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.nets
James Cridland sends us his weekly links with this interesting commentary:
I note that Overcast, the podcast client I’ve been trying out on my iPod Touch, has an audio compression button. Click it, and it applies (quite fearesome) dynamic compression to allow everything to be audible rather more clearly.
I’ve long believed that, for some content (particularly speech), dynamic audio compression is something that the receiver ought to be doing. My use-case for this is waiting for a train (very, very quiet); then a train arrives and you get on (very very noisy). My ideal podcast app – or radio app – would use the microphone and apply varying amounts of dynamic compression to keep the content audible without the user having to change the volume. Can someone make this for me?
James Cridland’s articles
- Live and local? Try being real and relevant. I guest-blog for Rivet Radio.
- Radio Futurologist at RAIN Summit with James Cridland – a half hour interview with me from a few weeks ago
- I talk about podcasting on ABC Radio National here
- New live radio studio software released for Windows and Mac – impressive what you can do with tech these days. (This story was surprisingly popular – I should find more tools like this)
- TopicPulse local social media monitoring tool reaches v3 (this is a tool I really like)
- Interesting updating my BBC iPlayer Radio review to discover how many of my gripes they’ve now fixed since July. It’s the gold standard of radio apps.
United Kingdom
- New confirmed speakers at RAIN Summit Europe! (you should come)
- Spotify: lots of data how it works with radio in Europe. Not entirely sure I understand this tbh. Good job they’re talking about it, properly, at the RAIN Summit in London.
- An Old Man Called A Radio Station To Say He Was Lonely So They Invited Him On To The Show – this is lovely. Aw.
- What it’s like to work at the BBC in London – randomly fell upon this blog post, from an ex-producer for BBC World News television
- The UK Radioplayer celebrates five years. Proud to have been a (small) part of it
- BBC innovates in non-linear radio, says Tommy Ferraz. The ‘innovation’ is putting some programmes online before they’re broadcast. I’m not sure how innovative this is, I’ll be honest with you.
- The rise of vlogging: Did video kill the blog star? (Answer: no. And lazy Buggles headline)
- BBC Local Radio – Lessons from history (if only the BBC had continued these plans!)
- Vlad the Programmer: radio from the other side of the Iron Curtain, then and now
- Some amazing sound from the initial stereophonic broadcasts of the BBC in the late 1950s. (In actual fact, I’m told the BBC’s first stereo broadcast was in 1946 or thereabouts.)
- Share Radio to replace talkBUSINESS on D2 – this is very good news, and very sensible, too. Congrats to all involved
- As a fully qualified radio futurologist, I enjoyed listening to The Perils of Predicting the Future
- asiCast 3 Live from Abbey Road – Interview with Mark Barber – some interesting Radiocentre research about music in radio commercials
- Found on Facebook. A lovely letter showing the undying love for radio that many people have. (more info)
- Fun (if slightly “in”) radio prank from Radio X this week…
- My Mammoth Journey & Helping To Create A New Radio Station – fun piece from Les Gunn (crediting me, too!)
- Brilliant letter to The Guardian, rubbishing Danny Cohen’s “credits” of great TV shows.
- Does the BBC crowd out commercial broadcasters and newspapers? Nope, says KPMG. Hmm.
- Interesting set of documentaries from Tony Prince – ‘History Of DJ’ (this one about pirate radio’s closure)
United States
- The world’s largest natural sound archive just went up online – 150,000 pieces of audio, and free, too.
- AudioBurst launches search engine for talk radio (not sure this is how radio works really, but worth a play)
- Drop in younger listeners makes dent in NPR news audience – for all its innovation in NPR One, the core news programming product is really quite dull. Here’s what Mark Ramsey suggests to fix it. I’d suggest dropping the silly sing-song voices, injecting some youth into their news output, and never being boring.
- What’s hot right now? Er… reel to reel tape.
- Probably the best toaster in the world. Larry Gifford pointed out in a response that even this toaster manufacturer recognised its limitations and also added an AUX input.
- Personalised radio service Rivet Radio adds podcasts, traffic news – this is a nice service, and getting better
- The New Yorker magazine is making the transition to radio
- Almost every American still listens to radio. Here’s why.
Australia
- Already 2DAY is building hype for their new breakfast show, which airs in three months, by posting podcasts
- A Guide to Becoming One of the Great Podcasts – not entirely sure this is the most serious thing you’ve ever read
Elsewhere
- France: nearly 800,000 podcasts are downloaded in France every day – a nice stat, though this figure is quite low. Adam Bowie pointed out in a reply to this that the UK (and Australia) have the benefit of the English language, of course; not sure there are that many French-language podcasts
- Norway: Radio 102, a local station in Haugesund (population: 36,000), turns over £869,000 and makes £71,000 profit.
- The future of radio in young hands – great in depth piece, with people from London, Amsterdam and more
- Improve Focus and Boost Productivity with Background Noise (or turn on the radio?) – mind you, this is quite nicely (and simply) done. I have no idea where this company’s based.