Google Assistant - even more like a DJ

Hello. It’s been quite a month: Podcast Movement, then Radiodays Asia. Podcast Movement was fascinatingly busy. This week, I was due to be in Orlando FL, but it’s turned out to be a bit windy, so I’m staying at home instead (and going to Amsterdam early next week instead).

• Above - Google Assistant plays DJ. Not only does it play the song you want, but (in this example from a user in NYC) it even highlights their next gig. You know, like radio DJs do.

• SiriusXM launches a channel full of fitness cycle instructors. “I thought you’re amazing. It’s so creative,” gushes an analyst from Merrill Lynch in response. Suddenly, the state of some of US radio is a little more obvious - it’s whatever brainless banking analysts like.

• Fascinating how this bit of BBC Radio 4 from 1969 sounds almost identical to 2019 in style. Fascinating? Or a bit worrying? Is there a missed opportunity with how we do radio news?

• RAJAR, the UK’s audience figures, came out early last month. Here’s Matt Deegan’s take, highlighting Scala’s lukewarm launch (and oddly quoting a lyric from the Monkees). And here’s Adam Bowie’s thoughts, including an overlap graph showing Scala, Classic FM and BBC Radio 3’s audiences.

• Surprising to see the slow decline in Manx Radio’s hours and audience. What happened? That used to be an unassailable station. Also from RAJAR - the most popular radio stations in the UK are… BBC Radio 2. And Island FM.

• “As Media Options Increase, Radio and Podcasts are Go-To Music Sources for Consumers in Canada” says Nielsen (who don’t have the contract to measure radio in the country, incidentally)

• Here’s a clever visual augmentation app for radio from the BBC. It’s the latest in many, many iterations: somehow technologists love the idea of pairing visuals with audio. At Podcast Movement, I saw the Adori platform, which does similar; there’s also Entale - and that’s just from the last twelve months. Fifteen years ago I was playing with Nokia Visual Radio for Virgin Radio. As ever, the difficulty with all these things is a) a rich enough experience while maintaining b) quick production of visuals at scale, and c) convincing people to look at the screen. I’m not convinced we’ve got there yet.

• This tweet is worth a read if you think radio just has to have local studios to succeed. It doesn’t. If you’re a local radio station, and you cover a town which was at risk from a dam bursting, why the hell wouldn’t you do live programming? Astonishing - and if Ofcom had any balls, they’d terminate the licence of this station immediately. Amateur nonsense.

• A change to the TV licence fee in Ireland - it’ll be replaced with a licence fee for consuming publicly-funded content, rather than a fee for a telly-box. Makes sense to me. Interestingly, and slightly oddly, one of the justifications for the TV licence in Ireland (€160, £145, US$175) is that it keeps rural Post Offices open.

• Fun story from Australia, as two cricket fans bid for the radio cricket rights coverage - and won. Good for them!

• Podsights releases “Open Downloads” spec - interesting move. Podcast companies currently have to pay $45,000 to get an IAB seal of approval; but the IAB’s guidelines don’t actually give robust numbers that are identical from each host.

• Rosie Smith and I end up talking about the future of radio with Malaysia’s BFM. I’ll almost forgive the lazy buggles headline. Almost.

• Video Saved the Radio Star - shared without comment

• If you ever needed evidence that radio is becoming more multiplatform, Entercom have just launched a sports radio network… without a transmitter.

• iHeartMedia will start airing its own podcasts on over 200 of its radio stations every Sunday.

• Podcast: “the reinvention of radio” according to this article.

• How sad. Viking FM, a station I worked at with a proud history, is closing down (moving to a city with no affinity to its broadcast area). Disappointing. When I worked there it was the network hub, broadcasting two stations 24 hours a day. It’s now reduced to having one four-hour local show a day.

• German station FFH is the latest to produce four new webstreams that contain content from the main simulcast, but with different music

• Quebecor’s QUB radio introduces customizable morning show - looks intruiging. This is a bit more than the FFH example - you can pick and choose which bits you want as part of the experience.

• In the UK, Bauer Media unveils new online stations and podcast - and Global retaliated only a few weeks later by launching five new stations. There’s certainly a race going on in the UK; strange how the race is to emulate Spotify, rather than to focus on local audiences (which Spotify can’t do).

• Twitter will no longer accept advertising from state-backed news organisations. (BBC, PBS etc is apparently still fine - here’s hoping they’ve a robust definition of “state-backed”, since both the BBC and the ABC take money from government.)

• KFOG radio station going off the air: ‘We knew this was gonna happen’ - it’s certainly the most famous radio stations I know in San Francisco, so it’s sad to see it disappear. Can’t say I ever listened, though.

• AdsWizz & Big Mobile Successfully Track Increase in Store Visits Driven By Audio Ads - the interesting bit in here is that they claim “more than a 90% lift in footfall traffic to their retail locations when individuals listened to their audio ads”, which is quite a claim.

Thank you to Rupert Brun, Barrie Stephenson, Cleanfeed and Richard Hilton for your continued support for this slightly intermittent newsletter.

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