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
Good to be in Sydney last week, meeting a variety of different people. There’s lots going on, and I’m keen to be a part of a vibrant radio industry here in Australia.
My latest
- Five ways to share your audio – my latest column.
United States
- A long article on the problems at the US’s iHeartRadio. It’s probably worthwhile highlighting that this isn’t radio’s problem; nor does it prove, or even show, that radio’s dying. It’s a fundamental issue of a company that grew too fast, and one that that gambled (and lost) on growth being able to repay its debts. It highlights the mismatch between the stockmarket’s quarterly requirements for profit growth versus the need for radio to reinvent and reinvest to protect itself longterm. By comparison, the UK’s big two broadcasters, Bauer and Global, are both privately owned; commercial radio’s share is increasing, and revenue is up.
- At NPR, a company busy re-inventing radio while under significant pressure from its member stations not to, they’ve rolled out a new HTML5 audio player that kills the popup and Flash. Interesting to remove the pop-up, and I hope it’s gone through good UX testing. Welcome news that they’re removing Flash – my only query is why it took them so long. Meanwhile, they’ve launched Embedded – a new (and hyped within the industry) NPR podcast. (I couldn’t find it on either of the podcast clients I use, incidentally). Plus “It’s not radio OR podcasting“, points out this piece about NPR’s place in podcasting. Much as I said last week.
- Sean Ross’s newsletter is just great – lots of great topics this week, including dealing with bad ads.
- Hot Pod: a great newsletter for the industry of podcasts. Lots of info in here.
- Perry Michael Simon talks about Cincinnati, and highlights radio’s transmitter mindset
- A look behind the scenes at podcast company Gimlet. Fascinating reading.
- R.I.P Radio? Not so much. Great post from Brian Hagel. Thanks to Steve Jones for this.
- 6 Reasons Why Podcasting Is The Future Of Storytelling – by man from Gimlet. Lazy Buggles reference in par 2.
- Very interesting video about the artificial voice you hear in the Google Appon your phone, and how it’s made.
United Kingdom
- Production secrets of the Virgin Radio UK launch – great article from Earshot about the technical challenges of doing a live radio show from a train. (The important bits? Done while stationary.) Meanwhile, media.info‘s bot picked up part of The Drum’s rather miserable first draft of a story about the launch of Virgin Radio UK. It now appears rewritten.
- RadioTunes – another online music service (from the US), but one seemingly growing in popularity, particularly in businesses. Seemingly related to Digitally Imported.
- Nice write-up of talkSPORT2
- On leaving the Guardian: dreams of digital journalism – some interesting thoughts about journalism’s future
- Martin Kelner writes more on his departure from the BBC: “If that’s not the most f**king patronising sentence you’ve ever read, you’re not trying” – and you probably ought to get his P*** Poor Podcast too. He’s not making it very easy for me to get this email past the corporate firewalls.
- The best internet radio stations in the world according to the UK Telegraph. Exhaustive list, and some good ones.
- Is Justin Bieber on Capital? – amusing single-page website from Gav Richards and Jonathan Cresswell
- The Radio Today podcast is a good listen, and this week Ralph van Dijk says how radio can improve its image to advertising agencies.
Elsewhere
- Ireland: Alt-rock TXFM to close in Dublin: the owners don’t want the station any more, and nobody else does either.
- France: Should you invest in Facebook Instant Articles? Libération has crunched the data – and the answer’s yes, kind of.
- India: “It sounds like a radio to avoid” – disappointing review of the Avion AV-DR-1410 DRM receiver. I so want DRM to succeed; but without decent receivers it’ll never get there, no matter how technically clever it is.
- Canada: How CKUT is revitalizing the airwaves – great piece about the Montreal station, and a decent Buggles headline too
- South Korea: Wonder how the the new LG Stylus 2 (or LG Stylus DAB+) is being promoted here? Wonder no more.