Over the past few years I’ve ‘live tweeted’ various conferences and events I’ve attended. Recently I’ve been doing this on BlueSky as a slightly less ‘troublesome’ platform than X.


This event held on Saturday 3rd October 2026 in London at The Lantern home of Bauer Media, had a theme of broadcasting beyond boundaries.


A more in-depth write up may, or may not, appear at some time in the future, but in the meantime these are the posts I made across the day. I’ve just embedded the BlueSky posts for now, so please forgive any typos or errors.

Getting ready to start today's proceedings at The Lantern, for Community Media Festival.#CMAFestival2026

— Phil Edmonds (@philedmonds.uk) 2026-10-03T09:12:22.959Z

Lauren Underwood opens the day, opens the day with an overview of the theme "Broadcasting beyond boundaries".

— Phil Edmonds (@philedmonds.uk) 2026-10-03T09:21:54.514Z

CMA Chair Vijay Umrao welcomes, thanks to the sponsors, including Broadcast Radio, BWBroadcast and others.

— Phil Edmonds (@philedmonds.uk) 2026-10-03T09:32:53.489Z

Announcement of new ambassador Sone Palda MD Talent westside, who's helped develop talent in events and commercial radio and also presented a community media champion award from Dom Chambers.

— Phil Edmonds (@philedmonds.uk) 2026-10-03T09:37:15.032Z

First talk is conversation with Jo Russell. Talk of career, started as teen listener to radio 1 who wanted to be on the radio dispite the best endvours of her school careers teacher.#CMAFestival2026

— Phil Edmonds (@philedmonds.uk) 2026-10-03T09:41:44.365Z

Talked of special feelings of connection with the audience starting out on overnight radio, even though was still working a day job as well.On working with co-hosts on breakfast shows "go and get drunk with them the night before".

— Phil Edmonds (@philedmonds.uk) 2026-10-03T09:49:00.653Z

On gender balance in radio "Not really changed", you can't go to work in your PJs anymore. Difficult for women in the age of YouTube and social media, not just radio.

— Phil Edmonds (@philedmonds.uk) 2026-10-03T09:53:50.757Z

Next session on use of AI for radio and why you shouldn't use it with Radio Futurologist James Cridland @james.crid.land #CMAFestival2026

— Phil Edmonds (@philedmonds.uk) 2026-10-03T10:31:46.679Z

James drops a run down of his career in radio as a DJ (at a station so good Buauer closed it down …)

— Phil Edmonds (@philedmonds.uk) 2026-10-03T10:34:17.967Z

James played an example of Australian localising a radio advertisement.

— Phil Edmonds (@philedmonds.uk) 2026-10-03T10:37:00.278Z

Highlights a tool to make "AI listener" (says don't use just go out in the street!) and to translate your own voice into other languages (sounds quite good)

— Phil Edmonds (@philedmonds.uk) 2026-10-03T10:40:32.458Z

Local machine transcript demo, James talks of power of putting all your audio logger output through such a tool.

— Phil Edmonds (@philedmonds.uk) 2026-10-03T10:46:58.270Z

Then put the transcript into a LLM to make a summary for podcast or show description.

— Phil Edmonds (@philedmonds.uk) 2026-10-03T10:48:15.139Z

9 out of 10 people listen to the radio. A key driver for listening is "people".

— Phil Edmonds (@philedmonds.uk) 2026-10-03T10:54:03.982Z

Radio listening is changing, especially in younger people. James highlights Human Connection is key

— Phil Edmonds (@philedmonds.uk) 2026-10-03T10:59:50.759Z

James highlights the role of community radio especially given commercial radio has left the local scene.

— Phil Edmonds (@philedmonds.uk) 2026-10-03T11:05:46.051Z

Session on Ofcom licensing with Richard Hilton (CMA) and Sam Hunt (Maxxwave)#CMAFestival2026

— Phil Edmonds (@philedmonds.uk) 2026-10-03T11:11:21.048Z

No plans on more SSDAB.No regional community licencesStill no readvertising of surrendered licences

— Phil Edmonds (@philedmonds.uk) 2026-10-03T11:13:47.319Z

Must put in Expression of Interest if you want a new Community Radio FM/AM licence before 26 October.

— Phil Edmonds (@philedmonds.uk) 2026-10-03T11:17:25.024Z

SSDAB coverage extension needs a lot of work Sam says you need to be realistic that changes will be difficult.

— Phil Edmonds (@philedmonds.uk) 2026-10-03T11:18:55.213Z

"High bar" for Ofcom to wave the SSDAB overlap with commercial DAB rule, and need strong business plan for a new SSDAB to be advertised.

— Phil Edmonds (@philedmonds.uk) 2026-10-03T11:20:50.103Z

Aradhna Tayal-Leach MD of The Audio Academy (previously Radio Academy) on diversity.#CMAFestival2026

— Phil Edmonds (@philedmonds.uk) 2026-10-03T11:26:09.714Z

Aradhna – Still need to do more in diversity, "not for want for trying" but difficult to see more diversity the higher up the ladder you go.

— Phil Edmonds (@philedmonds.uk) 2026-10-03T11:33:57.460Z

As the first non white male leader of Radio/Audio Academy in 4 decades history she highlights them b challenge "in the boardroom" for wider representation that reflects audiences.

— Phil Edmonds (@philedmonds.uk) 2026-10-03T11:41:43.258Z

Aradhna says that Audio Academy more than happy to support, promote community media events and build [email protected] #CMAFestival2026

— Phil Edmonds (@philedmonds.uk) 2026-10-03T11:45:54.169Z

Vision of the future is the next session, with Lauren Underwood, James Blyth and Johnny Jenkins #CMAFestival2026

— Phil Edmonds (@philedmonds.uk) 2026-10-03T11:53:08.020Z

In both speech and music radio talking on key is the role of the presenter, it's what the audience are coming for.

— Phil Edmonds (@philedmonds.uk) 2026-10-03T12:00:57.768Z

AI DJs? Johnny Jenkins on Spotify DJ "it's bollocks".

— Phil Edmonds (@philedmonds.uk) 2026-10-03T12:03:12.875Z

Jordan Blyth "Will always be a place for hearing a local voice on the radio. (Sorry got name wrong above)

— Phil Edmonds (@philedmonds.uk) 2026-10-03T12:14:58.967Z

Lunch and Bauer Media studio tour time.I may have just taken far to many pictures of technical bits……#CMAFestival2026

— Phil Edmonds (@philedmonds.uk) 2026-10-03T13:09:02.903Z

Afternoon sessions now #CMAFestival2026

— Phil Edmonds (@philedmonds.uk) 2026-10-03T13:15:02.040Z

Marvin Eastman on later life audio and radio cooperative.

— Phil Edmonds (@philedmonds.uk) 2026-10-03T13:16:39.529Z

LLARC controlled by it's members to give voice to older people through the media of audio/radio.

— Phil Edmonds (@philedmonds.uk) 2026-10-03T13:24:50.666Z

Mervyn Eastman of LLARC: "older adults are not dead yet" and "watch your language" – in that ageism is rife ar

— Phil Edmonds (@philedmonds.uk) 2026-10-03T13:29:35.861Z

They want to partner with Community Radio stations to develop older adults learning production to get their voices heard.

— Phil Edmonds (@philedmonds.uk) 2026-10-03T13:32:49.540Z

Vic Turnbull from podcast producer Mics media, who give background story of Youth FM and community radio, eventually deciding to start a podcast.#CMAFestival2026

— Phil Edmonds (@philedmonds.uk) 2026-10-03T13:48:35.742Z

Vic says often traditional people think big numbers, but she prefers to think [email protected]

— Phil Edmonds (@philedmonds.uk) 2026-10-03T13:52:23.335Z

It's not about the kit or fancy microphone

— Phil Edmonds (@philedmonds.uk) 2026-10-03T14:00:03.576Z

It's all about the money…. So you're not looking to fund a podcast.

— Phil Edmonds (@philedmonds.uk) 2026-10-03T14:06:04.383Z

From local memories to podcast session @terryleeradio.bsky.social #CMAFestival2026

— Phil Edmonds (@philedmonds.uk) 2026-10-03T14:34:10.026Z

Traditional Oral Histories are not very accessible. Podcasting gives opportunities to reach wider.

— Phil Edmonds (@philedmonds.uk) 2026-10-03T14:45:24.689Z

Had difficulties with older people with traditional mic set up and had to scrap some recordings as people kept talking off mic.So moved to using clip on mics for more consistent nature.

— Phil Edmonds (@philedmonds.uk) 2026-10-03T14:51:26.017Z

Terry highlighted AI audio clean up, then highlighted the outputs of the project.

— Phil Edmonds (@philedmonds.uk) 2026-10-03T14:59:41.601Z

Almost free marketing ideas with Kevin Field#CMAFestival2026

— Phil Edmonds (@philedmonds.uk) 2026-10-03T15:10:04.194Z

Both physical and online goes hand in hand.

— Phil Edmonds (@philedmonds.uk) 2026-10-03T15:21:52.756Z

Ideas for social media connections

— Phil Edmonds (@philedmonds.uk) 2026-10-03T15:27:38.546Z

Kevin – "If you make good radio content, won't people automatically find us? Will they if they don't know you exist".

— Phil Edmonds (@philedmonds.uk) 2026-10-03T15:29:38.506Z

Dom Chambers presents the CMA Community Champion Awards. First to Terry Lee @terryleeradio.bsky.social #CMAFestival2026

— Phil Edmonds (@philedmonds.uk) 2026-10-03T15:37:20.882Z

Dr Josephine Coleman at Cambridge University receives a Community Media Champions award.

— Phil Edmonds (@philedmonds.uk) 2026-10-03T15:40:22.093Z

Jason Rosam final community champion award.

— Phil Edmonds (@philedmonds.uk) 2026-10-03T15:43:17.093Z

Quiz at the end……… Your author won some foam muffs (of the put on microphone types)#CMAFestival2026

— Phil Edmonds (@philedmonds.uk) 2026-10-03T16:05:39.563Z

So excellent day, well done to all the organisers.Looks like I'll be claiming delay repay for the journey home. So bit of a longer visit to the spoons round the corner of Euston tonight.#CMAFestival2026

— Phil Edmonds (@philedmonds.uk) 2026-10-03T19:22:10.734Z

If you’ve got this far, then I can plug that in a couple of weeks time I’ll be at The UK Community Radio Network conference and Community Radio Awards in Birmingham, with more live updates then.