Tbh Entercom would probably be the next company to try AI maybe on "Hot 103.7" with AI Suga Rae or something like that.
-
Get involved.
We want your input!
Apply for Membership and join the conversations about everything related to broadcasting.
After we receive your registration, a moderator will review it. After your registration is approved, you will be permitted to post.
If you use a disposable or false email address, your registration will be rejected.
After your membership is approved, please take a minute to tell us a little bit about yourself.
https://www.radiodiscussions.com/forums/introduce-yourself.1088/
Thanks in advance and have fun!
RadioDiscussions Administrators
Who will be first in Seattle to put A.I. Ashley on the air?
- Thread starter trevorparker588
- Start date
AI has NOTHING to do with overall station ratings. Sounds like you’re reaching…
(And it’s only for one shift so far.)
My last job in radio was made redundant by internet MP3/WAV transfer technology nearly 20 years ago. That was in 2007. So I'm probably ahead of you in dealing with the tech aspect of this game. And my last radio job, as I think I stated upthread, probably caused at least some stations to ditch a few staff in the late 1990s and early 2000s when Telecom 1996 kicked in, radio companies bought multiple stations and turned their operations into "clusters" (thanks to computer tech), with one PD and MD instead of 5 or 6. And the formats my employers produced by the metric ton enabled a cluster to operate out of one office, instead of needing individual staffing in the 5-6 or more stations that cluster operated.
There will be millions of jobs lost to AI over the next decade and a half. That is certain. You're not going to stop it, neither will I, nor will anyone here on RD, regardless of experience or knowledge level. It's unfortunate, but "Live and local" won't stop the job losses happening in radio. "Live and local" is increasingly social media based, especially for younger demos who live on their phone. Radio's already on a timeline to disappearance, being replaced by a nebulous mixture of varying internet "content", consisting of podcasts, viral and non-viral video content, and streaming music. No one can stop it. There will be holdouts and outliers, that's probably true. But there won't be too many of them.
I will miss OTA radio, but I think it's complete disappearance won't happen until possibly the late 2040s -- not being an expert or great at prognosticating, I can't really say when OTA radio will disappear -- probably nobody can -- but it will happen. When GenZ becomes middle aged, we will see a sea change in what we call "radio", even greater than what we've seen over the past 20 years.
I'm not trying to denigrate your opinion in any way. I'm just being realistic here. You're probably spot on about "live and local" radio being important to a lot of listeners -- mostly those who are older than age 40-45, the older Millennials who still view radio as a vital medium. But in 20 years those older Millennials will be entering retirement age. Will they still matter? Yeah, but where will they be getting their news, music and other entertainment content? Probably on their phone.
My plan on dealing with AI is to just deal with it. I don't like applying for a job and being told to talk to the hand, "go online", and deal with a mishmash, crudely thrown-together process of AI bot-driven HR processing and data-mining, and dealing with company websites that don't work well and even disagree with each other. I don't like "customer service" being nothing but dealing with a never ending treadmill of voice mail prompts that get you nowhere, powered by robot voices and robot texts. I think it's BS, but it's one aspect of where business in general is heading. We can't stop it.
Maybe in 10 years there will be some sort of massive backlash against the impersonal nature of everything being fake and online. But I wouldn't bank on it. I guess I'm too skeptical or cynical to think that would happen.
And that's a great example of likely being too narrow-focused in skill set. If your position can be eliminated because of something like a file transfer protocol, as a cautionary tail; one needs to make sure you present as wide a spectrum of value to your employer.
The post Telecom Act feeding frenzy wasn't a product of automation, but the realization that radio as a business, worked best when operated in larger groups offering a wide demographic spread to advertisers in multiple markets. Automation isn't what drove the feeding frenzy; it just allowed for the best hope at realizing lower operating expenses, while still being able to offer a quality product to the audience.
Wow, finally someone who can predict the future with certainty. Can I have your autograph?
Don't look now, but the "younger demos" have grown up. They're now what's called Millennials, and Gen-Z. Both are very sought-after demographics
And someday, we'll all be dead. You won't miss much at that point.
I actually agree with you on this point. HR using crude forms of AI to base-screen applicants is, in my view, an unsavory prospect. Over the many years of hiring folks, I've found applicants who's resume's don't appear great on the surface, but as a human, I took a risk, interviewed, and ultimately hired them anyway. All but maybe one became valuable employees.
Another automated screening process that hurts people are banks using some form of AI in screening applicants for loans or mortgages.
I doubt it. 'How long have 'phone trees' been around? Twenty years? No backlash yet.
You don't need my autograph. What I said about AI making millions of jobs redundant has been stated by people who know a lot more about AI and its potential implications than I do. Some say AI will increase jobs and make everyone rich and happy (some tech guru who made tons of money on the stock market). I don't see that happening, though.
I didn't say the Telecom 1996 feeding frenzy was a result of the advances in tech. The feeding frenzy would have happened anyway. However, the advances in tech (IT and computer tech, much of it internet based) allowed the resulting station clusters to consolidate their operations, and consequently they shed a lot of jobs. Who needs five production departments with maybe 10 or more people when you only need 3 people (or less) to do it for all 5 stations? Tech made it easier for that to happen. It may have happened even if Telecom 96 didn't happen. Probably not to the same extent, though.
As for my own job, the entire department, and then the entire company, was made redundant. File transfer protocol wasn't the issue, we were working with it already. Operations were consolidated when the corporation bought a competitor who was doing the same exact work. When the corporation sold the rest of the company to another competitor, eventually those jobs were also made redundant. It happens. It was a good job when it existed. I'm in a completely different field now.
Although your advice about being able to present a wide range of abilities to an employer has some validity, unfortunately, there are no guarantees. At the unemployment office, one speaker said that we were entering the era of the temp job and the independent contractor, and the days of having the same job for more than 10 years were over. He was mostly right. Always have a backup plan, and always keep your eye on the door. I think we're seeing a lot of that play out, post pandemic.
But that's a different issue.
RE: Younger demos: Yeah, I know GenZ is in their 20s, Millennials are in their 30s and 40s. When Millennials age out in 20 years or so then we'll probably see OTA broadcasting start to disappear. Because who will be listening to OTA radio or watching OTA TV in 2040 or 2045? By then everything will be online based, and that means everything is just another form of content.... TikTok radio.
RE: the computer, online automation of HR: agreed, I think it's a much bigger problem than the business community admits.
To bring it back to AI and its effect on radio -- I think that it may affect radio, but I think that radio has a lot more issues than AI to contend with. We already have voicetracking, and all that AI voices will do, if it gets good enough, will augment that. It will just be a different form of what we already see today in voice talent. It probably won't eliminate all human voicetrackers or announcers. But if it gets good enough some radio companies will use it.
In publishing circles they are arguing about AI in the same manner -- will it kill jobs, or just be another tool for writers and authors to increase production or reduce workloads?
Obviously, no one can answer those questions yet. The tech isn't advanced enough to really do anything to affect jobs in the media -- that's a few years away yet.
This discussion is starting to meeror the broader discussion of AI. In my classes this term, we discussed how AI will be impacting coding. I think everyone pretty much landed on the consensus that while AI will definitely be used in a development environment in the future, it will probably mean that a feature that took a year to develop might take a week with AI. I would hope that when it comes to radio, we'll get more compelling content, rather than the same thing on every station. Shawn Ross pointed out in his first listen of AI Ashley that the station is still focused on content. I feel like too often with a lot of your bigger companies, the same content is recycled from station to station, and it's not even that interesting.
Re: phone trees. There are companies that pride themselves on being anti phone tree. It's not the tree that annoys me as much as the voice activated system that tries to help me. Very often, I call a company because I can't get their online system to work. If that does mean that I have to start whatever I was calling about over again, so be it, but get me to a person who can hopefully figure out what the issue I'm having is and help me fix it, not an automated system that doesn't know I've already got something in progress.
Re: phone trees. There are companies that pride themselves on being anti phone tree. It's not the tree that annoys me as much as the voice activated system that tries to help me. Very often, I call a company because I can't get their online system to work. If that does mean that I have to start whatever I was calling about over again, so be it, but get me to a person who can hopefully figure out what the issue I'm having is and help me fix it, not an automated system that doesn't know I've already got something in progress.
I think every station focuses on content… depends on the format for what content you will be getting.
Seems like AI Ashley isn’t really affected the ratings for the station. Btw they do compete with Z100 which hasn’t really been affected by the change.
Really? How would you know? Do you have access to particular demos from the last book? Or are you just pulling imaginary ratings out of your.....hat, again?
I just looked at the ratings for Portland. They are around a 2-3 share rn and they have been that way before AI Ashley. Idk about the demos, since I haven't looked at those. Both stations are around a high 2 to low 3 share or the low 3 share.
Really? Well please look at the demos and tell us what you think. Make sure you note their target demo range.
I've heard Live 95.5 a few times in the last couple months, and there's no way anyone is going to be able to tell they're using AI anymore. When this first launched, I'd argue you could, but not now. AI Ashley sounds as good as the real person. Btw she's not identifying as AI Ashley anymore. The point being that at least now, there wouldn't be any affect on the ratings.
Uh, could it be because she is? It's just a script that the PD puts into a voice synthesizer to synthesize her own voice.
Probably because nobody cares.
Kelly,
I've heard a couple actual people's voices become synthesized, and to me, while they sound pretty good, something seems a bit off about them, perhaps the cadence isn't quite right. This to me was the case with AI Ashley initially, but not anymore, and that's why I can't see this having any effect on ratings.
I've heard a couple actual people's voices become synthesized, and to me, while they sound pretty good, something seems a bit off about them, perhaps the cadence isn't quite right. This to me was the case with AI Ashley initially, but not anymore, and that's why I can't see this having any effect on ratings.
Someone talking up to the post or reading liners isn't going to affect 6+ ratings. I could have my dog bark on the mic and it still wouldn't make a difference. Only radio nerds care about this kind of thing.
We rarely talk up to the post here... hardly ever ever ever... and no one has ever complained .. i nfact, i know almost everyone would prefer we dont... so we dont ruin "their favorite song" when they ca;l lto request it on the radio
Some people up there probably think “hitting the post” is what happens when you miss at target practice with beer bottles
Sure, and in your case I could see why the listener wouldn't want that.
- Status