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

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James Cridland’s articles

• Barking mad – radio for dogs. My latest podcast. In written-word form in marvellous places like AllAccess.com. (Incidentally, if you work on a radio website, I’d be happy to syndicate this to you subject to territory.)
• Rethinking How to Make Radio: the BBC’s Internet-Fit Studio – clever stuff from the BBC. My article for the Radio Magazine.
• First listen: Radio Garden, a world of radio exotica – Sean Ross test-drives this neat new radio tuner. Not my article, but I want you to read it, so I’m being cheeky and putting it here.

United States

• Recommended Radiolab episode – Bringing Gamma Back, a piece all about Alzheimers and an almost magical treatment. Fascinating, proper science, uplifting, plus Robert Krulwich story that made me cry
• These Were the Biggest Songs that Nobody Listened To on Beats 1 Radio in 2016 (I rewrote this headline slightly)
• Nice detail about the NPR News bulletins (“newscasts”) at the top of the hour. /via Chris Quilietti
• What Are Your Radio Resolutions? – some nice points in this; some a but US-focused but many not so
• Google Home launches support for WebMD, Quora, Domino’s, and dozens more – including NPR. I find these types of boxes interesting for radio’s future, and would potentially like “Hey, Google, play Radio National” to actually work. Seemingly it’s quite possible.
• The year of the newsy podcast – looking back at 2016, it seems that news podcasts have come into their own. I’m listening to the Trumpcast, which is a informative examination of the next president of the US, as one example.
• 2017 Podcasting Trends You Need to Pay Attention To – I love pieces like this, written in late November 2016, that try to guess the trends for next year. The point that podcasts have a long way to grow is certainly valid.
• Composing Music For Stories On This American Life – no, it isn’t library music, yes it’s custom composed.

United Kingdom

• The Online Radio Awards – in case you missed them, here are the winners. Some great people here. Notable that the definition of ‘radio’ here isn’t just limited to live, linear broadcasts, but also podcasting, which seems sensible. Congrats to Mixcloud who organised this.
• And not wanting to give any spoilers or anything, but: “Online London station Soho Radio named best in the world” might give something away.
• Fear of too many alerts holds back news apps (and probably apps in general, I’d suggest). Also, people actively dislike clickbait headlines. Probably doesn’t stop them clicking them, though. In other news: this guy once worked for the BBC, but you’ll never guess what happened next
• A very old blog post of mine about gender equality in radio, and radio conferences. Lovely, and almost staggering, to see the comments. Nobody ever comments on websites these days, do they? It’s all hidden away on Facebook posts. I wonder if there’s a way to extract those comments into one place?
• From 1990, and gloriously old-fashioned-looking: the BBC Guide To Acoustic Practice (aka how to build studios from an architectural standpoint)
• Where Podcasts Go Wrong – and ten ways to fix them. Some great tips in here. Some people on my Twitter feed have railed against being given ‘rules’ for podcasting; these really aren’t those, but some interesting tips that are worthwhile reading, even if you decide they’re not for you

Germany

• SoundCloud is back on the market, as Spotify decides it doesn’t want to buy it. (Caution if you have podcasts there: if nobody wants to buy it, then what happens to your content?)
• Want to win a mobile phone with DAB+ built-in? (And the best-selling LG phone in Australia?) Speak German? Probably live in Germany? Go here if so.

Elsewhere

• Europe: You’ll have seen radio garden, I take it? This is a pretty fun thing. A radio tuner you control by moving a globe to tune in. It’s actually a piece of academic research, worked on by quite a few European universities. To the people who are irritated it doesn’t contain some of the biggest commercial stations: that’s probably the point of it.
• First listen: Radio Garden, a world of radio exotica – Sean Ross test-drives this neat new radio tuner
• New Zealand: Paul Henry’s final TV3/RadioLIVE breakfast show: ‘This is it’
• Canada: A long piece from David Marsden (a Toronto DJ legend) about radio’s future