Live radio is... lazy radio?

Above - a clever idea for a radio station branded thing - something actually quite useful that will be in someone’s eyeline for hours every day.

My column

Live radio is lazy radio - I can’t help but feel that my column this week might annoy some people. (Let’s hope they read it first!). It’s kicked up some interesting comment on the various sites that I write for; some people arguing against everything being voice-tracked (not what I’m asking for), and others understanding what I’m saying a little more. It’s even got me into a Spanish podcast. This video shows nice segues using RCS Zetta, and rather underlines the point - to just mash songs and sweepers together while live simply can’t produce the same effect. And, of course, some bits of radio should be live - don’t, for example, pre-record travel news days in advance…!

Radio still does pretty well for music discovery (if you look at all age groups, at least)
WLIR probably deserves credit for breaking, among others, Prince - says Newsweek
Interesting interview about how radio stations need to (commercially) adapt. Some bright ideas.
US television news anchors all reading the same script. This looks vaguely horrifying, until you remember that its the same as national TV, just much less efficient
Amazon Music Says Number of Subscriptions Doubled In the Past Six Months - notable how quickly this is growing. Driven by Echo?

Corporate FM - on Amazon Prime, a movie about US radio’s consolidation. Personally, I think it’s wonderful that people care this much.
TagStation Unveils Interactive, Visual AM/FM Radio - uses hybrid techniques to add visuals to the in-car experience

Interesting new regulation from the EU - a German subscription to Netflix, for example, has to work everywhere in Europe. This might have ramifications for the geoblocking that happens in many parts of Europe, including - for example - radio match commentaries for football.
The BBC started live broadcasting of Parliament in 1978. Here are some clippings from the time from Andy Walmsley.
Interesting to see a podcast using binaural sound. Seems obvious, really, but somehow this seems a new thing.
The Guardian snootily disregards the Radio X top 100 - interestingly, I’m told Radio X has 40% female listeners, so not quite as laddish as you might think, and the chart is compiled by, genuinely, what listeners asked for. How very dare they.

They don’t make radio station websites like these any more… (except this one, that is) - wow

Live radio is lazy radio. And here is one brilliant video from @TimLeeOZ showing exactly what you can do by NOT being live. Awesome.
Live radio isn’t lazy if you’re doing traffic news. Pre-recording traffic bulletins is an astonishing breach of trust…
2DayFM dumps ads between 9am and 3pm daily - this is quite a thing if you’re a commercial station. Depends if it leads to more cluttered breakfast/pm drive though…

France: La Maison de la Radio - a day in the life of Radio France, from 2013. Worth a watch, says a correspondent. (Also on iTunes apparently)

Belgium: the benefit of digital means more new formats - like this rock station
Norway: Smart speakers are supposed to be the future of radio; but this looks MUCH more interesting.
Spain: I think I’m in this podcast, and I hope that Tommy has been nice about me.
Denmark: is the country going to switch off FM soon? Looks possible.. Yet a comment on Twitter told me that Denmark will vote against FM switchoff. So apparently it isn’t as possible as you might think.

Selected bits from Radioland are in RadioInfo in Australia, and RAIN News in the US
Lesen Sie außerdem ausgewählte Artikel auf Deutsch in Radioszene