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
A belated newsletter this week from James, but for good reason:
Yesterday, Monday, I was at Next Radio. It’s a great conference that Matt Deegan and I have now run for seven years, with a ton of fascinating ideas for radio: that’ll work anywhere in the world.
One of the things that changes is the capability of technology. Seven years ago, it took almost two months to get the videos from the day up on the website. This year, they’re already there. I haven’t even got home yet!
Watch all the videos here – for free, of course. And here’s my presentation on whether radio’s future is live or on-demand, which I’m giving again tomorrow (with an extra slide!) in Vienna.
United States
- St. Louis sports-talk radio station hires host who admits he doesn’t know anything about sports – though Mark Black, the long-time presenter of sport on The Pulse in Bradford, wasn’t interested in sport either, and still did an excellent job.
- Nielsen release a new piece of data for radio – Audio Today: Ethnic Audiences
- Why do we rely on radios during storms and emergencies? asks a tech website. “Radio is a superior technology for emergency broadcasts”.
- Here is How Radio and Podcasting Work Together Magnificently posts Steven Goldstein.
- This is a brilliant idea. Take your radio studio to the local coffee shop. This one does it every Friday.
- Guess Which Streaming Service is Favoured by Young Music Fans? Nope, Not That One, says Canadian Alan Cross (though it’s here because it’s US data)
- Wait: So Many Teens DO Age into Radio Listeners. Maybe the Stories of Future Doom Aren’t True – another good spot from Alan Cross
- Radio Group Raising Suicide, Mental Health Awareness – good thing to have done. Congrats, Entercom.
- TV news and newspapers both suffering from online competition. Radio news? No change. This is worth repeating. No change.
- NPR adds a text-only website for those with limited cell service in hurricane areas. It’s like WAP all over again. And a good idea (incidentally, I try to keep all my projects very lightweight for speed; it’s fascinating seeing how slow and heavy some radio websites are.)
- Nice coverage of the RAIN Summit Austin. I’m moderating a panel in the RAIN Summit in Melbourne next month.
United Kingdom
- If you’ve ever blindly copied and republished a viral tweet, spare a thought for those in the story. When We Went Viral is a nice story from Llia Apostolou (who once worked in my team), and shows some clever forethought that helped keep control of her viral story.
- RadioDNS Hybrid Radio to be included in new Audi A8
- BBC doing good things with Speech-to-Text
- “I just bloody love radio” – slightly bizarre opinion piece in The Guardian this morning, but it filled a page
Australia
- Trial By Podcast: The podcasting public reviving cold cases – good piece from Corey Layton. There’s no doubt that true crime is a surprising success for podcasting: probably because podcasts are consumed in a less “background” way than radio.
- Nobody wants to work in radio? Think again. “Enrolments at radio schools like AFTRS and RTI have never been higher.”
- The Australian ABC launches new revamped audio app. I review it. Lots to like – lots to work on.
Elsewhere
- South Africa: Interesting seeing radio receivers being reviewed in a newspaper
- Germany: 15% of households now have a DAB radio, trumpets WorldDAB. Just to put this into context, that means that in Germany is where the UK was in 2005.