RADIO ASTRO: ONLINE POP-UP RADIO STATION AT IAU GA

Cape Town looks forward to welcoming you to the 32nd IAU General Assembly. As I am sure you are aware, this is the first IAU GA to be held on African soil. To make the experience more enriching, the IAU’s South African Office of Astronomy for Development (OAD) is pioneering an exciting new project to sustain exposure of the event and all the awesome content.

Radio Astro is an online radio station that will stream conference highlights to a global audience. Millions of people from the developing world still consume conventional radio as their main source of information, with community radio stations providing most of the service. Radio Astro will deliver to them cutting edge information and engaging content, potentially opening up the doors to their own astronomical dreams.

It will give them direct access to your exciting research, presented in an accessible, conversational and simplified way to make it digestible to the general public. Listening online, or on their analogue radios, they will be able to engage directly with studio guests using text or social media posts. Imagine the life-changing opportunity for a rural child with big dreams, to be able to ask a question of a Nobel prize winner. And receive an answer!

Spearheaded by veteran South African media entrepreneur Bobby Brown*, Radio Astro is busy assembling a team of aspiring broadcasters, eager to upskill themselves to science/technology communicators. These are mostly young people from Cape Town’s indigent communities for whom this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. We appreciate you and your organisation’s willingness to participate in our outreach development initiative and we ask that you consider helping us ensure the success of Radio Astro, if at all possible. Your participation will build valuable goodwill equity for your brand with your esteemed peers, while also giving it extensive exposure to the broader public.

We appreciate you and your organisation’s willingness to participate in our outreach initiatives and we ask that you consider helping us ensure the success of Radio Astro, if at all possible.

Note that this is not a requirement for participation/attendance. Radio Astro presenters may still want to interview you and feature your content, your organisation and/or your expertise, irrespective of whether you are able to make a contribution or not.

Here are a few options for you to consider:

  1. BOOK ADVERTISING

In order to give our aspiring science communicators authentic work experience, Radio Astro will operate like a true commercial radio station. Presenters are required to research topics, prepare thoroughly and conduct professional interviews that our beneficiary community radio stations can broadcast without the need for edits. Advertising is part-and-parcel of the landscape. While purchasing advertising will largely be a CSI goodwill gesture – with a collective listenership projected to run into the hundreds of thousands, if not millions – it will also be valuable brand exposure for you

Cost                       – R2 000 per ad spot (presenter live-read or audio, to be supplied)

Bulk discount    – R14 000 one ad per day X8 days

  1. BOOK VISUAL BRANDING

There are opportunities to place your branding alongside our livestream widget on various online platforms

There will be a static camera inside our pop-up “studio,” allowing for community stations to take the feed, or listeners to see the presenters live. This creates another opportunity for product and/or brand placement/exposure.

Cost – R25 000 per banner/product X8 days

  1. SPONSOR BROADCAST EQUIPMENT

Desktop Computer X2

Laptops X10

Broadcast Software

Broadcast hardware

Cost – Supply directly or arrange purchase-delivery separately

  1. MAKE A DONATION TOWARDS THE SUCCESS OF RADIO ASTRO

Cost – Any monetary and/or resource donation towards our operational costs will be appreciated.

  1. SPONSOR A YOUNG, ASPIRING SCIENCE BROADCASTER

This sponsorship will equip our aspiring, volunteer science communicators with resources and/or daily operational requirements, such as a keepsake laptop, lunch, training, stipend. etc

Cost – R50 000 per volunteer

  1. SPONSOR A SHOW OR A BROADCAST-DAY ON RADIO ASTRO

You can select one of the daily shows or time slots to sponsor. This comes with branding, ads, live reads, organic mentions and interviews.

Cost – R30 000 per show (there are four 2-hour shows per day)

-R90 000 per day

  1. CLAIM THE NAMING RIGHTS, BY SPONSORING THE ENTIRE RADIO ASTRO PROJECT

“Radio Astro, brought to you by (Insert your organisation’s brand ID here).”

This involves customisations around daily branding, ads, live reads, organic mentions and interviews.

Cost – R650 000

  1. LEGACY

Funds collected beyond the need, may be used to sustain a legacy online radio station, that will continue to broadcast ongoing astronomy news and content for as long as possible.

Cost/benefit – Invaluable

*About Bobby Brown

  • An award-winning veteran of the South African media landscape, Bobby Brown has contributed to the country’s most reputable conventional and new media outlets.
  • Making the transition from TV to radio broadcaster, Bobby is a tech reporter, science communicator and multi-media corporate coach and consultant, with international experience.
  • Bobby moved from Talk Radio 702, 567MW Cape Talk and Kfm 94.5 to launch Smile 90.4FM, where he hosted the Breakfast Show for ten years, guiding it to the success it has become.
  • Currently the host of the Breakfast Show on Magic828 AM, Bobby is also a newspaper opinion writer, podcaster, blogger, website contributor, entrepreneur and sought-after tech-event MC and moderator: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bobby-brown-79b11933/
  • Bobby is a founding Advisory Board member of the Cape Town Chapter of the reputable international cyber security certification body ISC2.

Banking Details

For monetary contributions/purchases, please use the IAU GA conference bank account, here: https://astronomy2024.org/payments/

Use your organisation name and “Radio Astro” as reference.

Kindly send proof-of-monetary contribution to the email addresses below.

OR

Get in touch with Bobby directly.

Again, your participation in the IAU’s 32nd GA is NOT subject to any contribution to Radio Astro. While appreciated, contributions are entirely optional and made on a voluntary basis.

VERIFICATION ENQUIRIES:

  1. Bobby Brown

Email     : bobby@bobbybrown.co.za

Mobile  : 0027 83 272 6229

Lead      : Service provider – Bobby Brown Solutions

  1. Kevin Govender

Email: kg@astro4dev.org

Director: IAU Office of Astronomy for Development (www.astro4dev.org)

Chair: IAU General Assembly 2024 National Organising Committee (www.astronomy2024.org)