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.nets
Fresh from a day at the Radiocentre conference in the U.K., James Cridland gives us another great roundup of interesting links. Beats 1 from Apple is still a major subject in the pundit sphere. Plenty of other news and opinion from all over the world.
United States
- M.G. Siegler – as close to a rabid Apple fan as you can get – just LOVES Beats 1. Worthwhile reading why, though.
- Apple didn’t reinvent radio. It went back to the basics. Lovely, detailed, article about radio and where it is now. /via Valerie Geller
- Interesting thing: Mikme – a Wireless Recording Microphone. 866% funded (!) on indiegogo.
- Making podcasts? This is how much you should charge, apparently. – a nation of podcast makers falls of their chair and asks to be let back into the real world.
- Interesting post about big changes at MPR (Minnesota PubRadio). Thanks Steven Clift
UK
- Coming on 14 September: Next Radio – the conference you really should make an effort to go to [I run this alongside Matt Deegan]. I’d also recommend the RAIN Summit, in London, in November (oh, and the RAIN Summit in Atlanta too)
- Radiocentre argues against FM switchoff for all local radio stations. Well, that’s what the policy document says. Except everyone has been very keen to tell me that they don’t actually mean that. So you could read the article, especially the quotes straight from the document, and make up your own mind. Added bonus: in the comments, see what happens every time you mention the much-loved DAB transmission system on the internet.
- Last week saw another backroom deal with BBC executives and the government: seems lessons weren’t learnt after the last backroom deal (widely criticised) and this one’s not good either. The BBC will now have to pay the TV licence for all over 75s (it’s £145.50 a year). Presumably, electricity companies will pay over 75s bills, as well as restaurants paying over 75s meals? No? Well, why not? Media analyst Bill Rogers calls the government “posh muggers” abouttheir latest raid on the BBC. Meanwhile, there’s no end of people trying to helpfully tell the BBC how to save some of that cash. “Newsmutt” thinks thatBBC local radio should halve the amount of speech they broadcast. And play more music. That would be exactly the right thing to do, said nobody else, ever. Meanwhile, even before this announcement, the BBC were telling their staff they needed to cut a further 1,000 jobs, because more people are cutting the cord than they expected.
- Four hundred pirate radio setups shut down in London in just two yearsaccording to the Evening Standard. Not quite: 400 transmitters have been raided. But I wonder why it took an FoI request for this? Surely Ofcom should be trumpeting this from the rooftops?
- Women are more involved in music. So that means changes in radio programming, says Robin Valk: interesting post-script to the US furore a few weeks ago.
- NME to go free – hardly surprising, but it does rather highlight the death spiral of magazines
- Radio. And trust. The excellent David Lloyd with a moment from Radiocentre’s conference, and why radio has much to teach others about trust
- Could radio stations use crowd funding? asks Matt Wade. (Some do – come to Next Radio for an example)
- Full audio from the #tuningin conference from Radiocentre on Monday
- This makes me proud to be British. Congratulations, BBC for launching the BBC Micro Bit. I learnt to program using the BBC Model B, as many my generation did; I hope this does just as well for the generations to come.
- I narrowly missed out being on the Piccadilly train bombed 10 years ago. I found Iain Dale’s blog struck some chords.
Australia
- Aussie radio revenue up 5.06% year-on-year. The UK was up 6% y-on-y. Let’s all point fingers at the US. (Of course, if you included Pandora, you’d probably have a different story; but then, the Aussie and UK figures don’t include those either)
- The best analysis of the latest audience figures, out last week, are here on radioinfo.com.au. 7% more people listening to radio than 5y ago; 19% listening longer than 1y ago. Good stats sheet. Particular congratulations to Southern Cross Austereo for their audience increases in all capital cities.
- Good coverage of the new digital chief of Southern Cross Austereo – Vijay Solanki talks personalised ads and more. He replaced Clive Dickens, who now works for TV/publisher Seven West.
- There’s a plan for digital radio to extend to regions
The rest of the world
- Belgium: RTBF is doing some really good re-working of studios for “Smart Radio”. Congrats to Laurent Finet: an especial triumph to manage big equipment and working practice changes.
- South Africa: DRM radio gets a pat on the back from government, but the govt also says that they won’t allow imported DRM receivers. Which probably signs a death knell for DRM in that country. (It’s hard enough to find DRM sets for import, let alone build them in the country itself).
- Zambian government to community radio: nope, we won’t pay you any money
- Canada: CBC Radio 1 – the English local/national talk channel – now #1 in market for first time in Winnipeg.
- Germany: massive media merger in offing – ProsiebenSat.1 and Axel Springerin Merger Talks [WSJ, paywall]
- Norway: DAB/DMB’s Gunnar Garfors has published his book in English. 198: How I Ran Out Of Countries… I’m already reading mine, and I’d recommend it.