Smart speakers bring news home

Smart speakers are changing the way regional broadcasters engage with communities, particularly when disaster strikes.

Southern Cross Austereo's news and current affairs presenter, Natasha Jobson. Picture: Jane Dempster.

Smart speakers are changing the way regional broadcasters engage with communities, particularly when disaster strikes.

It has been less than two years since Southern Cross Media launched its dedicated news service for smart speakers including Amazon Alexa and Google Home, but head of news and current affairs Natasha Jobson says it has become a worthwhile companion for people living in regional areas.

The ad-supported smart speaker updates for Southern Cross’s Hit and Triple M networks range between 60 and 90 seconds, and run about six times a day. But with Australia’s bushfire crisis, those updates come in every half an hour for some areas.

“It allows the opportunity for more information. We may have a 30 second update delivered for our radio assets, so at the same time if need be we can put a longer update on smart speakers,” she said. “We've got a really good, solid way of covering … disasters, and (we know) that it’'s going to be a source of comfort to that listener, to be able to ask and get some trusted information from what's happening in the area.”

Most speaker updates are tailored to the markets they serve, with dedicated news bulletins available in cities including Townsville, Newcastle and Gosford.

Southern Cross chief executive Grant Blackley says the smart speaker content gives his business a clear point of difference.

“We have 900 minutes of news per week developed specifically for smart speakers and we are looking to develop longer- form news stories and exclusive interviews for on-demand,” he says. And with almost two years of coverage under its belt, Southern Cross has also been able to better understand smart speaker consumption.

“We know that people are consuming this content, slightly earlier, because they're talking to their smart speakers or checking their apps, while they’re still in bed, sometimes while they’re at home before they’ve even hopped in a car for the commute to work, for example, so we’ve had to adjust our deadlines slightly there,” Jobson says.

“We’ve also had to adjust the way we approach the content in itself in that we’re mindful that this content will be going into people’s homes — they’ve asked for it.”

In June, the 2019 PwC media and marketing outlook predicted a global compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 38.1 per cent for speakers, with 440 million devices expected to be in homes by 2023.

Justin Papps, partner and head of the CMO Advisory at PwC, said the NBN and 5G would “turbocharge” the smart home revolution locally. The report also predicted Australia’s total spend of streaming and internet radio including podcast to be $773m by 2023.

Last month Southern Cross received a $250,000 regional grant to fund the growth and adoption of digital formats, and is using the money to explore distribution methods.

Jobson says local content is the biggest driver of listening on smart speakers.

“It’s localism all the way,” she says.

“There was a terrible story about a predator in Gosford — it got thousands upon thousands of listens because it was a community safety message.”