Hello, I'm James Criddon, the radio futurologist,
and this is Radioland, my weekly newsletter and
podcast all about international radio trends
and all of that. We're sponsored by RSS .com,
which last week was announced as one of the new
partners for Apple Podcasts' new video thing.
If you want to be in video and available in Apple
Podcasts, then you can do that with RSS .com,
which is nice. Now, the world of radio is in
Riga, in Latvia, including me. I'm in this beautiful
hotel room here. We are here for Radio Days Europe.
And as Nick Goodman said to me yesterday, it's
a really special feeling of the band getting
back together as you bump into people over breakfast
at the hotel and in the bars across the city.
And I've just spent a little bit of time at the
venue for the Focused Summits, which have been
going on all day today. opening drinks tonight,
then the conference kicks into full swing tomorrow.
I'm speaking on Tuesday morning about the future
of radio, but also talking to Steve Jones about
TuneIn, and also talking about Kyle and Jackie
O, of course, more to come in this podcast. The
event is, as ever, very well organised. The use
of students is a very clever thing. They are
helpers across the day, and it just makes the
event feel as if it's full of young people. It's
very clever. I wasn't able to be here last year,
so I'm just noticing that everybody looks two
years older than I remembered them looking. Because,
of course, not being here last year means that
I missed all of that. But thank you to many people
who've said nice things about this newsletter
and about the podcast version. Whenever somebody
tells me that they're a reader, I'm always slightly
worried if I've been a little bit too mean to
them. So everybody's been very nice so far, which
is nice. Now, of course, the big news this week
is all about Kyle and Jackie O, I'm afraid. On
the same day as I sent the newsletter out last
week, the Australian media regulator ACMA woke
up. and published new licence conditions for
KISS FM in Sydney and Melbourne, specifically
about Kyle and Jackie O. The conditions only
cover shows with Kyle and or Jackie, so the company
is free to get anybody else on air to talk about
the kind of stuff that Kyle and Jackie O were
talking about, and should Kyle or Jackie pop
up on a different station, then they'll be fine
to talk about that kind of stuff too. But the
statement of reasons, the statement of reasons...
which I link to in the newsletter, highlights
part of ARN's response. I've requested that in
full under the Freedom of Information Act, so
it'll be interesting to see if I get that. But
they have, the ACMA have, correctly removed a
potential breach of sexual innuendo. They've
whipped it out. And I think that that's relatively
sensible because, you know, goodness, it's quite
hard to work out what is sexual innuendo and
what isn't, to be honest. As I've said way back
in November, actually, the ACMA have been a little
constrained by the regulatory power that the
law affords them. That's no excuse for their
tardy response. But as it is, you could argue
that the ACMA doesn't actually have the powers
it needs to to be able to regulate broadcast
radio effectively. Anyway, ARN also sacked Kyle
Sanderlands officially last week, giving a statement
to the ASX, to the stock market. Kyle himself
released a long statement essentially saying
that his lawyers will be in touch and that ARN
hasn't honoured the contract. Surprise, surprise.
I was interviewed on Nine's national breakfast
television Today show about the whole thing.
And what was quite instructive to me is how Nine
took the interview, reposted it on YouTube, used
clips of that interview again in their news bulletins,
posted those to Instagram, really getting the
most out of the content. And reusing and repeating
material is something that radio is surprisingly
bad at. So it was good to see that happening
here. Elsewhere, Australian Radio released its
first ratings of the year. They are essentially
Kyle and Jackie O's last figures. And if you're
wondering, a 12 .7 % share for Breakfast in Sydney,
coming second behind 2GB's 16 .6%. As ever, Survey
1 is often an interesting book and there's normally
been a lot of change. Gold, Sydney and Melbourne
both saw drops after Christian O 'Connell's show
was started to be carried on both, but it's much
too early. early to make a decision about that
quite yet. ABC Radio Perth's switch to FM was
right at the end of the survey. It saw a small
increase, plenty of other changes to monitor
as well. In Adelaide, this was interesting, Mix
102 .3 changed its name to Kiss 102 .3, but apparently
made no other changes at all. And just that name
change alone cost them 3 .3 in share, which is
quite a big drop. There's a fascinating thing.
And something to watch out for is survey two
is based on numbers from February the 8th to
April the 4th. So that survey still won't tell
the true story about whatever happens to Carl
and Jackie O's audience, because half of it,
Carl and Jackie O would still have been on the
air. Nor will it tell the true story of ABC Radio
Perth's switch to FM. We'll have to wait until
survey three for that, which comes out in June.
And also in other news, CBS News Radio is to
shut down in May. CBS News is the BBC's news
partner in the US, which... It's a surprising
choice. And CBS News did news bulletins at the
top and bottom of the hour for 700 affiliated
radio stations. You would have thought, wouldn't
you, that if the BBC was quick and nimble, they
would jump in and produce national news bulletins
for the US as a commercial business. They've
got enough journalists to do that sort of thing.
So why would they not do that? But who knows?
There may be some very good reasons, like the
BBC isn't nimble enough. It's probably the good
reason. But yeah, you would have thought that
that would be a sensible move. Where am I speaking
next? Well, I'm speaking here in Riga. for Radio
Days Europe Tuesday morning 9am the future of
audio is people powered I'm also talking with
Steve Jones of Stingray Monday at 2pm about TuneIn,
Canadian Radio and more and I'm in a session
about what happens when you lose your big star
which is on Tuesday at some point 12 something,
12 .30 I'd like to say Anyway, looking forward
to that. That should be good fun. And also, obviously,
I'm talking at the podcast show later on in the
year as well, keynoting at that event as well
as recording a Pod News Weekly review there as
well. Thank you to the many people who've been
supporting us. Marty from New York, Gavin Watson,
Greg Strassel, Sam Philps, Richard Hilton, Emma
Gibbs, Jocelyn Abbey and James Masterton for
being regular supporters. If you would like to
support my work in any way, please do. You can
buy me a coffee. Become a member to give regularly
or just give a one -off coffee or five. You can
do that. That would be fab. Or alternatively...
Yes, or alternatively, there's links to Stripe
and things. You know, one day I might edit this
podcast and that would be a good thing. You can
also find me on Mastodon if you like, james .bne
.social if you're there as well. And my website
has more details about who I am and what I do
and whether I can help you further. That website
address is radioland .email. That's one way of
getting there, or james .cridland .net. And until
next time, thank you for listening and keep listening.