James Cridland’s Weekly Links: BBC, Radioplayer, U.S. public radio, and much more.

Posted on by James Cridland

James Cridland is Managing Director of media.info, and a U.K.-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

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This week I’m in the beautiful city of Cologne. The last time I was here coincided with the last Euro soccer competition. I remember, slightly quietly, sitting at the back of a large group of Germans cheering their national team to another inevitable win.

Coming up – I should tell you about the RAIN Summit Europe, which is in London on Monday 9 November. You ought to be there; I just wanted to make sure you put it in your diary for now. Make a weekend of it, and spend your lovely tourist money in my home town!

United Kingdom

United States

  • Donations to public radio in the US are going down. (Also: public radio has 8,403 employees in US. That’s low.)
  • The Portland Radio Project looks interesting – lots of talk, local music, and other things. Worth a read.
  • The percentage of revenue from online vs offair is similar to 12 months ago. Disappointing in some ways that there’s no growth in online. Radio types might disagree, I suppose.
  • Radiolab and On the Media will be distributed by WNYC, not NPR, later this year, as WNYC wants more control.
  • “Is the nation that invented commercial radio being “schooled” by the UK?” The US Radio Magazine HAS SPOTTED OUR EVIL PLAN
  • Staggering. The Voltair PPM processing box increases one station’s morning drive by 61%, so says Radio Insights.
  • This episode of Radiolab just won a Peabody Award. I’ve no idea what a Peabody Award is, but it’s a good excuse to link to it.
  • Stat buried in this story: “95% of all (US) Internet radio listening time is currently on mobile” – it’s a lovely statistic, but, as we’d say in the UK, it’s total bollocks. Mobile simply isn’t that high.
  • Rivet Radio looks interesting – personalised news via an app. A bit like NPR One? I should check it out. Later – I did. It’s not bad, but suffers because it isn’t in control of the audio that is in it.
  • An RSS Feed For Your Music – nice piece of music discovery. Surely this is for a radio station to do, though – it’s hardly rocket science to build. So why aren’t we?
  • Music sounds better with you: so why are we not listening together online? Interesting piece from a Danish Google engineer in San Francisco – highlights the benefits of the “shared experience” of radio.
  • Completely unaware of this until now – “The Pub”, a podcast for people who do (US) public media…
  • Ad Spending For Digital Media Poised To Pass Broadcast TV (though direct mail is even higher than TV, amazingly)
  • Radio Lessons From The World’s Oldest DJ – including sexism and the discovery that podcasting isn’t too technical. /via Larry Gifford
  • Heard that radio listeners don’t like female voices? Here’s some actual research that – gulp – backs that up. Kind of.
  • Only 30% of US broadcast radio listeners also use podcasts. I’m so unsure of this research it’s untrue, given 90% of the US is a ‘broadcast radio listener’.

Australia

Elsewhere

James Cridland

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