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
- Zero-rated data – is it good news for radio? My latest article tackles net neutrality
United States
- Astonishing how US TV networks manage to fix the (electronic) ratings. In this example, TV networks deliberately misspell the name of episodes they know will do badly (the nightly news on a public holiday, for example) so that these shows don’t harm the show averages. It’s another reminder that electronic ratings systems aren’t infallible.
- US radio content regulation is among the loosest in the world – but it’s astonishing that it can lead to this kind of unpleasant stuff. Responsible radio companies might say “nothing to do with us”, and that might be the case, but it harms all of radio’s image with the public and advertisers. Also see Lazy Buggles Headlines.
- From podnews – Here’s what happened the last time audio producers got better data – as podcasting gets ready for more analytics courtesy of Apple, this article is a good look at what happened to radio when the PPM came in.
- From podnews Related to the above, Jacobs Media added to this, with: Will Data Make Podcasts Better – Or Will It Stifle The Creative Process?
- From podnews – Interesting: a podcast that has set a 50/50 gender split for guests. Strikes me that this should be relatively achievable for many programmes.
- Fun review of flicking through the satellite radio channels in the US.
- The best way to own your area? Own a bit of it. Paige Nienaber has some stories from the US.
- Meet The Guys Who Invented Sports Broadcasting As You Know It
- Man With Axe Arrested Outside Kiss 108 (in MA, US) Studios After Song Request. Someone should tell him how to use Spotify.
- Gabriel Parker has 24.9m plays on Spotify. But: he doesn’t exist. Is Spotify full of fake artists?, asks Music Business Worldwide. This website is biased against Spotify, I should mention, and just like Amazon flogs its own-brand HDMI cables, so there’s theoretically nothing wrong with Spotify own-brand music, but still a fascinating read.
- Stats: Triton’s April webcast rankings. Lots of detail in here. (PDF file)
- Some fascinating data about radio’s place in new media (US). Radio doing well, though declining in “favoriteness”. Caution: read how the panel is made-up first (small print, bottom of page).
United Kingdom
- Reasons to cover that expensive MacBook in stickers – it avoids nightmares like this.
- Radio pirate hijacks airwaves to blast out obscene track – “and there’s nothing local stations can do about it”. Not in this article, but from what I understand it’s either someone overpowering the station’s link from studio to transmitter, or it’s someone overpowering the RF link between the outside broadcast van and the studio. Either way, it’s a good reminder to check how secure these are.
- Awesome long post detailing the tech behind the TV bit of BBC iPlayer.
- One for my “making the most of your content” training course – national radio station gets into a local newspaper for a stunt
- Local Radio Network Partners With TfM — Travel for Media
- BBC Norfolk DJ ‘stole rival’s gig posters in a petty feud‘ – Wow. (Warning: Daily Mail link. Could be total bobbins, or stolen from someone else, or dubious in many other ways.)
- Oh, the FT. Once a serious paper, now a purveyor of a #lazybugglesheadline
- Lovely clip from LBC’s James O’Brien. Note how it’s written up by the HuffPost. That’s the way to do it.
Australia
- ABC journalist Chris Uhlmann’s viral critique of Trump nearly didn’t make it to air. A nice look behind the scenes, particularly when technology doesn’t quite work right.
- 22% fall in live TV watching in just three years. Video killed the video star. (Australian radio doesn’t publish ‘total hours’, but most international markets show a much slower decline.)
- Also absent from Australian radio research figures – community radio. 5.3m listen to community radio in Australia according to the CBAA’s own figures.
- Sometimes we overlook the obvious. I genuinely wonder how more complicated this station could have made their tune-in page. (A list of the FM frequencies might be a start, even if there’s an interstitial. It’s a good listen, though.)
Elsewhere
- Israel: Radio Tel Aviv and Nobex produce world’s largest ever headphone-streaming event – nice bit of promotion
- South Africa: a report of Creating powerful radio with Valerie Geller from Radiodays Africa. She’s speaking at the Next Radio conference in London on September 18th.
- Canada: brand consolidation happening. Nine stations change to “Boom” instead of their previous random names.
- Norway: DAB transmission facilities are moving to the cloud. Here’s a piece about Paneda’s cloud systems. Norway isn’t alone: I’m aware of some of the UK’s small-scale DAB services which are also could-based.
- South Africa: DRM+ on FM is being trialled in Johannesburg. It’s a method of piggybacking a digital radio signal onto an FM service, and has had good trials elsewhere.
- From podnews – Germany: SoundCloud – only enough money for next 50 days?
- Wow, this looks like an awesome job. If you like penguins. Do you like penguins?