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
One of my local coffee shops, where I do a fair amount of work, is an interesting place to be partly because of their choice of what goes on the speakers. It’s always a radio station; sometimes it’s Capital Xtra, an urban station here in London, but more often it’s an internet radio station. Occasionally we get an NRJ side channel, sometimes an eighties channel, but today we heard Boomer Radio‘s Vintage Rock channel. It’s interesting to hear what the ever-rotating staff choose to listen to: it’s quite rare it’s to a local station.
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“Give me an alternative to ads, and I’ll pay”, an experiment in other revenue streams for websites.
Amazon Prime Music launches in UK – more competition for music radio. Perhaps.
In AllAccess this week: Getting The Most Out Of Your Event – Lessons From A Classical Music Station
To watch an 18 second video on The Independent’s website only took me three minutes today. Web performance matters.
New Radio Platforms and Technology – a long audio interview with me about where we’re headed. I’m not as good at audio interviews as I’d like to be. But I guess we all say that.
United States
Really interesting learnings from NPR One about radio consumption. Big data is magic for this kind of stuff.
How radio needs to fix itself – be more visible, says Larry Rosin from Edison Research. Further discussion about why radio doesn’t advertise any more is over here, including a comment by me.
Great research: radio did best at advertising Amazon Prime Day, even amongst younger listeners. This kind of research is stuff that really moves the dial. Well done, Cumulus.
Thoughts on Voltair by Perry Michael Simon – includes the correct view: don’t blame the methodology for your ratings. Meanwhile, Kurt Hanson reckons thatVoltair has meant a 5% increase in ratings. Smart article. And here’s somefascinating data work by Eric Rhoads – and he needs your help to do more of it.
Wow. Is this a first? A Houston radio station’s RDS display was hacked…
Good news for the US – FM is coming to AT&T mobile phones. TO be accurate, AT&T will no longer ask for FM radio chips inside smartphones to be switched off. I don’t believe this will make a massive difference to US radio’s fortunes for a variety of reasons, but it’s good for the industry, and a great success for the NextRadio team.
Astonishing decline in TV viewing, in graph form.
Audiobooks. Actually, quite big. 41% of all Americans have listened to one.
Motorola’s Native FM Radio App Updated With Material Design, Music Recording, Sleep Timer, And Usability Improvements – nice to see that mobile manufacturers care about their FM radio. But this would be even better if it had decent hybrid radio in it.
iHeartRadio trumpets a ‘new partnership’ with Snapchat
Small station “chooses podcasting over FM broadcasting”. (Silly decision – both FM and podcasting are important)
Stick a horrid “get our mobile app” ad for mobile users on your website? 69% of people will just leave.
Great review of Android Auto. No control of the FM tuner, incidentally, according to this article. Shame.
Local advertising now accounts for 26% of Pandora’s US revenue; and according to Pandora’s CEO, Apple Music has made no impact to Pandora usage, and they don’t expect it to either.
Digital Radio is Dead, according to this. A confused piece, let down by the facts. And, strangely, written by a company that makes transmitter equipment.
Learning about the craft of journalism is much easier when they write about… you. Lovely piece from Glenn Greenwald
Why the Music Industry Is Starting to Hate YouTube – two interesting graphs. Ouch.
15 Percent of Americans Don’t Use the Internet (but you probably wouldn’t want to advertise to them anyway, I guess)
United Kingdom
Some great clips and archive from the BBC Light Programme (what became Radio 1 and Radio 2)
A fascinating walk round Birmingham to see all the closed-down broadcasters.
Bauer Media’s new digital appointments. A CTO who isn’t on Twitter, a Head of Social who’s only Googlable Twitter account is private. (He’s got another public one, though.) In this day and age, that’s rather strange.
A lovely piece about the BBC Proms, from a London blogger I read regularly
Lots of very good radio jobs available at the moment on media.info – it’s free to post new roles too. (From any country, by the way.)
5 Tips for Successful Podcast Interviews
Top Gear’s Clarkson, Hammond and May sign Amazon deal – surprising move, but Amazon clearly has the deep pockets
So, Helena Breck, the voice of Tesco’s self service tills, is irritating? That’s not the point, says fellow voiceover Emma Clarke
Australia
While I believe radio needs to rethink the primacy of live, at HIT105 Brisbane, Stav & Abby are doing the opposite.
Australia: Just one reason why Hamish and Andy are at the top of their game: lovely promo work.
The future of ABC Radio. Interesting interview with the man in charge.
Ireland
Irish spend more time with radio than any other medium. But, look closer at the stats for 15-24.
The RTÉ get rid of a presenter, then takes legal action against someone else employing him to do the show they decided they didn’t want any more.
Elsewhere
Norway: the council of Finnmark, a county in NE Norway, is a massive critic of the FM-DAB switchover occurring in 2017. (use translate link if you don’t speak Norwegian)
Canada: Radio-Canada (TV, radio) asked to publish salaries of their employees. (This article’s in French, n’est ce pas? Google Translate est votre ami.)
Tech: If you earn money from online ads, then be afraid: iOS 9 brings adblocking possibilities, and it’s only months away
Germany: Soundcloud Reportedly Running “Dangerously Low” On Funds