Longwave closures and job cuts from the BBC
Above: some impressive advertising for Ewan and Cat on the Greatest Hits Radio Scotland breakfast show, taken just this morning in Glasgow, Scotland, by an eager Radioland reader.
It’s a bakery delivery van - thus most likely to be seen at breakfast time. Very clever advertising, to catch people in the car and help them listen. I’d have made “DAB” a little bigger, given that’s the main way to listen in a car in Glasgow, but it’s really nicely done, so congratulations to Bauer Media.
The only slight problem is that Ewen and Cat, um, left Greatest Hits Radio in July. And they’re now on competitor STV Radio, and have been there since January.
Radio in the UK is mostly researched by recall - people remembering who they were listening to, and ticking the right box in an online diary. The question is what people would tick after listening to Ewen and Cat in a traffic jam looking at this. I wonder whether it benefits GHR or STV more?
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: Wade chats with Ben & Liam, who have returned to the airwaves in Adelaide as breakfast hosts on KIIS 102.3.
- 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!
The BBC made an announcement about the future of BBC Radio 4 Longwave. In the early 1990s it was due for closure; then in 2011, they confidently suggested that it would be off by the end of the decade; in 2022 they announced that they would stop scheduling separate content on longwave; they announced an information campaign in 2023 pending the switchoff which was planned for March 2024. Then the BBC suddenly said it was staying until June 2025, then announced that it would be on until some time in 2026, and now they say it’ll close “later this year”. It’s quite the long goodbye.
The BBC is to cut as many as 2,000 jobs, the biggest round of job losses at the BBC since 2011. It was announced by Rhodri Talfan Davies, the interim director general, prior to Matt Brittin’s arrival at the corporation next month. It is required to save £500mn ($675mn) of costs. Individual BBC employees will only learn whether they’re affected later in the year. (I’ve said my piece about the BBC’s poor way it treats its people many times.)
Super Hifi announced a new music scheduling service that is powered by AI. I think there is absolutely a place for AI and machine-learning in this space. Indeed, 25 years ago I pushed the output of Virgin Radio into Last FM, under a secret username (I think “dickieb_vr” or something similar), to see what the recommendations would be and whether they’d be helpful to programmers. I’m not sure they were, but I’d be interested to see the differences.
Dan Taylor-Watt suggests that media companies are hiding the use of the word “AI” in disclosures. You’d have to assume there’s something here about AI being seen negatively.
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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.
- 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
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Lesen Sie außerdem ausgewählte Artikel auf Deutsch in Radioszene