Hello, I'm James Cridland, the radio futurologist,
and this is Radioland, my international radio
trends newsletter, read out here because, you
know, why not? And this is the version from September
7th, 2025, Radio Days Asia in Jakarta. because
I was in Jakarta last week for Radio Days Asia
and for Podcast Day Asia, and there are plenty
of stories about it at radioinfo .asia if you
want to learn a little bit more, and you'll find
some podcast -related chats in the Pod News Weekly
Review this week from about five minutes in.
Radio Days Asia is always a fascinating glimpse
into how other markets work. Asia is a very uneven
set of markets, which makes it particularly challenging
to programme an event for everybody, but I learnt
a lot as ever. It was interesting hearing from
the BBC who announced the name for a new podcast
for Asia. It's called Asia Specific and it'll
come from Singapore. It's been a year in planning
so far and it's had a set of pilots and I must
confess to being slightly surprised, therefore,
when I interviewed Siobhan Leahy to learn that
they haven't yet settled on a final release cadence.
I think we might launch with two episodes a week,
she told me, adding one, building up to two,
maybe building up to three. Well, there are plenty
of videos to watch of the event as well. I spoke
with Jacqueline Beerhorst about DAB +, in a session
hosted by WorldDAB. Our friends at RCS hosted
a session about moving radio to the cloud, and
Chris Stevens from TM Studios talked about radio
imaging. And if you look hard enough in the YouTube
links there, you'll find both tracks of the entire
conference as well. The strangest radio station
ever appeared. It plays one thing only. That's
the title of a fun YouTube video highlighting
a ghost service on a few DAB multiplexes in the
UK. I love odd things like this, especially when
they get coverage all by themselves. It's fun.
You should go and watch it. Speaking of which,
Somerset House has launched The Dream Radio,
a three -week, 24 -7 stream to reimagine new
and hopeful ways of being. It features... I'd
like to thank them for their support this week.
It looks like a fascinating service, actually,
with original commissioned work in the evenings,
archive content during the evening. during the
day and even audiobooks overnight. Elsewhere,
Duncan Campbell, formerly of ARN, has written
about the role of a content director in radio.
There's a job that's going away. A fascinating
trip down memory lane on Steve Bobrick's blog
with details from an event I apparently helped
organise in 2008 about how the BBC should operate
online. More from Martin Bellum as well. The
BBC of 2008 seems very different to the BBC of
2025. Last week, I suggested that Apple's radio
stations have only been available to paying subscribers
of Apple Music, and thank you to the varied people
pointing out that I am wrong. They were available
everywhere for free, but just not syndicated
to other platforms. It's that that has changed
over the last couple of weeks. Now, who wants
a beer? I'm in London next week. If you're around
from 5 till 7 on Tuesday, the 16th of September,
it'll be... Quite excellent to join up for a
pint of Man in the Box. If you know, you know.
I'll be at the Yorkshire Grey in Langham Street.
I appreciate it's the day before the radio festival,
which I won't be going to because I've scheduled
a flight in the middle of that day. Sorry, but
that might mean that you're in London anyway,
I'm hoping. So if you're able to pop by, it would
be excellent to see you. I'll be the jet lagged
guy in the corner. And thank you to John in Vancouver,
who says, thanks for speaking out for us non
-UK BBC Radio listeners. It's a pleasure, John.
Chris Stevens, who says, always enjoy the content
and links. And David Webb, who says, I enjoy
your informative and interesting newsletter for
your kind extra coffees. The dog is now very
annoyed if we don't go out for a coffee on time.
Buymeacoffee .com slash James Cridland is where
to do that. Thank you to them. Also, thank you
to Greg Strassel, Sam Phelps, Richard Hilton,
Emma Gibb. And if you'd like to support my work,
then you can buy me a coffee. You can become
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Cridland is the place to go. I'm on Mastodon
at James at B &E dot social. So look me up there.
And my 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 dot Crid dot land.
Yes, or indeed james .gridland .net, either of
those two. And thank you for listening and keep
listening.