South Africa shock jock’s ‘uncensored, un-radio’ station on WeChat

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Cliff Central is new mobile 'unradio' station by South African shock jock Gareth Cliff

Listeners can access show, chat to others through WeChat app

Broadcaster is excited by possibilities, industry experts remain cagey about prospects

CNN  — 

“Frequency modulation,” exclaims South African radio shock jock Gareth Cliff in an online video posted earlier this year.

“Which f***ing Hitler used in World War II for propaganda!” Cliff – who is famous for his outrageousness on the airwaves and is sometimes compared to American radio personality Howard Stern – tries hard to stifle a grin that betrays a mischievous mixture of exasperation and comedic bombast.

“Is this a medium we should be proud to use?”

The audience laughs – but the bonhomie belies a serious point. How has radio progressed so little over the last 70 years?

Sure, there may now be digital radio and more interaction between programs and their listeners today, Cliff explains.

But much of the original formula where a presenter broadcasts to a passive listener interspersed by advertisements remains.

It was this stasis that eventually pushed Cliff to earlier this year quit his popular morning show at national station 5FM and take a leap into the unknown.

Radio Revolution

He has since founded Cliff Central, a web-only “un-radio” venture that aims to merge online broadcasting with social media and instant messaging platforms.

The idea is to engage directly with listeners (and attract advertisers) and the early benefits are many, Cliff says.

No longer is he constrained by regulatory guidelines – meaning he can drop the F-bomb live on air without a rap on the knuckles – nor does he have to pay for a broadcast license.

But the real advantage, he explains, is interacting with listeners in a new and exciting environment.

“Mobile is definitely where the action is,” Cliff says. “We have phones with us wherever we go.”

This is increasingly the case in Africa.

Market intelligence firm, the International Data Corporation, expects the smartphone market on the continent to double in volume over the next three years and account for close to a third of all handset shipments by 2017.

South Africa will remain the largest smartphone market in Africa in the near-term with more than a million units being shipped there each month, the IDC said last year.

“Anybody who isn’t adaptable to the possibilities that mobile represents is going to miss out on a huge business opportunity,” according to Cliff.

The rise of mobile

Like most modern media outlets, Cliff Central has embraced the likes of Facebook and Twitter (a task made easier by the fact Cliff has close to a million Twitter followers), integrating them into its service early on.

All shows are also available via live streaming, podcast and for online download after the event.

The most intriguing development, however, is what Cliff Central is doing on the hugely popular mobile communication app, WeChat.

Thanks to an initial partnership with the Chinese firm – who have been looking at ways of publicizing their services in Africa – users have been able to listen to Cliff Central shows through the app, as well as being able to directly contact presenters and debate the content of shows with friends and fellow WeChat users.

The concept is similar to the way that people may watch something on TV and then use Twitter to discuss what’s going on via hashtags.

The major difference with Cliff Central’s WeChat platform is that broadcast and discussion all happen within one app.

“We’ve got 120,000 WeChat official account subscribers to Cliff Central. I don’t know if that’s a lot or a few as I don’t really have a frame of reference to compare it to,” Cliff explains.

“But what I’m pleased about is that the level of engagement with those people is extremely high and it’s growing.”

It’s this engagement that Cliff explains is proving attractive to advertisers.

In the future, rather than being subjected to five or six minute advertisements for products that may or may not be relevant – as currently happens on the radio – he foresees companies targeting consumers more directly through the app and podcasts.

This will leave greater time for programming and should prove more fruitful for advertisers.

“I think that’s a real value proposition to an audience,” Cliff says. “It’s also a very big commercial proposition and it ties radio in most especially in a measurable way.”

Relaying the instant message

Numerous other media organizations have already tried to square the circle of using popular instant messaging platforms to distribute their content.

The BBC used the WeChat and Whatsapp products when covering the Indian elections in early 2014. The corporation also adapted the Mxit app to distribute content during South Africa’s parliamentary elections in May.

Elsewhere, Buzzfeed have added a Whatsapp sharing button on their mobile stories while WeChat has stated its intention to move into Nigeria and other African countries where smartphone usage is high by working with local media organisations.

Closer to Cliff Central in South Africa, other web-only stations have popped-up in recent years. 2Oceansvibe Radio was one of the country’s first online-only outfits and paired up with WeChat a few months after Cliff Central launched.

According to Chris Botha, managing director of industry analysts The Media Shop, both ventures have generated a lot of buzz.

But Botha is quick to add that it’s difficult to tell how successful they have been so far because they have “been quite cagey in terms of the data they are sharing with advertisers.”

Cliff even admitted earlier this year that releasing a rate card at the wrong time could “kill us.”

And building the audience isn’t the only problem the online upstarts face.

Broadcast radio remains popular, free to listen to and attractive for advertisers, Botha adds.

Then there are the potential added data costs for listeners streaming content on their phones.

For Cliff, these are challenges, but they are not insurmountable. He is clear that he doesn’t want to replace radio in South Africa, rather offer something different.

“What’s different is we are using superior technology to allow people to consume on their own basis what they’d like,” he said.

Advertisers “really get this. The people who really know about these things (media, digital advertising and branded content) are as excited about this as we are,” he adds.

Given the popularity of radio and the growth of smart phone devices in South Africa and across the continent, there will be plenty of observers interested in how Cliff’s “un-radio” project turns out.

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