Radioland, with James Cridland - radio futurologist

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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’s particularly impressive when you remember what the station doesn’t have.

The station doesn’t have a licence of its own - it’s leasing the AM frequency from Tapt Media. It doesn’t have a sales team of its own - it’s sold by SCA, the owners of B105 and TripleM. It doesn’t have any studios of its own: the breakfast show is either presented from a rented studio in SCA in Brisbane, or from “BBQ” Bob Gallagher’s house. It doesn’t have its own news team - it buys that from Tapt Media. It doesn’t have any sports coverage - it buys that from SENQ. And it’s not live, with presenter breaks being voicetracked (normally voicetracked that day, though).

Nor is much of it local. While “BBQ” Bob Gallagher is a well-known Brisbane voice, he’s the only announcer on the station to be based here. Michelle Murphy (9am-12pm, 1pm-3pm) is in Adelaide SA; Gavin Miller (12pm-1pm) is in Melbourne VIC; Jon Vertigan (3pm-7pm, also Head of Music) is in Warrnabool VIC. The website also lists Jamie Row and Cathy Jubb, who broadcast over weekends - they both appear to be in Victoria as well. Breakfast newsreader Chloe Affleck in in Brisbane (working for 4BC); traffic reporter Liam Renton is also in Brisbane (working for ATN).

It also doesn’t have a great AM frequency. 4BH’s 1116 AM is such a poor frequency, the licence-owners (now Tapt Media) switched away from it in 2021, moving their own 4BC to 882, and giving the worse frequency to lessee 4BH. Listening is particularly hampered in Brisbane city centre, which has a notch in the transmitter to avoid interference.

Speaking on The Quarter Hour, boss Mark Taylor suggested the station has a great AM signal during the day with 17kW; but it’s switched down considerably overnight (to 7.5kW) - but also highlighting that listeners are listening in many other ways. “Educate your very loyal listeners on how to use the technology. You know, you won’t go more than five minutes on 4BH without us mentioning DAB or the LiSTNR app or to use your smart speaker at home.” Yes to all this. I’d be fascinated to know how many of the listeners use AM, and how many are using something else. (The average is 61% to analogue radio, 20% to DAB+, 18% streaming).

After all that, it’s the #1 radio station in Brisbane; #3 at breakfast, #1 from 9am-4pm, and #1 over the weekend. That’s quite an achievement.

It’s #1 in total share, mind you. Interestingly, it’s just #6 in terms of total cume (the total amount of people listening). People turn the station on, and leave it on - it’s clearly well programmed.

So, does a station need to be local - and does it need studios of its own? No. All it needs is a decent music policy, a clutter-free sound, and a warm, well-known personality with a bit of shared human connection.

PS: today I drove past an electronic billboard saying “thank you for making us Brisbane’s number one radio station”. A nice touch.

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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 full room. Always lovely to see so many friendly faces: though plenty of new, younger, faces in the crowd. They tell you that none of the kids are interested in radio these days; but the Audio Festival was clear that there are plenty of younger people. Good. And, also, good to see the Community Media Association later that weekend, with many more people who were enthusiastic and excited about the state of the medium.
• It’s been very clear, from my LinkedIn feed, that Canadian radio is running out of patience with the CRTC, who promised a year ago to review parts of its regulation of the industry - regulation widely suspected to be holding the industry back - only to do absolutely nothing. I write a full piece, what’s the CRTC even doing?, elsewhere on my blog. The Canadian industry is in a mess; and the CRTC is partially responsible.
• The Playdate, a little black and white games console, now has a radio player in it. The Peedee ICF-390 app, just $3, just lets you scan through the dial using the crank on the side of the device: no searching, just serendipitous discovery of radio stations. It’s rather fine.
• Tom Webster writes Smart TV Killed the Smart Speaker Star, which is clearly a lazy Buggles headline - though he apologises for it - and to me - in the first paragraph. “As a conduit for podcasting, the smart speaker is objectively a failure.”
• Apple Music opened a fancy new music recording space in London. Meanwhile, I was able to have a look round Bauer Media’s new “Playground” - which has the capability to become a recording space in the basement of The Lantern, its home in London. Someone I worked with in Germany this week was excited after visiting a public radio station in the US with its own performance space (“they get people in! hundreds of people!”). It’s interesting to see more broadcasters highlight what they’re good at - getting people together, a community of common interest. Of course, podcasting is doing similar too.
• I realised something about advertising these days - the art of copywriting has disappeared from magazine ads, out of home, posters, and other parts of advertising. In a blog post I write a little about this - dimly realising that if the skills required for great copywriting are disappearing, what happens to those media that still require great copy: including radio and podcasting?

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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 listen to radio in the car. My iPhone connects via wifi to the car dashboard, so I have my collection of podcasts to listen to, as well as music on Spotify. In many cases, why listen to the radio, when I have everything I need on my phone?

Now, sometimes, sure, I’m listening to live radio on my phone, via the car’s dashboard. I’ve discovered that BBC Radio 1’s early morning show is quite a good listen for school pick-up time, for example. But that’s the exception, rather than the norm.

This is quite the watershed moment. It shows, clearly, that radio has become, for younger Americans at least, less relevant than audio from their own mobile phones. Part of that is that much of US radio really isn’t very good (sorry, but it’s true); but it’s a concern nonetheless.

I suspect most people will look at this, shrug, and move on. But I find this the most worrying graph I’ve ever seen about radio’s future.

• Meanwhile, in Europe, Radioplayer has launched “real-time car radio analytics”, delivering a real-time view of listening across DAB, FM and streaming. They’re not alone in this - DTS AutoStage also provides similar to the US market. I’m unaware how much DTS AutoStage deals with DAB or with online radio. But, Radioplayer is present in many markets in Europe, and has some good relationships with auto manufacturers.
• Some very interesting moves from Global in the UK, which has launched Radio Plus - “The same great live radio. Just without the ads”. The “just without the ads” promise is only for music radio, where additional music is played instead of the ad breaks. It costs £4.99 (US $6.50) per month per brand (Heart, X, Smooth, etc). Its competitor Bauer has been offering something similar for many years; it will be interesting to see the takeup of this service. Do listeners hate the ads enough to spend money to get rid of them?

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• 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 in Indonesia for the past week at Radiodays Asia. You can find a bunch of interviews in the RadioToday podcast - and more to come in RD. The Radiodays Europe Podcast too. I do enjoy the event: there’s plenty going on in Asia that doesn’t get the coverage it deserves. Next year, the event will be in Taipei, Taiwan - a place I’ve never been: should be fascinating.
• While in Indonesia, I took my ludicrously geeky radio with me, and tuned around the dial one afternoon. I discovered Padel Corner 89.6FM - a radio station that seemingly is run by a sports club in the city, with music and an advert for the sports club itself (I can tell you it has six padel courts, a sauna and it does food). I wonder how those licences work - an interesting idea, if you can keep the costs low enough, to run your own service on the FM dial!
• In the UK, there’s real concern that turning off television broadcasts could put radio services at risk. Radiocentre has released some research suggesting that transmission costs for radio broadcasters could increase by more than 50%. They’ve not shared the full research, and I’m surprised that it’s only a 50% increase - but even so, it’s a real concern, especially if that happens in 2034, one of the dates being considered. I wonder if this has been costed in other countries? The UK can’t be alone in looking to turn off free-to-air television; but perhaps the shared infrastructure that the UK uses makes it a little different.
• Over the past few weeks, I’ve been driving my daughter home from school listening to the BBC Radio 1 breakfast show. My goodness, the production on that radio station is phenomenal: I can only assume that someone is pre-producing all the segues ahead-of-time, because the quality of them all is really impressive. Worth a critical listen.
• RCS and Triton Digital have produced programmatic advertising for over-the-air radio, which they’ve demonstrated this week at IBC. A very clever idea to connect a playout system to this kind of tool: I gather that broadcasters approve audio creative before it gets broadcast (probably for the best), and that Triton are also working on getting it integrated with other playout systems. (Although, in deference to my sponsor, what other playout systems are there? Are there any?)
• At some point in the last month or so, the BBC international app has finally got a proper video player for the live stream of BBC News, so it’s now (finally) possible to watch the channel in full-screen, for example. Not sure what took them so long, but it’s very welcome.

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• “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.)

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• 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.

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• 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.

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• 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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Links and much more to read at https://radioland.email

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Data from Edison Research makes me question what radio is marketing for.