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Hello, I'm James Cridland, the radio futurologist, and every couple of weeks I send out a newsletter

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all about the future of radio and where radio is going and all of that, and this is the

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podcast version.

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This is from February 18th, and it starts by going to Canada.

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Because Canada is all of a flutter.

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Catherine Tate, the president and CEO of the CBC, says that the organisation is going to

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stop broadcasting, preparing to end traditional TV and radio broadcasts and move completely

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digital.

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Well, Canada's commercial media companies have an even worse relationship with the CBC

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than most because the CBC competes for ad revenue on many of its services, so the media

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has of course reacted by setting light to their pitchforks and adding fuel to the defund

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the CBC fire.

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I think there may be a couple of mixed metaphors in there anyway, but there's no real announcement

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here, just like there's no real announcement with Tim Davies' announcement earlier in

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the year that the BBC was doing something similar.

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Both public service broadcasters are acknowledging the media is now delivered in a multi-platform

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way and flagging that things may need to change in future, but probably not now.

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Indeed, while the BBC has mistakenly, in my view, suggested that it'll be online only

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in a decade, it won't be.

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The CBC hasn't fallen into that trap.

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Broadband ubiquity is required, they say, for the CBC to turn off their transmitters.

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And for the CBC, that transmitter switch-off may need new laws to be written, because the

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law specifies that they must provide TV and radio services, but it'll certainly be one

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to watch.

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For now though, Radio Canada and the CBC are still safely anchored in transmission.

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And I'm sure that they will be in early June, when I will be in Toronto for Radio Days North

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America.

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If you are in Toronto or going to Radio Days North America, it would be great to catch

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up.

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I'm jamesatcrid.land.

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On Monday morning, my Google speaker woke me up with the words, sorry, I don't understand.

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It turned out that the incantation to listen to ABC Radio Brisbane broke last weekend,

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as an article that I've discovered goes into.

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Now Google hasn't said anything, but that's a big issue, given the number of listeners,

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large number of listeners, that tune in on Google smart speakers.

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It has over 80% of the market here in Australia, by the way.

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Alexa is tiny, but you could imagine that if Alexa was to fall over in parts of the

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world, then there'll be an awful lot of outcry about that.

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I would hope that radio programmers have been onto Google like a shot to get this fixed,

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but I'm not convinced that they have been.

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My favourite dip-in-dip-out radio station, ABC News Radio, was broken on Google speakers

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for more than a month earlier this year.

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I've just checked.

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It's back, so that's OK.

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It is important that, as radio broadcasters, we ensure that smart speaker operators ensure

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that we're available there.

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It's fast becoming a multi-, a major platform for us, and it's one of the most popular

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uses for these speakers.

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And if smart speakers are important to radio, the car is even more so.

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In my newsletter at james.crid.land, I share a really interesting graph from the BBC's

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Alison Winter.

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It's from a conference in Ireland, and it seems to show UK radio audience week by week

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in 2020 and 2021, overlaid with the number of cars on the road.

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And it shows a really strong correlation between the amount of cars on the road and the amount

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of people who are listening to the radio, and a strong argument for radio getting serious

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about its place in the car dashboard.

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Many US radio brands have pulled AM radio out of cars completely, citing interference

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issues.

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And while some car manufacturers are working hard to ensure a great in-car experience with

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radio, many aren't.

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So let's hope that that changes soon too.

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And by the way, I was actually unaware that we had weekly audience figures for UK radio.

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First time I've seen those.

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Other things, happy World Radio Day for last week.

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I was on ABC Radio Goldfields Esperance, which is in Kalgoorlie in Western Australia, which

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is six hours drive from Perth.

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It really is in the middle of nowhere.

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And I was also on ABC Radio Sydney on Monday as well.

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I linked my appearance on Radio Sydney, if you would like to hear me fawning ever so

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slightly, to the excellent Richard Glover who was on the radio.

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And I am in Sydney on February the 28th and March the 1st, if you would like to catch

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up.

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I'm jamesatcrid.land.

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It would be good to do that.

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I linked to some nice new fancy radio studios from RTE in Ireland, the second visual radio

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studio, a studio built for radio and TV.

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RTE Radio 1's Morning Ireland is simulcast on TV on the RTE News channel, which you can

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watch everywhere in the world, although it doesn't seem to stream particularly well for

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me.

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But still, there you go.

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So yeah, they clearly will benefit from having some really nice radio studios that work for

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TV too.

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And entire website branded BBC News, I discovered, that is all about how the BBC worked to make

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people feel more favourable towards Huawei, achieving a 61% brand uplift.

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Now I know it's the commercial arm.

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I know it's people selling advertising on the BBC, but it is also the BBC.

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And there's something a bit distasteful about a company that's currently being ripped out

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of government offices because of security fears, having their reputation managed by

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the BBC.

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There's one time when you might want to launch a different brand to manage advertising on

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the BBC's output.

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That's what happens in the US.

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There's a company called National Public Media.

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Ever heard of it?

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No.

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Well, they sell NPR.

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Heard of that?

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Yes.

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Of course you have.

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And I think it does make a bit of sense to have those brands at arm's length from one

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another rather than BBC News saying how much favourable the world is towards Huawei these

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days.

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The US National Broadcaster, the ABC, fell off the internet completely for about 70 minutes

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on Monday, World Radio Day, actually while I was on.

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If you tried to visit any ABC web property or use any ABC app, you got all kinds of errors.

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It was a DNS error.

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Of course it's always a DNS error, isn't it?

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Except when it's cause, in which case it's a cause error, not DNS.

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Some interesting key facts about the US radio industry from Pew Research.

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I'll link to those.

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Along the graphs, data showing how many newsroom employees are employed in US radio.

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What do you think?

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Has that figure gone up or gone down?

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Of course it's gone down.

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And finally, I'm busy repopulating my blog and I've got up to the middle of 2007, which

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is an interesting time for me as I leave Virgin Radio, a place where I loved working, and

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went to the BBC, a place where I worked.

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And yes, which has been interesting reading through some of those blog posts.

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But a few that I link to.

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Has your radio station got a Marty?

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Talking about a nice man called Marty from New York who used to, and indeed I think still

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does, listen to the radio station 24 hours a day seemingly and knows everybody.

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I also link to a slightly plaintive note that my old show on The Pulse on Bradford has been

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networked.

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This was back in 2007.

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I believe now that there's only a breakfast show left on that radio station and the radio

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station comes out of Leeds now, not out of Bradford.

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So it's not really the same, is it?

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And I also link to random write-ups of media conferences that I attended.

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Here's an interesting stat from 2007.

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40% of commercial radio stations lose money.

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40% of commercial radio stations lose money.

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That figure I'm imagining is now no longer the case, if only because 40% of commercial

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radio stations are now just being broadcast either from Manchester or from London.

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But still, there you go.

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I must say thank you to my supporters.

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Paul Chandler has written all kinds of legal books for media types.

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I link to some of those.

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He bought me five coffees.

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Thank you, Paul.

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Also thank you, Lee Price.

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That's excellent of you both.

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Lee Price is now working for Adthos, which is a very clever company doing some very clever

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dynamic ads in which I believe that he will be at Radio Day's Europe.

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So you can go and find out more about that in Prague, as will I.

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Thank you also too to Richard Hilton, to James Masterton and to Brun Audio Consulting for

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your ongoing support of this newsletter.

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I'm very grateful to you.

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If you'd like to support my work in any way, any way at all, you can, pardon me, you can

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buy me a coffee.

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You can become a member to give regularly or just give a one-off coffee of five.

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And you can do that at buymeacoffee.com slash James Cridland.

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That's buymeacoffee.com slash James Cridland.

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Here's where I am over the next couple of months.

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I'm at the IAB Audio Summit in Sydney on March the 1st.

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I'm at podcast movement Evolutions in Las Vegas between March the 6th and the 11th,

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which should be great fun and also very tiring.

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Radio Day's Europe in Prague, March 25th to the 30th, the NAB show in mid-April.

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I'm also going over to Berlin, which I haven't written in here and I probably should have

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done.

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I'm in Berlin in mid-April as well, April 20th to the 23rd, something like that.

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If you're in Berlin, it would be lovely to see you.

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The New Zealand Podcast Summit in mid-May, assuming that everything is back to normal

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in New Zealand by then.

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The podcast show 2023 in London at the end of May.

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And Radio Day's North America in early June, also in June.

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Pod News Live.

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It's the first of a few conferences that Sam, Sethy and I are running.

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Very much looking forward to doing that.

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That's on June the 13th.

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It's in Salford.

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Sam will be saying Manchester.

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I will be saying Salford because I know better.

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But it'd be wonderful to see you.

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It's all about podcasting and you will find more information soon at podnews.net slash

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live.

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Obviously not now because, well, I don't really know what to write.

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So yeah, podnews.net slash live will be the place to go.

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My contact details are james at crid.land.

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That's my email address.

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And also where you'll find me on Mastodon.

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Just search for james at crid.land and you'll find my Brisbane social handle, which is where

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I currently am, which is jolly good.

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My professional website has more detail about who I am and what I do and whether I can help

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you further and whether I can actually edit audio.

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But the point of this is that I don't edit audio.

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I just read.

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That's the point of this.

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There's no audio editing in this podcast.

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So thank you for listening and until next time, keep listening.