Radio can learn from faith-based broadcasters

This is Radioland, my radio newsletter.

Adam Curry, the co-inventor of podcasting, spoke at a Christian radio conference about where he sees the future of radio. The future is local, he said. There’s a link to watch the whole thing, too. (Adam Curry is working on Godcaster, an on-demand radio player specifically for faith-based broadcasters.)

Christian radio is not a thing in many countries. Radio stations owned by religious groups were illegal in the UK until 1990, as one example; but in the US, faith-based radio is thriving.

A few years ago, I spoke at Momentum 24, the Christian Music Broadcasters conference. It was a radio conference, but it was unlike any radio conference I’ve ever spoken at. The conference was positive, exciting, with so much discussion about how radio is an integral part of their mission. I didn’t hear one comment about how radio was dying, or concern about getting younger people to listen.

Christian radio is not in the doldrums that the rest of the industry finds itself in. A large part of that is because it isn’t reliant on advertising revenue. When you ask for money in return for valuable content, as I’ve learnt with this newsletter and with Podnews, you get it. While that will, clearly, still be informed by the state of the economy - people can’t give money they don’t have - it’s more resilient than ad revenue. And much less intrusive.

This method of earning money - some call it Value for Value, another of Adam Curry’s core beliefs - is fascinating since it doesn’t really rely on listener numbers or the vast measurement industry set up to capture them. It doesn’t mean cow-towing to advertisers, or taking dirty money from bad actors. It’s a remarkably pure way of working: provide something of value, and ask your audience for value back.

As another example, we learnt at The Podcast Show in London a few weeks ago that The Rest is History has 45,000 paid subscribers on Apple Podcasts alone: and that 57% of them are on the annual plan. That’s 45,000 people paying at least £60 (US $80) a year - an annual income of £2.7mn. Those listeners are fans of the podcast, and while they get some benefits (an ad-free version of the show, for one) they also get the satisfaction of knowing they’re giving some value back to the show.

Lots to learn about our future.

Last week, I asked for someone to make my ideal radio - a premium travel radio with analogue and all the digital platforms built-in; at the very least, DAB+, HD Radio and DRM.

Thank you to John Maizels and his friend John Bews, who point me to OWRX which is a solution that seems to pull almost everything out of the airwaves (including analogue FM and AM, plus DAB+, DRM and HD Radio for FM). You need a software defined radio, and a Raspberry Pi, and some form of network connection, and something else to listen, so it’s not really what I’m looking for - but it does mean that there are radio receivers all over the world that you can listen to.

But, I’m still trying to understand why there are no travel receivers out there that are multi-standard. I’ve asked XHDATA (no response); I’ve asked someone at DTS, the owner of HD Radio, whether there are any licensing restrictions for an HD Radio to also have DAB inside (no response); and I’m even more curious now. I do understand that to add DAB/HD/DRM into a radio means more patent payments, but even if they’re a few dollars each, you’re not talking about much for a premium travel receiver; and the hardware tooling is all done in terms of the analogue radios that are out there already, so it’s “just” a case of a different board and display. I wonder where I should go next to understand more? (And - anyone want to make one?)

• Last week, I mentioned Maths, Art or Magic?, a book all about music radio scheduling from Robin Prior, formerly of RCS. He’s now sent me the book electronically as well, so I can give you a chapter from it in future newsletters, so let’s remind myself to do that.

• Talking of which… the last user of RCS Master Control on DOS has finally turned it off. Yes, it’s 2025. The radio station was the not-aptly-named Radio Nova in Paris, France.

• A good piece that I saw linked from Dan Barrett’s Always Be Watching - from TVNewsCheck, an article asking Is It Time To Say Goodbye To The ‘News Anchor Voice’? It is particularly worth watching the news anchor slapping on the makeup while talking in her silly news anchor voice, to realise how preposterous the whole thing is. It also reminded me that this is why I (in the main) find NPR unlistenable-to; it’s all “announcer voice”. How many potential listeners are we turning off with this affected way of speaking?

• International man of media Steve Martin highlights one university radio station in Cape Town, South Africa which has turned off their FM transmitter, and “gone fully digital”, which has been met with “a lot of excitement”. I’m always a little suspicious of radio stations voluntarily giving up their FM licence, given how cheap FM is to broadcast on. It turns out that buried in the story we discover that the radio station’s FM licence was, um, revoked. I can’t find any more detail as to why - but it seems that the switch to “fully digital” wasn’t the choice of the radio station after all.

• New podcasts you might like - an audio magazine called Signal Hill. It’s the subject of the latest episode of Phonograph, which is all about audio storytelling.

Thank you to Irene Hulme for buying the coffees this week. She has a Substack you should read.

Want to supercharge your radio show? Here’s a £1 week-long trial of Show Prep - from a world class radio consultant and the best show-prep writer in the UK. Great for UK stations, or for English-language stations everywhere, too. (ad)

Where I am speaking next

• Podcast Movement, Dallas TX, USA (Aug 18-21)
• Radiodays Asia Jakarta, Indonesia (Sep 1-3)
• Pennine Radio’s 50th birthday! In Bradford.
• PodSummit YYC, Calgary, Canada (Sep 19-20)

Supporters

Thank you to the supporters below, plus Greg Strassell, Sam Phelps, Richard Hilton, Emma Gibbs, Jocelyn Abbey and James Masterton for being regular supporters.

If you’d like to support my work in any way, you can BuyMeACoffee - become a member to give regularly or just give a one-off coffee, or five. Here’s where to do that. Or, alternately, here’s a way direct with Stripe.

I’m on Bluesky as @james.crid.land or on Mastodon as @[email protected] - tip, use the second one.

My website has more detail about who I am, and what I do, and whether I can help you further.

Radioszene: Ausgewählte Newsletter auf Deutsch