James Cridland’s Future of Radio: How to do media interviews, and the BBC’s salaries
James Cridland
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
I linked to Earshot’s “radio station branded beer” post last week; but they have found quite a few more. Here’s another: 88Nine Amplified Ale‘ for Radio Milwaukee’s 10th Anniversary. The Earshot piece now also features an enthusiastic-sounding quote from me on it, for some reason best known to themselves.
How speed listening became the new speed reading – one in a series of these kinds of articles appearing all over the place. For me, The News Quiz works at about x1.2 (and makes them appear very quick-witted); poorly-produced “three blokes talking in a room” type podcasts work at x1.6; but anything that’s well-produced gets the x1.0 treatment from me.
San Francisco’s biggest public radio station has been battling ransomware for over a month. Notable, here in Australia, how many community radio stations put their hands up in a recent conference when asked if they had been hit by ransomware too.
The BBC has been rocked with the politically-driven requirement that they reveal the wages of their best-paid staff. Chris Evans is the best-paid presenter with a large radio role at £2.2m, though some of this cash is for his television work. There’s been some favourable comparison with the rest of Europe; and Ant and Dec are said to be earning £30m at ITV. Another comparison might be the Australian ABC, in a similar media market with a similar funding model, where the five highest-paid presenters are earning less than £275,000 a year.
While the BBC’s salary details might be giving in to the in-built jealousy in the British psyche (could you really expect such a reaction in the US?), the other main detail is less impressive: they are demonstrably paying women less than men. This has given newspapers plenty to write about, even those newspapers that this time last week were printing glamorous photographs of the new, female, Doctor Who in the all-together.
Old tech: An iPod with over two days of music, from 1972. Awesome! The same guy also demonstrates a cart machine in his YouTube channel, but that made me feel old and slightly depressed, so I’ll not be linking to that one.
Australia
An awesome clip from an un-named ABC radio station – this caller is none too chuffed with the new Doctor Who. Angriest caller ever?
The Netherlands: “Invite your listeners to stay longer” – I’m a sucker for radio programming ideas that are driven by data. Here’s another from Tommy Ferraz.
