Radioland gets a Marty; NRJ to leave national radio in Sweden

Hello, I'm James Crittland, the radio futurologist, and this is Radio Land, my weekly radio trends newsletter and it's February the 22nd.

I'm going to be talking about all kinds of things, including radio in Sweden and it's a special Australian regulation news corner to come.

But this podcast is sponsored by rss.com, podcast hosting that's actually free unlimited episodes unlimited storage at rss.com.

A familiar name has joined as a regular supporter of this newsletter, Marty from New York, aka Marty Adelstein.

Now, I've written about Marty on my blog all the way back in 2007, arguing that every radio station needed a Marty.

He still pops up in my feeds now and again, no longer actually in the 95 grind in New York City, which must be a great relief to him.

But still listening to the UK's Virgin Radio and the station that also replaced it on some frequencies, absolute radio.

He still comes over to the UK every so often, I noticed from his Facebook feed, so thank you, Marty.

You can support this newsletter if you like, dear listener, buy me a coffee.com slash James Crittland is where to go and for radio stations everywhere, get yourself a Marty.

Ray John released its Midas winter 2025 survey, a lot of useful data in there, all about audio listening in the UK.

Adam Bally has taken a look at the numbers, radio certainly not dead. There's plenty of impressive numbers in that report, and also plenty of things for us to think about.

Radio Ready, it's a new website, radioready.info, looks like an interesting campaign seemingly spearheaded by Bauer Media Group, but with plenty of other partners as well, not one of which has sent me a press release about it.

But it's a good place to find data and information about how important radio is to have in the car.

The list of partners seems very European with the Australians also taking part, nothing from the rest of the world though, particularly North America, which seems a bit of a shame.

The US radio industry in particular seems aloof and insular about this sort of thing, but surprised not to see some Canadian participants at the very least.

Global aren't listed as a partner, although they kind of are through Radio Centre, but they too have done some nice work, getting global player into Android Automotive, so it's available inside a ton of different cars now.

To be honest, I'm in two minds about whether the right thing to do is to have separate players for each broadcaster or work together on a more inclusive solution.

I guess it depends who you think you work for. Do you work for Radio, or do you work for a specific broadcaster where I suppose you're going to say you work for a specific broadcaster in which case, yeah, well that's kind of how these things are going to work, I suppose.

AM Deathwatch section now and WGR AM550 in Buffalo, it's a sports station, and it probably won't be called that anymore because it's a similar cast on both 104.7 and 107.7 in Buffalo as well, as more stations move off the AM band.

And also today, it's a special day in Perth as ABC Radio Perth moves to 102.5 FM today.

I link to a nice two minute piece about its AM transmitter, which will fall silent in a couple of months. The ABC has also run a number of pieces up to the switch off some older voices welcoming the switch.

I look at some of the history and an oddly defensive piece saying that nothing will change with its programming as sort of feeling that an FM broadcaster is something slightly different to an AM broadcaster, whereas in reality it's just all about the content, isn't it?

Anyway, the ABC has also covered Kalamunda Community Radio, which needed to switch down the dial as a result and good on them for doing that.

So an impressive promotion of a podcast I link to today, but it strikes me the radio stands to benefit even more from this sort of thing advertising on petrol pumps.

As you put the nozzle into the car, you get a little clip of a podcast, which I thought what a brilliant idea and also horrifying at the same time.

But it's pretty cool. You should check that one out. And in Sweden, NJ has lost its national FM license. There are three national stations in Sweden.

They used to be allocated based on the highest bidder, but licenses are now a beauty parade from the Swedish media authority who made a decision to award two licenses for music channels.

And one for quotes content that is not currently represented on commercial radio. And that one has gone to Afton Bladette, which is a tabloid newspaper.

They've won the license instead. So NJ will have to try to secure regional broadcasting licenses, which will be given out in a few months instead.

Rick's FM and Bauer's Mix Megapol got the other two, by the way. And I read that Afton Bladette launched as a newspaper by criticising the Swedish king so he banned it.

It then restarted as a brand new publication called new Afton Bladette, which the king banned. Then it relaunched again called newer Afton Bladette.

Then before Afton Bladette, in total, it restarted 26 times before the king decided to give up and stop banning it. That's one way to get past the regulators.

Speaking of which, welcome to Australian regulation news corner at the end of this podcast, because who knows who's going to find this interesting.

Back to the Ackmer Australia's lackluster media regulator. Last we heard way back in November. Ackmer said that they were minded to add license conditions to ARN's kiss stations in Sydney and Melbourne after broadcasters Kyle and Jackie O repeatedly broadcast immature filth on the air.

Now on November the 12th, the proposed new conditions were published and ARN had 21 days from notification to quotes make representations. And if that's 21 working days, let's be generous.

Then that means that December the 9th was the deadline for those representations. Now the Ackmer have confirmed to me that ARN have indeed made those representations.

I foolishly agreed or foolishly assumed, I should say, that those representations would be public and asked for a copy of them.

The Ackmer's media department has clearly laughed under their breath and ignored that request. But anyway, what now?

It's been more than two months since the Ackmer have heard from ARN.

Well, the Ackmer have a legal duty to regulate the Broadcast Services Act 1992, which includes a requirement, quote, to encourage providers of broadcasting services to respect community standards in the provision of program material, something that Ackmer has failed to do.

And every day there are five hours of Kyle and Jackie O broadcasting on those two stations in question, and also an hour on many other ARN stations. And yet the Ackmer sits on its hands, paralyzed by indecision.

The authority gave me this statement. The Ackmer is considering the licensees representations and we will announce the final additional license conditions once a decision is made.

Now, Mumbrella reports that the Ackmer copped a grilling at Parliament earlier this month, hardly surprisingly.

I mean, it surely can't take more than two and a half months to reach a decision, a decision on something that you have already made a decision on.

But in the meantime, CRA, which has a co-regulatory duty in this country, has published a new code of practice, which I mentioned a few weeks ago.

It contains a special care provision for when children are likely to be in the car, but the meaning of special care isn't defined.

And the Ackmer said in Parliament that this might mean warnings before certain segments, which to me sounds as if broadcasters can just get away with a jaunty faux warning at 805 AM, suggesting that the next 55 minutes might contain adult themes, because after all nobody will actively tune in at 806 AM.

RZ is a proper grown-up industry, by the way.

Now, where am I speaking next? I am speaking at Radio Days Europe in Riga in Latvia. That is next.

I am doing a talk called The Future of Audio is People Powered. Actually, I'm doing more than that. I'm doing another thing as well, which I don't know if I can tell you yet.

But, certainly, my keynote will be all about how the way people consume media is changing, and, frankly, what makes Radio truly unique?

And what part does video play? And how do we do it in a resource-efficient way?

Lots of data, lots of things to think about, lots of reasons why you shouldn't be listening to me in the first place as well.

But I hope to see you there. Riga in Latvia is where it will be, March 22nd to the 24th, Radio Days Europe.com is where to get those tickets for that.

And you should definitely do that. It is a real highlight of the broadcasting year in terms of conferences and things and wrap up warm.

And also, I'm speaking at the podcast show in London. May the 20th to the 21st. I'm doing a few things there, including keynoting right at the beginning.

You can get yourself tickets for that at podcastshowlondon.com. That's podcastshowlondon.com. I'll also be recording a live podcast towards the end of the second day as well with Sam Sethi, and that should be good fun to do.

Hopefully, I will see you at one of those. And those are the only two things that I'm speaking at for this year so far. So nice and quiet, but we'll see if that changes.

And thank you to the many supporters of my newsletter, including Marcie from New York, our newest supporter.

Also Gavin Watson, Greg Strassel, Sam Phelps, Richard Hilton, Emma Gibbs, Jocelyn Abbey, and James Masterton for being regular supporters.

There are also many other excellent supporters in terms of a corporate way of thinking like Clyde Broadcast, the radio people, Radio King, Meliora, and studio and media results.

All kinds of people. So a bunch of folks there. If you would like to join them, then please do buy me a coffee. That would be lovely. Buy me a coffee.com slash James Crittland is where to go there. You can give regularly as Marcie from New York has decided to do it, or you can just give a one-off coffee, and that's all cool as well.

And I'm on the Fediverse and things, Masterton, and that sort of thing as James at B&E.Social, that'll be lovely. And my website has more details about who I am and what I do, and whether I can help you further, you'll find that at James.Cridland.net, and until next time, keep listening.