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
Hello from London, which has all of a sudden turned very warm. (They say the British speak about nothing else but the weather, but that’s because we have some). Warmer still in Las Vegas, where the big NAB Show is on. Good luck to my many friends who are there, but very pleased to have escaped going this year, just this once. Last year I tried listening to the radio while in Vegas, but discovered something much better.
United States
- Webcast listening reaches new high ground in February – but is AM/FM simulcast radio actually shrinking? It doesn’t look like it’s growing from here. (There’s a full presentation in my head about this, incidentally, and one I’d love to have an excuse to properly write up. “Is the future of radio on smartphones live?” would be the title.)
- Resolution To Activate FM Radio In Smartphones Passed In Indiana Senate – as a Brit I find this really very peculiar. Great for the radio industry, but in my view it’s something that should be a consumer need, and not need legislating for. (It is a consumer need with many people, that said.) And since Giles Booth asked via Twitter: the iPhone does have an FM chip inside, and has included one since iPhone 4. You’ll find a picture of it in step 18.
- The Little Machines that Built Pandora – great research graphs with a powerful story from Edison Research.
- Fascinating piece about electronic audience measurement, and their effects on certain formats. It turns out that not all formats are the same.
- Why do people listen to AM/FM radio? Fred Jacobs has some data to tell us. I’d caution that the top result, “hear favourite songs”, could be because much US AM/FM radio doesn’t offer much else.
- Presentation lessons from Steve Martin’s autobiography (and, by inference, radio presenter lessons too)
- Another big US radio group wakes up to the idea of not owning towers, just leasing them. It’s the norm in Europe.
- Attention to Detail – Dick Taylor points out the importance of this for radio, and what happens if you lose it
- Launch of Tidal didn’t go down well with many fans. Worth reading the comments here (even if this website is biased) to fully understand consumers’ problem with paying for music these days
- How Did the iHeartRadio Awards Beat ‘The Walking Dead’ on Social? (Turns out: radio personalities! Who knew!)
- Nice job from rain news on NextRadio’s growth. Nicely positive about use of this hybrid radio app.
- US: Music consumption high in young smartphone users: Pew study. Good news for radio? Not sure.
- Twitter now gives you great analytics. Here’s how to read the numbers for radio stations, courtesy Lori Lewis
- Pandora will be on Apple Watch at launch – here’s hoping that broadcast radio apps aren’t going to pass this by
- NPR has their mission statement inside their t-shirts. Nice idea.
UK
- Good piece from Chris Price about how music works on the radio
- Fancy, yet almost inexplicable one minute tv ad for BBC Radio 1 – don’t understand what it is trying to convey at all. Mind you – in “incomprehensible ads for radio stations”, let me give you Magic AM’s launch campaign
- Top Tips for Podcasters – some great observations from Adam Bowie. Worthwhile listening to people who consume your product, not just make it.
- Ed Miliband’s radio interview may be a turning point – though disappointing that the writer can’t be bothered to find Geoff Lloyd’s name. C’mon, Guardian!
- Why Podcasts will be the next big thing – finally … Steve Campen shares a view that ondemand is the future
- Share Radio – “a great little radio station – in desperate need of a programmer”, says John Ryan in this review
- Communicorp UK supports I Love Student Radio awards – good to see this group making a name for itself
- Standards for Hybrid Radio – good piece from Nick Piggott, cannily just before NAB
- eRADIO this week has an interesting exposé of internet radio figures. I’ve been saying this for years: I think there’s a lot of smoke and mirrors here, and I think we need to look carefully at the validity of a non-interactive simulcast stream in a world of Pandora and Spotify.
- via Tom Merritt: BBC reports two bakeries fighting over the name BBC. BBC says the BBC had no comment on the two BBCs.
- Good to see that #forgotten80s is reaching the 100th edition on Absolute 80s – shows power of not playing the obvious. Here’s the show’s playlist archive.
- Friend of radio Bruce Daisley – now promoted to vice president of Europe at Twitter
- Radio stations collaborate to propose more choice for Portsmouth – new choice from small scale DAB?
Australia
- Nice to hear a promo for a new “community correspondent” on 612 ABC Brisbane a nice collection on their website
- In this Richie Benaud piece are some great “tips for commentating“, worth a read. (via Kate Fogarty)
- boombox.fm – interesting new online service that sends you free, new, music. (I’ve no idea where this is based. Let’s guess Australia. It probably isn’t.)