That is Sizzling Pot, The Vergepodcasting and audio business publication. Register right here for extra.
It has been fairly sluggish within the audio world for the previous few weeks – besides on the subject of AI, which appears to be progressing at a clip.
Right now, ChatGPT is coming to radio, NPR staffers are bracing for layoffs, and Spotify is increasing its audiobook enterprise.
Widespread layoffs are anticipated this week at NPR
Final month, NPR CEO John Lansing introduced that the community would lay off 10 p.c of its workforce to cowl an estimated $30 million shortfall this yr. That is the week when closing choices are anticipated to be made and workers are getting ready for cuts. Many took to Twitter to rally support for their colleagueswhereas others implored public radio followers to donate to them local stations.
“It is a powerful week right here at @NPR,” he tweeted Morning edition host Leila Fadel. “Layoffs have gotten actual and we’ll lose colleagues who work so onerous to schedule us on daily basis. We do not know who will go, however we all know that everybody who’s right here now… we want them. Onerous days are forward.”
NPR didn’t reply Sizzling Pothis request relating to the timing of the layoffs. I am going to have extra for Insiders later this week on the extent of the reductions.
RadioGPT makes it simple to interchange human DJs with robots
It is rather reassuring contemplating the situation of the radio. Axios Cleveland stories that native enterprise Futuri has launched a product referred to as RadioGPT, which may theoretically do a lot of the work of managing a radio station with out human labor.
In accordance with the web site, it makes use of bots based mostly on GPT-Four that may conduct interstitial discussions in regards to the music lineup, native climate and information, and even listener feedback and questions. RadioGPT can even do duties that will in any other case be the area of interns and entry-level workers, similar to creating free weblog posts, changing stay broadcasts to podcasts, and social media.
Not like the deeply perplexed AI-Radio, which we reported on final month, this is not only a enjoyable thought experiment. Conformable Axiosthe product will debut subsequent month with Alpha Media and Rogers Sports activities & Media, which symbolize greater than 250 mixed stations within the US and Canada.
Futuri CEO Daniel First rate stated Axios that the product was meant to “save radio, not compete with it” by filling hours that stations cannot deal with anyway. “What we’re seeking to do is enhance a station’s capability to fill its programming with extra stay and native content material,” he stated.
The best way Anstandig places it’s that for a lot of radio stations, it is AI or nothing. Which may be true in some instances, however the corporations which have signed up to date aren’t precisely indie. It appears extra probably that radio corporations could have the chance to make use of this instrument (or others prefer it) as a way of decreasing their workforce and decreasing the audio business’s already shrinking pipeline.
The Most Enjoyable podcast community is popping right into a worker-owned cooperative
Most Enjoyable, the podcast community based by Bullseye host Jesse Thorn, transitions from a extra conventional company construction to a worker-owned cooperative (in the identical sense as Deserter). Most Enjoyable’s two dozen workers will share possession and decision-making energy over the corporate, which produces comedy and popular culture reveals similar to Journey Zone and My brother, my brother and me.
“We didn’t construct this firm to be offered to the best bidder,” Thorn stated in an announcement. “We constructed it to do nice issues. I do not belief the massive tech corporations to run this operation. I belief the individuals who constructed it with me.”
It is an uncommon transfer at a time when studios appear to be consolidated underneath massive companies. However Deserteralong with his megahit The traditional gossip and extremely revered sports activities and tradition journalism, has proven that such preparations can produce good work (and even be worthwhile!). With so many individuals being laid off from the massive audio corporations and creators’ elevated consciousness of the worth of proudly owning their work, I would not be shocked to see extra smaller audio corporations shifting on this path. Nevertheless, it will in all probability look extra Deserterwhich was thus based to start with, than Most Enjoyable, by which the proprietor willingly provides up most of his pack.
Spotify expands audiobooks vertically in Canada
Spotify should be determining the way forward for its audiobook enterprise, however within the meantime, the corporate is increasing its footprint vertically. Right now, the corporate introduced that the audiobooks will now be out there for buy in Canada. Spotify’s catalog contains over 350,000 titles to date and was beforehand solely out there within the US, UK, Australia and New Zealand.
That is all for now. See you subsequent week.
