Why people enter radio competitions, and the UK's RAJAR figures

Above: the “things to try” card with my (Aus) Amazon Echo Dot. Radio? Not there. Wonder why…

Thankyou to Futuri Media for their kind support.

My articles

• I’m really proud of the growth of Podnews. If you’re remotely interested in podcasting and on-demand, you should subscribe. It’s free, thanks to all kinds of excellent supporters, who also help this newsletter, too.

  • Podnews is now available in your Amazon “Daily Briefing” list, and also on Google Assistant: “OK, Google, ask podnews for the latest”. It’s broadcast-friendly, and always less than two minutes.

• I spent a day analysing almost 100 of the top podcasts to work out what bitrate, mono/stereo and LUFS values they were running at. If you’re having trouble sleeping, here’s a big table. And some graphs.

• My weekly column: Broadcast radio - are data-driven ads the future?

  • This is available as a podcast. Search for “James Cridland” in your favourite podcast app (except Spotify for some reason); or “OK, Google, play James Cridland’s podcast”.

United States

• Some interesting data on radio competitions: what people might play, and what they might not.

• Pandora adds audio ad personalisation - surprised that it’s taken them so long to do this. They’re also testing shorter ads, and I hope their data is open for everyone to see.

• Interesting monetisation plan in a RadioPublic announcement: letting anyone make money from podcasts, but effectively also acting as a marketing scheme for their app.

• A “Spotify recommendations jukebox”. Almost entirely incomprehensible to me, but who knows, you might get something out of it.

• Country listeners bring their loyalty to smart speakers, but…

• WNYC is not in a good place. Here’s a look into the issues that the station has, and what the station needs to do to reinvent itself.

• iHeart Could File For Bankruptcy As Early As March, writes the Wall Street Journal. These are bad stories for radio, since it makes radio seem as if it has serious revenue issues; the problem’s really iHeart’s large debt. How can we, as a radio industry, ensure that journalists know this?

• How you can stop Alexa from reacting to a TV ad

• I spent a day analysing almost 100 of the top podcasts to work out what bitrate, mono/stereo and LUFS values they were running at. If you’re having trouble sleeping, here’s a big table. And some graphs.

• The NYT has 2.6m digital subscribers, and is doing very well financially, which is good to see.

• Does Radio Work? Here’s How to Do It Right - some sales debate

United Kingdom

• RAJAR, the UK audience research figures, were out last week. Of note…

  • Impressive to see BBC Radio 2 posting the best-ever listening figures (in total hours).
  • Like Radio 2, BBC Radio 4’s figures are fascinating. Ever-growing reach, but ever-shrinking per-listener hours.
  • The ascent of LBC might have been slightly dented this quarter, but it’s now the most listened-to commercial radio station in London, say Gloabl - so good for them. (Most listened-to over all is BBC Radio 4).
  • Digital listening ’tantalisingly close’ to 50% - commercial radio (and BBC Radio 4) are now over 50% digital listening, which is interesting to see. Hitting the 50% target gets the government to consider FM switchoff.
  • Some quarter-hour RAJAR data from the London market from Paul Easton if you’re interested how your favourite station did…
  • Adam Bowie’s RAJAR blog. Adam makes the obvious point that even when we hit 50% digital listening next quarter, that’s unlikely to instantly lead to switchover. The UK’s too busy destroying its relationship with its neighbours first.
  • The RAJAR Q4/2018 blog from Matt Deegan is worth a read. “Nearly one in five of every hour listened to on the radio, is to Radio 2” - and it’s growing. Still waiting for the death of radio? Don’t hold your breath. Matt also points out that the fabulous Chris Moyles is doing a good, consistent, job at increasing audiences. Good for him. It’s a good show and he’s a top lad.
  • Some digital stats from BBC Radio 1, which are released today alongside the #RAJAR figures. (Some of these are a bit spurious, to be honest, but still).

• Death of AM: Absolute Radio proposes to switch some AM transmitters off - it’s a really good document to read, this: it turns out that by turning off these transmitters they’ll remove Absolute Radio from about 6% of the audience (on AM); but save themselves 50% of their transmission bill. I’m surprised why they still want to run Brookman’s Park - the AM for the South East (where they’re also on FM) and one of the biggest ones; but it might be a contractural matter with Arqiva. Expect talkSPORT to do similar.

• Good to see the return of the British Podcast Awards - you should enter!

• Data around UK adspend. More money went to ‘mobile’ than to ‘TV’ (whatever each of those are). Radio up by 5.1% year-on-year.

• From the arrogance to the self-indulgence and massively dodgy stats (50,000 regular listeners?!) this is madness from Noel Edmonds…

• Never heard Tony Blackburn’s Golden Hour before (BBC Radio 2, Friday night). High energy, full of personality but tidy, neat links. Lots of “today’s” jocks would do well to listen. Awesome.

• Trinity Mirror buys Express and Star in £127m deal - quite some consolidation in print media in the UK. Is it too late, though, to rescue the Express’s reputation?

Australia

• ABC now costs each Australian four cents a day - half of what it did 30 years ago.

  • If you want a comparison: the BBC costs every Brit over seven times as much: 16p/29c a day. But then:
    • BBC 32.1% TV share; 52.8% radio share (BARB, RAJAR 2017)
    • ABC 17.6% TV share; 23.9% radio share (2016 annual report)

• Video: Listening to Australian radio with Ben and Liam

Elsewhere

• Fake news in Europe - mostly fake news itself, which is pleasing

• Ireland: Radio Nova ordered to pay €30,000 to presenter who was unfairly fired - ouch

• ‘I left BBC for $162,000 drug job’ - at least it wasn’t commercial radio, that would have been dreadful. (Ghana).