Jim Lucchese

Customizable radio, like the offerings from Slacker, iHeartRadio, Pandora and others, is a "combination of art and science," members of the "Personalizable Radio" panel at RAIN Summit West explained. The discussion was one of the most popular and thought-provoking of the conference.

The "art and science" metaphor was first put forward by Owen Grover, SVP of iHeartRadio. On the one hand, there's the "science": data from companies like The Echo Nest and Rovi about what artists are similar to other artists, what vocalists sound the same, what guitar solos are related and so on. 

But then there's the "art" of also taking into account the much more complicated "cultural" factors, explained Rovi Director of Architecture & Innovation Michael Papish. That is, linking artists and songs that don't necessarily relate to one another scientifically, but that are tied together in popular culture. "There's a lot more going on than just saying 'these two songs sound alike, therefore we should play them together.' There's a lot more behind why humans like different types of music," said Papish. 

Both Grover and Slacker CEO Jim Cady spoke to the power of having an emotional connection within the stream as well. "There has to be humans behind it," said Cady. Slacker employs 75 programmers to give their streams that human touch. Otherwise, "there's a missing emotional connection." He says most users want that "lean-back," curated experience (as long as they can "lean-forward" when need be to customize the stream). Grover said Clear Channel has seen their Custom Radio service actually push new listeners to the traditional AM/FM streams (which are all curation and virtually no personalization).

But Papish (pictured left) challenged the idea of the power of the human touch. "We think there's something magical being done by the DJ song-to-song, but maybe it's all in the listener's head," he said, referencing studies that found that listeners prefer a random assortment of music just as much as a carefully-crafted playlist. "There may not be a way to measure whether a playlist is 'good' or not."

Whether the playlist has a human behind it or not, "The idea of uniformed playlist given a seed artist is unacceptable," argued The Echo Nest's CEO Jim Lucchese. It must be customized to each listener's individual preferences, and the process of discovering what those preferences are may be the next big challenge for personalizable radio services and the engines that fuel them.

Indeed, data about artist similarity can only take you so far, said Grover. "You don't want to start making too big leaps of faith around data," he explained. "A thumbs down on a Lady Gaga song doesn't necessarily tell you much of anything about that song, that listener, or Lady Gaga." Perhaps the sequence of songs wasn't quite right, or the time of day had an impact, or the listener may have just heard the song 50 times already. More information is needed.

"We may have hit the wall in terms of what we can do with either thumbs up/down, or ratings," mused Papish. "We need to figure out new, better ways of actually asking our listeners what they like." That process is still on-going. "We are just getting started identifying the individual listener," said Lucchese. Papish shared that Rovi, for example, is looking for better ways to have the listener explicitly share preferences with music services. One idea is to use gamification elements to make sharing that information more fun and engaging.

All this shows that the entire realm of personalizable radio is still "in the exceptionally early days," said Lucchese (pictured first on the right, beside Grover). But it's already changing how consumers think about radio, as the panelists explained.

Cady shared the anecdote of driving with several 10-year-old boys who asked him to skip the song currently playing on FM radio. Grover shared his own experience of a 9-year-old asking why he couldn't go back to the beginning of an AC/DC song playing on the radio. "There's a change that's happening," said Cady. Radio is being redefined and the industry "can't hold on to these old conceptions."

But, in Grover's opinion, the idea that these new customizable services will destroy traditional radio is "nonsense." Papish agreed: "We can't lose that one-on-one feeling," that DJ-curated experience. Not everyone wants that kind of experience all the time, but "we can't lose it."

That said, Grover argued, "If you aren't where your listeners are, with the features and content that they expect, you're nowhere... Be where your listeners are."

You can watch the "Personalizable Radio" panel, moderated by Radio-Info's Sean Ross, from RTT News here.

TechCrunch recently sat down for a video interview with CEO of The Echo Nest, Jim Lucchese. The discussion explains a little about what Echo Nest does, which companies they're working with (including some big players, like Clear Channel) and how Lucchese envisions the music industry's near future. You can watch the video above (TechCrunch's article can be found here). 

Lucchese will be a panelist at the upcoming RAIN Summit West 2012 conference. He'll join Slacker CEO Jim Cady, iHeartRadio's Owen Grover and Rovi's Michael Papish (along with moderator Sean Ross) to discuss Personalized Radio.

You can find out more about RAIN Summit West 2012 right here.

Today RAIN announces the addition of two more industry executives to the agenda of RAIN Summit West 2012: CEO of The Echo Nest Jim Lucchese and President/CEO of Triton Media Group Neal Schore.

The conference takes place Sunday, April 15 in Las Vegas (more info below).

Lucchese (pictured right) has worked in digital music strategy and corporate development for about 15 years, holding positions at Greenberg Traurig, Hughes and Webnoize/DMN. Now he serves as CEO of The Echo Nest, the music intelligence company that powers Clear Channel's iHeartRadio Custom Radio service, as well as web radio offerings from Spotify, MOG and others. More than 250 applications have been built using The Echo Nest platform. Find out more abotu Lucchese and The Echo Nest here.

Schore (pictured below left) has over 20 years of media experience as a principal and operating executive and is the founding President and CEO of Triton Media Group. He has also served as Managing Partner and CEO of Midway Marketing Group, LLC (a media advisory firm), as founding President of Brite Media Group, among other entrepreneurial executive positions. You can find out more about Schore on Triton Media Group's website here.

Other speakers set to appear at RAIN Summit West 2012 include Pandora SVP of Advertising Sales Steven Kritzman, Slacker President/CEO Jim Cady, MP3tunes Founder/CEO Michael Robertson and others. ESPN SVP, Production/Business Divisions Traug Keller will keynote the conference. RAIN will announce more speakers and panel topics in the coming weeks.

RAIN Summit West will take place on April 15 at the former Las Vegas Hilton, now called the LVH -- Las Vegas Hotel and Casino. It will conclude with the always-anticipated tradition of the poolside RAIN Reader Cocktail Party.

The Summit is an official “Co-Located Education Program” of the NAB Show. Registration includes access to the NAB Show Exhibit Hall and a catered box lunch. RAIN registrants can save $100 on NAB registration.

For registration and sponsorship information, visit kurthanson.com/rainsummitwest.

Other RAIN Summits are planned for later this year in Dallas (at the RAB/NAB Radio Show) on September 18th and in Berlin, Germany on October 5th.