Peoria Pundit

From a press release:

LOCAL RADIO STATION TO BE FIRST IN NATION TO TEST NEW TECHNOLOGY!

CANTON, IL – Beginning April 1st at 7am, The Voice of Fulton County, AM 1560, WBYS has been selected to be the first radio station in the United States to offer AromaRadioTM, a new technology that will actually allow a radio signal to send out a computer-generated “aroma” to match a particular program or commercial that is being aired.

“We think this could be the next big thing in radio advertising,” said WBYS General Manager B.J. Stone, “and once our customers see the benefit of adding the ‘sense of smell’ to their radio commercials, our industry will benefit as well, through the additional revenue stream that will be created. TV added pictures to the words, we’re adding the sense of smell, and you know how your brain reacts when you smell something…be it pleasant or not so pleasant.”

The system has been created by RAM Laboratories, based in Rochester, Minnesota, and consists of a software program that can be added to a radio station’s programming computer, which when combined with a special electrical diode that is attached to a radio station’s outgoing antenna at the tower location, sends out a precoded “smell” that matches the current commercial or program. The system was created based on the theory that the sense of smell could be digitized, just like sound or pictures.

WHY WBYS AND WHO CAN SMELL IT?

Dr. Sven Thompsson of RAM Labs chose WBYS as his first test site for the new technology based simply upon the fact that the tower, located in Canton, is the newest in the United States, having just been erected in January after the previous tower collapsed in a tornado in July, 2008, and is also relatively close to his Minnesota-based facility. Thompsson said, “this breakthrough was 8 years in the making. I began working on it after a conversation with (then FCC Chairman) Michael Powell, who suggested that radio needed something revolutionary to keep it viable amongst all the new technologies of the new century. We’re confident that AromaRadio will indeed work, as although this is our first commercial test, we’ve had great success with in-house testing for the past 20 months.”

Thompsson says that the technology uses a channel inside the recently developed RDS system, another new technology that allows radio stations to attach digital signatures to call letters and song titles. Many late model cars have RDS capability. Dr. Thompsson said only the second generation RDS radios, those manufactured after 2006, will work with AromaRadio. Thompsson and other RAM engineers have been in Canton for a little over a week installing the technology, and will be moving in and around Canton Wednesday, measuring results and the quality of the digitized odors.

Contact information:

BJ Stone, WBYS General Manager: 309-647-1560

Dr. Sven Thompsson, RAM Labs can be reached at his hotel through Friday: 309-645-3605

This entry was posted on March 31, 2009 at 11:02 pm and is filed under On the Media . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed Both comments and pings are currently closed.