A Pom in the Antipodes

James Cridland’s perspective on Australian Radio: Comment by Peter Saxon

There was a time, soon after WWII, when Australia House, based in London, lured the English in their thousands to this great brown southern land with cheap passage (just 10 pounds), generous welfare and the (false) promise that we colonials would treat them with a reverence deserving of those who were born in the motherland within cooee of Buckingham Palace.

Many of those making the journey, who became known as “10 pound Poms”, were quick to find fault with their new surroundings – the chips weren’t greasy enough, the sun was too hot and the beer too cold. They soon became known among the locals as “Whinging Poms.”

Not so one of our more recent English imports, James Cridland, who paid full passage to bring his young family to settle in Brisbane. Not only does James appreciate beer of all temperatures, he loves Australia in general and has a high regard for Australian radio in particular. All of which helps make him a completely likeable fellow. What’s more, he adds a different and valuable perspective to both the domestic and international radio conversation. Which makes us pleased to have him as one of our regular contributors on radioinfo.

Here is James’ latest observation from his internationally distributed newsletter about Brisbane radio’s performance during the recent heavy rains:

It was a strange weekend in Brisbane, with torrential rain (I filmed some) leading to flooding and road closures all over the place. ABC 612 Brisbane was in a Queensland-wide networked programme, but added a bunch of information for those listening in south-east Queensland, and swiftly went local again with their #1 rated breakfast presenter Spencer Howson and his ‘travel guy’ coming in to do an extra show on ABC Brisbane and ABC Gold Coast, including some nifty switching into the non-sport digital programme later in the afternoon.

The ABC News report online included something I’d not seen before – a bunch of images from social media at the bottom of the page. For a story where the visuals added useful information, that was a nice touch.

Networking and automation are good things for many radio stations over the weekend: as long as you remember that it’s sometimes rather better to come out of it.

James also posted this about KIIS:

Catch James’ regular column, Radio Tomorrow with James Cridland every Monday exclusively on radioinfo in Australia.

You can sign up to James’ weekly newsletter for media people, with links and opinion.  It currently has 2,070 subscribers. James is a radio futurologist: a speaker, writer and consultant helping media companies implement the transition to our digitally connected future. You can subscribe, free, at https://james.cridland.net

 

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