Mike Dougherty

In an era where radio is in danger of losing a significant segment of its younger audience to more interactive social media, listener-interactive programming in the form of Jelli could very well be a potent solution. Former Microsoft exec Mike Dougherty started Jelli with Jateen Parekh and launched the pilot on KITS/San Francisco in the summer of 2009. More and more stations have signed on to it since then ... and its use could reach critical mass in 2011. Here Dougherty explains how it works ...and how it can work for radio.

How did you decide to start up Jelli?

We founded the company two years ago with a core team that came from Microsoft, Amazon and Yahoo! Our team had amazing backgrounds working on groundbreaking web and consumer technology products, but we did not come from the radio industry. However, we were all fans of the radio ... and we could see it needed to go through a transformation over the next 10 years. We were excited about the possibilities of this massive, important medium. Our goal was to combine the reach of radio with the huge growth in the social web, and help radio evolve with the changing consumption pattern of its audience.

How much experimentation did it take before you felt confident in Jelli's potential?

Jelli initially launched on-air in San Francisco as a pilot a year-and-a-half ago. Since then we've expanded and rolled out to 20 more affiliates, including stations in New York, Philadelphia, Boston and other cities. We're expanding nationally, so we will announce other markets soon as well. Major radio groups that are using Jelli include Clear Channel, CBS, Cox and mid-sized groups such as Nassau and Townsquare Media. We learned from these various launches a lot about Jelli -- how it works in various types of formats and how the audience engages with a socially-created broadcast.

Describe how Jelli works.

Jelli is essentially 100% user-controlled radio. Combining the infrastructure of the radio station with Jelli's platform creates a "social automation system" which that enables new experiences. For example, we allow the audience to use their browser or iPhone to vote in real-time for songs to be played, which dynamically shapes the playlist. They can choose the next song literally seconds before the track is broadcast on-air. Since everyone listening to the station is hearing the same song, Jelli helps create an extremely social and shared listening experience that leverages the reach of terrestrial radio.

We incorporate basic game mechanics to make it fun and engaging. For example, every track has a score ... and the highest score wins. It is very transparent. With Jelli, each vote for a song increases or decreases the score, so the popularity of each song is constantly being reshaped. The track with the highest score will go to the top of the playlist, and could be played next.

This basically sounds like a Net version of all-request programming.

It is an updated request show idea, but done in real time, and highly transparent. Users know exactly where their favorite songs stand, by watching the scores. They know they have a direct impact on whether the song gets played next. There's no PD sitting in between, deciding for them.

I would imagine some programmers would be wary of delegating so much of the programming to what is a relatively small, albeit active segment of their listening audience.

We see a large percentage of the audience participate -- much larger than the sample size used to generate the Arbitron ratings, so it is significant. Generally the programming team at the station still has a lot of levers to pull to make sure the programming fits within their strategy. Specifically, the PD chooses the song tracks that are available to be voted on by the users. We call that "The Sandbox." Users get to vote on the hits oriented to the specific format. Every song choice is added to the catalog by the programming team, but the order of the songs is chosen by the users.

The second thing we have built into the platform is a configurable rules engine that is used to comply with certain requirements such as DMCA -- and can be used to restrict repetition as well, preventing the same song or artist from being played too many times in a certain time period. Once we set up the station's catalog and rules, we give the audience a chance to take over and create these user-controlled broadcasts.

Do the aforementioned rules apply to all stations regardless of format?

We're starting to see that different formats need different rules. Top 40 stations need a narrower and more current playlist, while Rock stations need a broader catalog and deeper tracks. WYSP/Philadelphia, for example, uses the Jelli platform in very unique way. Each night at 10 p, p.m., they flip the Jelli catalog to an all-Metallica sandbox, and enable their listeners to control their Mandatory Metallica segment. It's really cool. We're finding stations becoming more innovative in how they leverage the Jelli platform.

All-request programming invariably attracts a younger, more active user. How can this work for an AC station?

We think the AC format can work with Jelli. After all, the biggest demographic segment using Facebook today is over 40. More and more people of all ages are using social media. True, we have found that Pop is a killer format for Jelli -- and younger audiences really love Jelli the most. A good 85% of our audience is under 34 and 50% of our audience is under 24. So the next push for us is getting more over-34 Facebook users. We believe AC could be a great category for the over-40 female Facebook user, for example.

Does Jelli work better in particular dayparts?

When we started out, stations experimented with Jelli primarily on their night shows during the week. Then we started to see Jelli programmed 24 hours a day on weekends. Now it's being used for a variety dayparts during the week -- including morning hours. We see the next step as something we designed Jelli to support from the very beginning - the concept of a complete socially-programmed radio station, running 24/7, that can be used to go after the youth market. Our mission is to have stations flip formats to 24/7 versions of Jelli, which will be pretty exciting. We expect the first 24/7 Jelli stations sometime in 2011.

We're talking to over 200 stations right now. We offer a broad set of programming options to stations, from feature blocks that run at different hours to 24/7 programming. Various groups are looking at the 24/7 Jelli option right now, but nothing has been signed yet.

Are HD side channels a suitable home for 24/7 Jelli programming? Or are you worried that it wouldn't get enough exposure there?

We've had conversations with radio groups about HD1 and 24/7 programming on HD2 channels. Both options are viable, as long as the partners use Jelli across all the channels including FM -- for example, a station could broadcast Jelli on a weeknight FM show along with 24/7 programming on HD2 and 24/7 on the station's streaming player. It should be integrated as a cross-channel experience. We turn down HD-only deals; that's not our strategy right now. But if we can launch on FM as well, we'd be very excited.

Does Jelli require a certain marketing strategy, such as terrestrial advertising, website promotion ... or even TV spots?

We believe Jelli is a channel mash-up, so the marketing shouldn't only be on one channel. Radio is a cross-channel medium, so and marketing should reach those who listen on-air as well as online and mobile.

We haven't done any marketing on TV yet. We're marketing today through radio channels. We literally just started doing online marketing, which is a new thing for us. Almost all of our users are coming from radio affiliates marketing to their own audience. Now is the time to push for a broader-based audience, to create a new audience and grow cume by pulling in non-radio listeners from social web channels. We've found strong acceptance in the youth market online, which includes Facebook. We're seeing Jelli becoming more integrated in Facebook.

We just launched an iPhone app ... and we're already seeing a huge uptake. About 30% of our traffic is coming through iPhones -- and the app has only been available for two weeks. It'll be interesting to see how that evolves. Smartphone apps have been a huge driver of growth for Pandora and other leading online and mobile internet radio services.

Should radio stations view Jelli, with its new smartphone app, as a way to combat the growth of Pandora?

Both Pandora and iPods create great personalized listening experiences. Radio now has a huge opportunity to offer social listening experiences. Some people think of our new iPhone app as a social version of Pandora when we are streaming -- and as a social remote control when we are broadcasting on FM. This could truly change the way users think about local radio stations vis-a-vis other alternatives, while leveraging the social DNA inherent in the best of radio.

How do air personalities fit into Jelli programming?

It depends on how the station wants to use Jelli. We have stations that are using Jelli in a 100% automated fashion with no DJs. In that case, it's very much a socially-automated broadcast. But we also have a lot of radio groups that use us with on air-talent to host the action. The personalities comment about what's going on during talk breaks, at which point Jelli pauses to allow the DJ to engage with the audience. The on-air talent can mention song choices, or talk about some of the users in the chat window. That can create a very cool complement to bridge the online experience with the on-air broadcast.

Do you need to counsel the air personality on hosting Jelli programming?

Absolutely. In normal programming, the playlists are created ahead of time, which gives the DJs the ability to plan on how they talk around the songs. When we launch with hosts, there is usually a first-night learning curve because songs are being changed in real-time. DJs really have to be on their toes related to whatever song is voted on. They have to learn to talk about the dynamic nature of the broadcast, which is something they're not used to doing. But by the second night, they usually have it figured out.

Doesn't having the most popular songs played over and over accelerate the burn potential for those hits?

We believe Jelli reinvents that concept as well. Jelli will find alert programmers to certain songs -- that other stations stopped playing because their programmers thought the audience was tired of them -- that will get a new life on their station. If tracks receive more play on Jelli than "normal" rotation, that should tell a programmers something and give them a new way of looking at burn.

Also, we're seeing new releases being accepted far quicker than what programmers believe. Jelli accumulates data that is given back to the station, so programmers can better see how both new tracks and established hits really perform with their audience.

What happens to that data - is it all proprietary or can you compile charts of what songs are being requested the most nationally?

User data is highly confidential, both for privacy issues as well as competitive concerns, so we're very careful of the data provided to specific radio affiliates. We have a service included in our platform called Jelli Analytics. Jelli Analytics enables us to provide confidential, anonymous, real-time data back to the affiliate, to see how the audience reacts in real-time. This includes which songs are most popular, by demo profile or by the time of day. We bring the measurement of the web to a medium that historically did not have a real-time feedback loop. Now that we have hooked the web up to the broadcast, measurement and instant feedback is possible.

We also post charts every week on our blog related to the most popular songs on Jelli to cite popularity trends.

So what of the future? How prevalent do you see systems like Jelli becoming?

As radio continues to evolve, the concept of having a "social station" in every market makes sense, whether it's being used in multiple formats or on a single station. That will likely depend on the size of the market. In a media environment that has iPods and Pandora, it's important for radio to create new experiences -- especially as the industry evolves and automation becomes more prevalent.