Online listening up (a bit); smart speakers aren't all good though

• Triton Digital’s monthly ranker for internet radio streams is out for October 2018. By comparison with October 2017, iHeartRadio is up 52%, Prisa Radio is up 54%, NPR is up 35%, and Sky Radio up 27%.

Hey, I bet you looked at this interpretation of Triton Digital’s streaming figures and wondered what was going on in my head. Me too.

I was confused by a different order in the reports, but also confused by numbers. They’re scary, squiggly things that I have trouble with sometimes.

iHeart is up 7% year-on-year; not, as I said, 52%.

It would still be fascinating to see a breakdown of platform for these figures. But there’s not the story there that I clearly thought there was on a hot Saturday afternoon. Sorry.

• US: 46% of people have trouble using their smart speaker to listen to radio stations. I can believe that - there’s one station here in Brisbane that I still can’t get on my Amazon Alexa. It’s great for stations where it works - but it’s meant that I rarely listen to the others.

• Think you’re a good music programmer? Top of the Spots is a game to guess which song (of two) was played the most. (Resize your browser if it doesn’t appear to work too well).

• UK: James O’Brien off of LBC is getting some quite considerable coverage - last week, the front page of the New York Times.

• Poland: Radio Driver is an online radio station just for Polish-speaking truck drivers across the EU (and beyond). What a great, niche, idea.

• US: This is a good read about where radio should be prioritising its focus from Dick Taylor.

• US: Lovely quote about radio in the 1920s. One to drag up every now and again.

• Ireland: Steve Dempsey: ‘Streaming and a podcast boom may kill the radio star’ - #lazybugglesheadline

• UK: The radio station I worked for five years is now a luxury housing complex. Although, we worked in the basement and I bet they haven’t made that into flats. And it’s haunted, so…

• UK: The Radio Times’s new issue has “The 30 Greatest Radio Shows of All Time”. Not one from commercial radio. All judges from the BBC. Top trolling!

• UK radio consultant Paul Chantler had an exciting day last week.

• US: The New York Times is now earning more money from digital than print. Quite a moment in history.

• UK: Newspaper sales. The best-performing has “only” seen sales decrease by 7% year-on-year.

• Australia: Astonishingly, a man from News Corp doesn’t like Google’s plans for disaggregated news radio.

• US: I love the opening to the latest Daily podcast on Friday - a great example of getting the excitement of a newsroom into a podcast. They seem to convey this hard work much better than any broadcaster I’ve heard. I wonder why?

• Australia: A big audience boost for commercial digital radio - some good news for Aussie radio listeners.

I’m in New York in a few weeks (and other places too - see below). If you’re in NYC, it would be great to catch up.

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