Alexa Makes An Impact

Impact Radio Group in Boise, ID just launched a companywide initiative to bring radio back into the home. While listening in the car remains very high nationwide, listening in the home via a standard radio and to a lesser extent, listening in the workplace has slowly fallen off due to changes in technology, mainly due to mobile and desktop streaming. “With the massive popularity of Amazon’s Echo we felt that there was an opportunity to get the radio stations back into the home in a place of prominence as they once were,” said Darrell Calton, CEO of Impact Radio Group. “We started the process nearly six months ago working with a brilliant local Idaho developer. The ease and simplicity of the interface they created is phenomenal. After using it for just a few days during the beta testing, I was wishing I could bring the ease of voice control into the car radio.”

Users of the Alexa platform begin by using a simple start phrase, like, “Alexa enable Impact Radio.” Then can then say, “Alexa ask Impact Radio to play 96.1 BOB-FM,” as an example. A listener can choose from seven different radio stations by name and that station starts immediately streaming music and content. From the garage to the bedroom, with the ease of wireless Internet an Echo unit may be placed almost anywhere in the home and some units are rechargeable and portable.

Calton added, “While we were not the first radio station or group to add an Alexa skill for listening, we are certainly one of the few and very proud to stand at the forefront of what may be an in-home resurgence in radio listening. The first two weeks of beta testing was amazing with nearly 700 hours of listening. We hope to have Google Home online soon.”