James Cridland

Kyle's first online show 'a disaster'

Photocards at ABC Radio Brisbane

Above: photocards are still a thing at ABC Radio Brisbane (or, at least, they were in 2023 when I took this)

  • Kyle Sandilands went on-air this morning with his paid-for show. It looked to be a bit of a technical mess; his most chummy media partner called it chaotic, and detailed some of the content we all missed out on. Radioinfo says the issue was that you needed to watch the video to be able to listen; “Not an easy listen this morning, and not just because of the teething problems”. Nine suggests it was a disaster - “never-ending audio issues that ended up sounding like a drive-thru speaker in a thunderstorm.” It seems that the content of the show was as much of a disaster as the technicals surrounding it; the tech can be fixed, but can the lurid content? (The whole show is on-demand, seemingly - it’ll cost you AUD $99 for a year). Nice to see friend-of-this-newsletter Waaaade Kingsley on Channel Nine talking about it. To come at some point this week, a deep-dive into Kyle’s show and what is needed for it to work financially.

  • Katy Country 93.1 is now using Super Hi-Fi - a generative AI system that runs the whole station’s playout and scheduling. The station is geo-blocked outside the US; when I tuned in, it was taking the syndicated She’s Country.

  • In the US, the NAB has joined the ‘Radio Ready’ coalition. Historically, US radio organisations don’t appear to join global groups like this; so it’s quite gratifying to see the NAB’s involvement, joining broadcasters from Europe, Africa and Australia. The group is “fighting to keep radio prominent on connected car dashboards”.

RCS

Classifieds

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  • AM deathwatch:

    • In Las Vegas, Audacy is to shut 840 KXNT (newstalk). Previously, in 2023, Audacy Las Vegas shut down 720 KDWN (talk) and 1140 KXST (sports) - selling the transmitter site’s land to a warehouse developer. Programming from all three stations will be placed on HD subchannels of 94.1 KMXB.
    • In Luxembourg, the three former Junglinster long-wave transmitter towers for RTL are to be demolished. They had been there since 1932, though since 1974 had just been maintained for emergencies; and after a teenager climbed up one of them in April last year - and got stuck, by the looks of things - the decision has been made to literally blow them up. The land will be turned into housing. There is also a short-wave transmitter which is apparently broadcasting in DRM on the site; that looks to be continuing.

  • KCAL-FM 96.7 (rock) in Southern California has fired all its human talent, and will be just playing automated music. The COO of the company claims it will offer “broader appeal for both our audience and advertising partners.” To me, it’s unclear what appeal someone else’s unskippable Spotify playlist has. But, broader appeal, apparently.

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