Hello, I'm James Cridland, the radio futurologist,
and this is Radioland, my international radio
trends newsletter for February the 1st, 2026.
This podcast is sponsored by rss .com, which
is a great podcast host. It's got an API so you
can get stuff from your play out system directly
into a podcast from that. And it's also got a
thing called paid so you can get advertising
in there and pay its way as well. It's very good.
rss .com is where to go. Your emergency broadcaster.
You've probably heard that line from radio. And
I've often been a little bit nervous about shouting
that radio works during emergencies when others
don't. In Portugal, on January the 28th, one
of the big masts in the country operated by RDP
was brought down. by strong winds as part of
Storm Christine, which pulled eight FM radio
stations off the air. And after a grass fire
near Bendigo, large parts of regional Victoria
in Australia lost access to all of their television
and most of their radio stations after two transmission
sites caught fire, impacting as many as 356 ,000
people. Yes, there are temporary lower power
transmitters. now in place, but when we say that
broadcast radio is resilient in emergencies,
what we often mean is that broadcast radio has
one point of failure, better than others perhaps,
but all you need is that one thing to fail. Multi
-platform radio, which is certainly the future,
mitigates this somewhat. US broadcaster Odyssey
has removed a number of third -party podcasts
from its radio and podcast app, including my
own PodNews Weekly review, which used to be there.
An Odyssey spokesperson told PodNews, which I
also run, we've removed a number of lower -engagement
third -party podcasts from the app, which accounted
for a very small percentage of overall listening.
But I'm sure they weren't talking about my show.
Last week, it was reported that the ABC in Australia
were coming off the iHeart app in the country.
From what I can work out, the ABC in Australia
is also coming off TuneIn shortly, according
to a conversation I've seen between ABC audience
support and a listener. They're coming off iHeart
and TuneIn quotes for quite a variety of reasons
around fault resolution and licensing. According
to the ABC audience support person, in my book,
if you're a radio broadcaster that everyone in
Australia pays for, I don't have a choice where
my tax goes, then you should be available for
your audience in as many ways possible. Consistency
isn't the ABC's strong point. It'll remain on
radio app, apparently. Anyway, it's a disappointing
decision. and it'll harm the ABC's audience figures
long term. One of the biggest Brisbane radio
names has been reportedly forced away from the
ABC. after apparently falling foul of its conflict
of interest policy. Spencer Howson is said to
have been offered a permanent slot on Saturday
breakfast for ABC Radio Brisbane, but only if
he walked away from one of his Monday to Friday
jobs as a media trainer for a company called
Media Potential. A potential workaround that
he'd not interview anyone he'd trained wasn't
deemed acceptable. Consistency isn't the ABC's
strong point. Chanel Vela, who co -hosts ABC
Radio Melbourne's Monday to Friday breakfast
show, hardly a part -time gig, is also a media
trainer. Anyway, it's a disappointing decision
and it'll harm the ABC's audience figures long
term. The FCC has told broadcasters that if a
candidate appears on a talk programme, they may
require equal time for other candidates. according
to media lawyer David Oxenford. The ruling appears
to target shows like Jimmy Kimmel and Stephen
Colbert. Now, Letterman was once broadcast on
the radio. I don't know whether these shows still
are these days, but it's certainly something
to be aware of for radio as well. Howard Stern
has also got a mention in terms of this too.
Thank you. retains full editorial control over
the final selection. It's worth comparing Radio
France's strategy with the BBC's. The BBC puts
selected first run shows onto BBC Sounds before
anyone else, but the archive is available to
all. Radio France puts all of its stuff everywhere,
but keeps the archive within the Radio France
app only. One difference, here's another one,
the BBC either commissions shows for itself or
very occasionally licenses old versions of third
-party shows for BBC Sounds. Radio France seems
to have a different view here as well, although
I don't see anything in the PIA's press release
talking about money or about advertising, so
I wonder how that works. The former breakfast
show on Hot 97 in New York, Ebro in the Morning,
has popped up as one of the first signings for
Creator X. who call themselves a creator -led
advertising exchange. It's run by a man called
Matty Stout, who is managing director of CreatorX.
who I've been pronouncing Matty Stout for the
last three years. But when I chatted to him at
Podfest a couple of weeks ago, it turns out it's
Matty Stout. So now I know. Anyway, he said in
a statement, the creators today are operating
as independent media companies. Our role is to
provide the infrastructure and advertising access
that allows talent to scale without sacrificing
control. Now, radio might have quite a talent
drain on its hands if it doesn't get this sort
of thing right. It's clearly behind many of iHeart's
savvy deals to work with their talent on networks
like the Black Effect podcast network, which
is a joint venture between Charlemagne the God,
a syndicated radio host, and iHeartMedia itself.
Hot 97, on the other hand, is owned by Mediaco,
which appears to be doing nothing in the podcast
space at all. apart from a show called Ebro in
the Morning, which they obviously no longer have.
Not quite sure what's going to go on there then.
And at last, a radio group that can organise
a piss -up in a brewery. The big commercial radio
talk stations in Australia, 2GB Sydney and 3AW
Melbourne. as well as the less big, 4BC Brisbane
and 6PR Perth, have been sold by Nine Networks
to a man called Arthur Laundie for 56 million
Australian, that's 39 million US dollars. Mr
Laundie owns 40 pubs in New South Wales, and
he's worth 1 .75 billion dollars. So these radio
stations cost him small change, he presumably
found behind the pokey machines. Seven years
ago, Nine took control of the group at a valuation
of $275 million. Hmm, $56 million, not really
a massive return, is it? Now, most media commentators
have talked about whether this is an acquisition
that will pass the pub test, but I won't be doing
that. Talk has much more of a future than music
-intensive radio, in my book anyway, though these
are old stations with old audiences. And those
stations used to stream live video online throughout
all of their programming, but those streams were
yanked a few weeks ago for some reason, which
is weird. And thank you, ARN, for listening.
I mentioned last week that the iHeartRadio app
said that Gold Brisbane played just great hits.
although the radio station said that they played
just great songs. Anyway, I spent about two hours
for this newsletter to go out last week before
that was hastily changed. So thank you for listening,
ARN, and I'm loving what you're doing with gold,
I should just clarify. Now, where am I speaking
next? I am speaking in New Delhi in India in
early February, although I'm doing that on a
video. I'd like to go to Delhi, actually. It'd
be fun. I've never been. But video, it will be.
I will be talking about the future of radio and
AI's part in it. I'm busy trying to work out
how excited I want to be with the video and whether
or not I go anywhere or whether I just sit here
at my desk and record it like everybody is going
to guess that I will. So who knows? Looking forward
to that. Also looking forward to Radio Days Europe
in Riga in Latvia. One of the things I'm doing.
Peter, is I'm doing a talk about the future of
audio being people powered. Very much looking
forward to that. It's the end of the first day.
Highly recommend that you come. It will be excellent.
And also, you know, mark the speech very highly
in the survey. That would be kind of you. No,
thank you for that. And very much looking forward
to being there and very much looking forward
to learning. Anything else that I might be doing
for Radio Days Europe, it's a fantastic event
and you should be going to radiodayseurope .com
is where you can buy tickets. And I'll also be
talking at the podcast show in London in May,
doing a keynote, doing a Pod News Weekly review
live. The show's so good that Odyssey got rid
of it and various other things as well. That
is a great show too and you should definitely
be there. And thank you to our many supporters,
including Studio with Two Eyes, including Wade
Kingsley, the often right, often wrong creative
coach. Rupert Brunn from Brunn Audio Consulting
Limited and Clyde Broadcast, the radio people.
Thank you to you for your support. Also, thank
you to Greg Strassel, Sam Phelps, Richard Hilton,
Emma Gibbs, Jocelyn Abbey and James Masterton
for being regular supporters. You, yes, you can
support my work by buying me a coffee. buymeacoffee
.com slash jamescridland if you would like to
give a one -off coffee or you can give regularly
on there as well and that's a lovely thing you'll
find me on mastodon at james at bne .social and
my website has more details about who I am what
I do and whether I can help you further and until
next time keep listening