Radioland, with James Cridland - radio futurologist
A regular audio column with the most interesting news about radio's future. James is a radio futurologist - a writer, speaker and consultant concentrating on the effect that new platforms and technology are having on the radio business across the world. He has a website at https://james.cridland.net where you can subscribe to Radioland, his newsletter.
Episodes
This is part of my Radioland newsletter - the full version is here: https://james.cridland.net/blog/2026/radio-4-extra-to-close/
The BBC has announced, as part of its cuts, the closure of BBC Radio 4 Extra (which is mainly an archive station, playing reruns of BBC Radio 4 comedy, drama and documentary programmes from some years a...
I write a decent newsletter called Radioland. Below is the top story; otherwise, it's all at https://james.cridland.net/blog/2026/time-spent-listening-australian-commercial-radio/
An email I got from the CRA, from the last survey, is interesting. The headline - Commercial Radio grows from breakfast to bedtime as more Australians l...
My newsletter in full is over here: https://james.cridland.net/blog/2026/4bh-brisbane-number-one/
Here's the top story!
In my home town of Brisbane, 4BH (classic hits) made it to the #1 slot - with a share of 12.3%. The news even made it to local TV. It’s an oldies station, with a 31% share of listening by people over 65.
It&r...
My full newsletter is here: https://james.cridland.net/blog/2026/to-london-and-back/
These are the first few stories.
- To London, and then on to Germany. As a former trustee of the Radio Academy - now the Audio Academy - I never actually got to speak at the Radio Festival; so it was great to speak at the Audio Festival, in a ful...
Above: radio has always been the #1 choice in a car. Until now. This data, from Edison Research’s Share of Ear study, has shocked me. It shows, very clearly, that for young Americans, they’re choosing to listen to media from their mobile phone instead.
I don’t know why it’s shocked me. I myself rarely liste...
- 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 ...
- “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 v...
- 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 thi...
- 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 To...
- 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 ...
Data from Edison Research makes me question what radio is marketing for.
More at https://james.cridland.net/blog/2026/radio-4-longwave-closes/
https://james.cridland.net/blog/2026/abc-sbs/ is where to go to find links for all these stories
Yikes! The economy! Plus, more news about radio's future
I buy a new radio! I dig into the ownership of the BBC's longwave transmitters! More at radioland.email
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