Evropa 2 is the first radio in the Czech Republic to offer the option of skipping content in its mobile app. This new feature lets listeners skip songs, presenter segments or ads they are not interested in with a single tap. With it, the station responds to changing listener expectations and strengthens its position as an innovator in the Czech media market.
A new era of listening to radio
“We wanted to give listeners more control, without losing what makes radio radio: the moment of surprise. That moment when you say wow, I haven’t heard that in a long time, or even never before, is crucial for us,” says David Šmídt, director of Evropa 2. Skipping songs has been running on the Evropa 2 website for several years. Now we have brought it to the Evropa 2 mobile app as well, where Active Radio has long worked with the development studio Qubix. Song skipping uses an API connection, programmed by Lubor Zoufal, CDO of Active Radio, to the Cartmaster platform. Cartmaster is the central system for managing the playlist at Evropa 2, where the station keeps the complete dataset of songs it broadcasts. So when listeners use the skip feature, the song that plays meets the station’s strict criteria for quality. With this new feature in the Evropa 2 mobile app, we get closer to the experience and possibilities of popular music apps, while keeping two essential added values of radio broadcasting: the moment of surprise and carefully selected music.
Record investment in the playlist
Evropa 2 is a so-called “Chart radio” and focuses on playing current hits and songs from music charts. We offer listeners the most listened-to hits of the moment, and it is extremely important to keep the playlist updated so that it entertains listeners as much as possible. That is why Evropa 2 invests more in its playlist than any other radio station in the Czech Republic. Every week, in cooperation with the agency Median, we run so-called call-outs, in which we test songs currently in rotation, together with newly added tracks, on a selected sample of people. Thanks to these tests we know exactly what listeners want to hear, what they enjoy and what has become stale. We then test novelties for several weeks to be sure they match listeners’ taste. In addition to the weekly tests, twice a year we also run large music tests, in which we analyse the entire dataset, which counts up to 900 songs. This music testing and curation is very demanding in terms of time and money, and Evropa 2 together with Frekvence 1 are the only radio stations in the Czech Republic that go into it on this scale. For Evropa 2, this is the key to being the best radio station for its listeners, never stopping entertaining and surprising them. With the skip feature in the mobile app we have brought a benefit not only for listeners but also for the station: another source of data on which songs and presenter segments fans enjoy, and which do not meet the quality they expect from their Evropa 2.
A combination of tradition and innovation
With a weekly listenership of 1.496 million people (according to Radioprojekt for the second half of 2024) and more than half a million downloads of the app on Google Play, Evropa 2 ranks among the most listened-to radio stations in the Czech Republic. Investment in the mobile app and digital features, such as content skipping, is a clear response to the growing popularity of online listening. Content skipping also provides the station with valuable data on which songs, presenter segments or ads listeners enjoy and which they do not. This feedback helps improve content and keep broadcast quality at the highest level. With this step Evropa 2 shows that even traditional radio can innovate and keep pace with the digital world without losing its authenticity.
Comments