The Innovators: The necessity to embrace change

Innovation requires embracing change, and according to Jochen Richter, head of sales for radio at Lawo, the way radio is changing is exciting when you consider how innovative technology is making it increasingly omnipresent.

RedTech: Where do you see opportunities to secure the future of radio?

Jochen Richter: I think it’s imperative that radio leverages the content it produces across multiple platforms so that it’s accessible to the largest possible audience. This means continuing to develop diverse distribution paths and platforms that augment traditional over-the-air delivery.

At the same time, we must keep working on flexible new ways to create that content. We might even take the bold step of rebranding ourselves — instead of “radio,” we could become “accessible audio.” Whatever it’s called, content must be “presented,” which demands that the technology keeps evolving to support whatever presentation mode the consumer utilizes, whether it’s live on-air, via livestream, preproduced content on-demand, etc.

RedTech: What inspires your company to innovate?

Richter: Our customers! Lawo has always considered our clients and sales partners as collaborators. We find that the most innovative ideas come when people producing content collaborate with our engineering team, many of them with long-term media experience, to create products that realize the customer’s vision. And, of course, we closely follow and comply with the latest broadcast industry standards from SMPTE, EBU, AES, IEEE and IETF; we even have a place on many standardization committees. Creativity comes from many sources, so we make sure that our horizons are very broad.

We might even take the bold step of rebranding ourselves — instead of “radio,” we could become “accessible audio.”

RedTech: How do your products make radio increasingly resilient, relevant and competitive?

Richter: Lawo is a family-owned business, so we are always mindful of our customers’ need to get the most out of their purchases. In-house production and development help ensure long-lasting, superior-quality products. The use of off-the-shelf equipment as an IP platform technology means it won’t become obsolete. We engineer redundancy features and other innovative features that ensure uptime in all our products. Backward-compatibility and our commitment to support also help our worldwide customer base to stay competitive and use our technology continuously for long periods of time, in some cases, up to 20 years!

RedTech: What one piece of advice would you give those running radio stations today?

Richter: Stay open-minded. Listen to feedback from your staff and audience; they’re frequently the ones to identify new trends. Hear what they’re saying, adapt how you present your content and make it available. Staying abreast of new technologies and super-serving your listeners often turn out to be the same thing.

RedTech: How do you imagine radio by the end of the next decade?

Richter: With higher connectivity and coverage availability everywhere, it will be easy to instantly access any content in any quality desired, so that radio — or whatever it’s called then — will be even more easily accessible than today. Also, more vehicles, electronic equipment and people with wearables will be linked to the Internet of Things (IoT). So, every device, more or less, will become a “radio receiver.” And new listening formats, like immersive audio, will be commonplace.

But as I mentioned earlier, the mix of live elements plus preproduced content on all devices (mobile or not) will require presenters and live coverage, because radio will continue to be the most accessible medium.

This Q&A was published in the 2023 edition of The Innovators. Read the entire issue here.