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James Cridland’s articles
- Data: Apple CarPlay Users Switch Station More Often – a look at learnings from Australia’s Radioapp.
- The gems in a side-room at a radio conference – some data from DAB+ radio and hybrid radio across the world
- This edition of podnews contains some details of an award for documentary making from the Whickers World Foundation. You should also subscribe – daily podcast news, five days a week.
United States
- How do Americans find new music? – a screen grab from a TV channel is always a good thing.
- CNET posts “Everything you need to know about FM radio on your phone” – useful stat that in Puerto Rico, 76% of cell sites are still not working. Related: National Association of Broadcasters Again Urges Apple to Add FM Radio to iPhones
- Here, have the October 2017 edition of the Radio Magazine, for your reading enjoyment.
- “Spotify’s Discover Weekly: How machine learning finds your new music” – as I type this, on a Monday morning, I’m eagerly listening to my week’s new playlist, as I always do every Monday morning.
- Happy birthday transistor radio!
- Ricky Gervais on SiriusXM: It’s Officially Official – apparently this makes him the highest-paid Englishman on radio, which I find a little difficult to believe. Comes with a podcast, anyway.
- Useful reminder from Glued2TheScreen that habits of those of us in media are not representative of our listeners. Some actual data showing the differences here.
- Somehow, in the age of Spotify, radio is more popular than ever, a perplexed tech journalist writes
United Kingdom
- Alexa, Tell the Studio I Hate That Song! – “What’s Interactive Radio? It’s when listeners have real-time input to the on-air talent. And what could be a more natural interaction than the human voice? Dan McQuillin at Broadcast Bionics introduces interactive radio using Amazon Echo or Google Home.” – one hour ten minutes of YouTube video.
- Interesting problem around biases in digital data that lead to poor advertising decisions
- Congratulations to JACKfm Oxfordshire for making it to ten years from the dumpy little building – and while it’s Jack style that all their broadcasting comes from a “dumpy little building”, in Oxford’s case, it’s very true.
- This edition of podnews contains some details of an award for documentary making from the Whickers World Foundation. You should also subscribe – daily podcast news, five days a week.
Australia
- Interesting looking book – the History of Australian commercial radio (pub 2009)
- Seven Ways Radio Is Much Better For Announcers Now Than It Was Last Century – strong article. “Anyone who knows me knows that I’m a positive “glass half full” kind of guy. But do you know what pisses me off? People who are no longer working in the industry, constantly bitching about how much better radio was when they were “jocking in the 80’s and 90’s.”” This.
- Related to the above, in a radio Facebook group in Australia that seems to be basically how much better radio was in the 1980s and 1990s, along with some registration plates that look like Australian callsigns, a man was criticising current radio and saying that it’s ‘no wonder the number of listeners to Australian radio is down’. So I did some research. Just saying…
-Total weekly radio listeners in Sydney in 2008 (survey 7): 94.4% of 15+ population
-Total weekly radio listeners in Sydney in 2017 (survey 6): 94.8% of 15+ population - Good move as SCA sensibly sells all their brand extensions together in the “Hit” or “TripleM” network
- A story of poor voicetracking
- Data: Apple CarPlay Users Switch Station More Often – a look at learnings from Australia’s Radioapp.
- The gems in a side-room at a radio conference – some data from DAB+ radio in Australia is here, along with other things
Elsewhere
- Canada: Vancouver’s KiSS RADiO becomes first ever fully interactive radio station – in Canada. There are plenty of stations doing this elsewhere. The technology that Rogers is using is #engage from Futuri Media, though it isn’t mentioned in the article.
- Finland: Finland’s commercial radio stations hit their all-time high in revenues three years in a row