Should you pull your radio station off TuneIn?

While at Radiodays Europe, I was interested to see Radioplayer, who had a big presence in the expo hall - including an XPENG car - and also laid-on a number of talks, including an overview of Radioplayer with a clear focus on their in-car experience. It had an entertaining video, a chat with someone at the BBC, and then, Rune Hafskjær, the Chief Digital Officer of Norway’s P4.

Rune started with a quote of… mine: a quote that’s really about emergency radio broadcasting in Australia, which only works if people own the radio receivers to listen (and you’d be surprised how few people own an AM radio). There’s something quite exciting about seeing a quote from you up on the big screen, especially when you don’t know it’s coming.

Rune then spent some time showing TuneIn’s contract details - highlighting that TuneIn carries advertising and doesn’t have any obligation to share it (but does share revenue, I discover later); and that TuneIn requires broadcasters to have the rights to their content across “the universe”. It was an amusing bit.

Then, Rune put a chart up to compare what he felt were the “important features” that a radio app should have, and how aggregator apps do. You’ll note that TuneIn has more green squares than Radioplayer, except for “good intentions”, which Rune suggests TuneIn don’t have but Radioplayer does - an assertion I’m not entirely sure I now agree with, given both Radioplayer and TuneIn are now owned by radio companies.

Many stations, including P4, have decided to pull their stations out of TuneIn, because of thinking like this. And I’d love to agree with a man who shows a quote from me in his slide deck.

Look: the P4 player app should have the very best experience for listeners to P4. It will have access to more metadata from the radio station, graphical elements and now-playing info specifically built for the app. It can be personalised. It’ll have great data to learn how you listen. It’s the best place for a P4 listener to go. And that’s the way it should be.

But here’s the thing: the P4 player app, Lyden av Norge, will only be downloaded by existing listeners of P4. If you never listen to P4, you’ll never download the P4 app, I’m sure we can all agree.

If you pull your stations off the main aggregator apps, and only make it available on your own app, you risk people never discovering your station, ever. Why should they download an app for a station they’ve never heard?

And if you think that your own app has better listening data (it does!), helps you monetise your audience better (that too!), and allows you to have a direct connection with them through login (yes!), then what are you doing still broadcasting on FM or DAB+? Because you’ll never have any of that on that platform. So, perhaps you should only pull your station off TuneIn, or similar aggregators, when you also pull your station off FM/DAB+. And if you’ll never do the latter, why do the former?

At Radiodays Europe I also got to interview Steve Jones from Stingray, the new owners of TuneIn. There’s a radio guy full of good intention, if you ask me. And, despite owning TuneIn, Stingray stations are still in Radioplayer, iHeartRadio… and FM.

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: the Fin Review’s Sam Buckingham-Jones talks about ARN’s troubles and potential strategies for their recovery, in a world without their biggest stars. ARN currently has a market cap of AUD $72mn (down 27% in the last 30 days): it’s now worth less than half of the outstanding contract payments to Kyle and Jackie O.
• 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!

• Very good news - after nine months of very, very bad communication with overseas listeners after the closure of BBC Sounds, the BBC has finally made it quite easy to listen live to domestic BBC Radio outside the UK. There’s a proper station directory, for the first time, clearly linked from both the BBC app and BBC international website! And it works!

• I was a guest on the Rhythms Magazine podcast (podcast details here), where I was asked for my thoughts on the ABC’s radio programming. I shared my master plan - which involves closing one station (and one massively-expensive AM network), putting another radio station onto FM in the capital cities, changing the law, massively expanding the ABC’s live government coverage, the place where the Majestic Fanfare can still live (and the many places it shouldn’t), and getting rid of the 8am “handbrake turn”. I very much enjoyed taking part.

• As a consequence of being on the above podcast, I spent some time critically listening to ABC Radio National (no longer called ABC RN, thank heavens - and yes, that was on my master plan!). Instead of a radio station sounding like a podcast player on shuffle, the station now has its own personality, with a continuity announcer, a consistent musical theme right through the output, and some excellent throw-forwards to shows coming up. When one show ended seven minutes early when I listened on Thursday, the continuity announcer interviewed one of the hosts of a Saturday morning programme on what they would be covering: complete with a clearly communicated call to listen at the end. Such a good change: refreshing to hear. The next challenge is to get people to trial it again.

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.
• 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