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(If you can see this, you've found the podcast feed! The full newsletter is at https://james.cridland.net/blog/2026/david-jones-radio/ this time round. The first bit is below, but there's plenty more).

David Jones, a premium department store chain in Australia, was placed under administration last week. The 188 year-old retailer, with 6,000 employees, will close many of its stores - potentially almost all of the stores in out-of-town shopping malls. Out of the 38 stores it runs, it’s likely to keep just twelve. They’re the biggest stores in the shopping malls they operate - mainly in Westfield shopping centres; so it’ll make quite the dent in those places, as well.

In ten years, I think I went to David Jones a couple of times. Once about eight years ago to buy a set of cast iron cooking pans; and once this year, because David Jones had sent me a $10 voucher with no minimum spend for my birthday. I ended up buying a jar of honey for $12.50. The honey was nice enough. But I couldn’t work out why it made any sense to go there.

The thing about David Jones is that it just sold other peoples’ stuff. I can buy any of the brands inside a David Jones in those brands’ own stores, probably in the same shopping mall; and probably cheaper, too. There was literally nothing that you needed to visit David Jones for any more: especially with the internet just a click away. This wasn’t the case thirty years ago. It’s most certainly the case now.

Apart from, perhaps, the people. At its best, I’m told that David Jones had knowledgeable, clever local people who were great at understanding what shoppers want, and would give good advice about something you were trying to buy. They’d become well-known to the shoppers, and recognised in the store every day. They offer significant additional value - though perhaps not value that’s easy to see on spreadsheets. But, people cost money; and so, cost-cutting means that they’ve gone. When I last visited, like many large department stores David Jones felt deserted. Trying to find someone to pay - let alone to ask questions - was difficult, in a large, deserted, store, just running on automatic.

David Jones seemed to have forgotten what made it unique.

At this point, you’re probably wondering why I’m writing about an Australian department store, and what on earth this has to do with radio.

The thing about music radio is that it just plays other peoples’ stuff. I can listen to any of the songs played on the radio on Spotify or other music services, on my own schedule. There’s not much that you need to listen to the radio for, especially with the internet just a click away. This wasn’t the case thirty years ago. It’s most certainly the case now.

Apart, from, perhaps, the people. At its best, radio stations have knowledgeable, clever local people on the air who are great at understanding what listeners want. They’d be well-known to listeners, and recognised wherever they went. Those people, the presenters, are the reason that listeners come to music radio. They offer significant additional value - though perhaps not value that’s easy to see on spreadsheets. But, people cost money; and so, cost-cutting means that they’ve gone. Listen to many music radio stations during much of the day or night, and it’s non-stop music: a radio station that feels deserted, just running on automatic.

It seems to me that, for some stations, we may have forgotten what makes radio unique.

I’m often asked what the future of radio is. I suspect that we can learn a lot from an ailing department store.

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This is from my blog and podcast. You'll find the whole post here: https://james.cridland.net/blog/2026/demolition-of-am/

Here's the top story...

A Radioland reader suggests that the closure of BBC Radio 4 Extra (speech archive) is deliberately calculated to be politically awkward for the UK government, since it is so loved by middle England, and therefore will result in the BBC being spared the worst of the cuts. This is certainly a strategy that the BBC occasionally employs; especially, when a decision is the only thing covered on Feedback.

RAJAR last week showed BBC Radio 4 Extra’s audience as being 1.4 million, with a 1% market share. Radio 4 (news and speech) itself has 8.7 million listeners, a 10.3% market share, and is listened-to almost twice as long, per listener, as Radio 4 Extra. There appear to be only 340,000 Radio 4 Extra listeners who never listen to Radio 4.

Former Editorial Director of BBC News, Bill Rogers, calls it “wrongly-condemned” in his blog, adding: “The continuation of a linear channel as a lead display case for a national archive of radio programming is the very definition of essential public service broadcasting.”

To me, the availability of BBC archive content, where rights allow, is a key part of public service broadcasting. That is what BBC Radio 4 Extra is; and what BBC Sounds should give access to. Rights clearances (and editorial compliance for 2026 audiences) have a cost, but it’s not large in comparison with making new content, and it’s a job that only need be done once. And it often produces some real surprises.

I’d suggest that if we agree that archive content is part of what the BBC is funded to do - and it should be - then it costs very little to run a linear service showcasing some of that. Radio 4 Extra gets essentially a free ride on DAB, satellite and cable in the UK. I still don’t understand how it saves money to close the linear stream. I would suggest the number of staff required to run it is very low indeed. Feedback suggests that the BBC Annual Report claims that Radio 4 Extra costs £4mn a year to run. Firstly, that figure isn’t in the latest Annual Report - it’s in the 24/25 one (page 253), and, content-wise, it’s the cheapest radio station that the BBC runs - both in terms of the content costs and the cost-per-listener-hour (0.6p). If you’d like to close a radio station, close 1Xtra (urban) - with £9mn in content costs, 5p cost-per-listener-hour, and amply served by the commercial market.

It certainly sounds impressive that the BBC is “closing an entire radio station” as a cost-cutting measure. We shouldn’t forget that they opened Radio 3 Unwind (calming classical) and Radio 1 Anthems (recent oldies) in 2024, and Radio 1 Dance in 2020. But, unlike with the overnight newsroom move to Sydney, the BBC doesn’t appear to have shared its cost savings for closing BBC Radio 4 Extra publicly.

Is this because there aren’t any savings at all?

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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 ago). “Some programmes” will be available on BBC Sounds, but one eye-catching change is that The Daily Service will be “on BBC Sounds and BBC Local Radio”. The Daily Service, a religious service that is mainly pre-recorded these days, was first carried on the BBC since 1928, being shunted to longwave only in 1991. In 2024, with the end of a specific longwave schedule, it shifted to BBC Radio 4 Extra. I can only assume that its current slot, 9.45am to 10.00am, won’t be the slot used on BBC local radio. While 46% of the UK identify as Christian, only 6% are actually practising, so it would be a strange move to broadcast something that could be a tune-out for 94% of the audience at one of the highest point of radio listening. My bet is that this mostly-unloved-but-tradition-think-of-the-tradition piece of broadcasting moves to 5.45am, and outcry ensues.

The closure of BBC Radio 4 Extra is an odd one, since I can’t quite see how much money it would actually save. A contributor to the Radio Times calls it a terrible mistake, highlighting the benefit of linear radio. But, more to the point - the closure of the radio station will save virtually nothing. It is wholly broadcast in places the BBC already owns - its own DAB multiplex, its own satellite space, and streaming - so there are little savings to be made there. Repeat payments for the programmes can’t, surely, be that much to make a meaningful saving. It has continuity announcements, but those are pre-recorded by existing staff. A small amount of programme costs; a few staff - what else is there to actually save? Has anyone done the maths?

(If you’ve not heard BBC Radio 4 Extra, here’s Jake Yapp performing, live, a taste of the station).

Mind, the ever-resourceful Boom Radio noticed an opportunity for a press release, and said that it would quite like the DAB spectrum vacated by BBC Radio 4 Extra, and would pay market rate for it. You’ve got to hand it to them!

The BBC is also stopping running a 24-hour radio newsroom for the BBC World Service in London, for the first time in its history. The overnight bulletins, which are also taken on BBC Radio 2, Radio 4 and BBC Radio 5 Live, as well as BBC Local Radio, will come from a new operation in Sydney, Australia. I got hold of the full email announcement. To be honest, for the BBC World Service, I think it’s fine.

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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 listen for longer - got me wondering.

There are of course “more Australians” listening to commercial radio because there are more Australians - the last census showed a population growth of 8.6% in just five years. But that’s only half the story: the number of listeners to commercial radio is actually growing faster than the population growth: up 2.8% year-on-year.

However, “Australian listen for longer” was new: I’d not seen any data showing listening time for radio. The regular surveys don’t publish anything to do with listening time; and for a long time, I’ve wondered how Australian commercial radio compared.

So, I asked the CRA’s new PR person - expecting a polite no - whether they could share exactly how long Australians are spending with commercial radio every week, and how that compared with five years ago. Would it be like we are seeing in Europe?

And I got the above graph back. It’s a pretty rosy look for commercial radio - remaining remarkably steady over the last five years at around 12 hours 10 minutes over the last year. Worthwhile noting that there’s no appreciable difference after the departure of Kyle & Jackie O (S2/26 or thereabouts). In survey 6, the claim “Australians are also spending more time each week with commercial radio” is true - the total time spent listening was up from S5’s 12 hours 4 minutes to S6’s 12 hours 8 minutes.

If I take anything from this graph, it’s the recovery of radio post-COVID in 2022; and to learn more about whatever happened in 2025!

For comparison: Aussies are spending 12.1 hours a week with commercial radio; the British are only spending 9.7 hours with commercial radio in the UK (RAJAR Q2/26). Perhaps this is a story of the relative audience figures of the BBC (42.6% share in the UK) vs the Australian ABC (15.5% share in Brisbane).

Very interesting detail; and worthwhile reminding ourselves how resilient radio is. I’m grateful to the CRA for sharing this.

(Also - hat-tip to those doing charts that contain hours and minutes. Redrawing this graph was a bloody nightmare. That’s not fun, is it?)

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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.