Radioland, with James Cridland - radio futurologist

James Cridland

A regular audio column with the most interesting news about radio's future. James is a radio futurologist - a writer, speaker and consultant concentrating on the effect that new platforms and technology are having on the radio business across the world. He has a website at https://james.cridland.net where you can subscribe to Radioland, his newsletter.

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  1. Sep 26

    Radio in car: shock new figures

    Hey! I'd love to hear your thoughts, send me a voice note. Above: radio has always been the #1 choice in a car. Until now. This data, from Edison Research’s Share of Ear study, has shocked me. It shows, very clearly, that for young Americans, they’re choosing to listen to media from their mobile phone instead. I don’t know why it’s shocked me. I myself rarely listen to radio in the car. My iPhone connects via wifi to the car dashboard, so I have my collection of podcasts to listen to, as well as music on Spotify. In many cases, why listen to the radio, when I have everything I need on my phone? Now, sometimes, sure, I’m listening to live radio on my phone, via the car’s dashboard. I’ve discovered that BBC Radio 1’s early morning show is quite a good listen for school pick-up time, for example. But that’s the exception, rather than the norm. This is quite the watershed moment. It shows, clearly, that radio has become, for younger Americans at least, less relevant than audio from their own mobile phones. Part of that is that much of US radio really isn’t very good (sorry, but it’s true); but it’s a concern nonetheless. I suspect most people will look at this, shrug, and move on. But I find this the most worrying graph I’ve ever seen about radio’s future. Meanwhile, in Europe, Radioplayer has launched “real-time car radio analytics”, delivering a real-time view of listening across DAB, FM and streaming. They’re not alone in this - DTS AutoStage also provides similar to the US market. I’m unaware how much DTS AutoStage deals with DAB or with online radio. But, Radioplayer is present in many markets in Europe, and has some good relationships with auto manufacturers.Some very interesting moves from Global in the UK, which has launched Radio Plus - “The same great live radio. Just without the ads”. The “just without the ads” promise is only for music radio, where additional music is played instead of the ad breaks. It costs £4.99 (US $6.50) per month per brand (Heart, X, Smooth, etc). Its competitor Bauer has been offering something similar for many years; it will be interesting to see the takeup of this service. Do listeners hate the ads enough to spend money to get rid of them?

  2. Sep 9

    Radiodays Asia, and could TV's switchoff put radio at risk?

    Hey! I'd love to hear your thoughts, send me a voice note. I’ll be on RRI in Indonesia a little later this week: the station was founded on 11 September 1945, so it’s celebrating its 81st anniversary this week. The broadcaster has four networks and 90 local stations. Radio is 101 years old in Indonesia: the first station in the country broadcast in Dutch,.I’ve been in Indonesia for the past week at Radiodays Asia. You can find a bunch of interviews in the RadioToday podcast - and more to come in RD. The Radiodays Europe Podcast too. I do enjoy the event: there’s plenty going on in Asia that doesn’t get the coverage it deserves. Next year, the event will be in Taipei, Taiwan - a place I’ve never been: should be fascinating.While in Indonesia, I took my ludicrously geeky radio with me, and tuned around the dial one afternoon. I discovered Padel Corner 89.6FM - a radio station that seemingly is run by a sports club in the city, with music and an advert for the sports club itself (I can tell you it has six padel courts, a sauna and it does food). I wonder how those licences work - an interesting idea, if you can keep the costs low enough, to run your own service on the FM dial!In the UK, there’s real concern that turning off television broadcasts could put radio services at risk. Radiocentre has released some research suggesting that transmission costs for radio broadcasters could increase by more than 50%. They’ve not shared the full research, and I’m surprised that it’s only a 50% increase - but even so, it’s a real concern, especially if that happens in 2034, one of the dates being considered. I wonder if this has been costed in other countries? The UK can’t be alone in looking to turn off free-to-air television; but perhaps the shared infrastructure that the UK uses makes it a little different.Over the past few weeks, I’ve been driving my daughter home from school listening to the BBC Radio 1 breakfast show. My goodness, the production on that radio station is phenomenal: I can only assume that someone is pre-producing all the segues ahead-of-time, because the quality of them all is really impressive. Worth a critical listen.RCS and Triton Digital have produced programmatic advertising for over-the-air radio, which they’ve demonstrated this week at IBC. A very clever idea to connect a playout system to this kind of tool: I gather that broadcasters approve audio creative before it gets broadcast (probably for the best), and that Triton are also working on getting it integrated with other playout systems. (Although, in deference to my sponsor, what other playout systems are there? Are there any?)At some point in the last month or so, the BBC international app has finally got a proper video player for the live stream of BBC News, so it’s now (finally) possible to watch the channel in full-screen, for example. Not sure what took them so long, but it’s very welcome.

  3. Aug 23

    Streaming music overtakes AM/FM radio in the US

    Hey! I'd love to hear your thoughts, send me a voice note. “Radio is still where people go to discover music”, we keep hearing. New data from Edison Research shows that, actually, streaming music services now reach more Americans than AM/FM radio does. I’m of the opinion that music really isn’t the reason people tune into the radio any more. It’s not a very fashionable opinion. But this data does show that if radio broadcasters are relying on music to be their “unique selling proposition”, then they’re on borrowed time. As you’ll hear in my opening keynote at Radiodays Asia, radio’s secret weapon is our people.In Australia, you’re probably aware that Kyle Sandilands has started his subscription-based radio service. He has yet to do a full week - he cancelled the first Friday show for technical reasons: the studio just failed to work; and Friday just gone, he was off sick. But - can it work as a business? I took a long look at the business behind his new app, working out what his costs might be; and it seems clear to me that there is not a chance that he can be operating at a profit. Mind you, we’ll never know - the numbers will be confidential to everyone. Well, nearly everyone: his former employer, ARN, gets a 19.9% share of revenue, and will therefore have the numbers. Let’s hope they don’t leak out.It appears that the show is also available as a private podcast, if you’re a subscriber and you know who to ask. He’s using the Canadian Transistor as a podcast host.In Bavaria, Germany, digital radio listening has overtaken FM radio listening for the first time (in terms of total reach). In terms of reach for radio, Monday to Friday, the BLM data says that 45.2% of 14+ adults listen to FM; 35.2% listen to DAB; 18.5% listen to radio online; and 3% listen via cable/satellite. (30.1% only listen to digital - there’s still a lot of listening on both platforms). In total, 76.7% listen to the radio Monday to Friday; a figure down from 85.5% in 2019.Also in Germany, and possibly related to the above, public broadcaster MDR has announced the closure of more FM transmitters for cost-saving. (I think affected listeners will get DAB coverage.)

  4. Aug 10

    Kyle's first online show 'a disaster'

    Hey! I'd love to hear your thoughts, send me a voice note. Kyle Sandilands went on-air this morning with his paid-for show. It looked to be a bit of a technical mess; his most chummy media partner called it chaotic, and detailed some of the content we all missed out on. Radioinfo says the issue was that you needed to watch the video to be able to listen; “Not an easy listen this morning, and not just because of the teething problems”. Nine suggests it was a disaster - “never-ending audio issues that ended up sounding like a drive-thru speaker in a thunderstorm.” It seems that the content of the show was as much of a disaster as the technicals surrounding it; the tech can be fixed, but can the lurid content? (The whole show is on-demand, seemingly - it’ll cost you AUD $99 for a year). Nice to see friend-of-this-newsletter Waaaade Kingsley on Channel Nine talking about it. To come at some point this week, a deep-dive into Kyle’s show and what is needed for it to work financially.

  5. Jul 29

    The MFWs, a new BBC station, and more from Canada

    Hey! I'd love to hear your thoughts, send me a voice note. Hell has no fury like an MFW - Duncan Campbell, former content director of ARN, writes about the pressure group Mad Fudging Witches. “Make no mistake about it, Alan Jones, Kyle Sandilands and Karl Stefanovic all lost their jobs because of MFW”, he claims. Not sure about Karl - probably uncritically interviewing Tommy Robinson did that for him - but, Campbell suggests we should be concerned that MFW have this kind of influence. MFW targets the advertisers who fund the shows, contacting them directly and making them aware of the content they’re funding. Campbell frames it as a free speech issue. (He’ll be at Radiodays Asia; I’ve put this through a link tracker since the original link has a naughty word in).Spintrack is a “complete radio station on a Mac mini”, it claims. It’s probably understandable that there aren’t that many playout systems for the Mac, but it looks interesting to see - it includes voicetracking and live assist, along with hour templates and music scheduling.Over in Podnews this week, SONARR has been advertising its awards. They’re a new audio awards for Australia, including radio, podcasts, audiobooks and voiceovers. You have until this Friday evening to enter, and it can be as low as $75 to enter. You’re guaranteed not to win if you don’t enter…Some quite impressive radio analysis for the Sydney market. ARN’s Gold managed 15 minutes an hour of ads. “If you’re hearing an ad on Smooth, there’s a 50/50 chance WSFM is also in an ad at that exact moment”. (Yes, this person - who is clearly someone who cares about radio - calls it WSFM, despite it having rebranded over a year ago). The comments are, as ever, worth reading.

  6. Jul 19

    Radio listening data from Europe and the US

    Hey! I'd love to hear your thoughts, send me a voice note. The EBU released its Radio Trends Report 2026. Weekly reach across Europe is 81.3%, down 2.7% from five years ago. As above - time spent listening is 2h 10m per day - down 15 minutes on 5 years ago (and down 50 minutes from 20 years ago).Nielsen released its Podcast Listen & Watch Report, though there’s information in there for radio as well. Particularly, it quotes Edison Research’s Share of Ear for Q1, which sys that 20% of time spent with ad-supported audio is podcasting: radio is more than three-times larger.In Australia, Kyle Sandilands will start his paid-for live online show on August 10. It will cost AUD $99 for the year (£51, US$69) - listeners won’t be able to buy monthly. Game Changers Radio seems to think it will be easy to get 10,000 listeners paying that. Sandilands has said he needs 50,000 to “cover costs”. Prior to his sacking, his show had 1.1 million listeners, 96,000 of those online; he had 291,000 listeners to the podcast too. I’m fascinated to watch this.

  7. Jul 12

    AI gets a number 1 song

    Hey! I'd love to hear your thoughts, send me a voice note. Links and much more to read at https://radioland.email

  8. Jul 6

    Linear audio vs ondemand audio

    Hey! I'd love to hear your thoughts, send me a voice note. Data from Edison Research makes me question what radio is marketing for.

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Ratings & Reviews

5
out of 5
2 Ratings

About

A regular audio column with the most interesting news about radio's future. James is a radio futurologist - a writer, speaker and consultant concentrating on the effect that new platforms and technology are having on the radio business across the world. He has a website at https://james.cridland.net where you can subscribe to Radioland, his newsletter.

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