Hello, I'm James Cridland, the radio futurologist,
and this is Radioland, my international radio
trends newsletter, and this podcast is sponsored
by RSS .com. More on that in a bit. This is for
November the 24th, 2025. Hey, Google, when will
you fix radio? Plus, ARN's compliance team. Now,
it was interesting to hear the following on 4BH
in Brisbane over the weekend. Right across our
River City, classic hits 4BH, the Swedish bad
four. Abba, gimme, gimme, gimme. John Wade in
there too, he's the playlist this afternoon.
As much of a joy for me to play it as for you
to turn it up on your AM radio, DAB plus digital
radio in stereo and on the listener app. And
hey Google, play Brisbane's 4BH. Look, we're
working on it. We're getting lots of texts, lots
of emails, lots of calls, lots of sad face emojis.
We are across the issues with Google and streaming
4BH at the moment. Just know that we are onto
it. The big wigs of 4BH are onto it. The big
wigs of Ace Radio in touch with Google all the
time. And the latest we've had reported is it
should be all back consistently online streaming
from next week. But who knows? It could be back
happening right now. keep an ear on it. In the
meantime you can turn on the AM radio, DAB plus
digital radio and the listener app. Wow, now
I've not heard radio stations having to broadcast
apologies about their station not working on
Google speakers before but it does show what
a bad state of affairs we're now in where stations
have to broadcast PSAs about the fact that they
know that there are problems. Now back in May
I covered an issue with Google speakers and live
radio but it seems all still isn't well with
Google devices. Many stations stopping working
after firmware first release in July had caused
problems. It's an issue all over the world, not
just in Australia. But Australia has a high concentration
of Google speaker users after some quite heavy
promotion a few years back. with Google speakers
being given to virtually everybody with Telstra,
the big telco. If you want more detail, RadioApps
FAQ is really interesting. It's a helpful list
of what the app, which is run by CRA in Australia,
has been told from Google about streaming issues.
It looks like Google released another bad software
or firmware update which broke playback altogether
on some Google speakers. Then another issue,
streams would only play for 10 minutes or so
before stopping and falling over. And then on
November the 18th at 2pm, literally nothing worked
on Google speakers at all in terms of the radio.
Now a broadcast radio station would fix their
transmitter within hours. But Google's fix takes
days to roll out. And all of this seems an astonishingly
poor state of affairs. It's not the only issue
with Google stuff. Something within Google was
pulling my daily podcast. So often it was costing
me $200 in additional bandwidth. The issue was
directly traceable to their infrastructure but
they just denied anything was wrong while also
not understanding the issue in the first place.
I suspect it's still causing issues for others.
I've just given up altogether. Now after last
week when I mentioned ACMA's next step in regulating
Kyle and Jackie Ho, I was curious what is ACMA
doing and More to the point, what can they do?
So I went digging into broadcast lore to discover
what ACMA can and can't do in a blog post, which
I'll link to today from the newsletter. First,
apparently it's the ACMA, just like it's the
FCC. So there's a learning. And I should point
out that all of the Australian media have got
that one wrong so far. But let's see if I can
get that right. So second, I learned that The
ACMA is responsible for regulating the aims of
the Broadcasting Services Act 1992 which includes
a requirement to place a high priority on the
protection of children from exposure to program
material which may be harmful to them. And it's
worthwhile remembering that 16 % of KISS's audience
is aged between 10 and 17. The ACMA just can't
ignore this. It's written into the law that output
must, quote, respect community standards. But
third, the ACMA is really limited in what it
can do. If this was Ofcom in the UK, they could
issue a small fine or make an ad hoc requirement,
like you've all got to do training over the next
two months. But instead, the ACMA has to issue
a license condition, which is a complicated legal
document, and its only form of enforcement is
either to suspend the license or to terminate
it. That's all they can do. And those are really
serious, and there's no less serious enforcement
that the ACMA has any power for. Now that's a
failing in the law, I suspect, but it does explain
a lot in terms of ACMA's seeming incapability
of doing anything. And the answer is that they
can't really do anything apart from take the
station off the air. But... Good news, ACMA finally
appear to be taking this seriously because a
new job ad has appeared for Senior Content Advisor
at ARN. The description says, ARN is offering
a rare opportunity to join the Kyle and Jackie
Oh show as Senior Content Advisor, where you'll
play a pivotal role in safeguarding brand equity
and leading a team dedicated to ensuring broadcast
compliance, brand integrity, by the way, not
brand equity, but leading a team, eh? Leading
a team, a team, to police what Kyle Sanderlands,
who is apparently a professional broadcaster,
says. I wonder how big that team is going to
be. And while the broadcast compliance bit is
a bit difficult, obviously brand integrity for
Kyle is of course just talking about willies.
So that bit should be easy. I do also wonder
where Jackie Henderson fits into all of this.
It's easy to say it's the Karlo and Jackie O
show, but from what I can see of all of the transcripts
so far, Jackie never seems to initiate any of
this type of talk and you sense that she's just
a bit bored of the whole thing really. Now, not
really broadcast radio, but I've been learning
about Meshtastic, which is a way of sending short
messages via a mesh of small, low -powered radio
receivers and transmitters, which has been quite
fun. I bought a little board, a Heltech 32, which
is about $30 or so. Australian dollars, by the
way, so that's about £2 .50. Not quite, but nearly.
And anyway, it can now see other Meshtastic users
for around 300 kilometres around my house. Now,
look, I'm not quite sure what use it is. and
whether I should really be using MeshTastic or
MeshCore. But still, it's a fun little thing
to play with. I can see all kinds of messages
going on on there. So there's a thing. Something
else which has gone on in Australia, the CRA
has launched Audio ID, which is a new way to
allow audio ad buyers to see the entire online
audience of radio stations in Australia as one
set of data, which means that if I listen to
a little bit of MMM and then a little bit of
4BC, the advertisers see me as the same person.
allowing better frequency capping and targeting
overall, which seems to be a sensible way to
make radio audiences easier to buy and better
to compete with Spotify or other services. It's
quite neat. You should take a peek at the website.
Now, an upcoming news podcast from the BBC Asia
specific is being made in video. But the video
will only be on YouTube and won't be on the BBC's
own website, according to Podnews, which is a
very good website. They released this last week,
I say they, it's me, obviously. But the podcast
launched last Thursday on all podcast platforms,
but in spite of the BBC having a comprehensive
video service on its international website. The
only way to watch this new show, which is filmed
twice weekly at the BBC's Bureau in Singapore,
will be to visit a US -owned website, which to
me seems sub -optimal for the UK's broadcaster.
Not that they've got other things to be worrying
about. And a new audio awards have been announced
in Australia. The Australian Audio Awards will
take place in Sydney on May the 28th. It's operated
by Mumbrella Radio Info and Radio Today. And
the awards will recognise both radio and podcast.
It's a good thing. trying to find out whether
the Australian Podcast Awards are still going.
I'm not quite sure, to be honest, that I can
find that out. The only thing that I really know
is that, well, they haven't really told me too
much. But still, but there we are. I should also
tell you about Zeno Media, who have a quite nice
self -service ad feature now in Zeno Tools that
you can make available to your advertisers, which
is a very smart thing. And I have a feeling that
there's something else that I should be mentioning
as well, which will probably go into the newsletter,
because I'm not quite sure where it's gone. But
there should be something exciting about... Oh,
here it is. There you go. I was sent it, but
the embargo was just too late for last week,
so it was hiding away in my email. But anyway,
if you are looking to get involved with digital
radio sales, particularly, then there is a new
digital sales mentorship program. which you can
apply to. Applications are now open through December
12, 2025. It's in America, as you might have
already guessed. It's a year -long initiative
designed to accelerate the growth and professional
development of women in digital radio sales,
providing one exceptional female seller or manager
with personalised hands -on mentorship from an
accomplished industry leader. I wonder who that's
going to be. It doesn't say here. I'm assuming
it's Pat Bryson. It's the usual assumption. But
anyway, if you want to apply for that, then you
should probably do that. It is being run by the
Women in Radio group. and you can go and learn
more about that radio miw .com that's mentoring
and inspiring women radio miw .com so there we
are there's a thing i nearly forgot to put in
this but i didn't so that's good Thank you to
Radioland reader James who is in Orlando in Florida.
I recently found your podcast through YouTube
of all places, of all places. I'm 60 and I've
been a big fan of everything radio since I was
a kid around nine. I've been binging on your
podcast and will be passing it on to my radio
enthusiast friends. I should hope so. Thank you
James and thank you to RSS .com which is celebrating
its new free podcast hosting by becoming a sponsor
of the podcast version of this newsletter. That's
the thing you're listening to right now. I've
worked with RSS .com for a while as an advisor.
They've recently launched Paid, which is an automated
programmatic ad insertion tool, which turns out
to be a simple way to earn money from your podcast.
You've probably noticed the ads in here. Yes.
And for radio companies, I think there's something
coming just around the corner, which should make
it really simple to include podcasts from your
audio systems as well. I've probably broken an
embargo there, but there we are. So, yes, RSS
.com, thank you so much for your kind support.
Where am I speaking next? Well, James, in Orlando
and Florida, I am speaking next in Orlando, Florida.
Podfest, which is towards the middle of January,
January the 15th to the 18th. Can't tell you
what I'm speaking about yet, because frankly,
I don't know. But I'm off there, so that should
be fun. And then... Radio Days Europe in Riga
in Latvia in March, radiodaysEurope .com to buy
tickets for that. The future of audio is people
powered is what I will be talking about there.
By the way, podfestexpo .com is where to get
tickets. for PodFest and thank you to the many
supporters of this podcast, including the wrong
-headed Wade Kingsley, also Meliora Soma FM.
Thank you, Rusty. Radio .co and Media Results
Inc. for your kind support, along with Greg Strassel,
Sam Phelps, Richard Hilton, Emma Gibbs, Jocelyn
Abbey, and James Masterton, who are regular supporters
as well. If you would like to support my work
in any way, you can buy me a coffee. You can
become a member to give regularly or just give
a one -off coffee or five. You can do that at
buymeacoffee .com slash James Cridland. And follow
me on Mastodon on the Fediverse, jamesatbne .social.
And if you want more details about who I am and
what I do and whether I can help you further,
then you'll find my website at james .cridland
.net. And until next time, keep listening.