Keeping live audio listeners loyal – The Short Stack
Friends,
Why are public radio listeners so loyal?
First and foremost, it’s because they’re hooked on some of the best, most unique programming out there. As we stated in a recent post: “Public radio’s millions of listeners aren’t tuning in to be fed back what they expect or what they've reacted to in the past. They’re tuning in for something new – what they haven't heard or thought about before, what will surprise them. It again comes back to unique, great storytelling.”
The wealth of great local stations, NPR, and other networks are primary in ensuring that the above keeps happening. But there are other critical parts of this equation that aren’t quite as front and center, including the tech that powers delivery and ensures that great shows get heard by dedicated audiences without a snag.
No great mystery, public radio and other segments are going through a uniquely tricky time right now. With the future of funding uncertain and other ongoing challenges, delivering a smooth listener experience is one thing that public radio should never have to worry about. Low latency, seamless transitions between shows and sponsor messages, and more, should all be a given when it comes to respecting loyal audiences.
There’s a lot of big tech out there dedicated to getting live audio data (and associated metadata) from studio to listener, and with that, a lot of big questions as to which is the best. ICY, HLS, HLS with adaptive bitrate, HLS Interstitial – the list goes on and it’s all pretty complex.
We’ll clear up the confusion as our spring summit season turns to Vegas for the Public Radio Engineering Conference (PREC), where SoundStack CTO Mihai Ciurea and I will present on the best ways to navigate the complexity. The session, “Delivering Live Audio and Sponsorships via Modern Server-Side Streaming,” is on Thursday, April 3rd at 2pm PT. Info here.
We can’t wait to see many of you there and at the NAB show that follows directly after. And if you’re at Podcast Movement Evolutions instead, not to worry, we’ll have a contingent of Stackers there too!
In either case, to set up some time, contact us at [email protected].
See you soon!
Jon Stephenson , CEO 
"I guess I am trying to manifest to the universe how important it is for the business side of podcasting AND the open source community to collaborate, build, and put some muscle behind a consolidated, universally great experience for podcasting that showcases podcasting … it's a really important initiative for the future of spoken word audio, period." Listen to this great analysis on the Sounds Profitable site.
Organizers say they want to speak with a unified voice to support public media by bringing together a broad, diverse network that understands the value of public media and advocates for the essential funding that public media needs to thrive. “By uniting with supporters across the country, the Coalition will amplify public media’s impact to engage lawmakers throughout the funding process.”
Speaking of streaming protocols, HLS interstitial is a sound candidate for the future of more efficient, cost-effective audio ad insertion. Unlike traditional server/client-side functionality, HLS-i was actually built for ad insertion, orchestrating functionality from counting ad impressions, to personalizing streams for given users, to measuring listening time and more. Can’t wait to hear more about it at PREC? Read our post about it.
Team SoundStack is springing into summit season! The National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) show will see our biggest group of Stackers yet (as evidenced by this pic), on hand to talk all things streaming and podcasting. The Live365 part of our family is boothing – catch them and the rest of us at location W3445.