Radio websites: what works, what doesn’t
Yesterday, I wrote about Wave 88 in Bangkok; but I was lucky enough to visit three broadcasters in Bangkok during my round-the-world tour.
A-Time Media run a number of stations including Hot 91.5FM. Richie and the fine folks at RCS were able to get me a meeting with Ryo, who works on the website; and, talking a mixture of Thai and English, he told me about the successful websites he runs. The most popular thing on the website is, naturally, the page to listen live to the radio station, he said; but other things that have worked for them have included a live chart based on what the DJs play – there’s considerably freer choice for presenters in Thailand than there is in the UK. This live chart used the now-playing information to show the most popular songs on the radio station: something not unlike comparemyradio.com or the BBC’s music website. It interesting to note that some UK broadcasters try to keep this information secret; yet it’s one of the most popular things here.
Many Thais still have mobile phones which don’t have reliable access to the internet, so A-Time is concentrating on the desktop internet instead; they do all the coding internally (Perl and PHP, if you’re interested), and lack some of the skills to work on the mobile web for now. Indeed, quality of the internet has been an issue in Thailand for a while; it’s only very recently that the internet has been good enough to allow listening to live radio. And, incidentally, the bandwidth out of Thailand can be fairly poor, so broadcasters here are, to an extent, insulated from the full effects of YouTube and overseas broadcasters.
What’s clear from my chat with Ryo is that the main usage of radio websites is the same in many places in the world: to tune in to the radio station. It means you need to ensure that the ‘listen now’ button is as clear as possible, and that your internet streaming works; it also means, though, that average number of pages per visit is very low for many radio stations. The challenge is to produce enough content to ensure that visitors to your website don’t just visit to listen, but also use the rest of the site as well. Part of this is ensuring your web player is as fully featured as possible; part of it is ensuring that your content is as good and relevant as it can be. And, as A-Time have shown, sometimes it can be as easy as displaying a set of already-available information, in the form of a chart, to listeners.
I’m grateful to Colin Fawell, Richie and RCS for their help in arranging this meeting. Tomorrow, I round off my visit to Bangkok, with details of the third broadcaster I saw, and what works for them. It might be a little familiar.