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
- Australian ABC Reorganizes Long-form Speech, Launches ABC Audio Studios – some forward-thinking (my article)
- Is Voice-Control Part Of Radio’s Future? – my article for @AllAccess
United States
- Who’s really driving traffic to articles? Looks like, for radio, it’s Facebook currently
- Small US broadcaster who stands to gain the most from removal of main studio rules… argues for their retention. For me, it isn’t the physical space of where a studio is, but your programming mindset: it’s irrelevant whether your studio is within your transmission area (or, indeed, whether you even have a studio).
- Why Can’t Music Be Played In Podcasts? – a nice US guide
- Judge Agrees Broadcasters Have Right to Refuse Advertisements
- Can’t quite work out whether this bit of NPR is genius or bloody awful. Erring on genius.
- “My Five-and-a-half Cents on the Current State of Podcasting” by Tom Webster *Why Radio Broadcasters Should Join the Podcast Movement
- Mike Francesa, big WFAN radio personality, leaving in December to do podcasts?
- The folks at AdsWizz are now doing customised ads on the Amazon Echo for iHeartRadio.
- How The New York Times now has 13 million subscribers to 50 email newsletters
- Dashboard? Eh, it’s time for the back seat integrations, says Brad Hill from RAIN.
United Kingdom
- A moment in the increasingly-chaotic British election period going on at the moment on BBC Womens Hour – a video of the leader of the opposition not knowing a number off by heart, like it matters very much. Disappointingly, this is filmed from behind, without a tripod, with distorted audio, and someone walking in front of the camera with a drink of water, in a completely unbranded studio. Lots to learn from this. (And I can’t help but wonder whether – fun though it is to try and catch out someone not knowing a number off by heart – there’s much point to this little game).
- Some breakdowns of Manchester radio station audience figures from Paul Easton. Advocates of “live and local” might like to look at how big national stations are (although, being fair, the size of the UK means everything’s local to a point).
- “Why People Love Listening to Radio” – some nice stats in here from @radiodotco
- Clever: Upload Radio embeds a promo on a show page before a show airs, so you could listen to what’s coming up. Seems a blindingly obvious thing for BBC iPlayer to have done, but I don’t suppose anyone thought of it.
- Nice to see Iain Lee getting a plug in The Guardian.
- This is very sad. Having used BBC drivers in the past in Africa, I know how liked and part of the family they are.
- News about one of the hardest-working radio consultants I know. Congratulations to Francis Currie who is now the boss of two brands I’ve worked for and one I listened-to on day 1.
- A radio presenter job ad with a difference for @funkids in London.
- Visualising Audio: BBC News Labs’ Adaptation of the Audiogram Generator – this is excellent stuff. What a great tool.
- No, Delite Radio, this is not how DAB+ works.
- Perhaps you might fill in this Listening Experiment Questionnaire from BBC R&D about ‘quality of experience of next generation audio’
- Virgin Radio did a favourite biscuit thing a while ago. And now this.
Australia
- Australian ABC Reorganizes Long-form Speech, Launches ABC Audio Studios – some forward-thinking (my article)
- This is nice – some real thought put behind Eurovision coverage on instant messenger by the ABC
- ABC merits award, not funds cut (says Sky News presenter in a Murdoch paper, no less). The problem about getting money directly from politicians is that they don’t like it when you do serious journalism on them.
- 96FM: Woman wins radio competition 34 years after entering – this is a lovely story, and good for them.
- Australia continues its slow DAB+ rollout: coming to Hobart, and also permanent licences in Canberra and Darwin.
Canada
- Radio has 65% of “share of ear” in Canada (61% AM/FM/HD, 4% SiriusXM) according to new Edison Research data. This has been reported as “Canadians listening to way more radio than the US”, but that’s without including SiriusXM (which is radio, just a different platform): the CRTC’s regulations, the lack of things like Pandora, and the presence of the CBC will also have an effect.
- The latest Canadian Radio Ratings
- Meet the man classifying every genre of music on Spotify — all 1,387 of them
Elsewhere
- Chile: The Onemi Radio – great thing. A little cardboard radio, given free in Chile as part of emergency packs, with solar power and a little rechargeable battery.
- Netflix peak hours – bed-time in the UK, drive-time in India
- South Africa: Jacaranda FM – More Music You Love – this is a really clever ad campaign
- Switzerland: Man guilty of libel over Facebook ‘likes’: well, this is a thing.