James Cridland is Managing Director of media.info, and an Australia-based radio futurologist. He is a consultant, writer and public speaker who concentrates on the effect that new platforms and technology are having on the radio business. Find out more or subscribe at http://james.cridland.net
James Cridland’s articles
- I have a short but sweet podcast on the future of radio. This week, how popular radio is in the car. iTunes, play it in Omny Studio
- Behind the Scenes With Chris off of Chris Country Radio – my latest column for the Radio Magazine
- Radio accounts for 80% of listening in-car – nice new research from Australia adds to US and UK numbers
Australia
- Australian Audio Guide – nice-looking podcast and article website promoting the best of aussie audio
- Radio accounts for 80% of listening in-car – nice new research from Australia adds to US and UK numbers
- “After 40 years on the air, Melbourne’s Triple R is more important than ever” – piece about the community station in The Guardian, and frankly, it being in The Guardian tells you what kind of radio station it’ll be.
- A strange hatchet job in Mumbrella against radio and in favour of Spotify and Pandora. You should probably read the last paragraph first.
United Kingdom
- Manchester Cathedral starts DAB radio station – ah, now, see, this is proper use of small-scale DAB, trialling new radio formats from new owners. Great work.
- Steve Penk’s blog: details of “Radio Dead”. A good read but no insult against Ashley Tabor this time. Here’s hoping he isn’t mellowing.
- Forget the John Lewis and M&S Christmas ads on the telly. This ad on the radio signified the start of Christmas for me.
- Behind the Scenes With Chris off of Chris Country Radio – my latest column for the Radio Magazine
- Would anyone like to hear 55 minutes of rain and (classical) music inspired by it, in one seamless mix? Thought so. [Or, perhaps not – the BBC iPlayer international app, and the website, both claim that even though I have 21 days to listen, this is unavailable. So sorry if it doesn’t work.]
- “What I learned from seven years as the Guardian’s audience editor” some great tips in here from Chris Moran. Lots of tips about using data to make your product better in here. Worth a read.
- Kingdom FM invests in new Kirkcaldy studios – take note about what the new studios are capable of.
- Bauer Radio’s Radio City gives away, um, competing radio station’s CD. Since I linked to this, it’s mysteriously been removed. I thought that might happen. So, um, enjoy the screenshot I took at the time. This shows what happens if you have digital teams that don’t understand how radio works; and what happens if you out-source your competition page to someone else. Embarrassing.
- Pub tunes in to its very own radio station – a station in a pub? What could go wrong?
- BBC to go global with new radio service to create a ‘Netflix of the spoken word’ – I’m none the wiser after reading this, but I can’t see many people asking for a ‘Netflix of the spoken word’. The benefit of podcasts are that they’re an open platform and your podcast app contains lots of different providers. A BBC app might contain some fine stuff, but it’s arrogant to assume that BBC content is the only audio out there. The point of Netflix is that it’s an aggregator as well as a producer.
United States
- Amazon Music Unlimited for Echo Now Serving Audio Ads – interesting. Error, or intentional? Amazon are doing a lot of strange things recently: they’ve quietly opened up US/UK Amazon Prime Video to international users, as one example, while simultaneously announcing that Amazon Prime Video will be available worldwide in December. I’m quite keen to watch The Grand Tour, but I think I’m going to wait until the Aussie Amazon gets off the ground.
- “Millennials opt for digital audio, phone connections in cars” – US report, which looks at weekly reach.
- “Forget Filling Ad Breaks; Some Marketers Make the Podcasts” – The New York Times. If you’re in any doubt, a good marketer needs to do both: “fill the ad breaks” for brand recognition and mass reach, then produce editorial and valued content… but anyway.
- Pandora, TuneIn, and AccuRadio launch Harmonic Audio Network for advertisers – interesting scale play in the US. Pandora’s large, but nowhere near as big as broadcast: so this helps
- IBM is running an internal radio station. Well, if we’re strictly accurate, IBM is letting its employees run an internal radio station using their 10%-time. I have no idea how you can program and listen to speech radio at the same time, but then, I don’t work at IBM.
- What Wasn’t Discussed at the Radio Ink Forecast Conference — a bit overly negative, but a good point re complacency
- Fake news on Facebook. More specifically, fake news next to Zuckerberg’s post saying how there isn’t much of it.
News from other lands
- I like Virgin Radio’s new TV ad (France). Highlights the joy in winning a competition, and then very clearly explains the call to action.