STV Radio launches, and more AM switchoffs

Hello, I'm James Kritten, the radio futureologist, and this is Radio Land, my international radio

trends newsletter for January the 18th, 2026, and this podcast is sponsored by RSS.com,

a great podcast host that has a free tier if you are local or niche, and you wish to have

a podcast of your very own.

Well worth a look at RSS.com.

Now with all the talk of closures last time around, let's cover a brand new station.

STV Radio went live in Scotland on DAB, its tagline is never the same song all day long.

It's owned by STV, the television company, and it should therefore benefit from significant

promotion on the TV airwaves.

I linked in my newsletter to the main studio in a picture from Facebook, which looks

larger than any studio I've ever seen, I have a feeling it was the magic of the camera

lens.

Notable comments on Facebook though, I tried to get it on my Google Nest, but it didn't

recognise you, and good luck Alexa not picking it up though.

Station launches are hard these days, aren't they?

James Masterson, a full time, a long time supporter of this newsletter, even if he's nothing

to do with Radio anymore.

Thank you James, wrote about a long day set of interviews about the Christmas number

one in the UK.

He writes a website called Chart Watch UK, which is worth a peek.

My favourite bit is that he appeared via Zoom for BBC Radio 2, in spite of being able

to literally see the studio from his hotel room, which is classic BBC, and it reminds me of

appearing on BBC Radio 5 Live from a radio conference in 2007 or so.

Now the BBC had blocked off half of the hotel restaurant, they'd set up a full mixing

desk with a radio engineer looking after it, which took hours to set up.

Stephen Nolan was sent to chair this whole 10 minute panel, and I remember thinking what

a lot of work it all was.

And then I thought, hang on a minute, this is weird, because when we finished it, I stood

up for the first time, looked across the street, and across the street in Belfast, was

the headquarters of BBC Ulster.

They had done a full, expensive, outside broadcast, literally to stop me crossing the road and

sitting in a BBC studio, just really weird.

Bless.

AM Deathwatch Corner, a number of US broadcasters are asking the FCC to make it easier to

get their AM stations on to FM, there's a complicated set of requests in a petition

that I linked to, David Oxford has done a good job of summarising them, you'll find

that linked from the newsletter, and Desi Radio, an Asian station in Southall in London,

closed on 1602 KHz on December 31st, it continues on DAB Plus and online.

In Germany, Classical Music Station Classic Radio, completed its plans for FM switch off,

the station has handed back more than 30 FM frequencies since 2012, it's available nationally

now on DAB Plus and online, also Radio WSW, which is a top 40 radio station, which is

probably double V, S double V, I don't know, anyway, that has decided not to renew its FM

license on December 31st, it's now DAB Plus and online only, and the station does matter

whether it's WSW or double V, S double V, because the station is now called Radio Saxon

Eines, so there we are.

In France, what is the number one radio station by total listeners?

It's France Inter, according to a fancy graph from La Letra Pro and sponsor RCS, all of

the top five stations went down in weekly reach, though, Sky Rock, are at number six,

bucking the trend for younger stations everywhere, but yeah, it's a good graph on worth a peak

from the newsletter version of this.

YouTube is used by more people in the UK than BBC television, according to some new

analysis.

The data measured so-called three-minute monthly reach, that's people who've used each

platform for at least three minutes a month.

But in a parallel with podcasting figures, people don't use YouTube for long.

If you compare a 15-minute monthly reach, BBC television still comfortably beats YouTube

by six million users, and then, of course, there's the radio and podcasts to add in as well.

And I hear that Virgin Radio UK has undergone a reworking, and now has, among many changes,

has Jeff Lloyd returning to the evening show.

For the first time seemingly, that station has decided to remind people of its glory days

in the 1990s with a music policy to match.

It should be worth a listen.

I'm told that the positioning jingles aren't very good, but I'm told that the music and

everything else is excellent.

And certainly, if you watch the interviews that Christian know that Chris Evans is doing

on his Breakfast Show, then you will recognize the TFI Friday desk, which is now in the studio,

which is a very clever idea.

So congratulations to them.

Ben Jones, of course, Bouncing Ben Jones on in the afternoon as well.

He probably doesn't mind being called Bouncing Ben Jones anymore.

I should stop.

He will be probably at Radio Days, Europe, as will I be in Riga in Latvia in mid-March.

I will be talking about the future of audio being people powered.

Please come and see me.

I'm at the end of the first day.

I'm in track three.

So it's a well worth coming along.

And who knows what I'll be saying for 40 minutes, but we'll find out together.

Also, I'm speaking at the podcast show in London in mid-May.

I'm key noting at that event as well as recording a pod news weekly review as well.

If you want money off, then you can get money off by subscribing to pod news.

The pod news.net is where you go for that and you will see links to help you save money for that as well.

Thank you to Meliora.

Thank you to Brun Audio Consulting and thank you to Admaster for your kind support.

Plus Greg Strassell, Sam Phelps, Richard Hilton, Emma Gibbs, Jocelyn Abbey and James Masterton

for being regular supporters.

If you would like to support my work in any way, you can buy me a coffee.

Buy me a coffee.com slash James Crittland.

You can become a member to give regularly or just give a one-off coffee or five.

You can do that by me a coffee.com slash James Crittland.

I'm on Masterton or all the Fediverse as James at BNE.Social.

That's my pen dropping to the floor.

I gave me a shock and you may find me somewhere else, but frankly,

Masterton is the only thing that I'm really keeping updated now.

And my website has more details about who I am and what I do,

whether I can help you further, you'll find that at James.Cridland.net.

And until next time, keep listening.