Good morning from the Radio Festival in Cambridge. We're here for the next day and a half to hear from speakers including Channel 4 chief executive Andy Duncan, GCap Media boss Ralph Bernard and ubiquitous DJ-of-the-moment Russell Brand.
2pm update
Former England manager Graham Taylor is on stage. I'm not entirely sure why - I think the idea is that radio types can learn how to handle their star presenters in the way Taylor used to manage his star footballers. Like Gary Lineker, presumably.
"You can't be boss of the boys, and be one of the boys," says Taylor. Wise words. I don't like him as a pundit on Radio Five Live, but now probably isn't the time to tell everyone - the session is being chaired by Radio Five managing editor Moz Dee, writes John Plunkett.
Still, that doesn't stop Taylor having a pop at weak radio management.
"Some of [my time in radio] I haven't enjoyed because people haven't been put in their place, and that's down to a lack of management," says the ex-England man.
"There is talent on the radio and we all know that sometimes that talent has to be controlled and sometimes they are not controlled. I say that as an outsider privileged to be on the inside,
"I could point to occasions when management has been weak and they are letting down the team."
"I've certainly learned a lot," jokes Dee.
Taylor also talks about how he used to walk around naked in the shower with his players. Maybe that's another thing commercial radio could consider.
However, none of this can match a comedy video we've just been shown featuring Jon Snow in shades and baseball cap riding a skateboard down the mean streets of central London on his way to a hot breaking news story. I would explain, but there is not enough room. Not even in cyberspace.
For the birders among you, might I also add how lovely it is to hear the swifts swooping by outside the press office window. There's not another sound like it, is there?
11am update
I have seen the future of radio - and its name is Danny Baker. The BBC London presenter, former Radio 1 DJ and one-time saviour of the TV chatshow has his own daily podcast - and hundreds of thousands of people are downloading it, writes John Plunkett.
It's called the All Day Breakfast and you can find more about it here. Who needs the BBC or commercial radio when you can stick your own show on the web? No-one. In a conference hall packed with industry executives who rely on talent to pull in the listeners, you can almost taste the fear.
No wonder Baker joked on his show that the podcast was the "noose around the neck of radio that would pull it slowly to its death". Baker says he was only joking.
The interesting thing is that Baker records his daily podcast while still presenting a show for BBC London. What does the BBC think of it? Baker puts his fingers in his ears and starts humming. I think he means they ignore it.
"I have been told as long as you are not charging for it, it's not a problem," said Baker.
But the problem is he is going to start charging for it - around £2 a week. 270,000 listeners at £2 a pop? Wow. Big money. It's almost as much as Jonathan Ross gets.
"They have said we would have a problem when you start charging for it but that's okay because I'll have a problem when I start charging for it as well - why would I want to go to work?"
And it's not only Baker who is going it alone. Paul Myers, chief executive of podcast download company wippit.com, which hosts the All Day Breakfast Show, says Baker is the first of a "long queue of presenters who are leaving traditional radio to go and do their own thing".
"The technology is there and the means of distribution is there. Now you can do your own thing, you can do it legally and you can build a fanbase [worldwide]".
I can feel the fear building in the room once again, and a whole heap of admiration (sprinkled with envy) for what Baker has done.
It is also a poke in the eye for those radio bosses who are axing DJs in favour of all-music daytime schedules. People listen to Baker for the words, not the music. He is warm, funny and a natural behind the mic. As Ofcom chief executive Ed Richards takes to the stage, it is also apt to remember his podcast is totally unregulated. Radio needs more people like him, not less.
10.10am update
Next up, it's Channel 4 director of radio Nathalie Schwarz, who will be launching more new stations in the next two years than anyone else in this room, writes John Plunkett.
Channel 4 is one of TV's coolest, most trusted brands. Well, it was until the Celebrity Big Brother race row. So how has that unfortunate incident affect the Channel 4 Radio brand, asks the festival's host, Jeremy Vine.
"Channel 4 is still one of the most aspirational brands," says Schwarz. "That's not to say there has been no damage [from Celebrity Big Brother ] and we are still feeding that through. But Channel 4 has a 25 year track record in innovation, and it wouldn't be right to judge it on one programme.
"We have had our fair share of controversy over the last 25 years. Each time we have learned from it, grown from it and moved forward, and I'm sure we will this time too."
Channel 4 has just won the second national commercial digital multiplex. It will launch 10 new channels - including three Channel 4 branded stations, E4, Pure4, and speech station Channel 4 Radio - broadcasting on digital audio broadcasting, or DAB.
Channel 4's problem is that DAB has never had a worse press than it has got right now, with critics complaining that the technology simply isn't good enough, and will be superseded in a couple of years' time by something different. DAB-plus, perhaps. So how does Nathalie feel about that?
"We are absolutely wedded to DAB, but that's not to say it can't grow and evolve. We think it will be the cornerstone of digital radio," says Schwarz.
But what about DAB-plus? What if listeners have to buy new technology to listen to it?" We will find a road map to incorporate it. Identifying a way of getting DAB into cars is hugely important."
Hang on, look who it is! It's Radio 4 controller Mark Damazer. What does he think of Channel 4 Radio?
"I think it would be fantastically woosy of the BBC if it said a new entry into the speech market should be aborted at birth," says Damazer. Yes, he did say "woosy". Any advice for Nathalie?
"Speech radio is tremendous fun and much better than real life," says Damazer. "And certainly better than being in BBC News. We are waiting to see what you do with hope, expectation and controlled concern."
Schwarz says she wants Channel 4 Radio to provide genuine public service competition for the BBC. Her key phrases are "creativity, risk taking and innovation".
Even better, she thinks her channels can make money. "Our ambition is that we would ultimately make a profit," although she admits the speech station will "take a little bit longer" to turn a profit.
She says the digital interactive radio environment is "hugely compelling" for Channel 4's TV advertisers who don't currently think about the wireless.
Schwarz says radio will be part of the solution for Channel 4's future funding issues, not part of the problem. "People's habits are changing and for us it's about embracing the changing consumer environment. Radio is the next logical step. It's about finding new forms of revenue to help solve that funding problem."
On a separate note, Vine reveals he gets lots of letters from listeners asking him why Radio 2 doesn't play Frank Sinatra anymore. Who says Radio 2 is getting younger? Its listeners, apparently.
9.30am update
Things kicked off last night with a debate at the Cambridge Union, chaired by a former president of that august body (Easter term 1979), Ed Stourton, now a presenter on Radio 4's Today programme.
The motion before the house was that regulation is killing radio. Chrysalis chief executive Phil Riley kicked off for the proposition and accused Ofcom of tying the hands of commercial operators: "Just about everything we do is regulated".
He was supported by Sarah Sands, the former editor of the Sunday Telegraph, who drew some interesting parallels with the unregulated (at least by outsiders) world of the press.
She questioned why regulation was needed philosophically - but also how it made practical sense for radio, given the anarchic free-for-all of the internet. The final speaker was the novelist Louise Rennison, who put in a performance best described as eccentric - it certainly had everyone talking afterwards.
She began her address by changing into some red shoes, took about a minute to ask if she could use the F-word at the Cambridge Union, swiftly told her life story and said something about not liking nitpicking, her only apparent concession to the motion under discussion.
The speakers against the motion offered a range of arguments. Tim Suter of Ofcom said radio companies disliked regulation because it asked them to spend money they otherwise wouldn't spend, for public purposes.
Former BBC man Stephen Whittle said local people wanted local news and should continue to be guaranteed it.
Finally, the comedy writer David Quantick offered an interesting argument, amid the jokes, that regulation and even censorship spurred creativity and quality in broadcasting: "ideas come from stability and occasionally repression."
The motion was defeated by 174 votes to 77.
