Smart speakers and public radio fans

It’s just two weeks to Next Radio, and as ever, my days are beginning to be filled with Keynote-wrangling, writing the printed program for the event, and other things. I’ve discovered a picture from 1802 in the very room we’ll be in, and I’m very much looking forward to trying to put it into the program. Ha.

I’d love to see you there.

My things

• Can a smart speaker replace a kitchen radio? Why, yes it can: at least, that’s my experience so far. As long as it isn’t an Amazon Echo (see in the Australian section, below)

• I’m in The Sound Off Podcast with Matt Cundill - look, there I am. Very cool, thank you Matt! :)

Worldwide

• Ireland: Pirate radio in Limerick - a good bit of history. There’s a lot of missing information about pirate radio, partially because of the whole illegality thing. I hope that more people tell their stories.

• Europe: The ASI conference for radio and TV research in Athens this year has just published its full programme. Some great speakers there. This is a great conference to be at, and very much worthwhile being present.

• Sweden: It’s astonishing how poor Spotify is in embedding podcasts onto pages - they enforce login to Spotify, weirdly, to listen.

• Germany: Interesting - one broadcaster is switching off FM in parts of the country and moving exclusively to DAB+

• Chile: Online audio in Chile - lots of information

• Remote radio stations, in the Falklands, Australian outback and the Shetland Islands

• India: How to tackle fake news being spread online? By… using radio advertising.

United States

• Congratulations to Ricki and Hanna for being the first Europeans (British/Polish) to own a US radio station - ever. Let’s show them how it’s done!

• The Public Radio Techsurvey 2018 contains useful information from fans of public radio in the US. Interesting platform splits - of the public radio fans surveyed, 69% of listening to their “home station” is to AM/FM, while 29% is to a digital platform. Digital has slowly grown since 2013.

• A pretty cool thing perhaps for radio station marketing… backlit backpacks

United Kingdom

• Not unexpected, but Eddie Mair to do LBC drive, from today. He will hand over to Nigel Farage. Goodness, that’ll make for a handover to listen to. Accompanying that, a very good article from Iain Dale about what it means for him. If only all presenters were as willing to embrace change. Adam Bowie crunches the numbers to see what a difference it’ll make, while Steve Martin also examines the move.

• Voice control could be the future of in-car radio: new research. Voice control isn’t fantastic right now, but it’s certainly improving; congratulations to Radioplayer and Digital Radio UK for commissioning this research.

• Another day, another tech disaster surrounding live “broadcasting” (this being Amazon UK’s coverage of the US Open). If only we had a way of beaming live TV pictures into every household at scale.

• There’s sense in this post from Matt Deegan about the new BBC local radio evening shows; and lots to learn for many stations.

• History: BBC Radio 1 turns on FM. Massive shift in listeners. Andy Walmsley looks back.

• It’s a short slippery slope from here to biscuits…

Australia

• How can I play 4ZZZ on my Amazon Echo? It appears impossible. Can the internet help me?… I’ve since raised this with Amazon, who have acknowledged it’s currently impossible, and they’ve sent this off to their senior engineers. (The issue is with the “4” - this is being recognised as “for”.)

• In the UK, broadcasters are not allowed to exhibit political bias. In Australia, it’s a different matter - and it cost us a prime minister. A good watch.

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