The all encompassing I-player for digital radio

Acording to Ian Burrell in the Indy this morning

A single website which offers users the choice of the entire output of the British radio industry with potentially up to 500 different networks could be available to internet users within months.

The prototype will be ready by Christmas having been worked on by both the BBC and commercial organisations.

It is anticipated that a site which will build on the popularity of the BBC's Radio Player service, which offers users the 10 BBC UK-wide networks, plus the World Service and 46 regional stations.

says the paper

Why radio should concentrate on local

(Hat Tip Roy Greenslade)

Times are perhaps never better and never worse for audio lovers. On one hand you have GCap laying off up to 100 staff. On the other hand there are more local radio licences being granted [1], while internet listenership has gone up. writes Gary Andrews

He makes the point that radio being an early convert to intercativity with the audience had the headstart over publishing when intercation became the buzzword in media.

But it is squandering the lead

To save on costs, commercial radio companies are increasingly networking shows, destroying one of the aspects that make commercial radio, especially local commercial radio, unique. It’s not the same interacting with a show that’s being produced, often pre-recorded, for a generic nationwide listenership as it is with a live DJ.

In this climate of local and hyperlocal a local service is

It’s the strongest selling point for a local station. Reduce the number of local hours and it becomes just another radio station, with the same competition.

Why graduates don't like the radio

We have heard that youngsters are drifting away from news and newspapers,but now it seems radio is also suffering.

The New York Times reports that

Over the last 10 years, the average share of Americans listening to radio at any given time has shrunk about 14 percent, or 2.3 percentage points. Teenagers account for a well-recognized chunk of that decline.

It seems though that this decline is not uniform and is most marked amongst college graduates whose listening habits are diminishing eight times as fast as the general population.

they listen to 15 hours and 45 minutes of radio a week, while their peers without degrees listen to 21 hours and 15 minutes weekly.

And the reasons

Nongraduates are more likely to have jobs that allow them to listen to the radio.

Station of the stars

Some nostalgia from the Economist

EVERY evening in 1960s Britain millions of young people—many hiding under their bedsheets—would twiddle the dials on their transistor radios. They were tuning in on the medium wave to Radio Luxembourg’s nocturnal English transmissions. Or, rather, they were tuning into its stream of pop music, the likes of which could not be heard on the stuffy old BBC.

But it seems some brodacasters want us to return to those days.Radio Luxembourg itself is planning a comeback using a new technology called Digital Radio Mondiale (DRM).

Without going into the technological complexities,it is basically a way for stations to broadcast over long distances in the same way that the old medium wave signal travelled long distances at night bouncing off the ionosphere.

Quite why we need another medium for broadcasting is a little beyond me though.Surely the internet provides ample spectrum for radio stations to travel across continents.


With the deregulation of radio and the arrival of hordes of commercial rivals, Radio Luxembourg lost its audience. It went off air in 1992. Now it is planning a comeback using a new technology that can provide high-quality digital broadcasts over long distances.

In Praise of Radio

The Rajars are always going to be used in the battle for audiences between stations.The big news though from the release of the heavily embargoed figures this morning is the record amount of listners across the board.

45m people or 91% of the adult population listened to a radio station at some point between March and June this year.

This in itself (up 1.3% from prev qtr) should be hailed as a sign that even in these multimedia times, Radio has still got a hold on the population.

Yes,the stations can crow about the individual figures,commercial closing the gap on the Beeb,Talk Radio and Virgin doing well,but lets just consider how important radio now is.It is also important to note how the medium has embrased the new technologies.

Podcast are growing in poularity,nearly 2.7m were listened to,a increase of 40% since they were first monitored last year.

Update 17th Aug

Read Elizabeth Mahoney at Guardian Media

Digital and Classic lead the way

There has been a lot of coverage of the latest Rajars,that is the listening figures for Radio especially the resurgence of Radio 4.

This from media Guardian

Woman's Hour and Kirsty Young's Desert Island Discs
were among a host of Radio 4 shows posting record audiences as the station
attracted its biggest-ever share in an unprecedented quarter for BBC radio.
Desert Island Discs bounced back from a difficult first few months under new
host Kirsty Young to record a combined audience of 2.91 million across its
Friday and Sunday broadcasts, up from 2.54 million in the previous
quarter.

In the same paper John Plunkett writes of the winners and losers in the latest figures,the winners are according to John.

Classic FM,Planet Rock,the hits,chill,talk sport,xfm,smooth fm,mojo,kiss,the arrow and Virgin Radio Groove.

Some of whom are dedicated digital stations or stations who have used digital to vastly widen their listener potential.

For myself Planet Rock in particular,being a old rock bore was a station that the Uk had been crying out for,saying that I also listen to Xfm and Chill.

As regards Classic Fm,never been a real fan,the adverts seem out of place somehow,but a number of the papers are singing its praises this morning.This from the Mail

Britain's iPod generation is becoming hooked on
classical music with new figures revealing a huge surge in youngsters listening
to radio station Classic FM.
Driven by the success of film scores for
blockbuster movies like Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter and determined
efforts to sex-up the classical music industry, a section of Britain's youth
appears to be tuning in to Mozart.
The surprising figures revealed in the
latest set of radio results show half a million under 15s are now tuning in to
Classic FM each week, overturning the conceived wisdom that classical music is
something people predominantly turn to in older age.