Hello, I'm James Cridland, the radio futurologist,
and this is Radioland, my weekly radio trends
newsletter and podcast, and it is the 10th of
February 2026, and this podcast is sponsored
by rss .com. rss .com gives you podcast hosting
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rss .com. Australian broadcast radio content
regulations are a little odd if you've ever worked
in a different radio market. As I wrote about
in mid -November, the ACMA, the media regulator,
is surprisingly toothless. It has just one big
weapon. an additional licence condition, which
is a big heavy weapon and only brought out if
it's got no other choice. And if those additional
licence conditions are broken, the only thing
the ACMA can do is turn the radio station off,
either temporarily or permanently. There is a
fine set by law at currently $165 ,000 Australian
dollars a day. That's about $120 ,000 US, which
may be ludicrously large or pifflingly small.
They can't change it anyway. But for contents
of radio broadcasts, there is a co -regulatory
framework where broadcasters and their trade
associations work on their own codes of practice,
and the ACMA registers these and assesses compliance.
And Commercial Radio and Audio has released a
new code of practice today, which has just been
registered by the ACMA. It's the first since
2017. I've mirrored the codes just in case they
go away on my website. The press release tells
us that there are two new things in there. Firstly,
something called special care at times when kids
are most likely to be in the car. That's from
8 till 9 in the morning and from 3 till 4 in
the afternoon. It's not very clear what special
care means, but you can bet that this is in relation
to the stuff that Kyle and Jackie O have been
broadcasting during this time slot. Without a
clear understanding of what special care means,
because it's not defined anywhere, it doesn't
seem to mean an awful lot, but at least there's
something there, I guess. And there's also something
in there about AI transparency. It's a move,
I think, against ARN's horrible, dishonest radio
announcer called Tai, which was a badly produced,
badly written AI voice on KEDA and never disclosed
as being AI. As you can tell, I'm a fan. The
devil is in the detail. Because if ARN wanted
to disclose that Tai was just an AI voice, then
they can post somewhere no one looks like a...
page buried on their website somewhere and the
letter of this new rule is complete as long as
it's been mentioned somewhere then it's fine
so not quite so sure whether either of these
two clauses is going to be particularly helpful
not mentioned in the press releases headline
but much more welcome is that the cra will publish
an annual report with a summary of all the complaints,
which will be quite interesting to look at. In
case you're wondering what all of the changes
are, well, there's a little bit of a change in
terms of corrections to news broadcasts. They
must now be mentioned, be made as soon as is
reasonably practical. There wasn't any time guidance
before there, so you could just correct something
a couple of months later and that would have
been fine. There are changes to the formats for
Australian music content, OzCon, as I'm going
to call it. it, which nobody else calls it here.
If you play hip -hop, then hip -hop has moved
from a 15 % minimum Australian content to a 25
% minimum content for some reason. And accordingly,
25 % of that needs to be new instead of just
15%. CADA is the only station, I think, that
describes itself as hip -hop and R &B, at least
that broadcasts on an FM frequency anyway. There
is some... changing of words to clarify what
a complaint is and what feedback is. Particularly
feedback appears to be able to be ignored, but
a complaint isn't. So I guess remember to use
the C word in your letter, complaint, obviously.
It does seem that there is a new requirement
for an online complaint form to be made available
on radio station websites. There used to be a
word if in that clause. It's gone now. I'm actually
wondering if that's a typo, to be honest with
you. But still, there we are. And then there's
the annual report and the brand new section about
AI transparency as well. Elsewhere in the UK,
the new radio figures came out. The Media Club
with Matt Deegan has Adam Bowie on to talk about
them. It's worth a watch if you'd like to know
what's up in the country and what's down and
what's up with Adam's thumb. Adam, what have
you done to your thumb, mate? Anyway, LBC, a
talk station, has record numbers, which is good
to see. That was my station of choice when I
used to live in London. Spencer Howson interviewed
me on ABC Radio Brisbane at the end of last year
about AM radio and I managed to upset Peter of
Wavell Heights so much that he sent a t -shirt
into Spencer to pass on to me. And I link in
my newsletter to a clip of some video of Spencer
waving it about. It's a big picture of an old
AM transmitter which says something like 300
kilometres total distance. or something like
that. I'm sure that's not what PETA sounds like.
There is also a big sheet of paper explaining
why I am wrong as well. Let's just pull that
up for you so that I can maybe talk about what
it says, because what does it say? There's a
thing. I've got it hidden away on this machine
over here. Yes, so it whitters on about coverage.
300 kilometre radius. Lovely. It talks about
AM, which is ground waves or ground guided, as
he says. We do learn that FM radio doesn't work
in the rain, which is something that I was hitherto
unaware of and you probably as well. So that's
a thing. There's a long talk about the misguided
legislation. that is happening in the US. No
mention of the fact that it's only for seven
years anyway in terms of making sure that AM
radios are in new cars. I'm not actually sure
whether that has been yet passed. I don't think
it has been yet. And it says in remote Australia,
AM is more likely to be your companion. Peter,
I agree with that. Absolutely. Yes, I'm not talking
about in remote Australia. I'm talking about
in the cities and in the cities. Really, an AM
radio station needs to be on FM in order to be
listened to. That's the important bit. Anyway,
it's nice to see that so many people feel so
passionately about this stuff. And if Peter from
Wavell Heights would like to get in touch. then
I will return the favour by buying him a DAB
Plus radio so he can enjoy three times the choice
of stations, and I'm sure that he will enjoy
that very much. New York Public Radio has a new
CEO. Christy Tanner has an impressive media background,
if not any. particular radio experience to point
to. I don't think I mentioned that the CEO of
RCS, Philippe Generali, is to step down at the
end of this month. Philippe is an unusual CEO.
He's often really visible at industry events,
a large number of which they support. And as
you'll see from the RCS banner in the newsletter,
RCS has been a supporter of many parts of the
radio industry for many years. A lot of that
is down to Philippe and his team. And I do wish
him all the very best for retirement. forward
to RCS's next chapter as well. And last time
on this podcast and in my newsletter I mentioned
that Chanel Vela who's been doing ABC Radio Melbourne's
Monday to Friday breakfast show was highlighted
as a media trainer by her talent agency's bio
which apparently shouldn't be allowed. Anyway
that's been changed it now reads Chanel was highly
sought after as a media trainer during her time
in commercial networks. So I'm happy to make
that clear that she's no longer a media trainer.
The conflict of interest only really arises if
she's interviewed anyone who she trained. But
we don't know whether she has. But she's off
very shortly on maternity leave. So perhaps that's
one that we can leave for now. Where am I speaking
next? Well, I'm speaking in New Delhi in India
today at the Radio Festival. I am on video. I
recorded that in this very office three or four
days ago. Live mixed it as well. It's all very
exciting. Anyway, that is all done. It's talking
about where the future of radio is going. Radio
Days Europe is where I'm speaking next in person.
That's in Riga in Latvia in mid -March, talking
about the future of audio being people -powered.
And very much looking forward to doing that.
And the podcast show in London in mid -May. I'll
be keynoting. I'm also recording a Pod News weekly
review. And that keynote may be slightly different
this year. I'm just seeing if I can get approval
from the podcast show folk. It's probably an
email already saying yes or saying hell no. One
of those two. So we'll find out what they say.
But it should be a good event. Very much looking
forward to doing that. I'm there in London pretty
well all week. And it'd be great to catch up
with you if you are in London too. And thank
you to the many supporters of the newsletter
and of the podcast. including Greg Strassel and
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. You can become a member
if you like. Kevin Watson has done that as well.
And I should probably say thank you to him in
the newsletter version. So I will probably do
that. See if I remember to do that a little bit
later. Anyway, you can give me a one -off coffee
or five or... sign up regularly buymeacoffee
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And until next time, keep listening.