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
United Kingdom
- Powerful look at how BBC Radio Merseyside dealt with the Hillsborough tragedy in 1989
- BBC figures up across the world; BBC World Service Radio (English) up by 15%, which is good news. [client]
Australia
- A streaming music rights decision – and it’s gone the right way for the radio industry.
- Optus, the mobile network, makes music services unmetered (including iHeartRadio). T-Mobile does this in the US. Some feel it’s not in the spirit of net neutrality. I must confess to being confused about the iHeartRadio inclusion: there are lots of radio stations in the Australian version, not least the ABC or Macquarie, and my understanding is that the streaming is still “from” those station’s servers. Given that, is Optus flat-metering all Macquarie and ABC streams? Or just the ones initiated from iHeartRadio? Or none?
- Budget 2016: ABC facing $20m cut to reporting, digital services. Also, government hits community radio with a digital radio funding cut, which is short-sighted and a little mean.
- Classy radio promotion alert… oh, wait
- And very much related to the above story, here’s an interesting piece about editorial risk taking… Kyle and Jackie O: Why our outrage is all part of their plan
- A not altogether convincing review of the LG Stylus DAB+. They’re not a fan of the CRA’s app.
United States
- Must read – Podcasting SEO. It’s a thing, and this is an exhaustive list of how to do it. Run a podcast? Read this. There’s a bunch of amazing stuff in here.
- Pandora released their quarterly results. Reading Musically’s reporting, I grabbed the headline figures: revenue last quarter US$297m. Lost US$115m. Actually, once you remove the payoffs and other stuff they’ve only lost $57.4m, so that’s okay. Er. Here are the actual results from NASDAQ – interesting is that it shows a 29% increase in revenue (year-on-year). Remarkable when you consider that their product isn’t in growth: their cume is essentially static, and their TSL is only up by 4% year-on-year.
- Pirate radio is growing in the US, apparently. It’s an interesting thing to point out to those that believe that the internet is going to be the only way we listen to radio: why aren’t pirate radio stations using that, then?
- 5 Things I Love About The LG G5 – in this review of a mobile phone, you’ll never guess what #5 is /via George Byers
- A good and thoughtful essay about podcasts, and the things the medium still has to overcome, from Alex Carter.
- Digital audio continues to boast impressive growth in the US – some handy stats. In many countries, this would be a story about radio’s multi-platform success, but oddly in the US they’ve failed to gain the halo effect from their platform-centric definition of radio.
- Do Music Streaming Services Pay Musicians? Yep. A Lot, says XAPPmedia
- This Is The Best Time To Be A Media Operator & Entrepreneur says Rafat Ali – some nice anti-doom-mongering
- Ignore the title of this – it’s really the “7 myths of radio“, and a good read from Jason Barrett
- Loving this clever feedback mechanism from Soma FM
- Interesting idea – a ‘speed listening app‘. I’ve been trying speed-listening, and managed to cope quite happily with 1.4x for a few podcasts on a plane back from Sydney.
Elsewhere
- Norway: the radio audience measurement company predicts out to 2020. Radio remains nicely stable. [in Norwegian, but your browser will translate it]
- New Zealand: Radio audience figures (after a twelve month break)