Kennisdatabank

A global standard for digital radio

REC redactie — Wed, 13 Jul 2011 11:44:02 +0200

It’s often given as a criticism that radio has “failed” to achieve a worldwide digital standard.

In North America, they’ve plumped for HD Radio: a system that re-uses FM towers and frequencies to enhance radio. (I review it here.) This is in the US for now, but I fully expect Canada to also use it in the years ahead.

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ABC local radio goes national in emergency

REC redactie — Tue, 11 Jan 2011 14:54:57 +0100

In the past, I’ve talked about the benefits of digital radio (across all platforms) offering the benefit of temporary, “pop-up” radio stations, making it clear about the benefits that digital platforms have: more choice, and tuning in by name not frequency.

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BBC opens up radio training to all

REC redactie — Wed, 23 Feb 2011 10:19:36 +0100

One area where the BBC excels is training. During my two years for the Corporation, the training I had was well-presented and genuinely interesting. I learnt some useful skills and brushed up on more (their Data Protection Act training being particularly handy for a website operator).

Lees het volledige artikel via bovenstaande link

Buying radio advertising

REC redactie — Wed, 28 Apr 2010 10:59:53 +0200

Planning and buying effective radio advertising isn't rocket science. It's based on a simple equation:

What you say
x
How you say it
x
How many times you say it
That's all there is to it. Simple, eh?

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DVB-T2-Lite – a case of the BBC reinventing the wheel?

REC redactie — Thu, 28 Jul 2011 15:54:20 +0200

Listen, thank you, BBC, for linking to an old blog of mine on their “five biggest stories of the week” feature.

Today Friday, Justin Mitchell at BBC R&D explained how they were slipping a broadcast signal designed for cars and mobiles (DVB-T2-Lite) into the gaps in the Freeview High Definition signal (DVB-T2). This is important not just because of the areas of poor bandwidth the mobile mapping experiment is looking into, but – says James Cridland – 3G bandwidth is too expensive for even casual radio listening.

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Ford is right – we need a better user interface for radio

REC redactie — Fri, 16 Sep 2011 10:20:06 +0200

Ford Motor Company in the US has, according to RadioINK, written an “open letter” to the US radio industry. RBR.com has published it.

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Hong Kong radio – all over the place

REC redactie — Wed, 05 Jan 2011 10:06:20 +0100

I’ve been spending the last few weeks in Hong Kong: a futuristic environment, but one where radio still has its place.

An FM/AM transistor radio, costing less than £5, was available from a local hardware store – including batteries – which allowed me to listen to a lot of the available services. Incidentally, it was very difficult to get an AM-enabled radio; most electronics stores only contain FM radios. The future for AM, I’d suggest, is not too bright.

Lees het volledige artikel via bovenstaande link

How to report pirate radio interference

Jozefien — Thu, 09 Jun 2011 13:39:30 +0200

Try listening to FM radio in many large cities of the UK, and you'll find pirate radio popping up between the 'proper' radio broadcasters.

Pirate radio has a long history here: from the pirate ships of the 1960s, which eventually led to the BBC launching Radio 1 and government allowing commercial radio (which started in 1973), pirate radio offers additional choice that you don't always get from the official radio stations.

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Latest RAJAR figures – a curate’s egg

REC redactie — Thu, 03 Feb 2011 15:03:10 +0100

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Pay per minute doesn't work for radio

Jozefien — Tue, 07 Jun 2011 09:38:32 +0200

Like listening to the radio? Yep, me too.

But what if you had to pay per minute to listen?

I’ll lay a bet that you’d listen to the radio much less. You’d only turn on to specific programmes, and wouldn’t just turn it on for background noise. You’d listen to your music collections a lot more. Radio would lose out.

Pay-per-minute doesn’t work for radio.

Yet, that’s what the radio industry appears to be sleepwalking towards, with their fascination about streaming apps on mobile phones.

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Radio isn't dead

REC redactie — Tue, 17 May 2011 09:40:03 +0200

James Cridland, managing director of Media UK and a radio futurologist, says in a world of on-demand, video-with-everything, iThat and iThis, it's easy to forget that while broadcast radio is not shiny or 'new', it is an established and successful part of the media landscape: indeed, one that according to today's figures is getting more popular, not less...

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Radio makes you happy and more energetic: official

REC redactie — Tue, 05 Jul 2011 10:02:53 +0200

A very smart event at the RAB this morning with some intriguing research about radio and mood.

We all know that we react better to things when we’re happy. Ask someone something when they’re annoyed or tired, and the answer will be very different than if they’re happy and energised. That’s almost so obvious it’s not worth doing any research into.

Someone very bright at the RAB must have realised that this is relevant to advertisers. Ask someone to buy something, and they’re going to be more receptive if they’re in a decent mood.

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The Secret to Attracting Attention

REC redactie — Tue, 01 Feb 2011 10:50:22 +0100

“The key to getting and holding attention is having something new happen continually.”

So writes Nancy Duarte in her terrific book Resonate: Present Visual Stories that Transform Audiences.

What are you doing to earn attention?

Remember, attention is earned, not forced. Promotion may be designed to result in attention, but attention is the audience’s gift to you, not a toll you levy on them that they are forced to pay. People must give it willingly and only because you deserve it.

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3G: Radio's future?

Jozefien — Wed, 06 Apr 2011 12:08:30 +0200

With 19.3% of all radio consumed in the UK done so in the car, 3G can’t be the only future for radio.

Lees het volledige artikel op bovenstaande link

A DAB radio for just $1 kickstarts a new market

REC redactie — Tue, 09 Aug 2011 10:46:59 +0200

The Standard, Hong Kong’s equivalent of the Metro, has interesting news today: the first HKD$1 DAB radio.

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A different idea for discovering radio

REC redactie — Mon, 07 Feb 2011 14:02:24 +0100

This is an interesting experiment.

Some of the clever folks in BBC World Service Future Media took part in a “hack the homepage” day a while back, and produced this – what I’ll call a ‘podcast tuner’.

You tune it as you would an old-fashioned radio – using your left/right arrows. You’re dumped straight into a podcast at a random point, just like tuning an old-fashioned radio. If it sounds interesting, hitting the space-bar will start it from the beginning.

Lees het volledige blogitem via bovenstaande link

A few hints for radio station websites

REC redactie — Wed, 24 Aug 2011 17:02:38 +0200

For a while now, part of my days have been the slightly boringly thankless task of adding telephone numbers and addresses to selected entries within Media UK, for the forthcoming Media UK Radio Pocketbook. I’ve got to “P”, incidentally. Not long now.

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Australia gives away their internet radio strategy?

REC redactie — Thu, 10 May 2012 17:02:00 +0200

There was a nice piece in the Sydney Morning Herald about Digital Radio recently.

After three years, the technology has a 10% reach. The Australians learnt from the UK’s pioneering work in making cheap radio sets, and working out what sells (choice from trusted brands) and what most people don’t care about (superior audio quality). Conversely, as one twitterer pointed out to me, the UK “might learn from their expectations management – launch properly in a few areas rather than patchy coverage across the whole country” – there’s a grain of truth in this, too.

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Australia’s digital brand extension – Triple J Unearthed

REC redactie — Wed, 07 Sep 2011 10:48:26 +0200

As I’ve written before, the Australian radio market is a fascinating and vibrant one. One of the best things they’ve done is launch a ton of additional services on DAB+ and the internet: some temporary, “pop-up” radio channels, and some permanent new ones.

Listeners can enjoy “Barry”, a clever comedy station made, in part, by repurposing Southern Cross Austereo’s comedy output from their other services; or some new services from the public service broadcasters ABC and SBS, including Dig Music and Chill.

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Bauer lost the game

Jozefien — Fri, 08 Apr 2011 10:41:05 +0200

The RadioPlayer is a matter of trust. You link to it from your radio station website. People can listen to you. But, using the player, they can also find hundreds of other radio stations. It’s a classic case of ‘agree on technology, compete on content’. Some stations will win out of this, as people discover them for the first time. Some stations, with poor content, will undoubtedly lose. But it’ll be good for radio. If everyone plays the game.

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BBC Trust approves ‘series stacking’: radio listeners rejoice

REC redactie — Fri, 25 Feb 2011 14:23:52 +0100

Good news!

What?

The BBC Trust has approved series stacking for radio!

Who is the BBC Trust?

They’re kind of like the headmasters of the BBC. If you work there, they watch what you’re doing, tell you off if you do something bad, and you have to ask them for permission to do new things.

Lees het volledige blogitem via bovenstaande link

BBC Trust fail to understand commercial radio output

REC redactie — Mon, 28 Feb 2011 10:05:36 +0100

I’m pleased about the BBC Trust’s recent series-stacking announcement. It doesn’t affect things like Moyles or Evans, since they’re “music sequences” and thus not included; it doesn’t change how the BBC’s podcasts are produced; and I don’t see it having any material effect on commercial radio, given that the main beneficiaries are going to be drama and some comedy programmes (but only 15% of the BBC’s output).

Lees het volledige blogitem via bovenstaande link

Bubbling mud, DAB and DAB+

Jozefien — Tue, 07 Jun 2011 09:32:51 +0200

All digital broadcasts have some sort of error correction, which allows a receiver to detect errors, and sometimes correct them. If it can detect and correct an error: no problem. If it can detect but cannot correct an error, it mutes: so a well designed radio will not burble or squeak.

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Build yourself an iPlayer using broadcast

Jozefien — Tue, 03 May 2011 10:02:03 +0200

Overwhelmingly, the vast majority of people still watch, and listen, to their locally-available television or radio stations. The amount of consumption of out of area content is very low: RAJAR collects a figure for “other” radio listening, for example, which returns just a 2.2% share. This figure is essentially “anything not in RAJAR”, so includes pirate radio as well as out-of-area, but a figure as low as that certainly ties into what we know about how our families and friends consume media. These are all stations that are available via broadcast.

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Canada’s threat to internet radio

REC redactie — Mon, 31 Jan 2011 14:21:43 +0100

Of all the places I’ve been in the world, Canada has seemed the most friendly, quirky nation to go to. From the friendliness and scariness of different parts of Vancouver, to the French nationalism in Québec, the immenseness of Toronto, or the beer-café culture of Montrèal, Canada is everything to everyone.

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DAB in Australia growing faster than UK

REC redactie — Wed, 24 Aug 2011 16:58:10 +0200

Commercial Radio Australia has just released their latest information regarding use of DAB digital radio in the country after the first two years of DAB+ broadcasting.

DAB is available in the five state metropolitan capitals of Sydney, Melbourne, Perth, Brisbane and Adelaide, and the results show a weekly reach of 940,000 people. (The Nielsen Company Radio Ratings, Survey #5, 2011 All People 10+, 24-hours/7-days)

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Data journalism and social media

REC redactie — Mon, 07 May 2012 11:11:12 +0200

I spoke today in Utrecht, in a rather different type of conference to
the one I normally speak at. (And, as you can see, a rather different
type of room. Click through to find out more about it.)

Tuning in to Diversity was a fascinating look into how migrants want to be perceived in the media, and how they want to get their message out there.

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Digital radio and childrens' broadcasting

REC redactie — Thu, 03 May 2012 15:42:55 +0200

I was sent a bunch of questions recently talking about childrens’ radio in particular, and – as is customary – I’m posting them here. Better than a rant about Hertz, anyway.

Lees het volledige blogitem via bovenstaande link.

Digital sound quality – what the audience want

REC redactie — Fri, 11 Mar 2011 11:22:19 +0100

Myth: “Listeners to Radio 3 expect really high quality sound”
Myth: “Radio 3 on DAB is not sufficient quality for these discerning listeners”

The above, publicly-available, data seems to bust that myth.

Lees het volledige blogitem via bovenstaande link

Europe’s answer to Pandora is already here

REC redactie — Mon, 04 Jul 2011 10:15:15 +0200

It’s a constant refrain in the UK, and other parts of Europe, that we don’t have something like Pandora. When I’m in the US, my Pandora account gets used quite a lot; but here in the UK, I get a pretty good service from last.fm. It’s not the same, however, as a proper Pandora-like service.

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Free radio conference speeches! No mugging!

REC redactie — Thu, 29 Mar 2012 10:35:38 +0200

I was in Barcelona again a few weeks ago for the excellent Radio Days
Europe; hosting a number of panels and speaking a little about Radio DNS.

There was a lot of interesting content. Christian O’Connell from
Absolute was very good at explaining what he does; John Ousby spoke
cogently about the future of radio in-car; Trevor Dann was there with a
special RadioTalk; Ira Glass did an interesting piece on This American
Life; Pete Waterman spoke with Nik Goodman about pop music; and Kurt
Hanson reckons we’re in the fourth golden age for radio.

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Hacking a new kind of radio

REC redactie — Thu, 16 Feb 2012 14:08:12 +0100

One of the delegates to the RadioHack days earlier this week at the EBU’s headquarters in Grand-Saconnex, Switzerland, arrived slightly late. Samuel Vuillermoz from mxlab.ch huffed and puffed into the room, shedding motorcycle gear as he went, clutching a small white box.

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HD radio: an initial review

Jozefien — Mon, 30 May 2011 09:17:16 +0200

It’s not every day that you’re given a radio which is (almost) useless in your home town; but that’s what I was given recently – a fancy little Mighty Red HD Radio.

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How not to throw a programme trail together

REC redactie — Wed, 07 Sep 2011 10:50:56 +0200

So, I’m currently listening to WBUR, the NPR news station for Boston, MA. I was curious to see, since there’s one dead and half a million without power in Massachusetts, how WBUR was covering the story at roughly midday on a Monday. The quick answer: it’s not – it has an old interview (from March) running on Fresh Air, and then we’ll hear Talk of the Nation: both syndicated programmes. (In between, we have a short local news bulletin).

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If you're a fan of radio, don't buy a Fiat

REC redactie — Mon, 21 May 2012 11:26:10 +0200

I have a new(ish) car, a Fiat Punto Evo. If you’re a fan of radio, don’t buy one.

First – it has an MP3 player connection via USB, which is fine if you only want to play MP3s and you have a USB key full of them. But a) that’s planning ahead, and b) the user interface is so impenetrable that I can’t work out how to play it without hunting out the instructions again. There’s no such obvious thing as a play button, for example.

Lees het volledige blogitem via bovenstaande link.

In Car Radio Listening, And Other Locations

REC redactie — Fri, 10 Dec 2010 10:56:59 +0100

One of the things that RAJAR measures is the location that radio is being listened, and oddly enough, it's a figure that's rarely reported. This blog is prompted by something James Cridland asked me when he was chasing down some figures recently about in-car listening. Because the numbers aren't talked about a great deal, they can be quite hard to come by.

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In-car DAB works. (Shock!)

REC redactie — Mon, 21 Mar 2011 14:03:14 +0100

Digital Radio UK sent out a press release recently. In it, they claim high satisfaction levels with in-car DAB radio, following some research. This isn’t self-serving research from the organisation that’s meant to promote digital radio in the UK; this is apparently research from a UK vehicle manufacturer and Oliver Rowe Research – asking 683 vehicle owners with DAB what they thought. Naturally, Digital Radio UK will cherry-pick the best bits out of the research, so I’ve asked them for the complete research to look at it.

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Internet radio directories

Jozefien — Wed, 13 Apr 2011 16:28:17 +0200

With around 20,000 live radio stations and over 200,000 pieces of on-demand content, internet radio directories have a difficult job to do. Knowing what content to put in front of people is really difficult: and the user-interface of many devices with internet radio built-in (whether it’s a website, a kitchen radio, or a car dashboard) probably makes life even more difficult.

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Interview with James Cridland: how can radio make optimal use of the internet and multimedia platforms

Jozefien — Thu, 26 May 2011 10:46:05 +0200

I normally try to help students with their work, and Fien contacts me to help with his research, which “tries to find out how we can make optimal use of the Internet and the multimedia platforms for radio.”

Do you remember how you got in contact with radio for the first time?
My first radio was a special offer from Kelloggs Frosties. I got it when I was six or seven; it was shaped in the style of a packet of cereal. I was -amazed- how they got the up-to-date music and news into it. Absolutely amazed. I think I was hooked since then.

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It’s time to get serious about the radio user experience

REC redactie — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 13:42:01 +0100

As someone who’s had DAB in his car for many years now, I know from personal experience that DAB already delivers a robust signal – from London to Merseyside, Yorkshire to Swansea.

It’s great that DAB Digital Radio is now installed in more new cars than ever before. That’s a whole lot of additional choice for drivers who consume 20% of Britain’s radio while on the road. Michael McIntyre apparently bought a new car to listen to Absolute 80s: and although we’re not all as rich/stupid as Michael, there’s a real appetite for DAB in-car from listeners.

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It’s time to get serious about the radio user experience

REC redactie — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 14:12:36 +0100

As someone who’s had DAB in his car for many years now, I know from personal experience that DAB already delivers a robust signal – from London to Merseyside, Yorkshire to Swansea.

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Long term review – the Pinell Supersound II DAB/internet radio

REC redactie — Thu, 08 Sep 2011 10:34:11 +0200

Reviews of products are normally quickly run off by a journalist who’s unpacked it and played with it over an afternoon, not a long-term review based on real use. I find they’re of little use. So, instead, here’s a long-term review of the Pinell SuperSound II, an FM, DAB+ and Internet Radio, based on four month’s use.

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Lying losses and limes

Jozefien — Mon, 30 May 2011 09:30:37 +0200

RAJAR, RAJAR, RAJAR! That's the overwhelming radio blog subject in the last two weeks. Paul Easton takes a peek at Bristol, while Adam Bowie plays with animated graphs. I posted about digital platform figures - a post which has got a man from talkSPORT very angry. (Don't forget that RAJAR figures are here on Media UK, under each radio station).

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Mobile data caps in the UK and the US: the difference for radio

REC redactie — Mon, 17 Jan 2011 11:49:12 +0100

In the UK, most major mobile operators have moved to a 500MB data cap: and, as I wrote recently, this causes issues for users who want to listen to streaming radio through their mobile.

But, what’s the story in the US?

The US tariff: I tried to sign up for an iPhone with AT&T, using the 90210 zip-code. AT&T charge $25 a month for 2GB of data, on top of their cheapest voice service fee (450 minutes), which is $39.99 a month. Total here is $64.99, or £49*, a month, for a two-year contract.

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More, or less, regulation for radio news?

REC redactie — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 11:18:48 +0100

John Myers thinks we should have more regulation and Richard Horsman thinks we should have less.

Unlike John, I’ve never run a radio station. Unlike Richard, I’ve never worked in a radio newsroom – except for my first week of work experience. So I don’t know too much about radio news. Except I do listen to the radio. A lot.

And I think it’s interesting to look at the North American experience here.

On one side, most music channels carry no news bulletins, and nobody appears to care.

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nextrad.io the radio conference puts last year’s videos online

REC redactie — Mon, 18 Jun 2012 14:33:10 +0200

One of my personal highlights last year was nextrad.io, a radio conference done the way Matt Deegan and I wanted.

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No, radio isn’t dead, Fox News.

REC redactie — Wed, 02 Mar 2011 14:23:12 +0100

Today it’s the turn of John R Quain, a journalist for Fox News, to feverishly hammer complete total bollocks into his keyboard and present it as a news story.

“Radio is dead”, says the headline. “iTunes and friends have nearly killed off the radio”, says the first sentence. Presented as fact by a tech journalist who knows nothing about what he’s writing.

Lees het volledige blogitem via bovenstaande link

Norway announces FM switchoff in 2017

REC redactie — Mon, 07 Feb 2011 11:07:57 +0100

This helpful translation of the Norwegian government’s announcement today shows that Norway is following the UK in digital radio switchover.

There are a set of criteria, not dissimilar from the UK’s: 50% of listening must be done digitally by 2015, and coverage should be equal to FM. (Unlike the UK, the amount of DAB transmitters to cover Norway is about half the amount of FM ones).

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Occupy KGO – radio listeners care

REC redactie — Fri, 16 Dec 2011 15:16:09 +0100

We already know that radio listeners feel incredibly close to their favourite radio station. Radio has a tremendously strong bond with its audience.

When change happens at a radio station, most listeners accept the changes with a little grumbling. Sometimes, they write letters, or run a Facebook campaign. But it’s rare that they come down and demonstrate angrily outside: much less run an “Occupy”-type demonstration.

But that’s exactly what’s happening at talk station KGO in San Francisco.

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On-demand speech radio: disaggregation and transcripts

Jozefien — Wed, 13 Apr 2011 16:41:52 +0200

A while back, I went to chat with NPR. I was pretty impressed at what they were doing – particularly, their automated transcripts.

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Pandora - not radio, doesn't understand radio

REC redactie — Thu, 29 Mar 2012 12:19:08 +0200

I’ve met Tim Westergren, the founder of Pandora. He’s a lovely man.

But, not only do I believe that Pandora is not radio (they stole our brand for a non-live, non-local, non-shared jukebox), it’s becoming rather more obvious that they don’t understand radio stats either.

In a comment to paidContent.co.uk (which I sometimes write for), Westergren apparently says:

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Pandora is not radio

REC redactie — Mon, 21 Feb 2011 10:28:40 +0100

“Radio”, in the English language, means three things. Here are the first two:

Radio = the transmission of signals by modulation of electromagnetic waves with frequencies below those of visible light.
Radio = a receiver (which can be battery-powered, mains-powered or self-powered) that allows you to listen to radio broadcasts.

And now, here’s the third:

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Promoting radio as well as your own station

REC redactie — Mon, 12 Dec 2011 10:33:33 +0100

Straight from my recent talk at the Jacobs Media Summit in Baltimore MD, USA…

I’d like to talk today about how we can combat [things like Pandora getting all the press, and radio being written off by journalists]. How we in the radio industry will benefit our business if we talk up radio… and talk down our differences.

Because it’s not different radio companies against different radio companies any more… it’s radio against these other services.

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Questions from an inquisitive Belgian

Jozefien — Wed, 08 Jun 2011 09:36:12 +0200

A Flemish Belgian student contacts me to ask me questions on digital radio. As ever, always happy to answer questions, though all the answers go here on this blog in the vain hope that it helps others…

Is an international standard for digital radio still feasible in your opinion?

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Radio income per capita

Jozefien — Wed, 11 May 2011 11:37:09 +0200

An interesting graph, sourced from Ofcom, showing revenue earnt per capita for major radio markets worldwide.

The BBC does well, doesn’t it? The UK appears to be pretty standard in terms of revenue per capita – Germany, Canada and Sweden seem to be particularly better than us. Ireland seems to earn significantly well out of commercial radio, doesn’t it?

Lees het volledig artikel op bovenstaande link

Radio leaves the BBC iPlayer, and more

REC redactie — Tue, 25 Jan 2011 12:04:50 +0100

In a long blog entry with a few slides with the swirls and blobs beloved of management, Erik Huggers announces a slew of cuts and changes to the BBC website: including…

“Radio and music will come out of BBC iPlayer, and we’ll develop a new stand-alone product.”

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Radio makes you feel happy and energised – part two

REC redactie — Tue, 05 Jul 2011 09:57:00 +0200

The other day, I posted about the RAB’s good new research – Radio makes you happy and more energetic – official.

It turns out that this isn’t the only research that’s been done on this.

In 2007, Sparknet Communications, the folks behind the wildly successful JACK fm radio brand, asked 1,000 JACK fm listeners (in the US) how JACK made them feel.

And the answer?

71% of listeners described JACK fm as making them feel “happy” (male: 63%, female: 78%).

Lees het volledige blogitem via bovenstaande link

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Radio – deserting the young? Have a KISS

REC redactie — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 10:48:31 +0100

In a recent blog post, Adam Bowie makes the point that younger audiences are using radio less. One thing I bang on about a lot is the problem radio as industry faces in the younger demographics, he says, using graphs like this as evidence.

I noticed, however, something striking in the RAJAR figures for stations that actually target this younger demographic.

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RadioPlayer search terms

Jozefien — Wed, 27 Apr 2011 15:05:26 +0200

Via Clive Dickens’s twitter feed, an interesting first look at the searches run on the (UK) RadioPlayer. These are the most popular searches (in typical Wordle style, with more popular ones being larger).

KISS and Magic appear very popular searches; presumably because they were only added to the RadioPlayer last week (and have therefore been unavailable until that time). Their apparent popularity appears to make Bauer’s refusal to run the RadioPlayer on their own website even more unpalatable.

Lees het volledige artikel op bovenstaande link

Radio’s industrial revolution

REC redactie — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 14:30:50 +0100

I was kindly asked to take part at the BBC/Skillset FastTrain event yesterday at the BBC’s offices in White City, which was an excellent event. Nicely put together, a wide range of talks and one-to-one events going on. I took part in a session (hosted by Tim Davie, no less) about radio’s future (available online here) – and instead of an ambitious slideshow, I told two stories. This is what I said:

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Student questions on the DAB switchover

REC redactie — Tue, 22 Mar 2011 16:40:52 +0100

An email arrives, asking for help with a student project on the DAB switchover. Happy to help, as always, and it makes a decent blog post, I hope.

So if I could start by asking you to give me a background to what you do and have done career-wise?

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Students and the future of radio

REC redactie — Mon, 07 Mar 2011 10:33:50 +0100

I had a good time speaking to radio production students at the University of Westminster last week. (The above isn’t it.) I always feel slightly awkward going to talk about the future of radio to people who are radio’s future; but they seemed to enjoy it.

Meanwhile, someone called Tilly has dropped me a line asking questions for her dissertation. As normal, I’m happy to answer these, and generally copy the answers onto my blog, as a lazy way of re-using these questions to get more content.

So, without further ado…

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Students and the future of radio

REC redactie — Fri, 18 Mar 2011 10:18:39 +0100

Lees het volledige blogitem via bovenstaande link

The best radio ads, the most dubious BBC complaint yet and radio's skip button

Jozefien — Tue, 14 Jun 2011 09:36:16 +0200

Do you know what radio commercials are best? The RAB claims to, using its RadioGauge service. We saw a presentation of it earlier this year in Copenhagen, and it's impressive. In Q1 2011, they've tested 33 radio commercials so far (in front of 5,900 people) in what seems an oddly scientific service for something that's so creative - and come out with a top ten. See if you agree that effectiveness can be measured with a set of rules.

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The changing media landscape

REC redactie — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 12:09:19 +0100

When I started in radio, the only way to record audio was a large bulky reel-to-reel tape recorder, which I lugged from the studios to interviews in factories, pubs and hotels. The only way to edit audio was to deftly use a razor-blade, a chinagraph pencil and some splicing tape in large, purpose-built studios. The only way for listeners to hear to that audio was through a carefully-edited AM or FM broadcast; and the only way to listen was live.

Lees het volledige blogitem via bovenstaande link

The death of jukebox radio

REC redactie — Thu, 10 Mar 2011 15:54:12 +0100

There’s a bit of a debate raging at the moment.

Some people – Mark Ramsey, in particular – are claiming that Pandora threatens to be a replacement for radio, and will take audiences away.

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The fast/slow growth of digital radio

REC redactie — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 10:10:27 +0100

The new RAJAR radio research figures are out – and you’ll read two sets of stories today regarding digital radio.

1. “Digital radio listening is up, and how! Over the last quarter, the total amount of people who use digital radio (DTV, DAB, Internet) each week is now almost half of the entire population – 49.4% – up from 43.9% just a quarter ago.”

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The future of radio – from the future of radio

REC redactie — Mon, 14 Mar 2011 10:31:16 +0100

I really enjoy talking to students who study radio – because they are, literally, the future of radio. Last week, I talked to the University of Westminster (not in Westminster – in Harrow). Next week, I’ll be talking to the University of Brighton (not in Brighton – in Hastings) as part of the Radio Academy’s Hastings Masterclass. It’s free to go – take a look at the website for more details.

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The golden age of radio?

REC redactie — Fri, 23 Mar 2012 11:17:16 +0100

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The journalist's shiny obsession

Jozefien — Wed, 18 May 2011 09:42:58 +0200

Yesterday, I wrote a piece for MediaTel about the journalist obsession for shiny things, and how it gets in the way of accurate reporting.

As if to prove my point, the Daily Mail is saying something nice about radio following this week’s RAJAR figures: but, as ever, the journalist’s obsession with shiny things and flashing lights has got in the way of giving an accurate story that represents what’s going on.

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Think mobile internet is the future for radio? Think again

REC redactie — Mon, 06 Dec 2010 14:26:03 +0100

We’re the radio industry.

We’re in control of our transmitters. Our masts. Our towers. We own them.

Nothing gets in the way. We transmit our radio station on our transmitters and a receiver gets our signal. There’s nobody in the middle who can stop us: nobody who can make arbitrary decisions about who gets what.

That’s not the case on Sky. We are not in control. While we lease our little spot of satellite transponder, it’s up to Sky whether there’s an arbitrary space on the EPG, and how they list our station on it.

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Think twice before streaming online, US radio… huh?

REC redactie — Wed, 21 Sep 2011 10:15:23 +0200

Speaking at the (American) NAB show, the NAB President and CEO Gordon Smith is apparently advising radio stations to think twice before streaming their signal online.

RadioINK reports that he “advised broadcasters to crunch the numbers before jumping into the streaming pool with both feet. His philosophy is if it doesn’t translate to revenue, and it takes time away from selling your core business, why rush?”

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Twitter, Facebook and visualisation for radio stations

REC redactie — Thu, 03 May 2012 15:35:09 +0200

It must be student dissertation time. I’m doing my dissertation on new methods of audience engagement, and whether they will be detrimental to the quality of radio presenting, mainly focussing on social media and visualising radio, says an email that’s just come in. Some interesting questions…

How important are Twitter and Facebook in connecting radio stations/presenters with their listeners?
What are the negative and positive aspects of using social media to connect with listeners?

Lees het volledige blogitem via bovenstaande link.

UK iPad users love the radio

Jozefien — Thu, 09 Jun 2011 11:35:07 +0200

2,000 Apple iPad users: a decent sample.

UK iPad users only: highly relevant.

Researched in May 2011: very recent.

Indeed, Imano, the company behind the research, call it “the largest survey of iPad behaviour”.

The headline figure? 55% of UK iPad users listen to live radio on their iPad. 55%! Over half. Live radio. Oooh. Opportunity.

Lees het volledige artikel op bovenstaande link

UK Radioplayer releases it's first figures

Jozefien — Wed, 01 Jun 2011 13:36:36 +0200

With all of UK radio in one place, the Radio Player is something that fascinates overseas radio people – as you’ll see from this writeup of one of my recent keynote speeches from California. “Coming together to provide one voice for radio” is something I speak a lot about – for good reason: because it grows all of radio as a result.

The UK RadioPlayer (known here simply as Radioplayer) has just released their first snapshot figures. And here they are…

5.7 million unique users over a four-week period

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What a 500MB fair-use policy means for radio

admin — Mon, 17 Jan 2011 15:43:43 +0100

So, T-Mobile has gone and done it: reducing their “unlimited data” mobile phone tarrifs to really mean 500MB of data, for every new contract from next month (and they tried to do much worse). After 500MB, your data is slowed down and limited.

According to this handy page, that means that, on most new Pay Monthly tarrifs, the included “unlimited data” is 500MB for 3, O2, T-Mobile and Vodafone. Only Orange is slightly more (750MB), and Virgin is apparently 1GB.

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What’s the future of radio?

REC redactie — Thu, 07 Jul 2011 10:15:08 +0200

Above – a conversation at the Lokalrundfunktage yesterday: talking about the Radioplayer, DAB vs FM, and the future of radio. (It’s in English, except for the intro – and if you’re on a blog reader or you can’t see it, you’ll find it here.)

Recorded just after my presentation on “how new technology can help make great radio”: 70 minutes and lots of great questions.

Lees het volledige blogitem via bovenstaande link

Why you can ignore dar.fm

Jozefien — Wed, 20 Apr 2011 15:08:26 +0200

If you’re into radio, then there’s a service called dar.fm that might be interesting to you.

Log into dar.fm, tell it to regularly record a show from any number of online radio stations, and it’ll go off and do that. The service lets you listen back to radio station content on a variety of different platforms; and keep that radio content for as long as you want, too. Pretty cool.

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YouGov should leave radio research to the experts

REC redactie — Tue, 20 Dec 2011 11:22:50 +0100

ere’s a paragraph from a press release heralding a new YouGov report which appears to slag off broadcast radio.

Digital Radio: needing a stronger signal

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Zurich's International Radio Festival

Jozefien — Tue, 10 May 2011 11:36:50 +0200

This June, I’ll be speaking at the International Radio Festival in Zurich, which is an interesting Festival in that it’s predominantly one that focuses on the talent, rather than the business suits. (I’ll be speaking on their B2B programme, which is aimed at the business suits. They tell me I’m one of the main highlights; but they’re very nice people, and I suspect would tell me anything if it got me there).

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Google+ – the opportunity for radio

REC redactie — Wed, 27 Jul 2011 10:01:25 +0200

You probably know that Google+ doesn’t want brands using it. Lots of accounts have been disabled – including broadcast brands like the Columbia, MO television station KOMU.

Google+ is pretty clear. The social network’s “content policy”, linked from every page, reads:To help fight spam and prevent fake profiles, use the name your friends, family or co-workers usually call you. For example, if your full legal name is Charles Jones Jr. but you normally use Chuck Jones or Junior Jones, either of those would be acceptable.

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Lies, statistics, and anti-DAB campaigners

REC redactie — Tue, 02 Aug 2011 10:05:50 +0200

In a depressingly familiar blog posting somewhere on the internet (it’s now been removed), a content producer for a bunch of radio stations shows how easy it is for people – even radio people – to get confused with new Ofcom research about the take-up of digital radio. He posts (in italics)…

8.5 million radio‘s were bought last year in the UK but only 22% had a DAB tuner. Why don’t listeners want DAB radio? Why are 78% of people who go and buy a new radio opting for just FM and AM coverage?

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Radio revenue increases compared

Jozefien — Thu, 28 Apr 2011 13:54:45 +0200

MediaNED reports that radio advertising in the Netherlands grew by 5% last year, and expect a 3% increase this year. Advertising is carried by both private and public radio in the Netherlands; the total radio spend last year was €230.5m (or £204.9m) – that’s £12 for every person who lives in the Netherlands.

Which led me to do the following quick and dirty research:

UK radio revenue was up 3.4% in 2010, to £523m (€588m) – that’s £8 per person.

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What to do and what not to do with a new digital radio station

Jozefien — Fri, 10 Jun 2011 14:55:53 +0200

What to do and what not to do with a new digital radio station:
• Get your name right
• Get your information right
• Get the visuals looking right