James Cridland’s Future of Radio: DAB in Germany; Radio up in New Zealand; Entercom’s ‘shiny new toy’ issue

James Cridland, the radio futurologist, is a conference speaker, writer and consultant. He runs the media information website media.info and helps organise the yearly Next Radio conference. He also publishes podnews.net, a daily briefing on podcasting and on-demand, and writes a weekly international radio trends newsletter, at james.crid.land.


James’ articles

Worldwide

United States

  • A map of pirate radio stations in Brooklyn. For all the people claiming FM radio’s no longer attractive and is dying a slow death, the continued appearance of pirate radio stations shows that, on the contrary, FM radio is still highly prized. (I’d note, though – still no DAB pirate broadcasting yet.)
  • Not much to do with radio, but still, a good Twitter thread about how news really works, rather than the conspiracy theories.
  • Repurpose and repeat your best stuff on the radio. Here’s why – great data. I clumsily was trying to make this point on stage in Nuremberg last week, but this has the actual data to back the point up.
  • “The biggest issue we have right now is, for a lot of advertisers and agencies, we’re not the shiny new toy”, says Entercom’s CEO. He’s right. A good piece about radio’s future. – I’m surprised that radio doesn’t talk more about its innovation.
  • Let’s find every community radio station – a new website launches.

United Kingdom

  • LBC have signed Eddie Mair, a well thought-of news radio presenter from the BBC, to do as yet unconfirmed programmes for the station. Quite a signing; showing LBC has reached considerable maturity as a station.
  • A look at BBC Radio Durham’s beginnings – the station celebrates its fiftieth anniversary recently.
  • Great to see the launch of AudioUK – “the trade body for UK podcast, audiobook, and radio production companies”. The organisation, formerly known as RIG, has clearly spotted the potential of podcast and on-demand audio alongside radio.

Australia

James Cridland