James Cridland, 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.
- Bold and interesting move for a UK radio broadcaster. Sharon Dastur has joined Global as Senior Programming & Content Advisor. She’s been a senior programmer for iHeartRadio, now working at a record company. (A company linked to Global is trying to buy 49.9% of iHeartRadio).
- Nobody was interested in buying an AM licence this time round from the FCC; nor a third of the FM stations available. Apparently it’s all about local ownership rules.
- Spotted – a random drive-by #lazybuggleslede in this podcast-but-not-a-podcast app.
- An excellent clip of BBC Radio 4, that might raise a smile.
- Radio 4 is also not immune to biscuit talk, it turns out.
- On The Media tackles the oft-quoted research that listeners find female voices annoying to listen to. The research is traced back to Radio Broadcast magazine from the 1920s (compiled by a female editor, incidentally), and is, at least partially, the fault of AM broadcasting and early microphones, as some 1927 Bell Labs research highlights.
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- RIP Phil Valentine, a radio host for WTN in Nashville TN, USA. In December last year, he tweeted “I have a very low risk of a) getting COVID and b) dying of it if I do. Why would I risk getting a heart attack or paralysis by getting the vaccine?”, and then went on to record a parody song, Vaxman, mocking the vaccine and any of his listeners who wanted to protect themselves. He died of COVID-19 on Saturday. We have power. Use it wisely.
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