James Cridland

Radiodays Asia, and could TV's switchoff put radio at risk?

I was on RRI

  • Above - I’ll be on RRI in Indonesia a little later this week: the station was founded on 11 September 1945, so it’s celebrating its 81st anniversary this week. The broadcaster has four networks and 90 local stations. Radio is 101 years old in Indonesia: the first station in the country broadcast in Dutch,.

  • I’ve been in Indonesia for the past week at Radiodays Asia. You can find a bunch of interviews in the RadioToday podcast - and more to come in RD. The Radiodays Europe Podcast too. I do enjoy the event: there’s plenty going on in Asia that doesn’t get the coverage it deserves. Next year, the event will be in Taipei, Taiwan - a place I’ve never been: should be fascinating.

  • While in Indonesia, I took my ludicrously geeky radio with me, and tuned around the dial one afternoon. I discovered Padel Corner 89.6FM - a radio station that seemingly is run by a sports club in the city, with music and an advert for the sports club itself (I can tell you it has six padel courts, a sauna and it does food). I wonder how those licences work - an interesting idea, if you can keep the costs low enough, to run your own service on the FM dial!

  • In the UK, there’s real concern that turning off television broadcasts could put radio services at risk. Radiocentre has released some research suggesting that transmission costs for radio broadcasters could increase by more than 50%. They’ve not shared the full research, and I’m surprised that it’s only a 50% increase - but even so, it’s a real concern, especially if that happens in 2034, one of the dates being considered. I wonder if this has been costed in other countries? The UK can’t be alone in looking to turn off free-to-air television; but perhaps the shared infrastructure that the UK uses makes it a little different.

  • Over the past few weeks, I’ve been driving my daughter home from school listening to the BBC Radio 1 breakfast show. My goodness, the production on that radio station is phenomenal: I can only assume that someone is pre-producing all the segues ahead-of-time, because the quality of them all is really impressive. Worth a critical listen.

RCS

Classifieds

  • 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!

  • RCS and Triton Digital have produced programmatic advertising for over-the-air radio, which they’ve demonstrated this week at IBC. A very clever idea to connect a playout system to this kind of tool: I gather that broadcasters approve audio creative before it gets broadcast (probably for the best), and that Triton are also working on getting it integrated with other playout systems. (Although, in deference to my sponsor, what other playout systems are there? Are there any?)

  • At some point in the last month or so, the BBC international app has finally got a proper video player for the live stream of BBC News, so it’s now (finally) possible to watch the channel in full-screen, for example. Not sure what took them so long, but it’s very welcome.

  • Online audio advertising is up in Australia, says the data; though it’s performing worse than the entire online market.

  • In Belize (which is in Central America, as you know) the authorities are planning to require podcasters and YouTubers to get a broadcasting licence, according to a report on News Five. There’s no word, yet, on how much a licence would be; though there is a fine of BZD $50,000 (US $25,000) if you don’t have one - sponsors and podcast hosts can also be fined too. Critics argue the draft legislation is too broad, and could have unintended consequences. The draft regulations were on the BBA’s website, for comment until Aug 24.

  • Interesting to spot more podcasts making it to broadcast radio. Two CBC podcasts are to be broadcast on the radio - Alberta referendum podcast West of Centre and the US midterm election podcast Two Blocks from the White House; while in the US, Stories from the States is to be taken on AM950 Twin Cities and WCPT Chicago.

That link to the BBC app, above, is an affiliate link. While the BBC app is free, others aren’t, and I might earn something.

Where I am speaking next

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

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