ChatGPT has taken the educational world by storm, allowing students and teachers to put what they want into a document that will then, in theory, write, edit, summarize, or even grade a paper for them. In the radio world, it may seem harder to use artificial intelligence to come up with content, including breaks and on air information. But now, it is happening. RadioGPT is infiltrating local radio stations, where general managers and program directors are holding meetings on whether or not to use the new artificial intelligence on their platforms. Some of the stations, including those owned by Federated Media, whose operations are based in Fort Wayne and Mishawaka, have started to have meetings to discuss whether or not they should add these fake DJs into their own platforms.
(Photo Supplied//Pixabay.com)
Zach Miller, a Program Director for Federated Media and midday host of Froggy 102.7, WAOR, in Mishawaka, said that he knows his job is in good hands, at least for the time being, “I’m going to knock on wood, but knowing Federated Media and working here for the last 15 years, I know that they value people,” he said. This was made clear to Miller in the year 2020, “you look at the pandemic and see that a lot of essential positions were the on air positions. This company cares about the people.”
Brett Sokol, a journalist for the New York Times, discusses how even in the worst of times, radio and their disc jockeys always make the best of it. He focuses on the pandemic, which could have killed radio, but made it even stronger. Voice tracking, pre-recording a radio show, became prominent during that time, but was still wanted as opposed to A.I.. The operations manager of WOMR in Massachusetts, Matthew Dunn said, “you lose some of the immediacy by pre-recording. But listeners are so grateful that we’re able to do anything,” he said. “We’ve had some things taken away from us, but radio is not one of them.” Live on air personalities are always important.
RadioGPT is a new “tool” from the Ohio software company, Futuri Media. Nitish Pahwa, an associate business and tech writer at Slate, says RadioGPT “fully digitizes the broadcast host as you know it.” RadioGPT could be the future for the radio industry, but at what cost? According to Miller, “they take the DJ’s skills and their voice and they’re like ‘how would this person talk’ and type anything that they would say and send it out to different places. That’s all the company needs to mimic that person with A.I..”
Local radio disc jockeys are replaceable but at a detriment to the community. Local radio relies on real people telling real stories, sharing music, and creating relatable content. Artificial intelligence will not be able to take away a living person, who have emotions, uniqueness, and relatability.
China was one of the first countries to introduce AI broadcasters. In 2018, Xinhua, a Chinese government-run news agency designed two AI anchormen, “one for English broadcasts, and the other for Chinese speakers,” said Fred Jacobs. The anchors had lots of glitches, but were a believable pair and could become even better, once they overcome the issues. In the article “Meet DJ AI” in Jacobs Media, he says that radio experimented with AI even before the Chinese AI anchormen. In 2011, inventor Dominique Garcia, created “Denise,” the first text-to-speech- DJ. Denise did sound robotic and did not catch on with many radio stations. Instead, the AI was received with “a great deal of criticism.”
Although there are many advancements of artificial intelligence that have been made, not everyone is a fan of every form of technology that has been introduced into the world. A survey conducted by Cary Funk, director of science and society research at Pew Research Center, shows that Americans are not too impressed with ChatGPT. 45% say that it is not an advancement at all and 28% say that it is a minor advancement. But, in comparison, Americans tend to think that advancement in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) fields are major advancements, “AI developments in medicine, biology, agriculture and weather are important developments for their respective fields.” In regards to RadioGPT, it would fall under the same umbrella as ChatGPT for its level of advancement. Americans are less receptive to artificial intelligence in highly human roles, like radio on-air personalities.
ChatGPT also has something to say in regards to the future of radio. Jamie Ashbrook, the Marketing Manager for Radio.co asked ChatGPT “what is the future of radio?” In response, the AI chatbot gave its own prediction of the role of AI in the radio world, “the future of radio is likely to be influenced by advancements in technology,” it said. “Such as the increasing popularity of streaming services and smart speakers.” When asked by Ashbrook if radio is in fact dying, ChatGPT had this to say, “the statement that ‘radio is dying’ is an overstatement,” it said. “Innovations have made radio more accessible and convenient for listeners.”
Several factors are driving the business interest in artificial intelligence applied to broadcasting. Fred Jacobs from Jacobs Media says in his article, “Will Robots Replace Radio Jobs,” that there are benefits to a jockeyless future. He says there would be no talent fees for remote broadcasts, overnight DJs would be able to fully staff the station, they are cheaper, and there would even be someone to take over during work parties and events. Jacobs said that some job categories are “on the robotic chopping block.” In 2018, when the article was written, Jacobs said that radio programmers, producers, jocks, hosts, journalists, and more would not be replaced anytime soon, since, “these jobs still require creativity and nuance, something robots still don’t do well. Yet.” The “yet” is the most important part in that quote. In some cases, we have hit the “yet point” in our lives, a mere four years later.
Now, RadioGPT is the next big thing for the radio industry. Although it is in its starting phases, even people in smaller markets are looking into the technology, including Federated Media. Miller says that he expects markets of differing sizes to embrace the new technology, “I see a lot of smaller companies doing it. I also see a lot of big companies, like the clear channel and cumulus say ‘well if this can sound local and relevant and be in my town and I don’t have to pay someone in a major market one-hundred thousand dollars, I might consider it.’” For Federated Media, a smaller sized company, it is not in the cards at this point in time. But, Miller says that if RadioGPT came to Indiana “the decision will not come from the programmers. It will come from the top down,” he says. “If they’re looking to cut costs, they’ll probably choose a couple of voices to use from Futuri.”
Nitish Pahwa talked to Futuri Media executives, including the CEO and co-founder Daniel Anstandig, and the CFO, Marty Shagrin, to see what their goal is for the future of radio and on-air personalities. Anstandig says that the idea for RadioGPT came before ChatGPT was a mainstream concept, almost three years ago. When asked about the advantages of the tech, he said, “it knows about an artist or a song or about a current event, so it can speak to a broad range of topics concisely and in an entertaining way.” Anstandig went on to say that it is better to have an AI DJ, “it’s a tremendous upgrade from listening to prerecorded content.” But, isn’t A also prerecorded content? There is no way for them to be live on the airwaves.
Shagrin says that the audience remains the key focal point for the project that is RadioGPT, “we think about the financial impact all the time,” he said. “But that was probably seventh or eighth on the priority list. First and foremost for us is, will the audience like this? Is this going to be an engaging solution for our partners to deliver great content to their audience?” But, as Zach Miller previously said, people are drawn to radio stations because of the actual person who is live on the air.
Drew Carey, actor, comedian, and game show host on SiriusXM tried to pull a fast one on his listeners. Radio Ink says that during a recent episode of his show, “Friday Night Freak-Out,” fans noticed that something was not right with Carey’s delivery. They said his “delivery was choppy. He sounded robotic. His scripts were stilted.” Listeners were confused and even asked the host if he used AI. Carey admitted that he did. He used ElevenLabs' AI vocal cloner with scripts that were written by ChatGPT. He also was able to mimic celebrity voices to say whatever he wanted, which he says was for an experiment. Carey said, “I violated a rule for Radio 101. The reason FM stations and treasured radio stations still make money is because people like the personality of the DJs.” The response of his fans? “Don’t do it again.” Listeners can tell when something is not a genuine human being. They would rather have a real person who messes up and shows that they are human, then a perfect prerecord robot.
Others say that RadioGPT will put the local DJ out of a job. Jacob Siegal, Associate Editor of BGR describes what the tech can do, “they can train AI hosts with an existing DJs voice to sound like their human hosts,” he said that “is the scariest thing I’ve written in weeks.” Siegal says that RadioGPT can do more than just make on air content. They can also make social media posts, blogs, and more. Futuri says, Alpha Media, which owns and operates 207 radio stations across the US, and Rogers Sports & Media in Canada “have already signed on as beta partners.” Although there is no data of what the listeners of Alpha Media think, those of Drew Carey noticed, which means mostly anyone could.
RadioGPT will not take over on-air personalities. Simply put, the listeners will not allow it. Who doesn’t enjoy having a local “celebrity” who is your neighbor. Someone real who could be your best friend and goes to all the events you go to. Someone who is human, who makes mistakes, and who has passion. Zach Miller heeds a warning to those interested in replacing on air staff with AI jockeys, “if we here in radio realize that RadioGPT is an issue, then the community is not going to be fooled by it,” he said. “It’ll become novel, but it won’t be anything that resonates with them. Then, radio will die with AI”
Works Cited
Ashbrook, Jamie. “The Future of Radio? We Asked a Robot.” Radio.co, Radio.co, 4 Feb. 2023, https://radio.co/blog/future-of-radio.
Funk, Cary, et al. “How Americans View Emerging Uses of Artificial Intelligence, Including
Programs to Generate Text or Art.” Pew Research Center, Pew Research Center, 22 Feb. 2023,https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2023/02/22/how-americans-view-emerging-uses-of-artificial-intelligence-including-programs-to-generate-text-or-art/
Jacobs, Fred. “Meet DJ Ai.” Jacobs Media Strategies, Jacobs Media Strategies, 13 Nov. 2018, https://jacobsmedia.com/meet-dj-ai/.
Jacobs, Fred. “Will Robots Replace Radio Jobs?” Jacobs Media Strategies, Jacobs Media
Strategies, 12 Sept. 2018, https://jacobsmedia.com/will-robots-replace-radio-jobs/.
Pahwa, Nitish. “The next Job A.I. Is Coming For.” Slate Magazine, Slate, 8 Mar. 2023,
https://slate.com/technology/2023/03/radiogpt-artificial-intelligence-dj-futuri-interview.html.
Radio Ink. “Drew Carey's Warning for Radio after A.I. Goes Awry.” Radio Ink, 4 Apr. 2023,
https://radioink.com/2023/04/03/drew-carey-has-note-for-radio-after-a-i-goes-awry/.
Rebecca Felix. Artificial Intelligence: Can Computers Take Over? Checkerboard Library,
2019. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&AuthType
=sso&db=nlebk&AN=1729693&site=eds-live&scope=site.
Siegal, Jacob. “RadioGPT Will Use AI to Put Your Local DJ out of a Job.” BGR, BGR, 27 Feb. \2023, https://bgr.com/tech/radiogpt-will-use-ai-to-put-your-local-dj-out-of-a-job/.
Sokol, Brett. “Community Radio Fights to Stay Live (and Weird) despite Coronavirus.” The
New York Times, The New York Times, 29 Mar. 2020, https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/29/arts/music/coronavirus-community-radio.html?auth=login-google1tap&login=google1tap.
Turnbull, Amelia. “Zach Miller: Program Director and DJ at Froggy 102.7.” 17 Mar. 2023.
Comments