Hello, I'm James Cridland, the radio futurologist, and every week or so I write a newsletter
all about podcasting and that sort of thing every couple of weeks.
I should probably say because it's been a couple of weeks since I last wrote one.
But anyway, this is from July 11th, 2023.
What the world's first podcaster would do with radio?
Because it was podcasting's 20th birthday over the weekend and for the Podcast Business
Journal I interviewed Christopher Lydon, who's the world's first podcaster.
And our conversation got onto radio.
And well, here's a clip of that interview.
Has podcasting changed the way you thought it would 20 years on?
Well, I'd say yeah, it's bigger.
It is more commercial.
It's not monopolized.
You cannot monopolize human voice and it's still growing.
I mean, this is a very fluid world of media, but I think if the Marshall Land had been
said take me to your real voices to get the pulse of this nation, I'd say try the podcasts.
Arguably that's what radio was for.
And of course you have a tremendous radio background as well.
Where do you think radio is going?
That's a very good question and a dark sort of question.
I think podcasting is a terrible burden on radio, public broadcasting and otherwise.
I note that Vermont Public Radio has dropped the radio.
It's now Vermont Public.
WGBH dropped the W as if to say we're not a broadcast station anymore.
We're some sort of other service.
I think they're selling the peculiar brilliance of radio short.
It's cheap.
Anybody can listen on a very cheap instrument, whether you're out farming or doing the dishes.
It carries the human voice.
I think radio has stopped believing in the higher calling of radio itself and I think
it's a damn shame.
Yeah.
Where do you think if you were in charge of a radio station now, what would you be doing
with that?
Well, I'd be doing a whole lot of things.
I'd be doing a lot of podcasting.
I'd ask Erica Heilman to teach the world how to listen, but also how to listen to regular
people.
Our podcast, I say with some chagrin, not exactly, but is public people, people who've
written books or maybe won a Nobel Prize or hold a professorial chair somewhere and they're
advocating something.
I would do what Erica does so brilliantly, which is just get the voice of listeners.
Jay Allison did great work on this from the beginning.
Learner IDs, but let people talk until the dime drops or they cough up the secret.
Yeah.
So getting lots more other people's voices on the air rather than just the silky, the
silky voiced host.
Absolutely.
Yeah.
Says you of the silky voice.
Well, yes.
And me too.
They'll throw that at me too, but I've got an untrained voice.
I sound like my brothers.
We talk the way our parents taught us to talk.
There's nothing trained about my voice.
So we're going to keep it that way.
What a lovely man he was.
Christopher Lydon, who is still podcasting today, the open source podcast and the full
interview is in the pod news weekly review podcast.
This Friday, you can listen wherever you get your podcast is I believe the phrase.
And now I wonder what you'd make of Alfred in the UK.
David Lloyd has written plenty of details about it.
It's the community radio station for Shaftesbury in Dorset that I've written a fair bit about
already.
Annoyingly, Ofcom has removed Alfred's license application from its website, which is a shame
because it was a really good read rather weirdly.
Anyway, you'll find that linked from my newsletter at james.crid.land and that's linked in the
show notes today.
As I speak to you today, the latest Australian radio figures are out and I've written about
the new research methodology Radio 360 last month.
I noticed that ABC Radio Brisbane has become the number one AM station in the city by Cume,
which seems to me the right way to measure public service radio output.
Interesting though to also see 4BH, the golden oldest station in Brisbane doing so well.
It's number one in share for 55 plus adults.
It's number five in share overall.
In its marketing, it's been heavily and perhaps uniquely promoting DAB Plus as an available
platform alongside its poorly performing 1116 frequency or 1116 frequency.
Anyway, I can't recall any other radio station mentioning DAB Plus in this market and for
the record, DAB Plus has more listening in this country than online does.
And also that's true in the UK as well.
I also linked to an interesting video from the US explaining why every radio station
sounds the same.
It's a quick canter through the ownership law changes of the Reagan era and then how
TikTok is setting the playlists these days.
There are some important caveats near the end though and there's a lot of you turn
me on like a light switch.
Meanwhile in Sydney and certainly not with the same production work as the YouTube video
I've just mentioned, two men wearing anoraks actually have a light switch and they wonder
whether ABC Radio Sydney's AM transmitter can turn it on.
The good folks at Futuri Media are now pointing their AI guns on the people who make the commercials
with a new product called Spot On.
Daniel Anstandig is quoted in the article talking about using it for spec spots to get
a client interested and if you're just going to use it for that, then that's fine.
Just use it for that.
Just for spec spots.
Nothing else.
OK?
Good.
Also, on Twitter, if you remember that, Denis Floran, who's radio consultant to the stars,
he posted a video of Ennard doing something, you know, clever in French.
No, I do.
What it's about.
But it's worthwhile taking a look at the video because my goodness, the view in the studio
itself is the biggest, most ridiculously over engineered music radio studio you have ever
seen unless of course you know different.
And I'd love to see it if you do know different.
Definitely take a peek.
You'll find that linked from my newsletter.
Also on Twitter, assuming that you can still see anything on it, for some reason, Kit FM
UK's Tatum McGreal has decided that at a Pink concert she'll jock up the intro and hit the
post to some of the songs that Pink is singing, which is very strange.
She gets additional marks for the favourite biscuit reference, which I was quite a fan
of.
And while we're on the subject, Forbc has a new temporary afternoon host, the disgraced
plagiarist and former Murdoch journalist, don't know which of those is worse, Peter
Gleeson.
And imagine my joy to be listening in 30 minutes into day two to hear this important phone
in topic.
Biscuit lovers, here we go.
Arnott's have come out and said whether you enjoy them with a cup of tea or coffee as
a morning snack.
They've basically said here are the classics and they've recently introduced obsession
biscuits ranging from mint chocolate, salted caramel, milk and dark chocolate.
I want to know your favourite Arnott's biscuit.
Wow, two pieces about biscuit news.
So how about the subtitle of a piece in T3 to complete the trilogy of lazy radio tropes?
Spotify plans video upgrades that could change the way you use its app is the headline.
The sub headline video killed the radio star.
But what about streaming?
Now thank you to Broadcast Radio for becoming my latest supporter.
The company writes we've known James for far too many years, but we've been avid fans all
the way.
Here's to hearing him talk more about the industry we love and a mutual disdain for
lazy Buggles headlines.
Yes, I've actually found a listener to this podcast rather than a reader of the newsletter,
but I'm grateful to you.
Thank you so much.
Broadcast Radio makes the popular radio play out system Myriad, which is also in the cloud,
as well as tools and software for all kinds of things in radio as well.
You can go and visit their website at the rather excellent URL of allthews.broadcastradio.com.
All the W's are just my little thing to Russ Williams there.
All the W's.
Broadcastradio.com.
Thank you so much.
That's super kind of you.
Thank you to Clyde Broadcast, Richard Hilton, James Masterton, Brun Audio Consulting, Soma
FM, and Media Realms Radio websites for being supporters as well.
If you would like to support my work in any way, you can buy me a coffee as well.
You can become a member to give regularly if you like, or just give a one-off coffee
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Do that at buymeacoffee.com slash James Cridland.
Please do follow me on Mastodon as well.
I'm james at bne.social there.
You can also find me in threads in T2.
I'm still on Twitter.
I don't really use that.
I'm also on Blue Sky.
I don't really use that either.
Anyway, my professional website has more details about who I am and what I do and whether I
can help you further.
You'll find that at james.cridland.net.
No, james.cridland.net.
No, professional website is james.cridland.net.
That's right.
How confusing.
James.cridland.net.
Yes, that's the one you want.
And if you want more of this unprofessional nonsense, then I'll be back soon.
In the meantime, keep listening.