Smart speakers that aren't, and Radio Live to close

Welcome to new subscribers this week from Norway’s NRK, the US’s PRI, Australia’s SBS, Canada’s Rogers, South Africa’s ICASA, and the Netherlands’ 3FM among others.

• My article this week is my continuing use of smart speakers to listen to the radio. It’s not quite as easy as it should be for some stations. I’d recommend the podcast version of my article this week, it works better than the text.

• One of the downsides of stats from podcasting is a lack of demographic data. Until now - Spotify is giving demographic data for podcasters in their service. Here’s Podnews’s audience (though a very small sample). (And more on podcast stats if you’re interested).

• How do people skip songs on Spotify? Some fascinating (if quite old) data.

• Shed station DJ given BBC local radio slot - some say this is a lovely heartwarming story.

• Labor pledges $2 million to re-establish (ABC) shortwave radio in Australia’s Northern Territory

• Want to set a radio alarm with your Amazon Alexa or your Google Assistant? Adam Bowie tell us how to do it. Warning: patience is required.

• Radio Live, a New Zealand newstalk radio station, is to close. It’s being replaced by (or ‘merged with’) Magic, a station playing 50s/60s/70s music. Shame.

• Is Radio Falling Behind in Commercial Creativity? asks David Lloyd.

• Consumers love smart speakers. They don’t love news on smart speakers. (At least not yet.) There’s one important caveat to this - the “news briefing” services are surprisingly well used, in my experience. (Podnews, my daily podcasting newsletter, is available in the news briefing for Google and Amazon speakers).

• Winnipeg Radio: Rogers Denies Dave Wheeler’s Allegations - one side says “well, you told me to be edgy and controversial”, while the other side says “yeah, but we didn’t mean that”. Context - this metro area is a population of 800,000. For that, his wage, negotiated in August 2017, was CAD$335,000 (about £200,000) a year.

• iHeartMedia to acquire radio adtech company Jelli. What ties this investment in with Global’s recent investments in outdoor advertising and Canada’s Leanstream? They’re all (these days) programmatic advertising companies: outdoor having made the switch, in many areas, to electronic poster sites that change the message based on weather, time of day, or football results.

• Making Local Radio That Isn’t - it’s been a year since the local studio rule was dropped in the US, and this article looks at the impact. The world hasn’t caved in yet.

• Spotify, Amy Schumer Offer Podcast as Audience Grows - spot the lazy Buggles lede. Actually, the real story here is that with podcasting, Spotify/Pandora can keep people within their app without having any music costs.

• Microsoft is now selling Amazon’s Echo devices - Cortana looks as dead as a Zune

• ESPN Radio over Thanksgiving rebroadcast some of their podcasts. Sensible use of content.

• Lots of layoffs at Bell Media’s Virgin Radio stations in Canada. :(

• Ofcom - no change to UK media ownership rules, they recommend to government.

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