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.nets

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James Cridland sends us his weekly links with this note:

I’m at the RAIN Summit Europe this morning in London: there may be fun to read on Twitter at #RAINSUMMIT.

James Cridland’s articles

• Google’s Podcast play – what it means to radio (and what you need to do right now)
• Talent swaps between radio and podcast

United States

• Pandora gets exclusive streaming distribution for Serial’s second season – strange move from Pandora, I thought, originally, yet I understand they’ll be selling ads within Serial and other such things, so perhaps it makes sense for them
• Covert Chinese radio network – almost hysterical reporting about China Radio International from the US. If you sing ‘land of the free’ in your national anthem, why the concern about being told that – amazingly – there are different views than yours? Mind, I come from a country that has Voice of Russia, aka Sputnik, on DAB in London.
• Another example (podcatch.com) of a new company set up to curate new podcasts…
• Hot Pod – a great newsletter about the podcast business. Loads of great information in here.
• Cleveland radio station turns on the Christmas music — what, already? Apparently there were some even earlier than this. When I rule the world, it’ll be illegal before 20 December.
• An interesting look at Radio Disney’s country brand extension

United Kingdom

• LBC’s New TV Commercial – this is nicely done, irrespective of Francis’s comments. From where I sit, any TV ad for radio is a good TV ad…
• Lazy Buggles headline, but used correctly for once – about Steve Lamacq’s success for 6music
• I like this new Amazon TV ad with Jeremy Clarkson. Clever, knowing use of big star.
• It seems so long ago, but here’s a review of Next Radio from Radio World
• UK’s first dedicated radio Apple tvOS app goes live – congrats Mango Vibe Radio
• Government-controlled BBC? Quite an amusing video from campaigning website 38degrees, though the threat bears nothing to the reality.
• Stats: how social media brought down The Sun paywall – fascinating post.
• If you use AWS: while the Dublin centre is fine for most things, it’s good to spot a new London region is now planned.

Other places

• 10 Things I’ve Learned While Learning Facebook Ads – interesting bit of learning from an advertiser, based on data. (And, lest we forget, data that is harder for radio)
• Interesting: the Australian Triple J station will guest on Apple’s Beats 1 Radio Station. Not heard of Triple J? It’s a public-service radio station that has a justified reputation for breaking new Australian music.
• Europe: Fascinating slide from #asiradio15 which underlines how radio is doing across Europe – radio dead? Not really.
• Norway: New platform listening stats. Note how internet streaming is virtually static. (And, shhh, DAB is too). #asiradio15
• Ireland: RTÉ rapped for ‘outrageous’ 2fm JNLR claims – there’s spin,and there’s…
• Podcasting’s hierarchy of needs, according to Peter Niegel – bottom two are forgotten by most #asiradio15
• Stats: Podcasting – good for young people, good for non-radio listeners, says Peter Niegel #asiradio15

Australia

• Excellent overview of the big FM shakeup happening in your town – snarky article with some uncomfortable truths
• Some interesting data showing Nova Entertainment’s digital growth in Australia. Good comparisons and case study.
• Some interesting lessons learnt around revenue from subscriptions and solar power – community radio 4ZZZ’s accounts (I’m a supporter)
• The power of radio – thousands of people go to a remote Aussie town to race in horse suits
• I’ve written about AirShr before, but there’s great data in this post. With RadioTAG, Playlister and AirShr all doing the same things (albeit differently), I spy a trend…