Category: Audio
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Where Next for ILR?
When LBC launched in 1973, it was the first Independent Local Radio (ILR) station in the UK. Capital Radio was the second station, launching just a eight days after LBC. In due course, there would be more than 200 such stations across the country. Today, we must wonder whether we are beginning to see the…
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IP Contributions on the Radio
This morning I Tweeted this, and it got more than a few likes: (NB. I apologise for the misplaced apostrophe in end’s – it should have been ends’. And using both today and this morning was tautological.) This came after I heard two interviews on Radio 4’s Today programme, and a third on Five Live,…
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RAJAR Q4 2018
This post is brought to you in association with RALF from DP Software and Services. I’ve used RALF for the many years, and it’s my favourite RAJAR analysis tool. So I am delighted that I continue to be able to bring you this RAJAR analysis in association with RALF. For more details on the product,…
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Podcast Exclusivity
As always, these are my personal views, but it’s probably worth reiterating at the outset. I am not a fan of exclusivity, for a number of reasons. Let’s start by looking at the streaming music market. We continue to see fairly significant growth in this sector with companies like Spotify, Apple, Deezer, Google Play Music and Tidal…
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Bauer Launching Scala Radio with Simon Mayo
UK radio really is quite exciting at the moment! Bauer has just announced the launch of Scala Radio, a new classical music station which will launch digitally on the 4th March 2019. Simon Mayo is the big name signing. He’s been keeping everyone guessing about where he might be going since he left Radio 2…
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Breakfast Show Sponsorship
In his first breakfast show on Virgin Radio this morning, Chris Evans is reported to have said: “This show will be commercial free for at least the next 100 years…” That would suggest that, at least as far as Evans is concerned, that his new breakfast show is not going to be taking ads for…
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HMV
A few thoughts on the new difficulties faced by HMV. In part this is response to some utter nonsense I’ve read online, and some of the news reports surrounding HMV heading into administration for the second time in five years. There are undoubtedly structural problems with how music is sold in 2019, but I think there are multiple…
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Chris Evans – Ad Free?
Christmas Eve sees Chris Evans present his last Radio 2 breakfast show. Then he takes a few weeks off, before he reappears in brand new studios over in The News Building, just under The Shard by London Bridge station. There he’ll begin his new Virgin Radio breakfast show from the 21st January 2019. When I…
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Setting Radio Alarms with Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant
First a note of caution. This piece was published in November 2018, and it’s entirely possible – indeed probable – that things will have changed if you’re reading this at any point after that date. It’s also worth noting that I’m in the UK, and these solutions may not work in your region. Also, I’m…
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Greatest Hits Radio
Interesting news from Bauer Media this morning. They’re launching Greatest Hits Radio nationally from January 7th, to sit alongside Hits Radio. Together they will form the Hits Radio Network. It sounds like this new mostly networked service is being positioned as a slightly older version of Absolute Radio Network. It will target 40-59 “Reclaimers,” playing…
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Trends in Podcasting: Cults and Cult Leaders
This is a sort-of follow up to yesterday’s piece on daily news podcasts. It may become an occasional series. In March this year, Netflix launched a documentary series called Wild Wild Country. It’s a six part series exploring an Indian guru and his followers in a county in deepest Oregon. There’s no obvious way to…
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Trends in Podcasting: News Podcasts
In January last year, The New York Times launched a new podcast called The Daily. Spinning off to an extent from what the paper had been doing during the 2016 Presidential election, The Daily quickly developed a following. With a strong voice – both authorial and audible – in Michael Barbaro, it grew quickly. For…
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Localness
Ofcom has published an update today on what it considers localness in commercial radio. The tl;dr is that it’s not very local any more. Your mileage may vary on whether this is a good thing or not. But for now, stations that provide local news regularly throughout the day, must only broadcast three hours between 6am and…