The AI top 40, and the BBC News channel in Australia

Above: not quite sure what the station on 131.5 MHz sounded like in Helsinki airport, but I doubt it was playing the hits.

• The AI Top 40 is worth a listen, if nothing else. It calls itself a “live, fully AI-generated chart show”, and the AI has apparently been trained on 47,000+ hours of real broadcast audio, rather than just whatever junk is on the internet. It sounds tightly-produced, (and not entirely AI-generated, I’d think); the host “Nexus James” sounds like a typical US radio announcer, and it’s a soulless, antiseptic experience that won’t annoy anyone, but won’t leave them with anything to remember. That said, it’s a chart show - so perhaps the opportunity for human connection is less at the forefront of that experience. Perhaps this is where AI can be used; similar to traffic and weather? Or perhaps not. (As an aside: Gold Brisbane’s travel news person is the warmest, friendliest travel person I’ve heard for a long time).

  • I guess, too, that the US is a country that grew up with the tediously dull Casey Kasem - think NPR presenting a top 40 chart - though the US did also grow up with the Rick Dees Weekly Top 40. Side note: Rick Dees is still counting down the hits, though goodness, he sounds a little different to when I was playing his show out in the early 1990s!

• Over on the day job - I spot that there are now more AI-generated podcasts being made than real ones. Radio could follow this path, too - or, we could focus on human connection, and the shared experience that comes from that.

• RTÉ Radio 1 (full service) in Ireland has a new jingle package. A proper orchestra. A warm, full sound (of what I can actually hear under the people wittering on about how good it is). Very nice stuff.

• Psst. Wanna radio company cheap? Only a few outstanding liabilities, guvna! ARN’s share price went down to $0.18 last week: and then, 7.1mn shares were bought by persons unknown. Market cap is $68.8mn as I type this. Jackie Henderson says she’s owed $82.25mn. My personal opinion is that Kyle’s not owed anything at all, but not that it’ll stop him confidently blustering on.

  • Fun to compare ARN (Sydney market share: 16.5%) with SEN (Sydney market share: 1.2%), which owns a number of barely-listened to radio stations in the cap cities. They’re apparently worth $68.8mn as well. The stock market is a strange place.

Do you make podcasts? I’d be really grateful if you’d fill in the fifth annual Podnews Report Card. It’ll only take ten minutes. Thank you.

Classifieds

• In The Quarter Hour with Wade Kingsley: from the breakfast show on Triple J (new music), co-host Luka Miller speaks with Wade. There’s a special episode about KSHE95 St Louis, the rock radio station; and Calum Jaspan from the Sydney Morning Herald talks about Jackie ‘O’ Henderson’s allegations against ARN which went to court last week.

• Supercharge your radio show with world-class prep: the right show prep delivered to you on time, EVERY day, without fail. Grab a £1 week-long trial of Show Prep and stop chasing round looking for things to use on your show, running out of time before the show, and trying to sight-read the newspapers!

• Interested to spot in RadioToday that Arqiva - the UK’s radio transmission company - is now offering streaming as a service to radio stations. The service also apparently includes some automated podcast tools, as well. Makes obvious sense to me that Arqiva would be doing this sort of thing.

• The excellent Michael Hill (formerly BBC and Radioplayer) has been invited to be a trustee and director of London arts and community station Resonance FM.

• Good news for fans of the BBC in Australia: the BBC News channel is now available on 9Now, the free streaming app. Nine has access to a number of FAST channels from the BBC, including BBC Food, BBC Home & Garden, BBC Comedy, BBC Antiques Roadshow, and BBC Top Gear UK. The BBC News channel is given top-billing, under Nine’s five channels; it’s similar to the feed on the BBC’s own website (which is exclusive to Australia and the US in my understanding); the 9Now version has a few paid-for ads in the ad-breaks, followed by a musical filler track to fill the space (and nothing really on-screen other than a caption promising it’ll be “right back”, annoyingly not using the breakfiller music composed for the channel, but instead just an edit of the countdown music which doesn’t really loop very well).

  • By the way - you can enjoy the BBC News theme on Spotify, where composer David Lowe has published a set of mixes. Even the breakfiller music.

Where I am speaking next

• The Podcast Show, London UK (May 20-21) - I’ll be keynoting at this event, as well as recording a Podnews Weekly Review. And moderating a panel, I discover today!
• FWD, the Western Canada Media Conference, Kelowna BC (June 3-4) - I’ll be there; details tbc.
• Radiodays Asia, Jakarta Indonesia (Sep) - I’m usually a speaker at this event, and it’s a good one to be at.

Supporters

Thank you to the supporters below, plus Dafydd Furnham, Marty from New Yawk, Gavin Watson, Greg Strassell, Sam Phelps, Richard Hilton, Emma Gibbs, Jocelyn Abbey and James Masterton for being regular supporters.

If you’d like to support my work in any way, you can BuyMeACoffee - become a member to give regularly or just give a one-off coffee, or five. Here’s where to do that.

There’s a podcast version of this newsletter if you prefer that. I’m on Mastodon as @james@bne.social if you’re there too. And my website has more detail about who I am, and what I do, and whether I can help you further.

Selected bits from Radioland are in RadioInfo in Australia, and RAIN News in the US
Lesen Sie außerdem ausgewählte Artikel auf Deutsch in Radioszene