Radiocentre's 2025 - and closures as we move into 2026

Hello, I'm James Kritten, the radio futurologist, and this is Radio Land, my weekly radio trends newsletter.

It's obviously just had a week off for Christmas, and normally I'd wait until next week to send out

the first radio land of the year, but there's already too much news, so here we are, and happy new year

to you. This is Radio Centres last year, and closures, as we move into 2026, and this podcast is

sponsored by RSS.com. Now, I've long been impressed at Radio Centre in the UK. It's a vibrant trade

body for the radio industry, which is probably a good reason why UK Radio is so well thought of,

and so successful, and they've just published their annual review 2025, which is only two pages,

but there's a lot there. If you're not in the UK, can you say that your own trade organisation has

done as much as Radio Centre has in the past year? Now, here's a new radio station in Montgomery,

in Alabama. What if your radio station actually listen to what you play? The new Streams 100.5 is

powered by what you stream. Every song, every week. Hey guys, it's a good big party. We track millions

of local streams right here in Montgomery, and turn your choices into the city's unique playlist.

You pick the hits. We put them on the air. Hey, what's up? This is Cesar. What up? This is

Cesar. Streams 100.5 powered by what you play. Well, it's an interesting idea. It's choosing

its entire playlist based on music streaming stats for the city. The station says it's

first ever. It's using a service called Streamstats from Bridge Ratings, and if the data is filtered

for the age group that this station is aiming for, then it sounds like an interesting way to produce

a music policy. Although, if it just offers the same music you can get on your streaming device,

but with horrible ads and no way to skip the bad songs, then I kind of wonder why you want to tune in.

Cristiano Connell's new National Breakfast Show here in Australia starts on Sydney's gold 101.7

later this month, but he did a week in Sydney just for Sydney before Christmas. A bit of a baptism

of fire given his week was directly after the atrocity in Bondi Beach, but Christian is a

professional broadcaster who knew how to pitch things. So I'm aware that some of you might be

tuning in right now going, who is this? Please tell me the radios broke it. It's not an English

guy. It's the last thing we need this week. It's an uninvited Englishman suddenly on the radio.

I'm Cristiano Connell, and we are the show that is going to be replacing Jones in Amanda.

And the good news to you guys is you're going to have two great shows come January on this radio station.

We're going to be waking you up, and then Jones in Amanda going to be taking you home. This is going

to be some radio station for Australia. Now, the whole thing is going to be available as a podcast

and your recall that smart master Kyle didn't even bother going to Melbourne before his launch. So

already, Christian seems to be doing things well. Now clearly, ARN is missing a trick by not

putting this show onto 97.3 in Brisbane. It will though be on DAB Plus, which a third of Australians

use every week in the cap cities. Gold would be a clear market leader given an FM frequency,

but instead ARN is using KISS 97.3 to compete against two other top 40 format stations on FM leading

leaving the only oldies FM outlet to the tired sports infused dad rock triple M and nothing

else grown up for anyone over the age of 35. Gold 97.3 is the obvious choice, and as a Christmas

present ARN, I've bought gold 97.3.com.au for you. It's all safe and sound for a new launch. Just

ask gold 97.3.com.au, which weirdly already works. In Canada, numerous published some or

numerous published some listening trends for quarter three 25. There's more listening to radio

at home, and Edison researchers actually said something similar about at home audio listening

in the US as well. Average weekly hours per listener is also listed in the data. Most markets are

radio streaming accounts for between 12 and 16% of total radio audience through the workday.

Here we are in 2025, and live radio is hitting a peak of just 16% of total radio listening online.

Does radio play a Canada or iHeart radio Canada or any of those apps only get 16% of all mentions

on air? I bet it doesn't. I was interested to be interviewed on ABC Radio Brisbane and ABC

Radio Perth about AM's future and the ABC radio Perth switching to FM. You can listen and watch

to those. You'll find a link in the newsletter version of this podcast. Also Spotify has added a

playlist mix feature, which I've tried, and it's fatally flawed rather unfortunately, otherwise

it would be pretty good, but you can't quite use it if you just want to make some nice mix tapes,

which is a bit of a shame. Now, goodness, there's been a lot of closures over the last couple of weeks.

For a start, MTV closed down all of its music channels. It's last song, video killed the radio

star, of course, Carmer. The BBC interviewed Ray Cokes from MTV Europe. He used to get 2,500

letters every day, he said. It's quite a good interview. You should go and take a peek at that.

One of the things that he says was kind of the death knell of MTV was when it stops being

MTV Europe, and it started having UK versions and versions for Germany and versions for France,

and he said the community, which had grown up of people feeling very European and feeling

very much as if they were in touch with everything. All of that community just went away,

and I think that's an interesting story about radio, perhaps, as well.

Now, while the last 10 minutes of absolute radio on 1215 was spent with a beautifully crafted

piece of audio, the last song played on MTV's music channel just faded away, and it was replaced

with a rotating logo with some scrolling text, the first part of which said default text.

Yes, if MTV meant anything to you, it clearly didn't mean anything to its final owners.

In Ireland, RTE Plus, RTE 2XM, RTE Junior, and RTE Radio One extra all closed.

I linked to closing audio from 2XM, they played Joy Division's transmission,

and RTE Pulse, which played ultrasonics, nothing is forever, nice choices.

Also, closing audio from Radio One extra, which was very weird. It just ended

with a back-and-ounce of a just finished show by a continuity announcer. You've just

been listening to a democracy now. And then a few seconds of some rubbish jazz,

followed by a little barker channel saying the station is no longer broadcasting. What a

graceless finish that was. The stations were additional services for DAB, but RTE closed its DAB

services in 2021, and those services have only been online and via TV since. Notably though,

RTE Gold is continuing. I linked to a lovely Lars Column from Perry

Michael Simon, who's an excellent writer about radio. He'll be missed. He says he'll be happily

be bought lunch by anybody in South Florida. I don't know him well enough to ask, and when I'll

be in Florida in a week or so, he'll still be more than two hours drive away. But I hope he

enjoys not having to write the thing every week. He's one of those that really cares about the

industry, and I wish him a long and happy retirement. Now, more AM switch-off news in Columbia,

Sports Talk, National Format, and Tenor 2 went off air on December 31. Its owner,

RCN Radio, is also switching many of its other AM services to FM, or switching AM frequencies

for Alerta, which is its local network, and La FM, which is National Talk. Earlier in the year,

it made a significant reorganization of its stations, removing many local brands.

It's been going since 1949, RCN Radio. It's a commercial broadcaster, it's owned by a company

that also owns soft drinks, textiles, a football team, car dealers, and farming equipment.

In Thailand, 1993, community FM frequencies were placed up for auction.

The government raised just over $2 million from that auction, with 2,237 companies participating.

The most expensive licence in the country was 94.5 in Chiang Mai, which went for $44,500 US dollars

for a five-year licence. In Pattaya, the English language Fabulous 103 FM were only allowed to bid for two

frequencies, as Tommy D explains. Over the past few years, the broadcasting authorities have

been looking at ways to change FM radio licensing. A few months ago, they finally came up with a new

system, a kind of virtual lottery, officially described as an auction. That process immediately

reduced the number of FM frequencies by about a third. In simple terms, it became a game of musical

chairs, where it was guaranteed that roughly a third of all stations would disappear.

To make matters worse, the list of frequencies up for auction didn't include the one we've been

using for decades, and we weren't alone. Many stations across the country found themselves

in the same position. In our case, we were only allowed to bid on two frequencies within the province.

That was it. No choice beyond that. Yes, neither of those were 103, which is a bit of a shame.

Now, one of those licenses went for $25,000 to another bidder. The station says, as you've just

heard, that the process has made a third of all stations disappear, and from the first of January,

Fabulous 103 FM is now called Fabulous Radio, and it's been online only.

An unconnected, I think, in Bangkok, terror radio has closed after 35 years, according to

an announcement on its website, which partially reads, due to shifting trends in media consumption,

we have faced significant challenges that have made it impossible for us to continue.

They ran four stations, including Virgin Hitz, more recently just Hitz. I visited their studios

in 2010, and you'll find a blog all about that linked from the newsletter. The Thai radio

industry is predicted to drop from $76 million in ad revenue to $73 million in 2026, but it's also

a very difficult market to operate in FM signals are owned by the government, and when I visited

in 2010, the operators of the stations had to pause every hour for state news.

Elsewhere, I also personally blogged about getting Linux to work on an old MacBook or not,

a review of the electric car I've been driving over the last year, and a review of an email

forwarding solution, because of course I have. Where am I speaking next? I'm speaking in three

places, Podfest in Orlando, in Florida, in just a couple of weeks time. One of my talks is going

to be where we've been, and where we've been, and where we're going, a look back at where we've

come from, including last year's podcast news and trends to help us understand how podcasting

is changing and how we should be changing with it. It should be fun. If you can be there, then

that'll be fantastic. I'm also taking part in the new media show that week live from stage.

The other people will be talking about crappy TV, and I will be the only person saying,

but audio. Also, Radio Day's Europe had rigour in Latvia. The future of audio is people powered.

I'll be talking a lot about where Radio is going, and what we shouldn't forget

why the future is bright, as long as we understand why our audience comes to us in the first place.

Very much looking forward to doing that. The flights are all booked. You'll be glad to know.

So that's a good thing, and my first time in Riga in Latvia, and that should be fun.

And also, I will be speaking at the podcast show in London. In May, maybe the 20th to the 21st.

That is a great event if you have any interest in podcasting. And frankly, even if you don't,

you should still turn up. It's relatively cheap to go. Well worth taking a peek.

podcastshowlundern.com is I think where you go to find tickets and stuff, and if you read

pod news, you'll find some money off in there as well. And thank you to Great Dane for 10

coffees, 10 coffees. He or she says, good to see someone covering the subject I love.

We can't put James on the cover of the Rolling Stone, but we can do better than Dr Hookeded by

buying five coffees for their mothers. I've bought 10 for James. They're right. I don't know

anything about who Great Dane is. I would quite like to buy me a coffee, isn't telling me.

So thank you, and do get in touch, because it would be nice to say thank you personally.

Also, thank you to Bennett Cobb, who contacted me with a lot of information about the US's

national public warning system, which covers 90% of the US population, which assumes,

of course, that the US population own AM radio receivers, which I'm not so sure. Anyway,

I plan to write a little bit more about that shortly. And thank you also to the many supporters

of this newsletter, including admaster.info, cloud-powered traffic and billing tools

for you, Brian Audio Consulting as well, media results, Inc, and Radio King, among others,

and Wade Kingsley, who is limbering up to be a competitor of mine by the looks of things.

So thank you to them. Thank you to Greg Strassel, Sam Phelps, Richard Hilton, Emma Gibbs,

Jocelyn Abbey and James Masterton, as well, for being regular supporters. If you would like

to support my work in any way, buy me a coffee, that would be lovely. Buy me a coffee.com slash James

Criedland. It's easy for me to say. Buy me a coffee.com slash James Criedland. You'll find links

in the newsletter as well. If you'd like to follow me on the socials, then you'll find me on

Threads, Blue Sky, and on Masteredon as James at B&E.social. And my website has more details about who I

am and what I do, and whether I can help you further, you will find that website at james.criedland.net

or, indeed, radieland.email. Until next time, keep listening.