All the media I need is in my phone: Bryce Ives at CBAA conference

From today’s RADIOINFO:

During a CBAA conference session on digital media, SYN General Manager Bryce Ives waved his mobile phone around and told the audience, ”this is all the media I need,” explaining the new ways that people are consuming media.Ives described how he was running on the Glenelg beach listening to his Melbourne station via his phone, which also brings him messaging and email. He said he spends about $250 per month on his telecommunications bill. SYN FM does not describe itself as a radio station, it is a creator of youth content across many media, including free to air radio, tv, internet and magazines.

Another panel member, CBAA technical consultant David Sice brought the discussion back to earth, reminding delegates that, while many services were available on telecommunications devices, there were two big differences between content carried by telcos and content carried by broadcasters.

The two things are:

Cost. Radio is free to air, but audio streaming on phones costs money.

Capacity. Radio serves many listeners at the same time without problems, but if too many people in the same cellular area use streaming, then capacity becomes limited and phones drop out.

Digital radio was the focus of the discussion, which also widened out to embrace discussion of many digital platforms. Other speakers included 3MBS’ David Melzer and 3RRR’s Kath Letch.

As well as all the many issues surrounding the coming of digital broadcasting in radio, digital tv representatives also spoke about a bigger dilemma in their medium. While community radio broadcasters are at least guaranteed spectrum for digital radio, digital television broadcasters are not currently allocated a place in digital set top boxes, because no spectrum has been allocated to broadcast Channel 31 services in digital.

For radio broadcasters at the conference, there was much discussion about whether stations would share digital broadcast space, or whether stations would pool their programming to create new unique community channels. While no decisions for the sector were made, the discussion was useful in helping broadcasters understand the issues they will need to confront as they move towards digital radio broadcasting