Industry News

Tuning In North: See Radio Differently

On Wednesday 30th November Radiocentre headed to the King Street Townhouse in Manchester City Centre for a conference featuring speakers and performers in what will hopefully be the first of more regional events. Wrapping everything under the theme See Radio Differently, the event Tuning In North gave advertisers, their agencies and Radiocentre members the chance to spend a couple of hours hearing about the latest trends and opportunities in the rapidly evolving world of radio and audio.

The audience, formed of 100 people from across the Midlands and North of England, came from media agencies, creative agencies, production companies, large radio groups and smaller stations. They enjoyed a networking breakfast overlooking Manchester on a crisp autumn morning before the event got underway in earnest.

Radiocentre CEO Siobhan Kenny chaired and opened the event with a broad update entitled ‘Radio Nation’ covering the state of the industry and Radiocentre’s work before moving onto a jam-packed schedule where the standing-room-only audience heard from these speakers:
• Lemn Sissay: poet, writer, Chancellor of the University of Manchester and writer of radio plays shared his own powerful story, told why he loves working on radio and made an impassioned plea  for diversity. His powerful skill for taking the audience from laughter to contemplation in a heartbeat set a powerful tone for the morning. To hear his story in full, his Desert Island Discs is available here
• Ryan Rummery, Head of Digital Sales and DAX (Digital Audio Exchange) at Global. Ryan ran an immersive session on how DAX is bringing a new world of creative dynamic, geo-targeting and  3D binaural sound to digital audio advertising. His talk and DAX are covered in this piece published today in The Drum.
• On The Eighth, the radio and production experts. Stuart Morgan and Becky Green gave their presentation The Power of the North, mapping the audio and radio network from their base at MediaCityUK and highlighting the connections that can be made from clients to listeners
• Michael Hill, Founder and MD at Radioplayer. Michael’s fascinating insight focused on R&D in radio, honing in on voice control, in-car listening and hybrid radio ahead of the launch of  Radioplayer Car. A full piece on his talk is available here
• Matt Payton, Radiocentre’s Director of External Affairs. Matt talked about the public value of commercial radio and the highlights from our recently published Action Stations available in full here
• Lucy Barrett, Client Director at Radiocentre, explained why we are asking people to See Radio Differently and how we targeted big names in advertising earlier this year
• Mark Barber, Radiocentre’s Planning Director, presented Radio: the Brand Multiplier, our latest research project on using audio to expand a brand
• Clare Bowen, Head of Creative Development at Radiocentre took a look back at the past year from a creative perspective and shared some best practise learnings from those ads.
• Tony Walsh, aka Longfella, closed the event. He brought the house down with his poems about Manchester and music, keeping the gripped audience in the palm of his hand. Read more about him here

We have listened to the feedback from our recent survey and hope to take Radiocentre on the road more frequently in the future with other Tuning In events. Let us know if you would like a visit!