Radioland, with James Cridland - radio futurologist

“Radio is still where people go to discover music”, we keep hearing. New data from Edison Research shows that, actually, streaming music services now reach more Americans than AM/FM radio does. I’m of the opinion that music really isn’t the reason people tune into the radio any more. It’s not a very fashionable opinion. But this data does show that if radio broadcasters are relying on music to be their “unique selling proposition”, then they’re on borrowed time. As you’ll hear in my opening keynote at Radiodays Asia, radio’s secret weapon is our people.
In Australia, you’re probably aware that Kyle Sandilands has started his subscription-based radio service. He has yet to do a full week - he cancelled the first Friday show for technical reasons: the studio just failed to work; and Friday just gone, he was off sick. But - can it work as a business? I took a long look at the business behind his new app, working out what his costs might be; and it seems clear to me that there is not a chance that he can be operating at a profit. Mind you, we’ll never know - the numbers will be confidential to everyone. Well, nearly everyone: his former employer, ARN, gets a 19.9% share of revenue, and will therefore have the numbers. Let’s hope they don’t leak out.It appears that the show is also available as a private podcast, if you’re a subscriber and you know who to ask. He’s using the Canadian Transistor as a podcast host.

In Bavaria, Germany, digital radio listening has overtaken FM radio listening for the first time (in terms of total reach). In terms of reach for radio, Monday to Friday, the BLM data says that 45.2% of 14+ adults listen to FM; 35.2% listen to DAB; 18.5% listen to radio online; and 3% listen via cable/satellite. (30.1% only listen to digital - there’s still a lot of listening on both platforms). In total, 76.7% listen to the radio Monday to Friday; a figure down from 85.5% in 2019.
Also in Germany, and possibly related to the above, public broadcaster MDR has announced the closure of more FM transmitters for cost-saving. (I think affected listeners will get DAB coverage.)

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.

Hell has no fury like an MFW - Duncan Campbell, former content director of ARN, writes about the pressure group Mad Fudging Witches. “Make no mistake about it, Alan Jones, Kyle Sandilands and Karl Stefanovic all lost their jobs because of MFW”, he claims. Not sure about Karl - probably uncritically interviewing Tommy Robinson did that for him - but, Campbell suggests we should be concerned that MFW have this kind of influence. MFW targets the advertisers who fund the shows, contacting them directly and making them aware of the content they’re funding. Campbell frames it as a free speech issue. (He’ll be at Radiodays Asia; I’ve put this through a link tracker since the original link has a naughty word in).
Spintrack is a “complete radio station on a Mac mini”, it claims. It’s probably understandable that there aren’t that many playout systems for the Mac, but it looks interesting to see - it includes voicetracking and live assist, along with hour templates and music scheduling.
Over in Podnews this week, SONARR has been advertising its awards. They’re a new audio awards for Australia, including radio, podcasts, audiobooks and voiceovers. You have until this Friday evening to enter, and it can be as low as $75 to enter. You’re guaranteed not to win if you don’t enter…
Some quite impressive radio analysis for the Sydney market. ARN’s Gold managed 15 minutes an hour of ads. “If you’re hearing an ad on Smooth, there’s a 50/50 chance WSFM is also in an ad at that exact moment”. (Yes, this person - who is clearly someone who cares about radio - calls it WSFM, despite it having rebranded over a year ago). The comments are, as ever, worth reading.

The EBU released its Radio Trends Report 2026. Weekly reach across Europe is 81.3%, down 2.7% from five years ago. As above - time spent listening is 2h 10m per day - down 15 minutes on 5 years ago (and down 50 minutes from 20 years ago).
Nielsen released its Podcast Listen & Watch Report, though there’s information in there for radio as well. Particularly, it quotes Edison Research’s Share of Ear for Q1, which sys that 20% of time spent with ad-supported audio is podcasting: radio is more than three-times larger.
In Australia, Kyle Sandilands will start his paid-for live online show on August 10. It will cost AUD $99 for the year (£51, US$69) - listeners won’t be able to buy monthly. Game Changers Radio seems to think it will be easy to get 10,000 listeners paying that. Sandilands has said he needs 50,000 to “cover costs”. Prior to his sacking, his show had 1.1 million listeners, 96,000 of those online; he had 291,000 listeners to the podcast too. I’m fascinated to watch this.

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