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
It was great being at the RAIN Summit in London last week. It’s a unique event for Europe, where radio, online music services and advertisers all come together. You should sign up to the RAIN Daily Digest for more news from this world.
Some changes for me this week, as I go to Australia (officially starting with a holiday). I wonder what time this newsletter will be sent out from hereon in – perhaps we should just say it’ll be sent “on Monday sometime” and see what happens…
James Cridland’s articles
- BBC Music Jazz pop-up station went live last week: rubbish name, great idea
- Australia: radio revenue rises by 4.6%… invest in talent and – amazing – radio revenue grows!
- Pirate FM’s daily video news hits a million – this is quite impressive. Plus, bonus lazy Buggles headline.
United Kingdom
- Iain Lee and the BBC apologise … and then … Iain departs BBC Three Counties Radio. I’m a big fan of Iain. He’s one of radio’s best ambassadors and a brilliant, non-beige, broadcaster. While one suit has been quick to criticise (Danny Baker called him a ‘chump’ for what he wrote and quietly re-edited), others, like Len Groat in the comments, point to BBC Local Radio having a dearth of personality and heading to extinction. (It’s a strange old day when I agree with Len Groat). I’m a fan of Iain Lee; his talk with his producer at Next Radio, which went public on YouTube yesterday, showed an enthusiastic and excited presenter who loved his job. In the last year, he added 10,000 listeners (up 13%), and hours increased by a staggering 60%. He did his job; yet the BBC has failed to back him and guide him. Shame on them. But, nevertheless, here’s some useful show prep for any replacement.
- Data: Dax say “65% of listening is on headphones” #RAINSummit – I actually can’t believe that, but would love to see the figures.
- Pandora’s Big New Push to Conquer International Markets – looks like a UK expansion is on the cards.
- Data: talkSPORT’s website had 6.7m unique users in August #RAINSummit – don’t actually know whether that is good or bad for radio stations, since nobody publishes their data
- Social Media Rumours About The Paris Attacks That You Shouldn’t Believe – useful takedown of some of the worse rumours, and showing the benefit of properly sourced journalism
- Sandi Thom has Facebook meltdown after BBC Radio 2 and Bauer refuse to put her song on their playlist – ouch. She guested on Chris Moyles’s show this week, and was relatively good natured about it all.
United States
- RAIN Summit: “Audio is at the forefront of digital change” – nice initial report from a great event in London by the US industry news website
- The New York Times writes In the Stream of Internet Radio, Music Stations Hold Their Own
- Worthwhile remembering… Sorry, There’s No Such Thing As “Unlimited” Data, from WIRED. As I’m shortly going to discover, since I’m moving to Australia where almost everything is metered. The house we’re going to initially stay in has a monthly cap of 50GB. We’ll blow that in a week. Eeek.
- Is Radio a Toaster? – nicely written, from Tracy Johnson.
- Recipe to Make Radio Fun Again – Larry Gifford is right, again
- Beats 1 – and the rest of Apple Music – has made it to Android, apparently. Beats 1 appears free.
- A paid-for article, not read it, about the radio station in San Francisco which makes me giggle like a schoolboy – and, a day later, this equally gigglesome station. More? I’d love to have them. james@cridland.net
- Hot Pod: About a year after Serial (and Hot Pod’s launch), what does the future of podcasts look like?
Elsewhere
- Nice writeup about the International Radio Festival, which I’m on the advisory board for.
- Australia: Macquarie to unveil new-look 2UE – curious turn of phrase, and curious to highlight sponsorship opportunities and leave actual content out of it. If you’re doing PR, as Global discovered recently, it gets consumed by everyone, not just your target audience.