Recent content in James Cridland on James Cridland - radio futurologist
Kyle Sandilands, one half of the Kyle & Jackie O Show, started a radio show on his own streaming app last Monday. The first day was technically rocky , but the second day was rather better , from what I understand. (I’m not a subscriber). Trevor Long posts the audience peak on Tuesday which looks as you’d expect any breakfast show to look. There appears to be a visible viewer-count on…
Above: photocards are still a thing at ABC Radio Brisbane (or, at least, they were in 2023 when I took this) 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…
Above: a rather fabulous “pirate radio kit” that you could buy in Italy in the 1980s, which was a little FM radio transmitter. Here’s a YouTuber playing with one (which is fascinating, because the Italian voice has been redubbed into English and actually it works pretty well). Hell has no fury like an MFW - Duncan Campbell, former content director of ARN, writes about the…
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…
Above: a grey day in May 2015, in Toronto - a billboard marketing the Bell-owned CHUM FM. Full story: Australia’s remote mines have lots of FM radio stations in the middle of nowhere , it turns out. A question from a Radioland supporter, Dafydd, led me to learning all about “Newman Area C”. I thoroughly enjoyed learning more about this; become a supporter and drop me an email…
Smart speakers and digital assistants are very important to radio. In Australia, 21% of Australians use a smart speaker to listen to live radio (Television & Media Survey, ACMA, 2023). In terms of total listening, looking at RAJAR’s MIDAS, around 12% of all radio listening in the UK (ish) is done on a smart speaker. In Australia, 62% of households apparently own a Google speaker (which seems…
Radioland supporter Dafydd - you can become a supporter here - contacted me and asked: “What’s the deal with triple j broadcasting on FM from dozens of ore mines? Is it purely because the mines are central and the most populous areas, or are they piping the Js in underground for the miners to listen?” Indeed, here’s a partial list of broadcast radio stations in Australia. And - weird -…
Michael Banbrook sent me a nice email saying that my note last week - highlighting the closure of the Radio 4 LW transmitter - arrived while he was at an event in Droitwich to commemorate the closure. Above, one of the pictures he sent me. Goodness, how many people did the BBC employ at that transmitter? Below - three graphs. Ooooh, good. Above, data from the US, from Edison Research at SSRS . It…
Above: an old radio dial, photographed by me in Turin, Italy, in 2011, with “Droitwich” highlighted. BBC Radio 4 Long Wave 198 closed down early in the morning on 27th June, from Droitwich, Westerglen and Burghead. Here’s a decent recording on YouTube . It’s been replaced with a repeating information loop (which, curiously, says it’s available “through your…
Above: from the top of Mount Coot-Tha in Brisbane - specifically, from Nine Network’s carpark. The dish is Nine’s, pointing NNW; that’s the ABC’s transmitter and, behind it, TXA’s transmitter for Channel 10. Most of the commercial and community stations are on there too. One half of the Kyle & Jackie O show, Kyle Sandilands, has accepted a settlement from former…
The Podcast Index - released by Adam Curry and Dave Jones more than five years ago - is a super-useful thing to go data mining into the wide world of podcasts. There’s a weekly-updated file containing every public feed in the Podcast Index - it’s here , and is about 1.8GB. Unzip it, and it becomes a 5GB file, which you can “easily” interrogate using a thing like this SQLite…
Above: the home of Vista Radio in Kelowna. If you have a city location, promotion like this is literally free; so I’m always surprised when I see radio stations that have hidden themselves, anonymously, into a building somewhere. A new set of Australian radio figures were published last week. They are the first set of figures that don’t include any of Kyle & Jackie O on KIIS, so…
You know you’re not on your usual airline when they start talking in French. BNE-YVR I’m in the belly of an Air Canada aeroplane. I used to do this trip every quarter, but I did it in the pointy end (because someone else was paying). I’m paying, so I’m in an economy seat in a full flight, sharing my row with an elderly Indian couple. I’m on C-FVNB, an eight year-old 787-9, and this is the eighth…
Attentive readers of this newsletter (hello, you two!) will remember that I’ve been asking the ACMA, the Australian media regulator, for an FOI request of ARN’s thoughts regarding the proposed licence conditions they placed on KIIS in Sydney and Melbourne after the Potty Mouthed Kyle Sandilands Said Things. Surprisingly, here we are! A long, eight-page letter from ARN which contains a…
Quite rightly, questions are being asked about the power of US-owned “big tech”, and particularly Google, which seems to be in control of rather a lot of our lives. If you get removed from Google’s index, very few people could see your stuff - since Google has a virtual monopoly on web searching in many places. I was a fan of Google’s stuff back in the early 2000s - a fan…
I got a Australian radio research diary the other week. I bet you’d be interested in it, so I’ve written up lots about the Australian radio diary over here - and whether diaries like these are still the best way to measure radio listening. It was really interesting to take a peek at this - I hope you enjoy the read. The excellent Dan Barrett writes a newsletter called Always Be…
A researcher came to the door a few weeks ago, doing some research about mental health. It turned out that we had the requisite people in our household for their research, so when they came back to do the full research, we chatted a little while one of our household grappled with a tablet to answer a bunch of questions. It turns out that they also did the radio research fieldwork. I asked a few…
I’m in a BYD electric car, whizzing my way to the airport. This is the first time in two months for flying, and the first time all year to be flying with Qantas. Qantas rewards me by sending me a text saying that it is “unable to confirm” my upgrade request for the first leg of the trip. The copywriting on that text needs some work. “Sorry - we can’t confirm an upgrade this time.” would convey the…
Above: the DAB module inside my little cheap radio AM deathwatch: 1110 WBT (news talk) in Charlotte, the only class A clear-channel station in North Carolina, is closing down, and selling the ground its AM transmitter is on for housing. Here’s the listing . In the same city, 610 WPNZ (christian) is also selling (that address would be 400 Radio Road ). Both stations are also available on FM;…
In anticipation of my trip to the UK for The Podcast Show, I splurged AUD $40 (UK £20) on a little DAB radio. It’s very cheap, but it seems to work rather well: I have given it a full review, including taking a look inside. In the UK, Ofcom has announced a further six small-scale DAB multiplexes . So far, 105 of these have launched. I’d suggest this to Australia as well: DAB…
Reviewing a radio receiver is made a little more challenging when there’s no brand name on it. The model number on the back is DAB-PC1, and it uses PC1 as part of its Bluetooth identifier, so I’m guessing that’s its name (and this is probably how you’ll see it listed on Ali Express or similar). I bought it from AliExpress - here’s the product listing (affiliate). When…
Above: the real Brisbane airport, early one morning in August 2024. Welcome to Tapt Media , the new radio company in Australia that owns 2GB, 3AW, 4BC and 6PR, which came into being on 1 May. They own four heritage talk brands, two of which are #1 in their markets. I took a look at the company’s swish new website , and uncovered a few concerning things. For a start - the company’s…
This is a longer story from Radioland , my radio trends newsletter. Welcome to Tapt Media , the new owner of a number of talk radio stations across Australia as of May 1. The company is owned by Craig Laundy, who spoke to 4BC’s Jason Matthews . It’s great to see new people interested and excited about the opportunities that local talk radio can bring. They have a new website, pictured…
Above: satellite radio receivers marked down, in Washington DC in November 2009. The companies had merged a year earlier but the hardware was still separate by the looks of things. This was the first quarter that the company had posted a profit. SiriusXM and iHeartMedia are in talks to merge, reports Variety . The news was initially the subject of a set of reports by Bloomberg ($). From a podcast…
Above: some impressive advertising for Ewan and Cat on the Greatest Hits Radio Scotland breakfast show, taken just this morning in Glasgow, Scotland, by an eager Radioland reader. It’s a bakery delivery van - thus most likely to be seen at breakfast time. Very clever advertising, to catch people in the car and help them listen. I’d have made “DAB” a little bigger, given…
Above: not quite sure what the station on 131.5 MHz sounded like in Helsinki airport, but I doubt it was playing the hits. The AI Top 40 is worth a listen, if nothing else. It calls itself a “live, fully AI-generated chart show”, and the AI has apparently been trained on 47,000+ hours of real broadcast audio, rather than just whatever junk is on the internet. It sounds…
While at Radiodays Europe, I was interested to see Radioplayer, who had a big presence in the expo hall - including an XPENG car - and also laid-on a number of talks, including an overview of Radioplayer with a clear focus on their in-car experience. It had an entertaining video, a chat with someone at the BBC, and then, Rune Hafskjær, the Chief Digital Officer of Norway’s P4. Rune started…
Do you make podcasts? I’d be really grateful if you’d fill in the fifth annual Podnews Report Card . It’ll only take ten minutes. Thank you. Above: the crowds make it to the RCS stand at Radiodays Europe. I regularly see a bit of confusion about what radio ratings actually show. At least in the UK and Australia, and probably in many more markets, radio ratings are for the radio…
“So, you’re flying to… where’s THAT?” says the check-in attendant in Brisbane airport, looking at my final destination of RIX. Brisbane International Airport is in even more of a rebuild than it was last time; more hoardings hiding work, more diversions, more closed shop units. Shortly they’re going to close the Qantas lounge airside, making it landside for six months or something. It’ll probably…
I’m really very happy with my Onyx Boox Poke 3 e-reader , which I’ve had since 2021. It’s a nice, sharp-screened ebook reader, with a nice backlight and everything. Running Android, I’m using KOReader on it, and it works nicely. So why buy another? Particularly, why the Xteink X4 ? The Poke 3’s screen is 7", but the Xteink’s screen is only about 4" diagonal.…
The radio world is in Rīga, Latvia - including me - for Radiodays Europe. As Nik Goodman said to me yesterday, it’s a feeling of “the band getting back together”, as you bump into people over breakfast at the hotel and in the bars across the city. A Sunday of focused summits has been and gone; there are opening drinks tonight, and then the conference kicks into full swing…
Above: community radio station 2SER ’s studios in Sydney NSW, Australia. Edison Research at SSRS released the Infinite Dial 2026 in the US, which I co-presented. You can download the slides and watch the webinar over here. My takeaways: Real growth in 55+ listening to online music services like Spotify and YouTube Music (YTM is the #1 in this demographic). It’s unsurprising, really -…
One of Australia’s biggest radio shows, Kyle & Jackie O , has ended. Tuesday’s announcement to the ASX , the Australian stock market, makes it clear that it isn’t a stunt. The show is now off the air: Kent Small is doing the breakfast show in both Sydney and Melbourne (this is Australian radio, so he has to have a nickname, which is “Smallzy”). Employment lawyers will…
Above: Radiodays Asia in 2019. Radiodays Europe is just a few weeks away. In the UK, RadioToday reports that media regulator Ofcom is to require local analogue radio licences in the UK to air local news between 6a-7p weekdays. The regulator says: “This local news must consist of or include some news which has been locally-gathered by journalists physically present in the relevant areas.”…
Above: the Flat Iron Building in New York City, from a visit in 2011. A familiar name has joined as a regular supporter of this newsletter - “Marty from New Yawk”, aka Marty Edelstein . I wrote about Marty on my blog in 2007, arguing that every radio station needed a Marty . He still pops up in my feeds now and again: no longer actually in the 9-5 grind in NYC, which must be a great…
Above: a Glensound ISDN unit, in the “museum” in the ABC’s Brisbane headquarters. As ever, nothing better than seeing equipment you used day-to-day (or, in this case, saw being used) in a museum. I’ve been watching the troubles of the television industry, in a detached sort of way. It’s really very clear how quickly the business of live television is collapsing before…
Above: in the “radio museum” in ABC Brisbane’s reception area, a cart with the “short” version of the Majestic Fanfare , the slightly anachronistic piece of music that precedes every news bulletin on ABC Radio stations in Australia. (I’m assuming “SHT” stands for “short”). “Radio museums in reception areas” will be outlawed…
Above: plenty of lanyards. These were, I think, less than two years worth. Anyway, this clutter has now gone out of the office. Your emergency broadcaster? I’ve often been a little nervous about shouting that “radio works during emergencies when others don’t”. In Portugal, on Jan 28, Serra de Montejunto mast, operated by RDP, was brought down by strong winds as part of…
In Australia, the ABC is coming off the iHeartRadio app (operated in the country by ARN). Radioinfo covers the news with a familiar set of reasons - rights issues and audience data - both of which are, I suggest, red herrings. The rights issues are already covered by the ABC - listen to ABC local radio online during sports coverage, and you get alternative programming anyway; and the ABC’s…
For a long time now, I’ve been trying to get stuff done around comments for podcasting. Why we need comments The only feedback that a podcaster has is consumption stats. Some podcasters sit on their analytics pages, hitting refresh and waiting for another listener to appear. But, statistics pages are reductive - turning your listeners into raw numbers. They don’t convey that each one…
For the last two years I’ve been using an Apple iPhone on loan from Apple. Before then, I used a multiple variety of Android phones, but with a welcome revival in work being done for Apple Podcasts, I was offered an iPhone to use - and then, when the year expired, I was offered another. The email requiring it to be returned almost came as a bit of a surprise, but forced me to some quick thinking.…
Turning up relatively early at Brisbane International Airport, I’d gone through the new fancy security scanners (they’ve been in for a month now, and are very light and airy), and sorted a coffee in the Qantas lounge. As I asked nicely for another one half an hour later - with about 40 minutes to boarding - we started hearing a very loud alarm and a repeated request for us to all…
Above: this weekend I was inducted into the Podcast Hall of Fame, a prestigious and frankly humbling experience. An emotional night, and I’m grateful for the support and recognition. With all the talk of closures last time round, let’s cover a new station. STV Radio went live in Scotland on DAB (“Never the same song all day long”). It’s owned by STV, the television…
Normally, I’d wait until next week to send out the first Radioland of the year. But there’s already too much news, so… here we are! Happy New Year. I’ve long been impressed at Radiocentre in the UK - a vibrant trade body for the radio industry which is probably a good reason why UK radio is so well thought-of and successful. They’ve published their Annual Review 2025…
Back in June, I reviewed ForwardEmail , which is an email forwarding service but is now, also, an email hosting service of its very own. Two people reached out: The founder of ForwardEmail, who noted my review and offered to help further The CEO of ImprovMX , who also noted my review and was keen to offer me free access to ImprovMX Given I wasn’t entirely happy with ForwardEmail, and that my…
I’ve had an MG4 for almost a year, so I guess it’s probably time for a full review of it. So here is that review. First, the name. The proper name of the car is an MG4 Essence 64, and its brand is MG, so technically I’m driving an MG MG4 Essence 64, which seems a rather repetitive name. But there we are. We needed a second car for the school run, so the thought was that this would be a smaller…
I recently rediscovered my old MacBook Pro in a box. It was a true lemon, this thing: the battery swelled up 13 months after buying it (I went into the Apple Store and said something about Australian Consumer Law, whereupon miraculously the price for repair suddenly became “free”). And then, nine months later, the screen display driver began failing, requiring a replacement of the…
I wrote about wanting decent segues (not just crossfades) on music services in 2022 . And excitingly, Spotify has recently launched a thing that I’ve always wanted in a music playlist service - the chance to mix tracks together. And to be in charge of how that mix goes in my own playlists! They’re not the first - Apple Music has a new AI auto mix thing. As I said when I reviewed it…
This morning, I was on two AM radio stations from the ABC, talking about switching to FM. In Australia, AM listening has halved in the last ten years, and emergency broadcasting is only useful if people can actually listen. If fewer people even own an AM radio, there’s little point broadcasting on it. This isn’t a technical debate. If I was to start talking technical, then there’s an…
This is Radioland, my radio trends newsletter. It was excellent to have been on 666 ABC Radio Canberra on Monday, to talk about ABC Radio Perth’s switch to FM early next year. As you’ll recall, I’m in favour of all ABC Local Radio stations in capital cities, like Sydney, Brisbane, Melbourne, Canberra, broadcasting on FM. It’s always a little difficult to talk about the…