As regular readers of this blog are fully aware, radio is undergoing a tremendous change. Just fifteen years ago, radio was on one, analogue, medium – now, radio is on many different platforms, available everywhere and anywhere, with additional text and graphics. New platforms bring new business models and new ways to keep your audience. The opportunities are endless.

Conferences about radio normally concentrate on the same old same old; and are fairly irrelevant for those of us who see the benefits and excitement of new platforms and new technology. They’re normally held on an inconvenient day, in an inconvenient place, requiring rather too much time out from work. They can be full of US consultants, hopelessly out of depth in this new world, blissfully unaware that the US is at least five years, if not ten, behind the UK in this respect. They can also be so expensive that they’re out of place in any department’s budget.

This year, The Radio Academy’s Radio at the Edge moves to Monday, 10th November, to a new home in Westminster, London. So, you can come to London over the weekend, get some Christmas shopping in, and see the sights.

We’re US consultant free, but not US-free – Chief TWiT (and KFI’s tech guy) Leo Laporte will be speaking about the changes occurring in the US, especially the podcast and live streaming market.

Also appearing, Iain Lee, Rory Cellan-Jones and others will tell us why getting closer to your audience using technologies like Facebook and Twitter can really pay off in terms of listenership or snagging that all-important story. Richard Herring and Andrew Collins will be sharing the secrets of their new podcast; Kelly Shephard from the BBC World Service will be surprising us all with the discovery that a station with a reputation for being slightly stuffy is actually ahead of many of us; we’ll discover that radio with pictures is rather closer than we thought as we share results of trials from the BBC and Global; we’ll find out how last.fm works and whether Pandora and the rest will come and eat us all up; and all the way through, we’ll get a ton of research and stuff that we can take back to our radio stations and implement.

And the best bit? ‘Till the end of September, it’s just £150 to get in. Which, as part of your training budget, can’t be any more affordable.

So if you’re a techie working in radio, or a radio person working in radio, or anyone with an interest in how radio’s changing, you’ll be wanting to be at Radio at the Edge. http://www.radioattheedge.com will give you the information you need to book. And watch out for a get-together on the Sunday night, too, where (amazingly) free beer will be the order of the day.

Hope to see you there.

Disclosure: I’m the chairman of the event, and a director and trustee. The Radio Academy is a registered charity. Photo: Guido A.J. Stevens, used under licence.

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