RadioGPT can talk. It can research. It can take your calls. And it could be coming to your market.

[n8fnr]

Replacing Humans “Is the Furthest Thing From Our Mindset,” Says the Company Selling an A.I. Radio Host

https://slate.com/technology/2023/03/ra ... rview.html

The humble broadcast-radio host, whether a disc jockey or interviewer or reporter, has been going through it for decades now. The 1996 Telecommunications Act fueled the consolidation of local stations, decimating their staffs. The explosion of online radio, music and video streaming, and podcasting have upended ratings for shows on public airwaves. Phones and computers and smart speakers increasingly supplant radio sets. Funding for public radio is notoriously unreliable. It isn’t the best time for your modern-day Wolfman Jacks, or for any media profession.

On top of all that, your local DJ was already on the losing end of the artificial-intelligence revolution. Before the A.I. hype from last year, and even before the COVID recession demolished media ad markets, broadcast networks were gutting on-air talent at the both the national and collegiate level to trim budgets and automate programming: syndicating well-known shows and brands, prerecording and prearranging late-night broadcasts, training a roboticized voice to fill in the space when needed. Coupled with major streaming services’ dependence on algorithms and automation to curate playlists and make user recommendations—often with bizarre side effects—these developments make clear that the music industry anticipates the need for fewer humans down the line.


The humble broadcast-radio host, whether a disc jockey or interviewer or reporter, has been going through it for decades now. The 1996 Telecommunications Act fueled the consolidation of local stations, decimating their staffs. The explosion of online radio, music and video streaming, and podcasting have upended ratings for shows on public airwaves. Phones and computers and smart speakers increasingly supplant radio sets. Funding for public radio is notoriously unreliable. It isn’t the best time for your modern-day Wolfman Jacks, or for any media profession.

On top of all that, your local DJ was already on the losing end of the artificial-intelligence revolution. Before the A.I. hype from last year, and even before the COVID recession demolished media ad markets, broadcast networks were gutting on-air talent at the both the national and collegiate level to trim budgets and automate programming: syndicating well-known shows and brands, prerecording and prearranging late-night broadcasts, training a roboticized voice to fill in the space when needed. Coupled with major streaming services’ dependence on algorithms and automation to curate playlists and make user recommendations—often with bizarre side effects—these developments make clear that the music industry anticipates the need for fewer humans down the line.

A.I. hasn’t yet finished killing the radio star, nor is it truly likely to anytime soon. But there’s a new digital buddy out there that might give hosts additional pause: RadioGPT, a new tool from the Ohio-based software company Futuri Media that fully digitizes the broadcast host as you know it. According to Futuri, which has worked with large corporations like iHeartMedia and Tribune Publishing, its “new and revolutionary product” combines a few tools: TopicPulse, a Futuri app that provides an automated way to scan media sources and pull out relevant topics for coverage; GPT-3, the large language model that powers the hit chatbot ChatGPT; and A.I.-voice “personalities” made by Futuri that can learn the info scraped by TopicPulse and aggregated by GPT-3 to read readymade copy live on air. Oh, and it’s trained to know all available facts about the music played by your station, so it can even intro upcoming tracks and provide trivia as needed. The RadioGPT beta is currently being tested by large radio owners in the United States and Canada, and to gauge from preliminary reviews, it seems pretty good. Accomplished enough, at the very least, to reawaken worst-case fears regarding the future of human radio jobs, no matter what you actually make of RadioGPT’s humanoid talent.

I recently spoke with two Futuri Media executives—CEO and co-founder Daniel Anstandig, and CFO Marty Shagrin—to discuss the reasons for creating RadioGPT, the potential use cases for the tech, and how to square radio-industry automation with the Futuri team’s “passion for entertainment and pop culture,” as Anstandig characterized it. Our conversation has been edited and condensed for clarity.

[Lester The Nightfly]

Happy someone made a post about this. It's very cute that in the Q&A following the story the Futuri execs swear up and down this is not about cost savings but delivering a better product for the listeners. Right.

[TC Talks]

It could in our market. Many stations go v/t after breakfast

[kager]

It’ll be entertaining, and the listeners will win.

Yes, yes - it's always the consumer who wins.

Maybe this new gimmick will get some to show up.

[EdWalker]

Happy someone made a post about this. It's very cute that in the Q&A following the story the Futuri execs swear up and down this is not about cost savings but delivering a better product for the listeners. Right.

I heard the demo and was not impressed. To make claims about it being a "better product" is really premature. The produce has a long way to go.

Demo: https://listen.streamon.fm/radiogpt

[TC Talks]

It sounds perfect for markets 150 and under.

[Realist]

Still isn’t perfect and sounds somewhat unnatural

[Calvert DeForest]

I've heard the demo. Not impressed. Delivery sounds choppy and inconsistent.

It would be fun at remotes though. People could stop by and meet the computer.