When Ross Davies was attending Radiodays Europe, this year’s edition of which was held in Munich last month, he e-mailed a favorite quote from one of the speakers about the year’s hot topic, the role of AI in radio. “It’s an exciting time to be scared shitless.”
Broadcasters in the U.S. and Canada already have the scared-shitless part down. Davies is looking to bring the excitement to the second Radiodays North America, scheduled for Toronto June 2-4. RDNA is a companion to Canadian Music Week, Canada’s equivalent of SXSW, under longtime head Neill Dixon. The first RDNA agenda stood out for its willingness to ask hard questions: “Has PPM measurement been worth it? Can radio handle the truth?”
This year, Ross on Radio will again highlight “The Road to RDNA” with a look at scheduled highlights from the sessions, as well as longer pieces on some of the planned topics. Highlights so far include keynoter/BBC Radio head of music Lorna Clarke, promotions guru Paige Nienaber, and a TikTok panel featuring Lauren Hunter, known for one of the best promotions of recent years. (I’ll be part of a panel on the evolution of Classic Hits.)
“The Road to RDNA ’24” begins this week with a conversation with Davies — what he saw at RDE and what he envisions for Toronto this year.
SEAN ROSS: You’re one of Canada’s most prominent radio programmers. Please tell readers a little about your background and how it led to the evolution of RDNA.
ROSS DAVIES: My father was in the radio business in Canada, and so I essentially was raised all around radio growing up. Living in Montreal, listening to AM top 40 radio like CKGM and at night WABC and some of the big US top 40 stations was all I needed to know that’s where I wanted to be.
My father got me my first job in Vancouver, B.C., at CKLG (now CFOX), working as a student intern. I did everything there, from scrubbing carts to operating, music library and ultimately on the air as the all-night jock at CKLG-FM, one of the first free-form progressive rock stations back in the early ’70s. I knew quickly that I was better “off the air” than on, and that sent me into the programming area.
I got my first PD gig in Calgary, launching [still-legendary heritage rocker] CJAY 92. Ultimately my goal was to get to Toronto and work for CHUM Radio. I got there in 1979 and worked my way up to eventually become Operations Manager and Program Director for both CHUM and CHUM-FM, then into corporate as VP Programming. I held a similar position at Astral Media, then was hired to launch XM Satellite Radio’s Canadian channels in the early 2000s.
Once I decided to take a step back from the day-to-day radio business, and knowing I still had gas left in the tank, I wanted to keep doing things for the broadcast industry to help keep it moving forward. Broadcasters asked if I could help our national radio conference. As you know, I’m a big fan of Radiodays Europe. I’ve always felt this conference was way more forward-leaning compared to the conferences here in North America. I thought this would be a great way to bring some of that to broadcasters in Canada and the U.S. As a result, we are now entering our second year of Radiodays North America, bringing a much-needed global presence here in North America.
SEAN: Let’s talk a little about the role that RDNA is trying to play at a time when there are fewer radio conventions in North America overall.
DAVIES: As you know, our industry here has been under a lot of pressure these past few years. Declining audiences, new unlicensed digital operators, and advertising revenue declines. The competition has intensified dramatically. I think we in radio got stuck looking inside, got focused on cost cutting, doubling and tripling the workload on our staff, just trying to stay alive and hold on to those great profit margins.
As a result, we didn’t move forward. Europe was talking about digital audio and podcasting before it was even on our radar. They celebrate radio there, and their annual conventions show that. And they can bring on a wealth of talent from all the UK, Europe, Asia and Australia – some very brilliant people. Our conventions lacked that.
SEAN: What impressed you at Munich this year?
DAVIES: Radiodays Munich set an all-time attendance record of over 1,500 delegates. It was three full days of content touching on virtually every aspect of the audio business. The subject of AI was an overwhelming presence at the conference, so much so that RDE built in an additional AI Summit on the Sunday before the full conference started. During the two full conference days, there were a number of additional AI sessions that were all standing-room-only.
I heard lots of excitement, lots of opportunities, and lots of concerns about AI. We are all still in the early stages of how best to implement this into our operations. Concerns around AI deep fakes and AI bias were talked about at length, as well as getting the right balance between humanity and machines. There were concerns about detection tools, synthetic voices, voice cloning.
New strategies and new mechanisms to reach new audiences with moderator Martin Liss was SRO. There were multiple sessions on youth audiences. There was a great morning-show interview with Greg James from BBC Radio 1 and a separate [PD] Aled Haydn Jones presentation about Gen Z. Nik Goodman’s “How to be a better program director” was done in the round to a packed room. And a couple of sessions from Australian radio, where business in booming. We plan to bring a lot of this to Toronto in June.
SEAN: Over the course of the next 7-8 weeks, we’re going to talk about all the panels in some form, but please tell readers about a few now that you’re particularly excited about.
DAVIES: We’ve secured a great opening keynote on Monday morning with the Head of BBC Music, Lorna Clarke. What a great resume! BBC has their hands in everything music-related: over-the-air radio, [the] BBC Sounds [streaming platform], television specials, and outdoor events. There’s clearly something we can glean from all that.
We’ve also developed three different sessions all around AI. Matt Britton will be here talking about AI and Gen Z, we have an open and frank AI Round Table planned, and we’re conducting an AI Workshop, where the audience will be involved with creating an AI Radio Station. And we’ve really stepped up on podcasting this year: We have a Sunday “Podcast Power Up Summit” scheduled for those relatively new to the podcast business, which will involve people like James Cridland and Eric Nuzum.
SEAN: We’ve just come out of Podcast Movement. There are a lot of podcasting seminars these days. What’s RDNA’s unique take on podcasting, especially for broadcasters?
DAVIES: It’s real and it’s an opportunity. There are right ways about going about it and wrong ways. One of the sessions Eric Nuzum is going to do is called “Why Podcasts Fail”. At the same time, we’ve got sessions on how to grow revenue through podcasts. This applies both to the “pure podcasters” and the large broadcast organizations who have jumped into the podcast pool.
SEAN: Finally, what are some of the lessons of RDNA ’23 in terms of how the first one is shaping this one, and what’s going to be even better this year?
DAVIES: We had great feedback from last year’s event, perhaps best explained by this comment from Coleman Insights’ Warren Kurtzman: “Radiodays North America ’23 was nothing short of a smashing success. In fact, it was so good that I am writing this as I fly home from Toronto with renewed energy for our business, and I feel compelled to tell everyone — and especially my clients and colleagues in the American radio business — to set aside the time and budget to attend Radiodays North America in 2024.”
This speaks to our need to get the word out to our colleagues in the U.S. This is a real learning conference and one that you will come away from inspired and full of energy. And you’ll get to visit one of North America’s greatest and most diverse cities. And the U.S. dollar is worth roughly 30% more than the Canadian dollar.
A full RDNA agenda (so far) is available here. See hotel information here.
