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
James sends his newsletter this week with not just a written note, but with two rather saucy visual aids:
Most radio marketing I see is a bit crappy, but this is more crappy than most. No differentiator between radio and Spotify; no actual description of what the music is, and an actual picture of a poo.
What happens if you don’t control the user interface
James Cridland’s articles:
- Is Beats 1 really “the the biggest radio station in the world”? I’ve done my research into Apple’s claim.
- Want ten award-winning podcasts to listen to? From the Cast Away awards this weekend: Australia’s best podcasts
- Interesting to see Ofcom’s plans for small-scale DAB multiplexes: all over the UK, by the looks of it
United States
- A recent “Daily” podcast from the NYT – do listen to the story about Canadians helping Syrians. Tear-jerking.
- Is Beats 1 really “the biggest radio station in the world”? I’ve done my research into Apple’s claim. Spoiler: no, they’re not. Meanwhile, here’s a long Q&A with Zane Lowe, who heads-up what I’m now going to call “the failed Beats 1 experiment from Apple”.
- Number wanging the Facebook way – I wrote a blog post about this many years ago, and it’s nice to see it linked, even though I thought I’d deleted all those old blog posts. Here’s another take on it, pointing out that Facebook reaches 110% of all 18 year-olds in the world. My only assumption is that Facebook, like Beats 1, urgently need external verification of their data.
- Say, is that the Chattanooga Choo Choo? Another station joins the AM funeral train
- One Nation, Under Fox: 18 Hours With a Network That Shapes America – lovely long piece from the New York Times
- The Podcasting Market Earns Hundreds of Millions of Dollars Because It’s Working – some nice finance data around the podcast business
- A friend wants radio to use electronic measurement? Show her this…
- On-Demand Is in Demand
- Pandora is losing audience, being used for less time and less often. Here’s why.
- Can a commercial radio station also be listener supported? I think we’ll see more of this in future.
- Be the first to see new podcast stats from Edison Research
- US stats: share of local advertising, and top-billing stations
United Kingdom
- Interesting to see Ofcom’s plans for small-scale DAB multiplexes: all over the UK, by the looks of it
- Star Radio North East to cease transmission – a large multi-licence station just couldn’t make money. A day later, it gets a buyer, but one which is new to radio station operation. Here’s the boss, William Rogers, in a podcast.
- Almost a third of all UK adults listens to radio via headphones (at least once a week)
- From earlier in the week – “BBC Radio 5 live celebrates Article 50 being triggered today by doing a series of broadcasts from along the A50” – interesting construct to get a variety of views, from rural to big cities.
- BBC apologises after Today presenter plugs Brut aftershave on air – astonishing!
- Hmm. Heart has new slogan including the words “feel good”. Now BBC Radio 2 launch ‘BBC Radio 2 Feel Good’ Gardens. Is it a deliberate spoiling tactic, or has nobody at Radio 2 noticed what their nearest competitor is branding themselves these days?
Australia
- Want ten award-winning podcasts to listen to? From the Cast Away awards this weekend: Australia’s best podcasts
- Two cities, one prize on Nova stations
- Aussie DAB+ stations now have proper survey figures. This is good news: it’s nice to see DAB+ not be treated as second best.
- I’m not really in the market, but I discovered last week that Tesla hasn’t included DAB in their Australia models. It was in their Aussie demonstrators, apparently, and of course is available in the UK and in Norway. Given that 27% of Australians use it in the metro cities, that’s a confusing decision.
- Aussie radio is getting dirty – allegations of dirty tricks from Kyle (and also a masterstroke in getting publicity)
- Australia’s public broadcaster is using Apple News push alerts to reach new, younger audiences
Elsewhere
- Netherlands: Nice set of videos from outside the conference halls at Radiodays, talking to the exhibitors
- Germany: SoundCloud takes out another $70m loan. There’s a chart in here showing the company’s finances. Not good.
- Vatican City: Even the Pope doesn’t believe in SW – Vatican Radio’s SW transmissions to Asia switched off
- Canada: another example of why radio is an incredibly emotional, valued medium
- Canada: Two folks on YouTube try to use voice commands on Apple CarPlay and Android Auto. A good, funny watch.