Radio Tomorrow with James Cridland

Radio Tomorrow with James Cridland

Last week, I was in Sydney in Australia for the Australian Podcast Conference, OzPod, which was an enjoyable experience. Lots of independent podcasters, rubbing shoulders with folks from the Australian ABC who announced that morning a $1m fund for podcasters.

I was doing an overview of podcasting over the last twelve months. This was a job that was relatively simple last year - take some UK and US...

17 September 2017

Cridland lets fly at ‘that’ US radio report

Radio Tomorrow with James Cridland

The biggest news this week is a master of doom-mongery, "New Report Shows Why Radio Must Adapt to Digital Age". You’ve probably seen it - it’s been copied and shared on social media a fair bit, particularly being highlighted by those who delight in being rude about the current US radio operators.

In...

10 September 2017

The thing many radio station websites forget

Radio Tomorrow with James Cridland

I tend to look at a lot of radio station websites and newsletters every day as part of my job. This is interesting and head-scratching at the same time.

There’s a strange thing about radio newsletters. People sign up to them because, by and large, they’re fans of the radio station: at least, they’ve interacted with the radio station in the past.

A good newsletter offers the chance to grow...

03 September 2017

Radio as you shop

Radio Tomorrow with James Cridland

I wrote a long article for the Radio Magazine in the US recently about “Australia’s largest radio station” - Coles Radio. It’s the radio station you hear when you walk around a Coles supermarket, the most popular supermarket chain in Australia. It’s available on DAB+ in metropolitan areas of the country too, so you can listen at home...

27 August 2017

Radio should be where the speakers are

Radio Tomorrow with James Cridland

Recently, my columns have been quite full of numbers and figures and statistics, so instead, this week, I’d like to do some thinking aloud instead.

I have a theory. It has almost no science behind it - yet; and probably very little proof - but nonetheless, I think it’s true.

I think that, for live radio, we should be focusing on getting our output on speakers, not headphones. Our...

20 August 2017

Saying thank you to your fans

Radio Tomorrow with James Cridland

Sit in front of Twitter and watch @tonyblackburn’s account on a Saturday morning, and you’ll see something a little unusual.

Tony Blackburn is probably the most well-known radio presenter in the UK. On-air since 1964, he joined the BBC 50 years ago: in a video released last week, he tries to find the radio studio he first used in Broadcasting House. He was the first radio presenter...

13 August 2017

Social media goes massive for Slovenian radio hosts

Radio Tomorrow with James Cridland

Here’s a useful pub quiz fact: Slovenia is the only country in the world with “love” in its name.

For a week in June, Slovenia was also the home of some of the most popular radio personalities on social media, anywhere in the world. Not bad for a country with only two million inhabitants.

Here’s how they did it.

Hitradio Center’s...

06 August 2017

The future of radio - according to our future listeners

Radio Tomorrow with James Cridland

Radio is going multiplatform. Whenever I speak, wherever I speak, that’s the key piece of information I’d like the audience to remember.

AM and FM are ways of getting our audio to our audience - but they’re not the only way. There’s satellite, there’s DAB and HD, there’s the internet, and there’s other ways too.

Nowhere is this more the case than the UK, where radio listening to AM...

30 July 2017

Smart Speakers: Putting Radio back into Living Rooms

Radio Tomorrow with James Cridland

This week, Google launched its Google Home smart speaker in Australia. It’s been some time coming - the UK and the US have had it for a while - and it’ll be joined, at the end of the year, by Amazon’s Echo and Apple’s HomePod.

On the face of it, you might think these devices have little to do with radio. But you’d be wrong. They could be the way radio gets back into our living spaces.

In the...

23 July 2017

Zero-rated data - is it good news for radio?

Radio Tomorrow with James Cridland

In the UK, the curiously-named “Three” mobile phone network has just announced something called Go Binge. It’s a new service that lets you watch Netflix, listen to music service Deezer (and SoundCloud) but these services won’t come out of your monthly data allowance.

In Australia, Optus offers...

16 July 2017