Hello, I'm James Cridland, the radio futurologist, and every so often I try and record this version
of my vaguely weekly, except it's really monthly newsletter, all about radio and all of that
kind of stuff. And this is it from the 23rd of November, 2023. It's called Happy 100
Aussie Radio. Happy 100th birthday to radio in Australia. On November the 23rd, 1923,
2SB came on air in Sydney. 2SB was originally a commercial radio station which earns its
money by selling sealed sets, sets unable to be changed to another station, and a subscription
to help fund those stations. It changed its name to 2BL relatively quickly after learning
that its competitor would be the similar sounding 2FC, and successfully lobbied to change its
business model after the concept of sealed sets went as well as you'd expect it to.
In the 1930s it became an ABC station, and it's now known as ABC Radio Sydney. If you
walk into ABC Radio Brisbane's reception, there's the usual collection of vintage radios,
which when I am made king of radio I will outlaw from radio reception areas. That display
tells you that ABC Radio Brisbane first came on air in 1938, though it's really the spiritual
successor of 4QG, the first station in Queensland paid for by government, which started on 27
July 1925 at 1pm with a market report, followed by the stock exchange and the weather, after
which in a slice of programming genius, it closed down again until 6.30.
Australian radio is clearly in it for the long haul. Kyle and Jackie O, the biggest
stars in Sydney radio, signed a 10 year deal worth over AU$200 million, or rather AU$131
million. Fellow Brit Christian O'Connell has signed a 5 year deal as well. Christian is
a hard worker who deserves it. What's quite nice is that Jackie O gets paid identically
to Kyle, as she should, and Jackie O at the very least also deserves her success. I'm
sure that Kyle is a nice man too.
The UK released Ray Jar Q3-23 and Matt Deegan had some erudite commentary as I record this.
They've just released Q4-23 which goes to show how old I am in terms of recording these.
The BBC Sounds has added multi-room playback, and a few other goodies to Amazon Alexa. Notable
is the final sentence, we'll continue to develop features and work closely with our
partners at Amazon to improve the experience for BBC Sounds listeners.
And I also linked to a man taking us around the KMox AM transmitter in St Louis in Missouri.
Of course it's Missouri.
I also wanted to write a good amount of stuff about Grupo Formula in Mexico City, but I
also wanted to get this out on the 100th anniversary of radio in Australia. Grupo Formula in Mexico
City is coming next time when I can be bothered to record another one of these.
Coming up it says here, let me find the most recent version of my coming up information
because it's much better than reading a very old version from three months ago. Isn't it?
That would be good. What have I got coming up? I've got the Norwegian Local Radio Association,
that's its national conference in Oslo on March 15th, I'll be there. Radio Days Europe
in Munich March 17th to the 19th, I'm in London on March 21st, not doing anything but I'm
in London. Evolutions by podcast movement March 26th to 29th in Los Angeles, then I
go home. And then a little bit later in May I'm at the podcast show in London, I'm in
New York on Monday May 27th, not doing anything but I'm in New York. Momentum 24 in Orlando
May 29th to 31st then up to Toronto in Canada, oh Canada, Radio Days North America is happening
in June 3rd to 4th and a little bit later on in the year Kuala Lumpur is where I'll
be going for Radio Days Asia between September 2nd and 4th including Podcast Day Asia which
should be good fun to do. Thank you to supporters Radio.co, Broadcast Radio, Clyde Broadcast,
Richard Hilton, James Masterton, Brun Audio Consulting, Soma FM and Media Realms Meta
Radio, if you'd like to support this in any way and bully me into recording these in a
more timely fashion. Then you can buy me a coffee, become a member to give regularly
or just give a one-off coffee or five, buymeacoffee.com, James Cridland is where to go. You can follow
me on Mastodon, just search for james.crid.land, you'll find me there and that's my email address
as well and my professional website has more details about who I am and what I do and whether
I can help you further. But until next time, thank you for listening and keep listening.