James Cridland’s Future of Radio: DAB in Germany; Radio up in New Zealand; Entercom’s ‘shiny new toy’ issue

James Cridland, the 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.

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James’ articles

• Why you’d be wrong to pull out of TuneIn – I don’t think you should promote it: but I also don’t think pulling out of it is the right thing to do

Worldwide

• Germany: Wondering how people are listening to DAB+ radio (and other platforms) in Bavaria? Wonder no more: I took pictures of the relevant slides. This year, DAB has overtaken internet radio for adults 14+, and is growing over 8 times faster; DAB+ skews slightly younger than FM; FM is in decline; DAB+ in twice as many cars as a year ago.
• New Zealand: listening to the radio continues to ‘grow exponentially’. Here’s the PDF. “86%” (3.66m) of the population (10+) listen every week. Last year the figure was 3.60m, and quoted as 86.7%; population of New Zealand has fallen from 4.25m to 4.15m in the same period.
• South Africa: at least one of the commercial broadcasters can’t see the point in DAB+. (Clue: you’re at your analogue licence ownership limit.)
• Norway: this is very clever – adjustable audio for NRK’s tv coverage of the World Cup, including an option to get the radio commentary, of course.
• Malta: Lazy and irrelevant Buggles headline

United States

• A map of pirate radio stations in Brooklyn. For all the people claiming FM radio’s no longer attractive and is dying a slow death, the continued appearance of pirate radio stations shows that, on the contrary, FM radio is still highly prized. (I’d note, though – still no DAB pirate broadcasting yet.)
• Not much to do with radio, but still, a good Twitter thread about how news really works, rather than the conspiracy theories.
• Repurpose and repeat your best stuff on the radio. Here’s why – great data. I clumsily was trying to make this point on stage in Nuremberg last week, but this has the actual data to back the point up.
• “The biggest issue we have right now is, for a lot of advertisers and agencies, we’re not the shiny new toy”, says Entercom’s CEO. He’s right. A good piece about radio’s future. – I’m surprised that radio doesn’t talk more about its innovation.
• Let’s find every community radio station – a new website launches.

United Kingdom

• LBC have signed Eddie Mair, a well thought-of news radio presenter from the BBC, to do as yet unconfirmed programmes for the station. Quite a signing; showing LBC has reached considerable maturity as a station.
• A look at BBC Radio Durham’s beginnings – the station celebrates its fiftieth anniversary recently.
• Great to see the launch of AudioUK – “the trade body for UK podcast, audiobook, and radio production companies”. The organisation, formerly known as RIG, has clearly spotted the potential of podcast and on-demand audio alongside radio.

Australia

• Another day, another interactive audio advertising service, via ShakeMe. ARN have signed in Australia; last week also saw an announcement from talkSPORT in the UK who are also using it. I’ll be be fascinated to see how this does.
• Aussie radio revenue up 11%