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 Cridland’s articles
- Listen: the radio stations with no studios. My new column, in audio form, on YouTube and now on Omny Studio. Coming soon – in iTunes.
United States
- Feed twenty minutes of you, talking, into this software and someone can make you say anything. Future of radio? Could be. As ever, the BBC did this first – and, as ever, management told them to stop working on it and go and do something else.
- US radio: liberal talk station dropped and replaced with same xmas music you can get on Pandora. And – yes – that happened on the day after the election. US radio is run by idiots.
- Two new reports on podcasting (history and monetisation)
- Is this the golden age of podcasting? It’s just the beginning of on-demand radio in many forms, if you asked me. But it’s definitely the golden age of well-produced speech-based multiplatform radio.
- Media’s Next Challenge: Overcoming the Threat of Fake News – certainly, and it’s important to fearlessly fact-check, too. But around 50% of US voters appear to simply not care about facts. That’s the more concerning bit.
- “Podcasting Builds Trust, Credibility and Brand Loyalty” – true. Actually, all advertising does that. But, you know, podcasting.
- Can a (US) Media Merger Bring Success? Comcast and NBCUniversal Say Yes
- Radio One Inc. to change name to Urban One Inc. in 2017 – not a slight on radio, but reflection of their business; but you can bet that lazy journalists will pounce on this as more evidence of radio’s irrelevance in today’s era, blah blah.
- streemr – Record your favourite radio show and listen to it later. (Nobody will have a problem with this, right?)
Elsewhere
- South Africa: Primedia launches tool to fight corruption – great example of media doing good
- Ireland: ‘Irish radio needs pirate stations – the rest are too middle-of-the-road‘ – an interesting piece from Enda Caldwell
- Indonesia: now, THIS is the kind of Buggles headline I like: Internet Has Not Killed the Radio Star
- New Zealand: Paul Henry Breakfast Show Axed – crikey.
- Canada: An old ad for CKLG AM. This was back in an era where apparently Canadian radio stations dropped the final zero from the AM frequency. “Tune in to 98 on your AM dial”. Sounded cool, but goodness, complicated for the audience. /via Larry Gifford
Germany: Audi wants to get rid of the FM radio in their cars… in favour of DAB+
United Kingdom
- Q&A: Patrick Hannon, president, WorldDAB. Some good stats in here. Patrick inherited an organisation in good shape, but he’s cleverly reinvented it into more of a lobbying group and less about the tech. The right evolution as DAB continues to succeed.
- The outspoken Steve Penk has a new blog… Worth a read, if only to see how rude he can be about Global. It should be said that his rant about Capital sounding no better than a hospital radio station isn’t really borne out by the figures – Capital’s grown in reach relatively consistently since 1996, and total hours have remained pretty consistent since then.
- “All human tragedy is there,” on the radio with Nick Ferrari – this should be an awesome podcast from Craig Bruce
- Sad to learn Jimmy Young has died. David Lloyd looks back at his career. And here is a collection of Terry Wogan linking to Jimmy Young from 1978 – two quick-witted yet relaxed broadcasters, sparring on-air.
- Conversations – The Story of a Series (and very well worth a listen)
- Throwing away the running order – why it’s important. From Mick Ord.
- The GDS were one of the things that genuinely made me proud to be British. No longer, it seems. Shame.
Australia
- This week in the ‘Lazy Antique Radio Photo’ sin-bin: B&T, who have used this antique radio image before, talking about commercial radio licence fee reductions. Idea for someone (the CRA? WorldDAB?) – get a ton of really nice ‘radio’ images made, give them to every journalist and publication for free. Let’s stop lazy antique radio photos.
- 2GB broadcaster Alan Jones forced off air indefinitely over health concerns – goodness.
- OzPod 2016 review: 5 thoughts on Australia’s first podcast conference – some nice thoughts I don’t think I’ve shared