As the world moves into the new digital era for almost all technologies, radio is changing too. With digital taking up much less bandwidth than the traditional analogue system, there is room for more radio stations, in much better quality and with many new exciting features. Digital Radio Mondiale (DRM) has just been adopted by India (AIR) as its chosen technology to change the SW and MW transmissions and reach out to masses of radio listening population in crystal clear quality with uninterrupted transmission, easy tuning by stations (and not frequency), lots of texts based features in local languages and a wide choice of content. DRM in FM bands gives the same choices, CD like sound, upto 4 services per frequency and even surround-sound. This interactive session will tell you more about digital radio, the various technologies, their roll-out in the world and how it can change the future of radio

Too often people think of Radio as a vehicle to deliver 'a message', when it is capable of doing so much more. On the media planning side this can lead to radio only being chosen as an announcement medium, with occasional campaigns for advertisers who have something specific to say. On the radio sales side it can lead to missed opportunities to convert advertisers who need to do more than simply deliver 'a message'.

In this session, Diarmid will show that sound is multi-dimensional and can do several things at once. He will illustrate how using radio to deliver 'a message' is often a failure to exploit the available bandwidth of sound. Diarmid will provide a simple framework for participants to understand and exploit the medium more fully. This session will involve audience participation in a musical experiment, as well as many clips to illustrate the power and the beauty of Sound.

Emmy-winning writer Mike Reiss will take us through his 19 years on THE SIMPSONS in one high-speed, laughter-filled hour. He'll recount his dealings with network censors and celebrity guests and discuss how the show is perceived (and misunderstood!) around the world. He will also share the secrets of what makes THE SIMPSONS succeed where hundreds of other series fail, punctuating the session with rare video clips from the show as well as from Reiss' original creations, THE CRITIC and the award-winning QUEER DUCK.

Given the choice of FM stations in each of the Metro markets available on Radio as a medium, can a research like RAM help in building effectiveness of the Ad campaign by bringing insights into the audience behaviour? For the first time, a peek into how has past brand campaigns with different scheduling patterns performed. Can advertising slotting follow the natural audience flow across day-parts? Does Drive-time across morning and evening bring different audiences? What role does weekend play in advertising slotting? The RAM team shares their insight and answers to these questions.

As radio becomes more competitive everywhere, how does a programmer successfully create a compelling offer to the listeners whilst delivering the audiences advertisers want. Mark Story set up London’s Magic 105.4 when Emap radio (now Bauer Radio), bought Melody Radio. He has taken the station from 8th in the London market to 1st where it has been for the past 2 years. Magic’s has also been a huge commercial success and is currently the UK’s most profitable single radio service. In March 2009, Mark left Bauer after 11 years to set up his own consultancy RadioStory.

Mark has also had an enormous amount of experience in launching and running successful breakfast shows including devising and producing the long running Chris Tarrant show on Capital Radio and the BBC Radio One Simon Mayo Breakfast show. In the session, Mark shares the secrets behind the scenes and discusses the ingredients of a successful breakfast show.

In the last two years, Indian radio business showed growth but on a very small base. Radio is a fraction of TV or Print and about three-fourths the size of the Internet advertising business in India. To be taken seriously as a media vehicle worth investing in, the industry needs to scale up significantly – in revenues and numbers of stations. We open the floor to radio CEOs and asks them their views on these strategic options and what they could bring into the radio kitty.

• Are alternate distribution platforms a viable revenue stream for Indian radio operators? Which one of them could work?
• Does it actually make sense to look at the streaming and podcasting options?
• How could radio companies improve the yields they get – by fixing the metrics issue, by bundling with media or other services?
• What are they doing on the metric issue – that alone could double revenues going again by international examples? (For instance in outdoor, the availability of robust metrics helped double revenues in the UK market)
• How much flexibility do radio CEOs have to leverage other media within their groups, what impact could this have on toplines?
• What about bundling services – say activation or events? Is it just a value add or is it a revenue driver, what is the potential to raise rates by doing so?
• What are the other avenues for diversifying revenues and making them less dependent on advertising alone, for instance is mobile bringing in enough for radio stations? What % of radio revenues come from share of mobile activation or contests? Can this be ramped up?