1 of 1- RadioActive
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Is The Terminator Coming For Your Radio Gig?
The Washington Post has a deeply disturbing article about the massive firings - oops! "employee dislocations" - that saw up to 1,000 people laid off at iHeartRadio in the U.S.earlier this month. How could they get rid of so many people and still be able to operate all those live on-air radio stations in so many markets?
The article reveals it's all due to an Artificial Intelligence program called "Super Hi Fi," which management believes will replace live announcers and newscasters without listeners noticing.
From the story:
"In a demonstration for a Post reporter, Super Hi-Fi co-founder Zack Zalon showed the system transitioning from Nicki Minaj’s “Anaconda” to Kanye West’s “Stronger”: One song wove cleanly into the other through an automated mix of booming sound effects, background music, interview sound bites and station-branding shout-outs (“Super Hi-Fi: Recommended by God”). The smooth transition might have taken a DJ a few minutes to prepare; the computer completed it in a matter of seconds. (“3,526 Calculations Performed,” the system declared afterward.)
"...The system won’t trigger massive job cuts and could lead to new opportunities, Zalon argues, because humans will still need to create and ready the audio snippets from which the AI can select. But he expects that, in a few years, computer-generated voices could automatically read off the news, tee up interviews and introduce songs, potentially supplanting humans even more. The software performed 315 million musical transitions for listeners in January alone.
"The system now is used only for iHeartMedia’s digital stations, but some industry observers expect in the future that software like it could reshape local over-the-air broadcasts, too."
Those fired in this recent bloodbath might paraphrase Arnold's Terminator by saying "I won't be back." Where's Linda Hamilton when you need her?
iHeartMedia laid off hundreds of radio DJs. Executives blame AI. DJs blame the executives.
- Jody Thornton
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Re: Is The Terminator Coming For Your Radio Gig?
Washington Post is the worst for not allowing private browsing. Is there another way to view the article?
Cheers,
Jody Thornton
Thread Starter- Jody Thornton
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Re: Is The Terminator Coming For Your Radio Gig?
RadioActive wrote:Thank you so much. I'm using a fringe browser called Pale Moon. Perhaps that's why.
Cheers,
Jody Thornton
- Media Observer
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Re: Is The Terminator Coming For Your Radio Gig?
Jody, RA,
The Washington Post allows a restricted (I don't know the exact number) of free articles each *month. Earlier today while reading Political and Defence newsletters that I subscribe to, I again ran into this. I was able to open a couple of W/Post articles and then was shut out.
["month apparently represents a 4 week period. I have found that sometimes the "renewal" often occurs later in a calendar month and I may not get my next free access until a similar point in the following month]
- RadioAaron
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Re: Is The Terminator Coming For Your Radio Gig?
Another option is the app/site called "Pocket." It's designed to save articles to read offline, but it seems to also find its way around paywalls when nothing else does.
- John D
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Re: Is The Terminator Coming For Your Radio Gig?
Thanks RA for that phrase "employee dislocations". Never heard that one before. Restructuring I've certainly heard of.
Last edited by John D (February 1, 2020 11:33 am)
- Dale Patterson
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Re: Is The Terminator Coming For Your Radio Gig?
This was just a matter of time - the technology has been there for years. I remember hearing this on "The SOWNY Show" in 2008.
No doubt the technology has improved greatly since then. The average listener probably can't tell the difference from a human voice or a computer generated voice, hence the move to AI. The main thing is that AI is cheaper thus helping the all-important bottom line.
Radio broadcasterss will someday be as in demand as blacksmiths, typewriter repairmen.
Last edited by Dale Patterson (February 3, 2020 2:22 am)
"Life without echo is really no life at all." - Dan Ingram
- betaylored
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Re: Is The Terminator Coming For Your Radio Gig?
Mixing songs was a real skill a decade or two ago, radio jocks would work hard to keep musical content alive and interesting, and a well done mix was a joy to hear, and create when you were doing your show, a kind of aural Tetris in a way.. the (occasional) clunky car wreck mixes were fun to try and fail at too, just in a different way.
Radio can be tech savvy, but it's continued AI "Velveetazation" makes it hard to believe that there's a real future in it when tech is all that's left because the humans have gone elsewhere.
Last edited by betaylored (February 3, 2020 2:01 am)