A popular broadcasting company is making a major change to its radio programming.
According to Barrett Media, Saga Communications plans to replace its station imaging voiceover talents with AI-generated voices from a third party service.
Saga Communications CEO Chris Forgy confirmed the news to the outlet, noting that this transition will actually help the company retain several employees in the process.
“When we started this process, we said we wanted to be prudent and control our expenses. And we didn’t want to cut people. So where else can we go? That was one of the places we could go. The savings we were able to generate by going through this other way of doing station imaging — utilizing AI — saved about 10 people who otherwise would have lost their jobs as a result of the expense reductions we wanted to put in place," he said.
This change will be implemented across all 113 AM and FM radio stations owned by Saga Communications nationwide. Several of these stations are located in Central New York, including:
- 607 News Now
- Alt 95.9
- Z95.5
- Rewind 107.7
- WHCU 870 AM
- I-100
- 1470 AM / 94.1 FM Pure Oldies
- Q Country 103.7
- 96.7 The Vine
- 96.3 The Buzzer
- Lite Rock 97.3
Forgy further noted that Saga Communications intends to use AI-replicated voices solely for station imaging and has no plans to replace on-air talent with AI. For context, radio imaging voiceover artists create audio elements that identify and brand the stations. Their work includes producing promos, jingles, intros and outros for shows and segments, as well as other audio components.
“I’ve said that as long as I’m President and CEO, AI will never replace our on-air personalities, period,” he said.
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