Lots happens in the radio industry each week so here’s a summary of the week we just enjoyed.
Here’s What Happened
The RTÉ Radio Player has got a redesign, and it sounds awesome. I say sound’s awesome because as of now I haven’t been able to get the update on my devices, but there’s a page on the RTÉ Website telling us about the new update, so hopefully I can play with it for real soon.
What’s in the new update
- All the normal stuff from the old player seems to be there. It says 7 day listen back, clips of shows ETC. So all that sounds good, looks like we’re not losing stuff
- Siri shortcut integrations, for smart home nerds like me this can be a big deal so it’s great to see. Might be irrelevant to most users but I appreciate it.
- Podcasts, at long last we have podcasts in the app. For ages if you wanted to listen to RTEs podcasts you either needed RTÉ.Ie/podcasts or a podcast specific app. Now you can listen in Radioplayer, making it more of an audio hub full of content. Bit late, but better late than never. I’m on board.
- offline listening, now I can listen to podcasts in my Nans house. Thanks RTÉ
- Recently played music, with links to purchase music for IOS users. Again this is a better late than never feature for me, but ultimately good to see. This was a frustration of mine with Radio Player for quite a while.
- The news briefing feature lets you listen to the latest news when it suits you. I really like this feature I must admit so it’s great to see it making the leap from smart speakers to mobile devices. As long as it’s updated consistently this will be great.
Ultimately I think this has the potential to be a great update. Radio Player hasn’t received a big update in all the years I’ve been using it, so it’s great to see it catching up with the likes of GoLoud, Irish Radioplayer, and BBC sounds. Hopefully development continues into the future.
I really hope this doesn’t let me down when its released. And with a bit of luck it will be out soon.
Radio is still making money!!!
We can all breathe a sigh of relief. The latest findings from Radiocentre seem to indicate that radio continues to recover well from the pandemic.
- From January to June, the radio industry made €74.2 million in revenue. That’s up 18% on last year. This was made up by a 22% growth in q1, and 14% growth in q2
- €60 million came from traditional spot revenue, that’s up 16%
- sponsorships and branded content partnerships also performed well. They brought in €12.9 million which is an increase of 21%
- Digital revenue is fastest growing as you might expect. Digital revenue is still small comparatively at €2.3 million, but that’s a 50% increase. The big question is, how much of the digital pot came from Harvey Norman. They had sponsorships on RTÉ Gold and Back garden Festival in the period, and they’ve now come on board with Talksport Ireland. Go Harvey Go, I guess
It’s great to see things recovering so well. There’s a long road ahead for sure on the digital side in particular, but ultimately this is good news.
In other news this week, we got sound and vision awards🎉 the BAI announced the allocation of €6 million in funding, to be split between a number of TV and Radio projects.
Here are some of the big projects getting funded on the radio side.
- Cad déarfá le Gaillimh is a magazine style Irish language show for Galway Bay FM. It’s going to air weekly and is being made in partnership with NUI Galway. The project received €20,833 from the BAI
- Changemakers is a Red FM production and has been awarded €12,204. This programme will speak to businesses trying to make cork a greater place.
- The gigantic Joke is being made for RTÉ JR Radio by Daniel Gillick. There are 10 episodes with each being 10 minutes. The production has been awarded €8,026
It’s great to see good content getting funded by the BAI. I look forward to hearing and seeing this content on air soon.
Find out about all the radio and TV projects that got funding here
Bonus Big Story
It’s been a busy week so we’ve got an extra big story.
Spin 1038 have announced the new hosts of their breakfast show, following the departure of Graham and Nathan.
They are going for a triple header breakfast show a bit like 2FM and Red FM, with Emma Nolan, Dave Hammond and Aisling Bonner getting the gig.
They haven’t explicitly said this, but it would seem they are dropping the Fully Charged branding in favour of Spin Breakfast which is also interesting.
“From the moment they first hit a studio together, it was amazing to hear this authentic chemistry light up the mics – the kind that only best friends have. Their positive and energetic attitude is the perfect formula for breakfast radio, and we cannot wait for our SPIN audience to hear them in action every morning.”
James Brownlow, Managing Editor of Music & Entertainment
It will be interesting to see how this new show goes, and if this trend of triple header breakfast shows continues.
Best of luck to the new team from us at Radio Land. Looking forward to hearing the new show.
All the details can be found here
Quick Bits
Joe Duffy got stung by a weever fish this week
News Corp, parent company of wireless Group, has had a boost in profits
The Today FM Sound Garden is returning to electric picnic
The Journalism Awards will take place on the 17th of November
And that’s the summary for this week. Come back to radio land next week for more radio news📻 and be sure to follow us on Twitter and Instagram for extra stories.