Community Web Revolutionizing the Community Radio ecosystem

Community. Web Revolutionizing the Community Radio ecosystem

Community Radio (CR) Stations Vibrant and rapidly growing content creation ecosystems which are very popular at grassroots. Create hyper-local content on topics like entertainment, civic issues, day-to-day problems, disability, environmental issues etc.

Limitations 1) Reach of a CR is limited 2) Limited Interactivity 3) Only audio content can be distributed 4) Difficulty in archiving and searching past content 5) Hard to measure listenership and attract advertisers. A mobile web interface can potentially address these limitations.

How does the mobile web help? 1) CR content disseminated over the mobile web can reach lot more listeners, even living far away from the CR station. 2) Mobile web is interactive in nature, and it can allow the users to interact with RJs and bring more vibrancy to the CR ecosystem. 3) Mobile web can support content in multiple formats - audio, video and text. It can act as a unified repository for all the locally relevant content pertaining to a community. Infrastructure for mobile internet is already in place in the urban and semi-urban areas in India and is increasing rapidly in rural areas.

How does the mobile web help? 4) The mobile web can provide a way to archive the CR content and make it accessible on-demand. 5) A web-based system can keep track of the number of listeners and their content preferences, which may help bring advertisement revenues - important for financial sustainability of the CRs. Internet-enabled mobiles are also becoming popular and cheap; they can be bought for as low as Rs. 1500.

Community. Web: Community Media + Mobile Web 1. Uploads CR content on the web 3. Users are motivated to go to the web for content Popularity of RJs RJ 2. Recommends the content to the consumers over SMS or automated phone calls Trust and reliability

How it works? Step 1: CR station uploads audio programs to a server. Step 2: Notify all listeners about the program by sending them automated SMS or automated voice calls. (Optional) Step 3: Listeners use a mobile app installed on their phone to listen to the uploaded CR programs using mobile internet.

Screenshots – “Upload” Screen 1: Choose RJ

Screen 2: Uploading Audio Content

Mobile app – “Selection”

Mobile app – “Play Programs”

Mobile app – “Add/listen to comments”

Key technology innovation As much as 94% of all phones shipped in the 2012 Q 1 in India were feature phones. No robust solutions available for doing audio streaming on feature phones. We have developed a client-side solution for doing audio streaming using the J 2 ME framework, widely available on feature phones. Improves the streaming performance up to 60 times when compared to existing solutions.

Experimental Evidence of Streaming Performance Our solution reduces the delay between playing of two audio chunks up to 60 times

Benefits of Community. Web

Increase Reach and Vibrancy of CRs The CRs can reach interested audiences across the country. CRs can interact with their listeners and get direct feedback on the programs. Increased vibrancy in the CR ecosystem.

Making CRs financially self-sustaining CRs are an apt platform for local advertisers to reach the target audience. Currently, it is neither possible to measure the exact listenership of a CR station nor is it easy to know the preferences of the CR listeners. Community. Web generates analytics about the exact listenership of the CR station, the preferences of the target users (programs they like, their time of listening) These analytics will be beneficial in attracting advertisers to the CR platform and making CRs financially self-sustaining

Improved User Experience for CR Listeners Can listen to CR content anywhere (even outside the geographical reach of CR’s FM transmitter) Can listen to content anytime (on-demand). Can provide feedback on the programs and interact with the RJs. Avoid issues related to FM signal strength

Self-sustaining ecosystem Our long-term vision is to see this service getting integrated as a value-added service in mobile operators’ portfolio. We believe that this ecosystem (CRs as content producers, listeners as content consumers, advertisers as promoters and mobile operators as technology providers) can scale and sustain on its own.

RY A M UM S Outputs: 1. Better reach 2. Feedback and interactivity 3. Precise listener analytics 4. Higher advertisement revenues CR Stations Input: Content Community. Web ecosystem Input: Technology Input: Subsidized data plans Mobile Operators Outputs: 1. More data subscribers 2. Better consumer insights Input: Buy subsidized data plans (e. g. Rs. 30/month) Listeners Outputs: 1. Better content delivery 2. Get content anytime anywhere

c) Low: The usage of two participants fell below the Mean - SD limit of 1. 81 hours. The day-wise average usage in each category is shown in Figure 4. User Insights from Deployment Community. Web enabled anytime access to content “I wake up at 6 am in the morning for household chores. There is no TV or radio program running at that time. So I listen to your programs [using mobile app] every morning. ” Usability of Community. Web Comparison with FM: “I like that here programs come on mobile’s loudspeaker. Earlier [with FM] I had to put earphones all the time in the mobile to listen. Now, I can start the loudspeaker and do my other work also. ” Comparison with IVR: “these CR programs are long…. 30 -45 minutes long. . if I listen [on IVR], my incoming will be closed for long time. I don’t want it (IVR)”

User Insights - II Willingness to pay for the content For CR Content using Community. Web (66% users said Yes) “Up to 100 Rupees (per month) is fine. We are getting useful programs so I don’t mind. But the service should remain better than FM & programs must be latest. ” For Entertainment Content (75% users said No) “Haha. No way. Why will I pay for songs? My brother gets it from mobile shop and his friends. I will take it using Bluetooth or chip (Micro. SD card) from him. ”

Contact For any queries, please contact: Akhil Mathur (akhil. mathur@alcatel-lucent. com)