Radio that makes you feel better, first on Twitter, Global is medium of the year

I hit my Patreon target a few weeks ago, and so I’m delighted to be able to spend a bit of time coding this newsletter. It now has a website of its own, and this week’s is also on the web. The site’s searchable (though that’s a little pointless currently given there’s only one newsletter in the system), has RSS and all that, and hopefully looks and works well. Shout if you see anything odd going on. And thank you for supporting me on Patreon - I really appreciate it. Particular thanks this week to the folks at Triton Digital, who are a new supporter.

My articles

• Silver Memories: Subscription Radio for Australia’s Nursing Homes. I really like this story: we forget how important radio can be.

• The value of FM licences is decreasing. Here’s why it doesn’t matter.

• A random tweet on Sunday night made me sit and write this - the oldest Twitter accounts for radio people in the UK - also, in Ireland, in Gibraltar, and in Australia. And, if you’re wondering… the same data for radio stations in the UK, in Ireland, and in Australia. Excitingly, I’m quite high! :)

United States

• YouTube to Launch New Music Subscription Service in March “according to people familiar with the matter”. It already has one (YouTube Red); it had one (YouTube Music Key). Also, see Google’s bewildering range of instant messaging services: Messenger, Duo, Allo, Hangouts, Google Chat, Google+ and Google Spaces. For a company with lots of clever people in it, Google sure is strangely poor at marketing.

• The trendy young Matt Deegan knows who YouTubers are, as he posts the company’s showreel for the year. If you don’t, and you do media for under 30s, then I think he’s telling you to get with the program(me).

• Book: Encyclopedia of Radio Promotions - a neat, useful creative brain jogger from Paige Nienaber, which you should buy.

• The looming end of the smart speaker - not sure I agree with this, but it’s useful to see an alternative point of view.

• Fascinating. via Matt Deegan, “Artwork Personalization at Netflix” - they even personalise the thumbnails for programmes depending on what genres you watch.

• Well, I thought the TuneIn logo was nicely designed and was flexible and recognisable. They’ve changed it to this thing (which is too big for a Twitter logo, so that just says TI). Perplexing. I note they’ve also stopped using the complicated terminology “follow” to add a station to your favourites; the button is now marked “favourite”. Oh, and if you had any old “Follow” buttons on your website, they still display but don’t actually work any more.

United Kingdom

• Medium of the Year 2017: Global - congratulations to Ashley Tabor and all for this. Well deserved.

• Nick Hewat was the Sales Director when I was at Virgin Radio 1215. He was very good. He’s just posted My 25 tips from 25 years in media, which contains a bunch of excellent tips for anyone in the media (he’s now at The Guardian).

• Radio is winning on smart speakers - Radiocentre, and Radioplayer, have some news to prove it

• Nothing, not even fake news, can kill the radio star - lazy Buggles headline, oddly titling a piece from Radiocentre boss Siobhan Kenny.

• Very interesting: details of the BBC’s audience research. Some juicy numbers, including the cost of their research: £22.4m. Go on, compare that with your station’s research budget. (And, let’s be fair, they run ten radio brands.)

• Good looking job… Executive Producer at Somethin’Else for BBC Music Radio.

• Book - by Tony Stoller, no less - Classical Music Radio in the United Kingdom, 1945–1995

Australia

• Visual Radio in 2009: Sea FM on the Gold Coast was broadcasting their breakfast show on the telly.

Elsewhere

• Norway: Most (95% of all listening) radio stations are now completely off FM in Norway. They don’t use AM, so that’s analogue radio off for everyone excepting some little locals.

• Canada: iHeartRadio Canada launches updated iOS and Android app. They’ve also announced they have 1.5m registered users in Canada; 1m registered users in Australia.

• The WorldDAB Weekly Industry Newsletter seems jam-packed with data and advances. Good to see thriving radio across the world.