Hello, I'm James Criddon, the radio futurologist,
and this is Radioland, my international radio
trends newsletter for January the 18th, 2026.
And this podcast is sponsored by RSS .com, a
great podcast host that has a free tier if you
are local or niche and you wish to have a podcast
of your very own. Well worth a look at RSS .com.
Now, with all the talk of closures last time
round, let's cover a brand new station. STV Radio
went live in Scotland on DAB. Its tagline is
never the same song all day long. It's owned
by STV, the television company, and it should
therefore benefit from significant promotion
on the TV airwaves. I linked in my newsletter
to the main studio. in a picture from Facebook
which looks larger than any studio I've ever
seen. I have a feeling it was the magic of the
camera lens. Notable comments on Facebook, though.
I tried to get it on my Google Nest, but it didn't
recognise you. And good luck, Alexa, not picking
it up, though. Station launches are hard these
days, aren't they? James Masterton, a full -time,
a long -time supporter of this newsletter, even
if he's nothing to do with radio anymore, thank
you James, wrote about a long day's set of interviews
about the Christmas number one in the UK. He
writes a website called Chartwatch UK, which
is worth a peek. My favourite bit is that he
appeared via Zoom for BBC Radio 2. in spite of
being able to literally see the studio from his
hotel room, which is classic BBC. And it reminds
me of appearing on BBC Radio 5 Live from a radio
conference in 2007 or so. Now, the BBC had blocked
off half of the hotel restaurant. They'd set
up a full mixing desk with a radio engineer looking
after it, which took hours to set up. Stephen
Nolan was sent to chair this whole 10 -minute
panel. And I remember thinking what a lot of
work it all was. And then I thought, hang on
a minute, this is weird. Because when we finished
it, I stood up for the first time, looked across
the street. And across the street in Belfast
was the headquarters of BBC Ulster. They had
done a full, expensive outside broadcast. literally,
to stop me crossing the road and sitting in a
BBC studio. Just really weird. Bless. AM Death
Watch Corner, a number of US broadcasters are
asking the FCC to make it easier to get their
AM stations onto FM. There's a complicated set
of requests in a petition that I linked to. David
Oxenford has done a good job of summarising them.
You'll find that linked from the newsletter.
And Desi Radio, an Asian station in Southall
in London. Closed on 1602 kHz on December 31st.
It continues on DAB Plus and online. In Germany,
classical music station Classic Radio. completed
its plans for FM switch -off. The station has
handed back more than 30 FM frequencies since
2012. It's available nationally now on DAB Plus
and online. Also, Radio WSW, which is a top 40
radio station, which is probably WSWA. I don't
know. Anyway, that has decided not to renew its
FM licence on December 31st. It's now DAB Plus
and online only. And the station doesn't matter
whether it's WSW or WSW, because the station
is now called Radio Sachsen 1. So there we are.
In France, what is the number one radio station
by total listeners? It's France Inter, according
to a fancy graph from La Lettre Pro and sponsor
RCS. All of the top five stations went down in
weekly reach, though. Skyrock are at number six,
bucking the trend for younger stations everywhere.
But yeah, it's a good graph and worth a peek
from the newsletter version of this. YouTube
is used by more people in the UK than BBC television,
according to some new analysis. The data measured
so -called three -minute monthly reach. That's
people who've used each platform for at least
three minutes a month. But in a parallel with
podcasting figures, people don't use YouTube
for long. If you compare a 15 -minute monthly
reach, BBC Television still comfortably beats
YouTube by six million users. And then, of course,
there's the radio and podcasts to add in as well.
And I hear that Virgin Radio UK has undergone
a reworking and now has, among many changes,
has Geoff Lloyd returning to the evening show.
For the first time, seemingly, that station has
decided to remind people of its glory days in
the 1990s with a music policy to match. It should
be worth a listen. I'm told that the positioning
jingles aren't very good. But I'm told that the
music and everything else is excellent. And certainly
if you watch the interviews that Christian, Christian?
No, that Chris Evans is doing on his breakfast
show, then you will recognise the TFI Friday
desk, which is now in the studio, which is a
very clever idea. So congratulations to them.
Ben Jones, of course, bouncing Ben Jones on in
the afternoon as well. He probably doesn't like
being called bouncing Ben Jones. Any more, I
should stop. He will be probably at Radio Days
Europe, as will I be in Riga in Latvia in mid
-March. I will be talking about the future of
audio being people -powered. Please come and
see me. I'm at the end of the first day. I'm
in track three. So it's well worth coming along.
And who knows what I'll be saying for 40 minutes.
But we'll find out together. Also, I'm speaking
at the podcast show in London in mid -March.
May. I'm keynoting at that event as well as recording
a Pod News weekly review as well. If you want
money off, then you can get money off by subscribing
to Pod News. Podnews .net is where you go for
that. And you will see links to help you save
money for that as well. Thank you to Meliora.
Thank you to Brun Audio Consulting. And thank
you to Admaster for your kind support. Plus Greg
Strassel, Sam Phelps, Richard Hilton, Emma Gibbs,
Jocelyn Abbey and James Masterton for being regular
supporters. If you would like to support my work
in any way, you can buy me a coffee. Buymeacoffee
.com slash James Cridland. 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. I'm on Mastodon or the
Fediverse as james at bne .social. That's my
pen dropping to the floor. That gave me a shock.
And you may find me somewhere else, but frankly,
Mastodon is the only thing that I'm really keeping
updated now. 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.