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.
James Cridland’s articles
- My piece about “is it time for radio to tune out of TuneIn” seemed to be unclickable last time, so here it is again on a different website.
- This week, I write about smart speakers.
United States
- Cumulus – the US’s third-largest radio company – has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. As a reminder: this doesn’t mean radio’s economically unsustainable: it means that paying a big banking debt is.
- iHeartRadio now available on a TV cable set-top box in the US from Comcast. Nice integration. I like what iHeart is doing here – really driving its platform in as many places as possible. (I note it’s also the default player for my Google Home).
- An Open Letter to Radio
- 25 Digital Innovations That Have Changed Radio For The Better
- 10 Programming Predictions For The Next 25 Years (positive, if possibly wishful thinking)
- Amazon parks its large tanks on music radio’s lawn with the launch of a U2 album. Except you need to know about it and ask for it, of course.
United Kingdom
- Ofcom, the UK regulator, publishes lots of data about digital radio listening.
- In a surprising development, Kelvin MacKenzie is back in UK radio, with the launch of CitiSport and CitiTalk. CitiSport will use 558kHz AM (and DAB), while CitiTalk will be DAB only. The station is looking for a Programme Director, station presenters, and production staff.
- Local News: What Are We Missing? – a good documentary from BBC Radio 4 about the demise of local news in the country. (It is in considerably better shape in the UK than many other countries).
- Last week was RadioTechCon 2017, a good radio conference in London for engineers (“creative technologists”). David Lloyd gave a good writeup of it. Of particular note – the virtual reality system that Global use for presenter training.
- BBC Local Radio’s changes – as covered on a comedy show on BBC Radio 4. Some of the old jingles, though… #meta
- Earshot podcast: Adam Burgess and Tom Cross – like music imaging and audio production? You’ll like this.
- First Women’s-Only Radio Station gets green light (in UK). Online-only.
- Radiocentre produces generic radio photos – brilliantly excellent news, and a splendid idea that I wish I’d had.
- Can Radio Thrive in a Digital Age? asks Paul Robinson. Good piece, naturally positive, but content is king, as ever.
Australia
- I was on Perth’s RTRFM talking about the Future of Radio. This is a nicely packaged catch-up of my interview.
- A piece from the perceptive Brad Smart about DAB+ in Brisbane. It’s not powerful enough (it has run on reduced power since launch, and doesn’t have good indoor coverage in some areas) but it’s also too powerful, since it reaches a long, long way further than it ought to. Brad’s concerned about the effects on the value of licences in the Gold and Sunshine Coasts.
- This is nice. Good data journalism from the ABC, and a nice longform article that draws you in. The ABC’s pretty good at this kind of stuff.
- Omny Studio produces intelligent automated podcasting for radio – this is neat and clever.
- Amazon bringing Alexa and its Echo speakers to Australia, NZ “early next year”. Meanwhile they come out in Canada on Wednesday; Radioplayer Canada is a launch partner.
- The kind of awful, crap, shouty old bigoted nasty presenter that nobody wants on the radio, rightly highlighted on MediaWatch, and since this aired, he’s finally off the air. Good. MediaWatch is a fine program to ensure that the media stays honest, and I’m surprised that there isn’t an equivalent in the UK or US. It’s also a ratings winner.
Elsewhere
- South Africa: Tbo Touch hits a million radio connections – randomly spurious stats, if you ask me, but still – good on them for something.