Google launch Android podcast support; and is voice synthesis part of the future?
- In my weekly column, I wonder whether voice synthesis is the next step for personalised radio.
Worldwide
Google have launched the Google Podcasts app. I’d heartily recommend watching a quick video I did on how it works; and adding the Google Podcasts links to your station’s podcast pages today. It has the capability of at least doubling your podcast plays. Here is the Podnews full FAQ; and a simple guide on how to be listed with Google Podcasts.
Tunisia: a profile of a gay radio station, but being gay is illegal here
An interesting chart of how much public media companies across the world cost per person. This is in Canadian dollars; and before the Australian ABC’s budget cuts. Currently, the ABC costs AUD$44 per year per person, or about 12c a day.
Pacific Islands: A different use for DRM Radio - feeding translators/repeaters
Let’s Put ‘Truth Sandwiches’ On Our Menu - this is an interesting concept for news journalists of always starting with the truth
United States
- Top 40 radio audience numbers are continuing to shrink. (Theory: most competition from YouTube/Spotify in this genre?)
- ‘If you think (radio audience) numbers are a fairy tale, you are in a special kind of denial’ - some actual statistics and discussion of why a relatively small sample size is statistically accurate.
- People keep switching jazz radio off in the US and Canada for some reason…
- TuneIn Radio is for sale… it’s the main internet radio service used on both Amazon Echo and Google Assistant, and is - as such - an important thing for the radio industry. If I were the radio industry, I’d be looking at a joint venture to buy it and maintain it.
- iHeart is no longer being taken over by Liberty Media - they’ve “rebuffed” an offer.
United Kingdom
- Next Radio Set For Sept. 17th In London - it’s in AllAccess, it must be news! :)
- The radio of the future is going to kill you, claims Maple Street Creative. That’s the power of radio for you.
- BBC Radio 4’s The Media Show talked about the future of radio recently; here’s a link to listen. Illustrated, of course, with a lazy antique radio.
Australia
A great story going on here about the World Cup and the scalability of internet streaming. Optus, a telco, got the main rights to stream most of the World Cup matches on their IP-only Optus Sport channel - with public service broadcaster SBS getting some of the big matches for the telly. So: how do you think that might be working? Er - not good. The first match failed completely, and even the Prime Minister got involved. Optus let SBS broadcast all their matches for two days while they attempted to fix it; they’ve still not managed to fix it, and all the group stage games have been given by Optus to SBS. Not just that, but refunds have been given to customers, as well as free set-top boxes. Is the future of media all-IP? It might be: but this debacle rather highlights how difficult it’s going to be; and how easily broadcast television copes with high-demand events.
The idea of the Liberal Party to privatise the ABC continues to be a point of discussion. Pauline Hanson’s One Nation party has pushed for a requirement for “fair and balanced” to be inserted into the ABC’s charter, which is utter bunkum; and this piece also points out that other media companies certainly don’t want the ABC wading into their ad revenue, as a privatised ABC would do. Meanwhile, most of the press (all of it here in Brisbane) is run by Murdoch, so you can imagine the narrative. (As an aside, Murdoch has decided that single-use plastic bags, illegal in Queensland from July 1st, are an essential human right; and not a day goes by without more knocking copy about the impending ban.)
A note from an Australian radio forum: “Today I’m driving a brand new (500km on the clock) Toyota RAV 4 and I’ve noticed the radio is FM and DAB but no AM.”
Great day for radio and AFL: Gold’s Christian O’Connell now a Demon! (I have no idea what this all means). He’s sounding good (listen here) and has clearly done his homework.
The ABC vacated some shortwave transmitters last year. The Chinese are now using them to broadcast their own news, according to this piece on the ABC.