To an interesting party tonight courtesy of the folks at BBC Backstage, who were kind enough to manage to get me into this party at moderate last-minute. Lots of fascinating people, some even saying that the party reminded them of the last web boom. (I was part of the boom, but not part of the scene back then). I enjoyed meeting many people - some, who were talking about their latest web projects, seemed slightly put out when I asked them what their business model was. It appears that ‘build it, people will come and we’ll figure something out’ is the plan. In which case: be afraid, be very afraid.

The BBC’s Matthew Cashmore was mucking about with something called Twitter - and insisted I join. That’s me, then, at http://www.twitter.com/jamescridland. I have no idea what this website is supposed to do, other than a rather less useful equivalent of a custom message in my Google Talk. Interestingly, it does connect to GoogleTalk, but it ignores my status message - I have to send it messages instead. I’ve been told it’s really addictive. I don’t get it. But then, I don’t get MySpace either, so clearly I’m getting old. (However, I do get Flickr, so maybe I’m still vaguely cool).

Good to meet a lot of very clever people. Having posted in the BBC Backstage mailing list a few times, some knew my name, which was quite flattering; some had read my blog (in particular my Indian High Commission rant, which is now an article of its own right); but actually the highlight of the night was one chap coming up to me, seeing my email address name badge, and wondering what my relationship was to Dave. I was proud to say that he was my brother. The conversation then was about the clever things he’s doing with email. Thank heavens I read his blog.

I’m a firm believer that the BBC Backstage project is one of the cleverest things that the corporation is doing - possibly THE cleverest. What I’m keen to do is, through the stations I work for, be able to similarly contribute data. The BBC’s size and resource probably means that it can set the standards; but commercial radio should be able to use the same API standards to ensure that the whole of the UK’s radio data, for example, is available to those wanting to use it. After all; commercial radio is the market leader for people under 55: it’s arguably more important for commercial radio to make their data available in this way. Perhaps this is one of the roles for the RadioCentre in future.

Many fascinating people; many business cards swapped, and a jolly good time had by all - certainly by me. I’m now the proud owner of a BBC Backstage t-shirt, a copy of Make magazine (splendid magazine, not read that before), and assorted pens and other stuff. The team should be congratulated. So I will. Congratulations, team.

(Later: have spent far too long working out how tagging works, so I could tag this as ‘bbcbackstage’. Done it now, I think.)

The Media Stoat points out that Jeff Randall’s show on BBC Five Live isn’t podcast.

Given that the show has a higher-than-usual calibre of guests - tonight, James Murdoch - then I wonder why?

John Naughton comments on Jeremy Paxman’s grumpy technophobic outbursts. Of course, Paxman’s pretty famous for doing this - and he’s not alone.

Tonight, John Pienaar notes that a recent song about him being a porn star in the 1970s (he wasn’t, it’s a joke) is now on YouTube - but then adds “I don’t really know how you dial things up on YouTube”. Staggering - if true. (Incidentally, either Pienaar has a head twice as large as his co-presenter’s, or someone needs to understand how to use PhotoShop a little better).

Christian O’Connell frequently talks about his web-team being net-nerds, is disparaging towards them, and pretends he doesn’t know what podcasts are; yet in ‘real life’, he owns a BlackBerry and is as in-touch and net-savvy as most people. Elsewhere, older speakers at media conferences joke about not being able to send texts or even set the video - leaving that for “the younger generation”.

Somehow, it’s seen as trendy to be ignorant about technology. Perhaps there’s a feeling that it somehow means you’re closer to your (similarly ignorant) listeners. It’s clearly dangerous to assume that your listeners or viewers are tech-savvy, but that doesn’t mean that it’s the cleverest thing to pretend that technology is too complicated or, worse, that new stuff just doesn’t matter: you stand just as much chance of alienating your audience.

If Terry Wogan can get to grips with emails and text messages, then so can everyone: Paxman included. But I doubt Paxman doesn’t understand it; just that he sees it as useful to his on-screen persona to pretend.

(I did wonder why the BBC is filming its top talent using mobile phones - then realised that the only people allowed to touch cameras are in the cameraman union, I suppose…)

Earlier this week, I was speaking at Radio at The Edge, an event produced by The Radio Academy (disclosure: I was on the production committee, too).

The event went much better than I’d hoped it would - partially, perhaps, because there was slightly too much to the day, so everyone’s presentations were shortened. In my case, it meant that a presentation I was due to give that lasted thirty minutes ended up lasting almost half that: the lesson learnt is that actually, it didn’t suffer too much as a result. Arguably, it didn’t suffer at all.

The conference itself was fast-paced and very interesting: with a near absence of “this is my company, aren’t I brilliant?” presentations that infest most conferences like a virus. Truly interesting and well-produced panels kept the interest up; a slightly too-dry presentation from the boss of Commercial Radio Australia got a panning in The Guardian’s blog, but that was probably because the journalist didn’t listen to his rather stark message: which could be distilled into “We in Australia aren’t going to fuck up digital radio like you poms have”. (Not sure I entirely agree, but that was a fascinating view to have).

My talk was around adding visuals to radio; mostly, it was videos of interviews I’ve made with others over the past few months. Universally described as the most interesting was Sharath Chandra, who works for Radio Mirchi in India: he’s more interested in what you can do with the mobile phone (100 million owners in India) instead of the internet (10 million owners in India). Time didn’t allow me to use all of the material in our chat: notably that Radio Mirchi produces news content on their Visual Radio system which they’re unable, because of government regulations, to broadcast. Enhancing their product in this way is a fascinating use of the medium.

I hope to do a slightly longer version of the talk in 2007, including that bit; but in the meantime, Matthew Honey from Unique Interactive, and the rest of the committee, deserve a pat on the back.

There’s been a definite theme in this year’s NAB European Radio Conference in Rome.

NAB is broken up into tracks: ‘Executive Management’, ‘Programming and Promotions’, and ‘Sales and Marketing’. The management track has three sessions on new platforms (including one I was speaking at), the programming track contained a new-media themed talk, and the sales track included “The essential new media sales clinic”, “Why New Media Is Hot And How Radio Makes It Profitable”, and even a session called “Google rules - traditional marketers drool”. Yes, the internet is the big thing this year: from programming to sales. Welcome to the year 2000.

The two days started with Chrysalis’s Phil Riley, and Yahoo Music’s David Goldberg. Riley was arguing that radio is in good health: today’s youth spend much longer with radio than sites like MySpace, but ad agencies are seduced with the bright shiny lights of, as it appears to be called here, the ‘innernet’. It was a spirited defence of our medium, with solid research to back it up. David Goldberg was, on the other hand, arguing that music radio’s had its day - but hadn’t bothered to look at the European market at all. A dismal US-centric start - resulting in Goldberg looking unprepared and foolish against an erudite and intelligent argument from Riley. Two interesting pieces of news: first, that there are no current rock stations any more in most major markets in the USA, and there’s not even a country music station in Los Angeles, the US’s largest market for country music: chasing the advertising money seems incompatible with offering true choice. (A colleague tells me that when US radio stopped playing as much country music, suicide levels reduced in the US, which is a nice if probably coincidental story).

The session I spoke in turned into a selling piece for DAB - not entirely unfairly, given its success: then a trip into the mobile TV world, where radio has much to gain from mobile television receivers in things like phones and MP3 players. Some basic examples from BT Movio and the USA, where they have two competing systems already, naturally.

Then, a session called “Getting today’s youth interested in radio again”. For the record: in the UK, 15-24s are listening to 9% less radio in two years: over a slightly longer time period, that same demographic is down 24% in the USA and 33% in Switzerland. The panel universally agreed that…

1. there was no problem with young people deserting radio
2. the answer was to use the innernet more
3. not quite sure what to use the innernet, but it ought to be used for something
4. yes, use the innernet, it’s the answer to our problems
5. er
6. that’s it

It does appear that the UK is better at retaining young listeners than other countries - I’d like to dig into the figures more to discover exactly why this is, though I suspect multi-platforms and the BBC’s influence.

I then went into the sales track for the ‘Google rules, marketers drool’. Interesting how many people came in just because the G word was mentioned - while Google were sponsoring an event here, hard information on Google’s involvement with radio sales is hard to find - but this wasn’t anything to do with Google at all, other than apparently the stunningly new idea that you might want to Google the company and find out who to talk to. Gosh. Having said that, there were a number of quite interesting slides thrown up in all of this; including one which I grabbed a photograph of. The presenter, Sheila F Kirby from Interep, made me talk a bit about Visual Radio. I said nice things and backed her up.

The next day included - hey! - more stuff about digital radio. Someone in Switzerland has been experimenting with HD Radio. It was asked what the customer reaction was. “It’s been great. We’ve done it for a good few months, and nobody’s complained,” said the Swiss bloke. Unequivocal support, then. Frankly, the bunfight between DVH-B, DAB, DRM, DMB, MP2, AAC+ and HD Radio isn’t really helping anyone. WorldDAB (or WorldDMB or whoever they are these days) seem to see DRM as a competitor and someone to be fought; Ofcom appear to believe (as do I) that DRM is a great complementary technology to DAB. Clearly, I’m always right on these things… ;)

Finally for me, after skipping a few sessions to do some work (!), a quite enthralling if slightly pointless demonstration of surround-sound. I’m dubious about surround; I am blessed with two ears not four, and while a demonstration of flicking between stereo and surround was impressive, I’m not convinced the effect wasn’t just the fact that more speakers were being used, rather than anything cleverer. An experienced American radio chap sitting a few seats away from me answered the speaker’s enquiry of “could you hear the difference?” with the answer “Yes, it was louder”, which I don’t think was the correct answer. After a rather well-produced montage of songs, I asked whether there was any evidence of consumer demand, given that our experience with DAB in the UK is that nobody gives a tinker’s cuss about the audio quality. The answer? Nobody cared about the quality jump between AM and FM in the states either; much less the difference between FM and HD Radio; but this was somehow different. I don’t see it, myself.

Well-produced conferences can energise, excite, and reinvigorate. But here, speakers over-ran, panel sessions turned into “five Powerpoints in a row” without any time for questions, and technical problems and the insane switching of laptops drove me mad. But most importantly, there was such a dearth of ideas, it’s left me rather pessimistic about what the future holds for radio. It appears we’re trying to solve 2007’s problems with programming and marketing ideas we learnt in the 1990s. TV, the internet, and even newspapers appear to have radically reinvented their business to cope with the changing landscape. I see little evidence of that from most radio groups (excepting, actually, a few unsung GCap experiments).

The NAB European Conference 2007 is in Barcelona: I’ve never visited Barcelona, and I doubt I will be.

I don’t know what the deal is. Bobbie Johnson’s a nice man, but his take the other week on DAB was misguided and in some cases plain wrong. And now, Jack Schofield has just jumped into the mix, with a savage rant about DAB in the UK. (Hasn’t anyone told The Guardian that their company also runs DAB Digital Radio stations too?)

Jack’s piece is not helped by a confusing response from Ofcom’s press office. “We don’t have any plans to adopt [AAC+] in the UK.”, they apparently said to Jack, who then rants away about how Ofcom is backing the UK into an outdated technology of MP2 encoding.

But, Ofcom aren’t saying no to AAC+. It’s just saying that at present there are no plans to adopt it - not surprising, since it’s not been part of the WorldDAB standard until today, and there is not one single publicly-available receiver in the world that will decode AAC+ over DAB. There are no plans to adopt it - yet - but that’s a world away from Jack’s assumption that the UK will never broadcast it.

DAB in the UK broadcasts rather more than MP2 anyway. Indeed, Digital One is now broadcasting five television channels using Windows Media technology over DAB. Windows Media has been used before, to broadcast a surround-sound version of Capital FM. The Korean DMB mobile television system is also being broadcast, right now, in both Stoke-on-Trent and in London. There are EPG systems, broadcasting an XML data feed, and the BBC is still, I believe, soldiering on with TPEG, a traffic data service, and possibly even with BBC Vision, a broadcast website. In the past, Digital One has also broadcast other data, including The Digizone, a visual service for PCs; and at least one of the local multiplexes in London is also broadcasting video, audio and data for mobile reception by black cabs.

So… would UK broadcasters be interested in using AAC+? Absolutely. And if other countries - like Germany and Australia for example - uses AAC+ encoding instead of MP2 encoding, it’ll mean that virtually all DAB sets will support both AAC+ and MP2. So, far from the UK being left behind, we’ll have a sensible amount of AAC+ receivers too in the next few years; enabling broadcasters to add new channels, or convert current ones. 64k AAC+ is apparently roughly the same as 128k WMA, which is apparently roughly the same as 160k MP3, although - as is always the case - opinions differ. Would a broadcaster want to split a 128k MP2 station to produce two 64k AAC+ stations, for the same transmission cost? I’d see that as being a distinct possibility.

Jack’s argument is based on two misunderstandings about the radio marketplace: firstly that people care about the audio quality, and secondly that broadcasters would rush to broadcast in higher quality. Firstly, people really don’t care about audio quality to the extent that he thinks they do, as I discuss elsewhere here. Don’t forget - the best-selling DAB Digital Radio is the Pure Evoke-1, a radio which is in mono. Given that, if you told a broadcaster that they could sound just as good at 64k AAC+ to 128k MP2, which appears to be the case if you do a cursory Google search, then most broadcasters will be delighted to halve their capacity bill - or launch new channels.
Jack makes the point that if we’re considering making FM radio redundant then we should consider making existing DAB radios redundant. I don’t agree that either position makes sense. FM radio is perfectly adequate for many people; I can’t enviseage a day when we’d switch FM off. However, the MP2/AAC+ argument isn’t about turning existing DAB radios into expensive paperweights either - since it’s perfectly feasible that the main channels on DAB will continue to broadcast in MP2 for a long time yet.

We thought nothing of replacing our analogue Sky boxes to shiny new Sky Digital boxes, because we could get a ton more channels. We buy new mobile phones every couple of years. We replace laptops and computers regularly. But somehow, we think that the forty-quid box in the corner of the kitchen isn’t above being replaced ever, since it just… works. 3.5 million DAB sets have been sold so far, a takeup which is slower than the broadcasters want but far from ‘pitiful’ as Jack would have it (I’d work out that there are half as many DAB sets in the UK as there are Sky boxes - not pitiful by any means). Would we have the guts to make 3.5 million sets obsolete? Given the mentality of ‘my radio won’t ever need replacing’, probably not. But would we have the guts to launch new channels, or slowly convert existing ones, away from MP2 to AAC+? I’d think broadcasters would.

His comment about asking whether a DAB radio will support a standard only ratified today is presumably there for blog baiting, too… damn, I fell for it.

But, in conclusion - Jack’s got the wrong end of the stick in terms of what Ofcom said; and the wrong end of the stick in what motivates most people to listen to the radio. Shame; because normally he’s spot on.

(Later: see the comments for Jack’s reply.)

(Later still: this is the most popular post for spammers, and accordingly I’ve removed the ability to comment on it. You can still have your say by blogging and linking to it; it’ll pick that up.)

DAB radio, plus live television, in a mobile phone? It’s surprisingly good…

The Virgin Mobile ‘Lobster’ phone (click for a photo) is an HTC-made Microsoft Windows mobile phone. I’m running a pre-production model (in fetching Virgin red), running Windows Mobile 5.0, OS 5.1.195. My experiences may not tally with the production model (in rather more sober and boring black). The phone is for sale at Virgin Mobile stores for £199 (pay as you go), or free with a contract from £20. Access to the TV channels are an extra £5 a month for pay-as-you-go, or free whilst on contract.

The phone software, with the exception of the ‘TV’ application (of more later), is virtually identical to my Orange SPV C600: with full Windows Mobile functionality, like an internet browser, text messaging, and other typical Windows things. There’s a special Virgin homescreen layout, some attempt at personalisation (like a custom start-up/closedown graphic and a home screen, but no further) but apart from that, there’s no major differences between the two. It ought to be mentioned that the camera application is rather better than on the SPV, but I don’t know whether this is a change in the standard Windows build.

In terms of the hardware, this phone uses the micro-SD expansion card, rather than the SPV’s mini-SD (micro is smaller than mini, it appears). The screen appears rather better, though it’s difficult to explain quite why. The main difference is the bulge on the right-hand side, containing the TV button (replacing the camera hotbutton on the SPV). Apparently, this is where the DAB chips have been added to the circuitboard. The headphone output is still a 2.5mm jack at the bottom of the phone, and there’s also a mini USB connection too.

The only other change is the headset: it’s not the standard one you get with a, for example, SPV. This headset appears better built, with a chunkier and sturdier plug, and thicker wire. It’s the antenna for the DAB receiver, so it might be that this is specially built for the phone; certainly, the test unit I had last year also had a special (and rather bodged) headset.

So, to the DAB functionality. From the additional software, “powered by Movio” (actually, powered by BT Movio, a section of BT), you can scan for new channels, and get a full listing. For me, I get four TV services and 49 radio stations.

Hitting ‘TV’ brings you to the ‘TV Guide’ section of the software, which shows the four channels available and the current programmes showing. The four channels available (nationwide) are BBC One London, Channel 4 Shortcuts, E4, and ITV-1 (London). BBC One London is in full and free. E4 and ITV-1 generally shows a simulcast of the main channels, but at some times of the day you get a notice that the current programme is unavailable for ‘rights reasons’ - which, at the time of writing, includes all of E4’s daytime music programming, all advertising, all of GMTV, and quite a few other programmes too: it’s unusual to be able to get all four channels in full, in my experience. Channel 4 Shortcuts shows short clips of Channel 4 shows, including the IT Crowd, on a rather too-short loop. It’s early days, and apparently BT have space for more channels, but it would probably be rather more interesting to show a rolling news channel, which is made for quick grazing. (Last year, the service showed Sky News, which would be welcome). The TV Guide also includes a fairly comprehensive electronic programme guide, which is provided over-the-air on DAB.

Clicking on a channel name opens a screen with a larger logo and a Windows Media ‘buffering’ sign, which disappears fairly quickly to be replaced with a passable picture. The framerate appears quite low - probably no more than 10 frames a second - and the picture quality does break up in fast movement; this isn’t picture quality to write home about, but conversely it is pretty good at coping with variable signal quality - on occasion, you can sometimes lose the picture but keep the sound. Watching live television in a moving taxi is an interesting experience, but works very well.

The radio stations are arranged alphabetically, and are (mostly) shown with logos. The DAB receiver copes well with the broadcast EPG services on some multiplexes; my unit currently shows programmes on the Digital One channels (like Virgin Radio), as well as those on some of the CE stations (notably Capital Radio and Xfm). Acquiring the EPG appears to happen while listening to a station on that multiplex; I guess that it’ll show the BBC EPG if I listen to that multiplex for long enough.

Clicking on a radio channel opens a screen which shows a larger logo, and the DLS (’scrolling text’) in full in the screen. The audio quality is as you’d expect from DAB - indeed, the headphones don’t do it justice - but what’s noticeable is, when walking outside, the reception is rock solid. Whether walking to the sandwich shop from work in central London listening to 6music, or walking home from the tube listening to LBC, there was barely any indication that I was listening to a radio and not an MP3 player. (Indeed, the reception quality is rather better than I’ve experienced with an FM radio). Radio listeners are also requested to ‘press the red button’, which initiates the inbuilt Internet Explorer browser to unerringly tell you that sorry, there’s no content yet. (That’s my job to fix, for our stations anyway).

The software also allows you to, with the headphones still in, listen to the radio on the loudspeaker. Surprisingly, this is a useful feature: allowing listening to the radio, in particular, while leaving the phone on a desk or table.

It’s no exaggeration to say that this is the best hand-held DAB Digital Radio that I’ve ever had - even forgetting the extra coverage put into place on the Digital 1 network by BT to boost the signal. It’s refreshing and welcome to see the scrolling text without it, er, scrolling; and full and natural support of the EPG is welcome and unusual. The interactive capabilities are interesting; the audio quality is excellent, and while the software can be fiddly, it’s has the capacity of replacing my iPod in certain situations - if the programming’s good enough.

And therein lies the problem. The TV channels aren’t really up to scratch. Yes, BBC One’s nice; but the others rarely show anything I’m interested in, or, worse, don’t show anything at all thanks to the rights issues. I can’t see too many people sitting down for half an hour of Coronation Street on this thing; and it would seem to me that the television offering needs changing - to offer more grazing-friendly programming. Sky News or BBC News 24 would be a great addition. The absence of GMTV on the phone shows what disarray the commercial broadcasters are in - why cede peak commuting time to the BBC alone?

Last year, when this service was in pilot test, the TV channels were ‘Blaze’, a made-for-mobile music channel; Sky News, and Sky Sports News. Better for grazing, though - so all the more interesting that around 65 minutes of watching the TV a week was supplanted by around 95 minutes of listening to the radio a week on these devices. Even when they added a porn channel (no, really).

If you’re on the lookout for a phone, you can’t go too wrong with Windows Mobile phones these days (I’m on my third), and this phone also has an excellently capable DAB Digital Radio inside it. Just don’t buy it for the TV. Just yet, anyway.

Later… Just a day after writing the above, came an announcement that ITN will be producing a channel for the phone. Excellent. And it took three hours from the announcement to the station being delivered flawlessy to my phone. Excellent.