DAB is coming into its own as media format for advertisers at a time of concerns about fake news and ad fraud in the online space.
Digital audio broadcasting (DAB) is growing across Europe and is pivotal to a functioning democratic society, said European Broadcasting Union Head of Radio Graham Dixon at the World DAB session at IBC last month.
In a world where fake news and fraud are an everyday reality for broadcasters, being reliable and resilient to hackers is critical. Dixon said: “What we want is a future world in which radio is available, robust and free to air for listeners as Europe’s most trusted source of media.”
Triton Digital VP of Business Development EMEA-APAC Daniel Karlsson explained that fraud in advertising technology is a “big problem”, allowing DAB to come into its own as a media format that ad-giants are buying into.
Karlsson said: “The fake news phenomena is wide spread on the internet but [audio] broadcasters have credibility in the market place and there is no ad fraud in audio because the main content comes directly from broadcasters and pure players like Spotify.”
One trend that Dixon pointed to is the decline in hardware receivers as listening habits shift to smart speakers.
Dixon added: “The world of voice control is going to develop at an unprecedented pace and it’s clearly the world we are migrating to.”
The penetration of smart speakers, AI and voice technologies is set to shape the future of DAB.
Commercial Radio Australia CEO Joan Warner said: “We see the home devices as integral to radios continued ubiquity.”
However, she said the experience for Australian audiences is far from perfect.
She said smart speakers from Apple, Amazon and Google didn’t play the correct radio requests 23% of the time.
Warner said: “It’s one of the things we’ve been working on as they haven’t had this experience anywhere in the world working with the industry to get the experience right.”
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