. And then that’s delivered via the radio station. I guess it’s all about the convergence of different media, all in together, I think what you see in social media for instance, is the amalgamation of platforms to become one big interactive source of information, that’s relevant to you and I don’t think that will ever change. Regardless of what the platform is and regardless of how things amalgamate or they don’t, people will still want content, content is king. If we can produce good quality content, that’s interesting for our audience then regardless of what platform we deliver it on doesn’t really matter. Certainly the Recitals in Demand project is something we’re really excited about and we continue to roll that out over the next month. And then we look at filming, hopefully, stage two in that process later on this year.
So, audience interaction is established through content, will new technologies assist this process further?
Certainly regardless of the platform it’s all about really thinking about who our audience is and what do they need. And we continue to look at that, we continue to see who is our audience, who’s listening, what are they listening to, what do they like, what don’t they like, and let’s diversify our options so there’s something for everyone. Maybe down the track having a different stream online so that you can access it via an app might be the way to go.
What differentiates a station from a streaming service?
It’s all about offering something that itunes doesn’t have. So we really have to think about, as a fine music station, a community station, a large metro station in Melbourne, and it is part of our license to support out community. And playing tracks like on Itunes on shuffle is not really what the industry wants. It’s not something we really want to make as our about bread and butter. It’s all about how can we connect with our community in order to best deliver a service that’s relevant, that’s engaging, that looks at ways in which we can innovate from a technology perspective. And it’s all about community relevance. For instance, coming up in the next week or so we’ve got 25 ensembles coming into this space and performing live. That’s really connecting in and allowing our audiences to listen to performers, and allow the performers to connect with the audience so that now the audience can go ‘oh maybe I’ve discovered something on 3mbs, maybe I’ll go to the concert, maybe I’ll buy their Cd’ an develop followings that way. So in fact we’re a bit of a catalyst in pulling together the audience and the performers and composers. Pulling them together and uncovering talent, promoting the community, promoting the performers and composers and also the wider arts community as well. That’s certainly something we continue to look at.
Are there any stats about what technologies audiences use to listen to radio?
I think probably digital is yet still emerging and we probably can’t really determine the difference between digital and FM at this point. But I think the more we differentiate the more people will go there, and the more that digital radio becomes part of every day life and when it comes into cars for instance, that’s when you’ll see an increase in interest in digital radio. But until then we’re very much in the early stages, and we’re really working to see how we can best utilize the medium, so that we can then be relevant for our audience.
Have audience become more active in relation to broadcasters?
We’ve certainly noticed a big increase recently in our social media audience. We continue to be very interactive with them in order to stimulate discussion and argument and find interesting different things or funny things or whatever, which can therefore then support our on air broadcasters. I kind of considered social media platforms to be just yet another broadcasting platform, like FM, like digital, like online. Yes our social media does link back to our website but there’s content there and there’s yet another opportunity that we can connect. We’re seeing in fact, a really wide spread audience for that, it’s not just everyone under 18. There’s a real mix of people that follow us, that like us, that comment of all different ages and stages. I think that probably audiences are developing; it’s probably not new audiences. Our audiences are just developing to engage with other platforms. Yes some of them won’t, and we have to acknowledge that there will be people out there that really don’t want to know what twitter is or know what facebook is, and they don’t want to engage with it and that’s fine. But for those that do we need to make sure that we’re engaging with it so then we can continue to be relevant.
What changes are 3mbsFM making in order to stay relevant in the Digital Age?
Yeah, so we’re really looking closely at digital radio at the moment, and we are fortunate enough to have access to a digital service. So listeners can receive a better and more consistent quality of audio. And what we’re thinking about from a program perspective is what sort of material we can put on to digital radio. What are people looking for? What is the community looking for? What we feel we can provide and we can achieve in a difference area. I guess digital at the moment is a really emerging thing, a lot of our audiences are still switched onto FM but we consider ourselves at least a three-platform broadcaster. That’s FM 103.5, that’s 3mbs digital, and online via our website 3mbs.org.au. So it’s all about the difference access points that people can hear us through and we have the opportunity to look at how we can diversify our streams so we can really cater to what the audience wants.
What does the audience want?
Well I guess you’re in a medium where it’s actually very challenging to obtain concrete data as to what the audience actually wants. So in some ways we have to look at what our objectives and our vision, the station’s vision is, and that’s to be a leading fine music broadcaster that supports our community of listeners and composes and performers. From that we then look at what our products are, that we “sell” and that’s a brand, an entertainment point, it’s something to listen to when you get in the car. From the digital perspective, as for what people are looking for, well that’s something we’re really exploring at the moment. We’ve got one digital program that has 3 episodes thus far, Sketching Impressions, which is a digital only program. So that switches our studio points at 7 o’clock every third Tuesday of each month. And that’s a digital program going out online and our digital service, and that’s really focusing on Australian composition and education and those two link together. It’s a curated program essentially, we have notable people coming in from the music community and hosting that program and then they invite their guests in and they perform live. It’s a very interactive program, the amount of backend work we’ve done with that program to get that to a really good point from a technical perspective is something we’ve been really focusing on. It’s a really dynamic way to structure a radio program because it all happens in the 3mbs performance space and everyone’s talking to each other in the cans. It’s certainly a far-flung idea, concept and reality than what you might think it is, which is turn mic on, announce and then just put a cd on. That’s certainly the reality for other programs but the mechanisms from getting a program such as Sketching Impressions to air on digital is a completely different process. So it’s very exciting for us, and now we’re really looking at what are the other opportunities that are out there so that we can expand our product into digital radio and look at online and see what audiences really want.
As a traditionally audio-based medium have you had to consider incorporating other medias?
Certainly, and we’ve started experimenting with that, we’ve just put a new project up online called Recitals on Demand which is all about recording visually performances that go live to air and we package them afterwards and they go on our website. So people can actually see that there are real musicians in here playing. And that really adds a different dynamic to the performance and I guess that’s a really good opportunity for performers to, not only have to perform live, but have a camera thrown in their face as well. And then that’s delivered via the radio station. I guess it’s all about the convergence of different media, all in together, I think what you see in social media for instance, is the amalgamation of platforms to become one big interactive source of information, that’s relevant to you and I don’t think that will ever change. Regardless of what the platform is and regardless of how things amalgamate or they don’t, people will still want content, content is king. If we can produce good quality content, that’s interesting for our audience then regardless of what platform we deliver it on doesn’t really matter. Certainly the Recitals in Demand project is something we’re really excited about and we continue to roll that out over the next month. And then we look at filming, hopefully, stage two in that process later on this year.
So, audience interaction is established through content, will new technologies assist this process further?
Certainly regardless of the platform it’s all about really thinking about who our audience is and what do they need. And we continue to look at that, we continue to see who is our audience, who’s listening, what are they listening to, what do they like, what don’t they like, and let’s diversify our options so there’s something for everyone. Maybe down the track having a different stream online so that you can access it via an app might be the way to go.
What differentiates a station from a streaming service?
It’s all about offering something that itunes doesn’t have. So we really have to think about, as a fine music station, a community station, a large metro station in Melbourne, and it is part of our license to support out community. And playing tracks like on Itunes on shuffle is not really what the industry wants. It’s not something we really want to make as our about bread and butter. It’s all about how can we connect with our community in order to best deliver a service that’s relevant, that’s engaging, that looks at ways in which we can innovate from a technology perspective. And it’s all about community relevance. For instance, coming up in the next week or so we’ve got 25 ensembles coming into this space and performing live. That’s really connecting in and allowing our audiences to listen to performers, and allow the performers to connect with the audience so that now the audience can go ‘oh maybe I’ve discovered something on 3mbs, maybe I’ll go to the concert, maybe I’ll buy their Cd’ an develop followings that way. So in fact we’re a bit of a catalyst in pulling together the audience and the performers and composers. Pulling them together and uncovering talent, promoting the community, promoting the performers and composers and also the wider arts community as well. That’s certainly something we continue to look at.
Are there any stats about what technologies audiences use to listen to radio?
I think probably digital is yet still emerging and we probably can’t really determine the difference between digital and FM at this point. But I think the more we differentiate the more people will go there, and the more that digital radio becomes part of every day life and when it comes into cars for instance, that’s when you’ll see an increase in interest in digital radio. But until then we’re very much in the early stages, and we’re really working to see how we can best utilize the medium, so that we can then be relevant for our audience.
Have audience become more active in relation to broadcasters?
We’ve certainly noticed a big increase recently in our social media audience. We continue to be very interactive with them in order to stimulate discussion and argument and find interesting different things or funny things or whatever, which can therefore then support our on air broadcasters. I kind of considered social media platforms to be just yet another broadcasting platform, like FM, like digital, like online. Yes our social media does link back to our website but there’s content there and there’s yet another opportunity that we can connect. We’re seeing in fact, a really wide spread audience for that, it’s not just everyone under 18. There’s a real mix of people that follow us, that like us, that comment of all different ages and stages. I think that probably audiences are developing; it’s probably not new audiences. Our audiences are just developing to engage with other platforms. Yes some of them won’t, and we have to acknowledge that there will be people out there that really don’t want to know what twitter is or know what facebook is, and they don’t want to engage with it and that’s fine. But for those that do we need to make sure that we’re engaging with it so then we can continue to be relevant.