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
United States
- Data: One in every five minutes of total audio time is spent on a smartphone – one of the more startling pieces of data from Edison Research at the RAIN Summit. Of course, this doesn’t mean it’s all taking time away from broadcast radio; nor that it’s all podcasting.
- How NPR One works in the background – some really interesting tips for NPR member stations on how to use it, and some data for those of us who don’t
- Ginny Morris and Paul Jacobs on radio in the car. Ginny’s a bit worried about autonomous vehicles, it seems. Perhaps she should read this long read by Steven Levy about the autonomous car. It sure seems a long time away: certainly outside the US.
- How does YouTube fight growing negativity about how much it gives to creators? It writes a long piece arguing it pays twice as much as radio (outside the US; it pays even more inside), and then goes on to argue that advertisers should stop spending on radio and spend online instead, for some reason it fails to really clarify.
- Your Media Business Will Not Be Saved – nice piece from Joshua Topolsky, much shared, arguing quality, not quantity, is what we should be striving for
- Interesting piece from the print world about poor content management systems, and the errors they introduce
- Millenials and the media – myths mangled in monster missive from Pierre Bouvard
- Data: US touchpoints research, with solid figures for AM/FM/HD radio
- Nice piece about WLIR, a “different” radio station on the outskirts of New York City.
- How Serial turned listeners into fans. Fascinating article from Kristen Taylor, and perfect for anyone wanting to get the most out of social media for their radio programme.
- ‘Take your kid to work day’ results in NPR newscast shutting down for full minute – oops
- Aiir partner with Premiere Networks in the US – quite the success story for a small content management company
Australia
- The Top 50 Most Influential People in Australian Radio in 2016 – well, here’s something to aim for in 2017…
- World’s first smartphone to support digital radio launched in Australia – big news. Congratulations, all.
- Would you spend £20,000 for an interview with a star for your local breakfast show? This hatchet-job piece is interesting for one other point: that the station concerned ensures that each and every star interview is carefully transcribed and fed to the press. Because that’s what you do with great content: get the most out of it that you can.
- This is nice – the Australian ABC have commissioned their own typeface (for consistency and to cut costs). 7digital keen to point out that they, too, have done that (as have Spotify, incidentally). As an aside, the BBC uses GillSans, and one day the Daily Mail will bother to read the biography of Eric Gill on Wikipedia and explode with indignation.
United Kingdom
- World’s first digital radio smartphone launches in the UK with Radioplayer – good work, everyone!
- Amazing stuff from Broadcast Bionics – here’s the future of radio production, folks. (Watch to the end, too)
- A new pop-up station goes Bing across the UK – this is very cool, and not cool at the same time
- How to get People to Call in to Radio Stations Again – some clever magic from Graham Mack
- Global pulls out of the Radio Academy. Inevitable, sadly. Still waiting for a coherent strategy from the Academy as to their new plans. Meanwhile, at least one part of the UK radio industry has some new craft awards – a venue and date has been announced for the Community Radio Awards 2016.
- “I think it’s going to be huge”. Chris Moyles talks about digital radio, and Radio X vs Xfm. And that being in mono is “stupid”, which is about right.
- If you want to learn great radio, you should watch Kate Cocker doing a fancy webinar
Elsewhere
- Italy: Quite some success for the International Radio Festival – congrats to Darryl for his success, and that of the team. It’s been a privilege being part of the event in previous years.
- Canada: a list of great tips on how to make bad radio. Useful tips if you want to fail.
- Is Broadcast Radio Doomed? Good viewpoints from UK, Finland and Australia