Doug Thompson Reports On Radiodays At CMW

By Doug Thompson

Wasn’t that a party!!!!!

The launch of Radiodays North America at Toronto’s Westin Harbour Castle Hotel was a resounding success.

Radiodays North America is the new partnership between Canadian Music Week and Radiodays Europe, ‘considered the pre-eminent broadcast gathering in the world’.

The first RDNA was two fabulous days filled with information, more information, lively discussion, a bit of fun and maybe just a small taste of impending doom.

For each session, there were several options, but since this was a radio conference, I attended as many radio-oriented ones as possible. Quite a few of the sessions I attended were standing-room only, which was gratifying to see.

A QUICK OVERVIEW

There were more than a dozen radio-specific sessions, five on podcasting, two BBC presentations, three sessions on developing and nurturing talent as well as diversity in talent, several on radio branding, two keynote interviews, a panel on women in radio (the path forward), a couple of lively discussions on creativity and the future of radio (in cars or otherwise), with of course, the spectre of Artificial Intelligence omnipresent.

The opening keynote session ‘How Digital Transformation is Changing the Game’ had Broadcast Dialogue editor/host Connie Thiessen in a Q&A with Futuri CEO Daniel Anstandig, who posed the question: “What would radio look like if it had been invented after the internet? The current use and potential for A.I. was a major theme. Anstandig mentioned the ability to create alternate language broadcasts in real-time. –– Continued here.