Diversifying revenue sources for local public radio in a digital world

In his opening speech at the event, Pham Manh Hung, vice president of VOV, noted that listeners’ demand for information has changed considerably following the rapid development of social media and cross-border platforms that poses a significant challenge to the broadcasting industry, including public radio and television broadcasters in Vietnam.

There has been a notable shift of advertising and sponsorship funding to digital platforms, resulting in a sharp decline in revenue from traditional advertising, he said.

Hung admitted that VOV and other public local radio stations do not have acquired enough experience in optimising their capacity and finding effective ways to increase revenue for content production and audience attraction.

During the course of the workshop, foreign experts and researchers from various broadcasting organisations examined the trend of digital transformation in the broadcasting industry and shared their experience in generating revenue from digital services.

Tim Rowell, general manager of Piano for the Asia-Pacific Region, who has worked in the digital media business for more than two decades, noted that Vietnamese radio stations are free to listen to, meaning it can be considered essential to change the audience’s listening habit.

This is a typical problem that can be seen in many countries in the world, not only in Vietnam, and listeners are willing to pay if quality products suitably cater to their taste, said Rowell.

Prof. Siobhan McHugh, a podcast production expert from the University of Sydney in Australia, pointed to the fact that podcast advertising is preferable to on-air advertising as podcast listeners are usually more invested in what they’re listening to.

Unlike radio which targets people in a very general way, people who select podcasts do so based on what they like to listen to, and its convenience is that the content is accessible at any time they prefer. Therefore, in order to attract a larger and more engaged audience, she believed that radio stations should focus more on developing their own podcasts.

Developing an interesting podcast is just like painting a vivid picture in which the content is very important, she revealed, adding that the narrator must also be able to present in a sensational way that convinces audiences.

Meanwhile, Vickneswaran Kajindran, head of business development at Omnia, Media Prima (Malaysia), talked about how to generate revenue from digital platforms.

In his opinion, when interesting contents are on hand, radio stations should take advantage of all digital platforms in order to ensure that all production contents are available to the public, with advertising orders coming in afterwards.

The Malaysian expert specially introduced the integrated platform “Audio +”, in which podcasts are considered an extension arm of radio services and used to reach out to listeners and get more revenue from advertising.

According to the executive, podcast content is completely different from radio content, and its length is also flexible on customer request. The display time of the content is also discussed in an agreement with the customer.

The workshop was held on the sidelines of the Vietnam National Radio Festival 2022 which took place in Ho Chi Minh City from August 4 - 6.