A 'clear-channel' AM station sells its transmitters for housing

Above: the DAB module inside my little cheap radio

• AM deathwatch: 1110 WBT (news talk) in Charlotte, the only class A clear-channel station in North Carolina, is closing down, and selling the ground its AM transmitter is on for housing. Here’s the listing. In the same city, 610 WPNZ (christian) is also selling (that address would be 400 Radio Road). Both stations are also available on FM; as with many older AM transmitter sites, they are in prime housing areas, and such is the economy these days, housing earns more than radio. (The stations are owned by Urban One; the land is owned by Beasley, if I understand it right).

• A fun story from The Verge on a set of radio stations run by AI which all went slightly wrong. Yes, critics will point to the prompts being wrong, but a fascinating read, nonetheless. “Stay in the manifest!”

• Huh. Australian radio network NOVA (privately owned by Lachlan Murdoch) is promoting your chance to go to Capital’s Summertime Ball in the UK - the ads intriguingly include a Global logo, and the Barclaycard sponsorship (you can’t get a Barclaycard in Australia).

Classifieds

• In The Quarter Hour with Wade Kingsley: Wade has been in Cairns this week, and speaks to the CRA’s CEO Lizzie Young, and also to Johnny and Inkie, Star 102.7’s breakfast team.

• 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!

• In Australia, ARN is to network its KIIS network evening show, hosted by Kent Small, to another 21 regional radio stations. The show - which is called “The Smallzy Show”, following apparent Australian media law that all commercial radio people need to have a nickname, airs on Fridays between 7pm and 8pm. (I must confess to not understanding why Australian commercial radio has so many one-hour syndicated shows, and I can only assume there’s a commercial reason for it).

• Also in Australia, even while his court case lumbers on, “Vile” Kyle Sandilands appears to be planning a comeback. “Kyle Sandilands Live” has been teasing a new project, and an Instagram post has promoted something coming on 1 July; only to very quickly change their minds and suggest it was a fake. This is the sort of tedious stunt that Sandilands was good at doing, so I suspect it’s all above board. Meanwhile, I hear the staff at KingKyle have been actively lining up suppliers that could help with some live (online) broadcasting.

  • In October last year, I suggested that the ACMA should require ARN to pull K&J off the public radio spectrum for a twelve month period: but allow them to continue online (where, behind an age verification, they could do what they wanted, unfettered by regulation or geography). This was widely scoffed at by the industry podcasts. That’s effectively what’s happening. I wonder if there is a broadcast partner?

• The first survey of the year in the UK. Adam Bowie takes a look at the raw numbers, and Matt Deegan suggests a pattern - that “the stations that are doing best tend to be the ones with a clear job to do”.

  • Matt also points out the benefit of having “brands” in the numbers: if you have a number of stations under the same brand, like Heart (with Heart 80s, Heart 90s, Heart Dance, Heart Musicals, etc) then release “Heart Brand” numbers as a distinct radio station in the figures, and sell the brand, rather than the individual stations. This is something I’m really surprised that Australian radio fails to do - at least, in the scant public figures that we see. I can only assume that this data is part of the available information for media buyers, even if we don’t see it?

• Radioland reader Michael tells me that he travels with the Richter RR10, which reminded me that I own one of these. My review is now hidden behind a paywall for the publication I wrote it for, so I made it appear in my blog as well. Twice the price of my PC1, which is working nicely in London: as long as I put it on its back, where it gets 100% signal, rather than stand it up, where it gets one bar of rather intermittent signal.

• In Ireland, a bunch of new DAB stations from Onic, across an enlarged Fáilte DAB coverage area, which should reach 2 million+ listeners. There are rumours that RTÉ Gold, the remaining digital-only station from the public broadcaster, might be keen on a space on there as well. That would make sense.

• Radio Montenegro has turned on a DAB+ transmitter in the capital city, which is… Podgorica, of course. I knew that. That currently means Radio Montenegro and Radio 98 will be available on DAB (which, of course, is in most cars in Europe). I know you know where Montenegro is, by the way, so you won’t need this map. But just in case someone else does.

• Happy birthday Radio Zagreb, which is 100 years old this week. (Croatia. Quite close to Montenegro. Again, you knew that, I don’t know why I’m telling you.)

THANK YOU to Henry Mensch for sending me five coffees. “I do look forward to your newsletter. if you make some of those coffees into adult beverages i’d be fine with that (unsure if coffee culture has progressed since i lived in oz in the 1990s)”, he writes. Cheeky! Our coffee is the best in the world, and a Queenslander invented the flat white, so there. But, fair enough, I’ll probably spend it on beer.

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 about podcast research.
• FWD, the Western Canada Media Conference, Kelowna BC (June 3-4) - I’ll be there, talking about “the future of audio is people-powered”.
• 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