After three years of experimentation, NPO Listen presents itself today as a fully-fledged audio platform with all podcasts and live radio stations from the public broadcaster. In the meantime, the NPO is not bothered by the FM radio auction. “But NPO 3FM could benefit from it,” Jurre Bosman, audio director at NPO, told NU.nl.
All radio stations of the public broadcaster, from NPO Radio 2 to Sterren NL, plus podcasts such as Day, The Fire in the Mansion in By samsung. From now on, listeners will receive all audio from the public broadcaster in one app for free and without a subscription.
That had been coming for a while. For example, last year the NPO was allowed to expand the on-demand video service NPO Start. Later, permission was also obtained from State Secretary Gunay Uslu (Media) to continue with the audio platform NPO Listen, which started in 2020.
“Until now you could only listen to most podcasts in the app of the relevant channel and not together. I thought that was a strange missing link,” says Bosman.
We expect to listen to a lot more podcasts
We listen to more and more podcasts, not only Bosman sees. Podcast use rose to 30 percent of total media use in the Netherlands last year and even to 73 percent among young people. This is evident from figures from the Media Authority and the EBU, a partnership of public broadcasters in Europe.
Now podcasts make up only 5 percent of total media consumption. This share is expected to grow rapidly.
In recent years, the NPO had listeners test the NPO Listen app. “Our main insight from those tests was that people want to get recommendations and be guided.”
Listeners need to be able to quickly find what they are looking for. Something that is sometimes difficult now. “People consciously listen to a podcast and want value for their time,” says Bosman, who also saw that people want to listen to a podcast, but often don’t have the time. “So the more precisely you can guide them, the better.”
‘NPO 3FM could benefit from FM auction’
We don’t just listen to podcasts: radio stations are also becoming increasingly popular digitally. Nevertheless, FM (ie the old-fashioned radio) will still play a major role, thinks Bosman. “The public broadcaster does not participate in the FM auction that is currently taking place, but there you can see how great the importance still is. FM has a wide range and it is accessible. There are millions of radios in all kinds of places: in cars and sheds and Bedrooms.”
NPO Radio 2 is by far the market leader, according to the new listening survey. NPO Radio 1 and 5 are also doing well. Only 3FM lags behind, with a market share that does not exceed 2 percent.
“I think 3FM deserves more listeners,” says Bosman. “Last year, the channel was actually built from the ground up again with new talent and discovering new music as a basis. I hope that we will eventually benefit from our new programming.”
The audio director thinks that the FM auction could be a blessing for 3FM. “The participants have to pay millions for a spot on the FM and also have to earn that back. So they will probably crawl more to the middle, play more hits and take less risks in the programming.”
“3FM can benefit from this with its unique profile. The market share is now too small for what the NPO aims for. How much that should be? I don’t put a number on that. We’ll take our time.”
‘We are entering a new century for audio’
Radio has been around in the Netherlands for over a hundred years now. According to Bosman, we are in a “wonderful new century” for audio, in which podcast and radio are growing closer together.
The next step for the NPO is to link the NPO ID account between NPO Start and NPO Listen. For example, you can get recommendations in the near future: “If you like this TV show, this podcast might also be something for you.”
“That is not intended to make you addicted or to sell the data to all kinds of commercial brands,” says Bosman. “We really only use it to find relevant content for you. And of course you can also listen to everything without an NPO ID.”
2023-06-14 07:02:52
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