Hello, I'm James Cridland, the radio futurologist,
and this is Radioland, my radio trends newsletter.
You can find the website at radioland .email.
And this podcast is sponsored by RSS .com. RSS
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their website this is the podcast for december
the 14th 2025 am continues to be switched off
worldwide as fm gets a reprieve and as i read
that i'm thinking why am i telling you this because
you can already see that in the podcast and you
can already see the date so perhaps i'll stop
doing that and just go straight into i've written
a lot about the issues with am Talk Sport removing
a set of AM transmitters in the UK. The Americans
frothing at the mouth about the removal of AM
from cars after the slow dawning of realism in
that country about AM's future. And, of course,
absolute radio switch -off in January 2023, along
with plenty of local stations. But, once more,
things are afoot. In Spain, Radio Nacional, RNE,
is switching off its AM network. on December
30th at three in the morning. You can continue
to listen on FM as well as online and via DAB+.
The company says that AM has, quotes, become
obsolete. Ouch. And in any case, FM signals for
RNE cover most of the country. And here in Australia,
the ACMA. has allowed the ABC to switch ABC Radio
Perth and Perth's ABC Radio National transmissions
to FM. The ABC says that the switchover date
will be announced in the new year. ABC News Radio
also gets an FM transmitter, but let's come back
to that one because it's slightly more complicated.
I made a submission to ACMA, which you can read
on my website, supporting the decision. The main
reason I submitted is that the ABC is funded
for emergency broadcasting, and emergency broadcasting
is pointless if few people own a radio that picks
up the emergency broadcasts. We already know
that AM radio listening is very low in this country.
Only one in five Australians listen in a given
week. And trends are that the number of people
who listen to AM will have halved in the last
decade. We also know that the ABC agrees with
that view, simulcasting ABC Radio Brisbane onto
FM during Cyclone Alfred in order that it reached
the largest number of people. An additional reason
I gave was value for money for the taxpayer.
The ABC could save more than a million dollars
by turning off the power -hungry AM transmitters,
and that money should go into its radio output
instead. My submission recommended that the same
exercise happens in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane,
Adelaide, Canberra and Hobart. At least that
the ACMA should find an FM frequency for the
flagship ABC local radio service. And as I've
said here before, if there really are no frequencies
available, then the ABC should remove ABC Classic
from its FM frequency and make it a digital -only
service in the cities. And my submission also
asked for a change in a random, pointless law,
of which more after the break. But I'll be on
ABC Radio Canberra talking about ABC Radio Switch
Off tomorrow, as I record this Monday at 1pm
local time. So here's hoping that the politicians
are listening. Now, if you do a radio show, you
might want some world class prep and the right
show prep, which can be delivered to you on time
every day without fail, is probably what you
want. And this show prep is called show prep.
And you can grab a £1 week -long trial of Show
Prep and stop chasing around looking for things
to use on your show, running out of time before
the show and trying to sight -read the newspapers.
You'll find a link in my newsletter, which you'll
also find linked from the show notes today. Now
in Perth, ABC News Radio will be getting an FM
frequency in 2026, but it won't be switched off
from AM. even though it'll benefit from FM in
the city. An expensive transmitter will continue
broadcasting ABC News Radio on 585kHz AM because
of a law made in 1946 that the Australian government
seems unbothered to change. So here is your guide
to the Parliamentary Proceedings Broadcasting
Act 1946. It was a law passed by Labour PM Ben
Chifley and it requires the ABC to broadcast
coverage of the Federal Parliament, either the
lower or upper house, when they're sitting. They
don't sit very often, it turns out, just 40 days
a year, with 10 more days for estimates, which
is the rough equivalent of a special committee
in the UK. Since 1994, on the other 310 days
of the year, the ABC has run a news radio station
on those AM frequencies. A news radio station,
by the way, which is doing very well, thank you
very much, in terms of the audience figures.
But yes, the AM frequencies. And it must be an
AM frequency, because in Clause 4 .1a, the Parliamentary
Proceedings Broadcast Act 1946 requires that
parliamentary coverage must be broadcast on a
medium -wave national broadcasting station. Probably
because there was no other radio platform at
the time. The ABC can also televise it if they
want, but they still have to broadcast it on
AM. And so, if you listen to ABC News Radio on
AM, you'll hear, 50 days of the year, Federal
Parliament. Or you can continue to hear the news
on DAB +, or the ABC Listen app. And that's why,
in Perth, ABC News Radio will continue on AM,
requiring the entire AM transmitter facility
to remain on air. and the 180 metre high transmitter
tower to be maintained, even if nobody will probably
be listening to it. I'm going to take a wild
guess that the costs there are around three quarters
of a million dollars a year when you add up electricity,
maintenance and access, all because of a law
made in 1946 which government can't be bothered
to change. It's madness. So two things leading
from this. First, ABC News Radio also broadcasts
parliamentary proceedings on its FM frequencies
as well as AM, despite no requirement to do so.
Either they believe it's an audience winner,
which I doubt, or they lack the switching capabilities
to treat the FM transmitters separately, or nobody's
realised that they don't have to, and I'd be
fascinated to know which it is. Secondly, the
Parliamentary Proceedings Broadcast Act 1946
actually says nothing about the broadcast strength
of the signal. If the ABC wanted to, there seems
nothing against them running a 5 watt AM transmitter
on 585 kilohertz from the roof of ABC Radio Perth,
which would be audible for about a mile. And
that would be entirely within the requirement
of the law. It would also be much cheaper. A
new transmitter would cost $480. a wire antenna
on the roof, $160, and you could plug it into
a mains point with almost zero electricity cost.
Rather cheaper than keeping a whole AM transmitter
park going next to a housing estate that doesn't
want it there. After all this talk of AM switch
-off, the FM switch -off in Switzerland, due
at the end of next year, has been cancelled,
and FM will continue for at least another five
years. Some reasons given are that the Swiss,
lacking their own radio stations, will listen
to stations from other countries, and that the
switch -over might hurt some commercial stations.
It went to a vote in the National Council, and
the Chamber made its decision by 21 votes to
18, with five. abstentions. Public radio has
already turned off, but apparently they're going
to turn their FM signals back on again. Robin
Ince has resigned from the popular podcast The
Infinite Monkey Cage and has recorded his last
show. The show is one of the top 25 shows in
the UK. He suggests his opinions outside the
BBC have been considered problematic for some
time. increasingly the benefit of doing a show
for the BBC, a decent level of pay, a good level
of job security, is being outweighed by the desire
of the BBC to hamper your creative freedom in
all other parts of your life. And I suspect he
won't be the last to realise that he can probably
have a perfectly successful career without the
constraints of the BBC, and this talent drain
will continue to damage the corporation. And
interesting to see WBGO, a public media station
in Newark, New Jersey, add programmatic ads onto
its stream. The station has added thousands in
incremental sponsor revenue, and apparently the
audience doesn't mind that much. They're using
Soundstack. Well, next, I am speaking at Podfest.
January the 15th to the 18th, 2026, where I'm
also being inducted into the Podcast Hall of
Fame, which is a great honour. I'll be talking
about where we've been and where we're going,
a look back at where we've come from, including
last year's podcast news and trends, to help
us understand how podcasting is changing and
how we should be changing with it. Plus, a look
forward to what to do in 2026. And I'm speaking
at Radio Days Europe in Riga in Latvia in March.
really should get around to booking that flight.
My speech there is the future of audio is people
powered. The way people consume media is changing.
I will take a look at the global trends in radio
and on demand. How will we listen on which devices?
How can we make our output truly unique? How
do we do it in a resource efficient way? And
what part does video play in the future of audio?
So, yes, that'll be fun, won't it? RadioDaysEurope
.com is where to go for your tickets for that.
And thank you to our many supporters for this
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james .crid .land. And until next time, keep
listening.