SCA invests in SourseAI to improve listener insights and avoid ‘gut decision-making’
AI and machine learning decision augmentation platform SourseAI will be used across Southern Cross Austereo (SCA) radio and audio assets including LiSTNR to enable a hyper-personalised experience.
SCA is an early investor in SourseAI, and together with Aligned Equity, led the raising of $1.5 million in funding to help accelerate the development and scale of Sourse, which applies industry-specific machine learning models to the key decisions executives make every day.
SourseAI CEO Matt Jones said the platform is designed to remove “gut decision-making” across the media, telco and utility sectors.
“58% of executives that responded to a recent BI-SURVEY.com said they base more than half their decisions on gut. That’s an alarming figure when you consider the degree to which these decisions materially impact bottom and top-line results, and that’s why we built Sourse.”
The Sourse Team including CEO Matt Jones
SCA will use Sourse to uncover behavioural insights and listener mood states, and Jones said the platform is “ideal for SCA and that it will boost the use of augmented intelligence in strategic decision making across the SCA teams, driving hyper-personalisation of content to audiences across SCA’s digital experiences”.
Jones said: “In previous implementations of the Sourse recommender for an OTT media broadcaster, Sourse delivered growth of more than seven times the monthly audience engagement and extended average watch time per user per month from 8 minutes to more than 45 minutes.
“A combination of these metrics indicates a more satisfied audience and ultimately a multiplying impact in ad revenues.”
“The Sourse platform ensures SCA can stay ahead of the pack and continuously innovate by making data-informed strategic decisions that can deliver savings and grow revenues through new and innovative content strategies that Sourse identifies as having substantial consumer interest.”
SCA head of digital and innovation, Chris Johnson
SCA head of digital and innovation, Chris Johnson, said the application of the platform for its new LiSTNR platform will help build “rich understanding” of audience behaviour to inform “market-leading advertising solutions”.
“The key advantage of developing LiSTNR within SCA is our ability to determine our own future, and we’re leading the market by investing in local, high performance, deep technology partnerships that can accelerate our roadmap.
“Our investment in SourseAI allows us to deliver a deeply personalised listening experience to consumers, based on consumption habits and context. SourseAI is the right partner to deliver on our vision and our investment will provide significant long-term value to both parties.”
As well as enhancing understanding of audience behaviour, SCA will also be able to leverage other capabilities from Sourse including Forecasting and Anomaly Detection to understand growth across content genres, and predict seasonal content scheduling.
Jones added that Sourse will ensure the right content always surfaces in each individual user’s feed when they use LiSTNR.
“Sourse’s mission is to apply our patented machine learning algorithms to enhance the experience for LiSTNR audiences using a whole range of data. This includes understanding the tastes and behaviours of every single user on the LiSTNR platform.”
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Zanda Wilson was a reporter and podcast producer at Mumbrella, specialising in radio reporting. He left Mumbrella in September 2021.
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