Hello, I'm James Cridland, the radio futurologist,
and every week I write a newsletter all about
international radio trends. It's called Radioland,
and you can find it at james .cridland .net slash
radioland. And this is it for September the 21st.
The BBC adds new stations to DAB. Multi -platform
radio offers a great opportunity to broaden brands
and offer additional choice for wider appeal.
And that has been particularly the case in the
UK, where Virgin Radio was the first to add additional
brand extensions, initially known as Virgin Radio
Classic and Virgin Radio Wheels of Steel, back
in early 2000. And in the main, these can offer
yield management around advertising, ensuring
that most advertisers buy across the brand network
rather than solace stations. The BBC recently
launched three new brand extensions on DAB Plus
in the UK, Radio 1 Dance, Radio 1 Anthems and
Radio 3 Unwind. The stations have been on BBC
Sounds for a while, but have now made it to broadcast
radio as well. And it's the first time that the
BBC has broadcast national DAB Plus signals.
Back in 2007, the industry was loudly proclaiming
that DAB Plus would never come to the UK. It
does mean that the BBC's DAB Multiplex is now
quite interesting. It's a mix of the Heritage
stations on original flavour DAB and then three
DAB Plus services now squeezing in with the brave
choice of 32 kilobits a second being used even
for classical music. Radio 1, 2, 3 and 4 have
all slightly decreased in audio quality down
from 128 to 112 kilobits a second. DAB Plus is
the standard in most DAB countries these days.
It's a nervousness about the large number of
older DAB -only sets that means that the BBC
hasn't switched entirely. But it's good to see
new services making it to DAB broadcasting, which
is significantly more popular than online. It
gives the BBC more opportunity to reach audiences.
And that can only be a good thing. While I was
in London, I went to the Museum of Brands and
it's striking how much radio stuff is in there.
It's a fun way to pass half an hour if you're
ever in Ladbroke Grove, particularly if you like
old -fashioned radios. More BBC outside the UK
oddness. And they've got a full archive website
of Alistair Cook's letter from America, except
if you press the Listen Now button, none of those
work. It just takes you to a 404 error page.
But you can also press the Download button, and
that works fine. So I'm not quite sure what's
going on there. It was interesting to listen
to CBC Radio 1 in Calgary in Alberta. The news
bulletin at the top of the hour was quite fresh
-sounding. Some news stories just introduced
using actuality rather than a newsreader introducing
it. every news story first. It's quite a nice
tweak to a standard five -minute bulletin. It's
worth listening in if you can. I would give you
a recording of that, but I don't have access
to one. Unfortunately, there seems to be no access
to CBC Radio 1 Calgary on the service that I
use, which is a bit of a shame. Now, as more
of us work for ourselves, it's becoming harder
for people to pick up the pieces if something
happens to us. I wrote a piece over on PodNews
about your digital legacy, but it's just as valid
for people who work in radio as well. It's worthwhile
giving it a read and seeing if it applies to
you as well. And iHeartRadio will continue as
a brand in Canada after Bell Media reviewed,
or renewed, I should say, its agreement. Although,
really, what option do they have? They've got
a sizeable install base within Canada. How would
they transition to a new app if they decided
that they didn't want iHeartRadio anymore? There's
an interesting one. Anyway, thank you so much
to Radio .co, to Clyde Broadcast, the radio people,
and to Admaster for your kind support. Also Greg
Strassel, Sam Phelps, Richard Hilton, Emma Gibbs,
Jocelyn Abbey, and James Masterton for being
regular supporters as well. You can support this
podcast and my work by buying me a coffee, buyingmeacoffee
.com slash James Cridland. And you can follow
me on all of the socials, if by all of the socials
I mean the ones that nobody uses. Mastodon, mm
-mm. James at bne .social. Or Blue Sky, I'm at
james .crid .land. 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 .cridland
.net. And until next time, keep listening.