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
If you’ve not yet heard: Norway are turning off the FM transmitters of most radio stations (all the nationals and most of the big locals, accounting for 95% share of listening). The big news actually broke a week last Thursday. I’ve commented on it for a variety of different news outlets, including the BBC World Service and a number of others. Stations in Norway have already been broadcasting on DAB for a long while, and that’s where the future will be. Here’s my original piece last week.
This week’s links:
United Kingdom
- Why car manufacturers should never preload station logos to their cars – four pictures from Nick Piggott. In short: there’s more change in broadcast radio than you’d think.
- DAB vs mobile – the reality… take a station off DAB and make it mobile-only? It turns out listeners HATE that
- The Guardian tries a new homepage. I realised while reading this that I have neverseen the homepage. The author responds to a tweet of mine saying that a third of all visits include a view of the home-page (surprisingly high), and that this hasn’t declined over the last few years either.
- BBC tells Tony Blackburn to ‘down Periscope’ after he streams live video at Broadcasting House
- Lazy Buggles headline #1 – hello The Register
- Genuinely enjoyed Steve Penk’s music channel for a bit last week. No idea why he’s doing it. Here’s a streaming link.
- The Economist’s Tom Standage on the limits of a model based on advertising – particularly interesting read for radio
- Worked for Plymouth Sound? You should come to their 40th anniversary.
- Astonishing stat deep in this story: 60% of all UK TV programmes get offically no viewers according to BARB. Well, I was astonished. Adam Bowie, on the other hand,isn’t surprised.
- I have just heard a radio ad for BBC Radio 1 – wow – on a Radionomy 80’s station. What a good idea.
- Can Chris Moyles be the saviour of digital radio? – some interesting piecing-together of various things…
Australia
- Community radio listeners close to 5 million. Australia’s population is 23 million. Iguessed recently what community radio listenership is in the UK. It isn’t anywhere close.
United States
- The Hidden FM Radio Inside Your Pocket, And Why You Can’t Use It – from NPR
- Lazy Buggles headline – hello Newsweek
- Lazy Buggles headline #2 – hello Neowin
- Lazy Buggles headline #3 – hello Yahoo
- Lots of “have you ever…” research is passed off as “people do this all the time”. Bob Lefsetz says that’s wrong.
- New box that makes it easier for PPM to hear your stations. Ethical? Worth doing? Yes, on both counts, I reckon.
- Introducing Podcatch – Dave Winer makes a simple curated podcast player. Should spark some ideas.
- “Smiles per hour” – a new metric for radio?
- Spend $1 on radio, get $14 back.
- Thanks for listening to ISIS radio in English – PRI reminds us that radio is a powerful tool
The rest of the world
- Future of radio? Meet Raku, Malaysia’s new radio app, run by the good folks at Astro.
- Got a Chromecast? Flair Player for Chrome allows you to play internet radio on it. Quite neat discovery mechanism built-in, too.
- SoundCloud can remove stuff if they get a complaint. (audioBoom likewise?). Still don’t get why you would use a third party for something as simple as audio hosting.