Steve Green said at October 23rd, 2009 at 6:09pm

“Internet radio listening in the UK is tiny – RAJAR reports it’s 2.2%, compared to 13.1% for DAB”

Internet radio listening reported by RAJAR excludes all of the following:

* on-demand services, such as the iPlayer
* personalised radio services such as last.fm and Spotify
* podcasts
* listening to Internet-only radio stations, and to other stations that don’t subscribe to RAJAR

If all of the above were included, the figures for Internet radio listening would be a very different story to the ones published by RAJAR.

Furthermore, the BBC has shown 22 TV advertising campaigns for DAB whereas it has yet to show a TV ad campaign promoting Internet radio listening, so this should be taken into account when quoting the share of listening on digital platforms. There’s basically an entire industry supporting and promoting DAB.

James Cridland said at October 23rd, 2009 at 7:39pm

Ah, Steve Green, the well-known industry troll, homophobe and racist, wakes up from his flat in Manchester to miss the point of the blog post entirely and give us his comments on the RAJAR figures, before another day working out how he can harass those in the industry.

First, the point of the posting was that people are working together to ensure their online audience figures are more accurate – which, of course, I’d expect you to welcome, rather than sneer at from your encrusted keyboard. However.

RAJAR does exclude on-demand services, “such as the iPlayer”. If you look at total iPlayer listening, only 26% of iPlayer listening is on-demand: the rest is overwhelmingly live. There are no other on-demand services for any major radio services except Kiss. But even if you were to assume that every radio service offered on-demand radio at the same rate as the BBC, that would be another 0.6% of listening. None of the other platforms offer on-demand listening, so that still leaves internet radio – even if you include on-demand radio – as the least popular.

RAJAR does measure personalised radio services such as last.fm and Spotify in their separate MIDAS research. http://www.rajar.co.uk/docs/news/MIDAS4_news_release.pdf shows that 3.9 million people claim to have listened to these services, against the total reach for radio being 46 million. That is only 23% of the 16.9 million people who say they’ve listened to internet radio (which is 2.2% of total radio listening, remember). Assuming people listen to last.fm or Spotify the same length as traditional radio – probably not very realistic – that might be another 0.5% of listening.

RAJAR does measure podcasts in their separate MIDAS research. The typical podcast listener, they say, listens to just over an hour; and there are 7.8 million of them. That’s 8 million hours, then, to podcasts: compared to over 1 BILLION hours of radio listening a week – or, if you like it better that way, 0.7% of total radio listening. It depends whether you believe this is internet radio, or simply file downloads, of course.

Finally, you’re wrong about RAJAR not measuring non-subscribers or internet-only radio stations. It’s there, under ‘other listening’, in the main RAJAR figures, at http://www.rajar.co.uk/listening/quarterly_listening.php . “Other” accounts for 2.7% of total radio listening; yet that could be community radio or pirate radio on FM, of course.

You then blather: “If all of the above were included, the figures for Internet radio listening would be a very different story to the ones published by RAJAR.”

Well, let’s,and see how different the story would be.

2.2% – RAJAR’s figures for internet radio
0.6% – on-demand radio (assuming EVERYONE did as well as the BBC)
0.5% – last.fm/Spotify (assuming people listen just as much as traditional radio)
0.7% – podcast listening
2.7% – ‘other’ listening (assuming ALL OF THIS was on the internet)

That totals at 6.7% internet listening; which is… oh dear, about half of RAJAR’s published figures for DAB listening. I’m sure you’ll notice that I’ve been exceedingly generous in my guesstimates too.

If you have any other bonfires I can piss on, I’d be delighted. But once more, I repeat that I’m delighted that this work is going on. It will help internet radio, and other forms of multiplatform radio, get the traction it deserves. (Which, you’ll note, is supportive of internet radio.)

RadioKate said at October 23rd, 2009 at 7:46pm

Hahaha. Line of the day from @Jamescridland “If you have any other bonfires I can piss on, I’d be delighted.” http://tr.im/COhy

This comment was originally posted on Twitter

g freyman said at October 23rd, 2009 at 9:06pm

Amusing anagrams relating to the infamous Steve Green

Steve Green Troll = Letters Ever Long (how true!)
Steve Green Rant = Reverse Tangent (oh so often)
Steve Green + idiot = Inverted Egotise (spot on)
Steve Green = Gets Veneer
Steve Green Loves FM = Velvet Messenger…F.O.

How we laughed…Hahaha

Nick Piggott said at October 23rd, 2009 at 9:27pm

Oh look, another thing we can agree on. I’ve also been subjected to Steve Green’s bile for, well, nearly a decade now too. How well we know him, us (suprisingly) merry band of long suffering radio people.

To your post – yes, agreement is good. It’s a bit of a shame Absolute felt it necessary to trumpet this as their innovation when other things are happening at the moment, and other companies have been relatively restrained in taking credit for starting industry wide initiatives. I guess with the Absolute’s recent burst of headline grabbing activities (some of which they definitely didn’t do in agreement with people), they might have been feeling a bit insecure and needed a bit of attention?

Steve Green said at October 23rd, 2009 at 9:50pm

“Ah, Steve Green, the well-known industry troll, homophobe and racist”

That sentence speaks volumes about YOU, not me.

I can live with the “industry troll” claim, but I am not a homophobe nor a racist, so either provide some evidence to back up those claims or remove that remark.

I’ll save you the trouble of digging through Google Groups’ archives. Here’s a link to the post on Usenet where I was accused of being a racist and a homophobe, including the quotes I’d made that were supposedly racist and homophobic:

http://groups.google.co.uk/group/alt.radio.digital/msg/eccb5b5d011b6764?hl=en

Racism:

“Oh, and another thing, I know that Jews are supposed to be
tight-fisted, but you could break the mould and buy a hi-fi that is worth more than £150. Then you could actually understand what I write about.”

I wrote that in response to someone called Sasha Bakhtiar, who I thought was Jewish, and I was merely making a joke about the stereotype of Jewish people being tight-fisted. I recall telling you in an email, Cridland, that Stephen Fry had made a joke about Jewish people being tight-fisted on QI. I must’ve missed the media storm following that outraegously racist outburst by Fry. Oh, hold on, no-one batted an eyelid, yet I’m accused of being a “racist” for saying precisely the same thing.

Next:

“Anyway, only 1 year, 5 months, and 13 days until the world’s other unstable Jewish leader comes to the end of her reign of terror.”

That was referring to the time left before Jenny Abramsky reached retirement age, so that, I hoped, she would retire and end her reign in charge of BBC Radio, where she was the person responsible for (IMO) incompetently launching DAB without first upgrading the system to make it fit for purpose, and for degrading the audio quality on DAB, which are things that I happen to be somewhat opposed to.

The “world’s other unstable Jewish leader” was a reference to the fact that Israel had, at the time I wrote that comment, just been responsible for a hell of a lot of bloodshed in Gaza – oh, but I’m racist, so presumably I should think that that would be a good thing, right, Cridland?

Homophobia:

“> I’ll bet you have tons and tons of girlfriends too -
> LOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”

“I’ve had plenty in my time. Why, are you making a proposition? Sorry, I’m not that way inclined.”

So, me saying that I’m not gay is me being homophobic? Bizarre.

You’ve made two of the most serious accusations it’s possible to make, and your “evidence” for making these accusations consists of me making a joke about a widely-used Jewish stereotype, a reference to Jenny Abramsky being Jewish, and I’m apparently homophobic for saying that I’m not gay.

As I say above, the fact that you make those accusations speaks volumes about you, not me.

Just to comment on the rest of your post:

“That totals at 6.7% internet listening; which is… oh dear, about half of RAJAR’s published figures for DAB listening.”

Which means that you’ve disproved your own claim that: “Internet radio listening in the UK is tiny”. Well done.

And on the subject of reporting Internet radio listening, the BBC stopped reporting how much on-demand radio listening took place via the iPlayer last year, which was when you were in charge. Don’t suppose you could say why that was removed, could you?

I also note that RAJAR chose not to publish the full MIDAS 4 Internet radio listening survey in the summer, whereas all of the three previous reports were published in full. I wonder why that was? Could it be because the broadcasters, who fund RAJAR, wanted as little information about the growth of Internet radio listening to be in the public domain as possible in a year when they had chose to sideline Internet radio and push everyone onto DAB? If that wasn’t why they did it, could you provide an alternative explanation?

Steve Green said at October 23rd, 2009 at 10:14pm

I also note that you carefully ignored the issue of promotion. Although the fact that the BBC has shown 22 TV advertising campaigns for DAB and no TV ad campaigns for Internet radio, including TV ad campaigns for DAB in the run-up to Xmas every year apart from one since DAB was re-launched in 2002 – and 50% of all radio sales apparently take place in the run-up to Xmas.

You made the implication in your blog and again in your comment that DAB is ever-so popular relative to Internet radio, but you simply cannot ignore the huge amount of TV (and radio) advertising DAB has received whilst Internet radio has received ZERO TV (or radio) adverts.

There are other issues that contribute towards DAB having a higher percentage share of listening than Internet radio, such as there being a wide range of DAB receivers on sale whereas Wi-Fi Internet radios only came out about 2 – 3 years ago, and there’s a far smaller range of them available. Internet radio may be available to anybody with a computer, but a lot of people, especially older people, prefer to listen on traditional audio equipment, and it isn’t all that easy to stream audio from a computer to a hi-fi system.

At the end of the day, though, your industry was completely out of order to ignore Internet radio when it made its recommendations to Government in the Digital Radio Working Group final report, because recommending that everyone should be pushed towards DAB without including Internet radio in the long-term plans for digital radio was blatantly against the interests of radio listeners.

Steve Green said at October 23rd, 2009 at 10:27pm

“I should point out, to those who don’t know, that I’ve had the dubious honour of being harassed by Steve Green since 2001.”

That’s another lie. I posted for a time on your Media UK forum in 2002, and I would estimate that I didn’t have ANYTHING to do with you from about 2003 until you started work at the BBC.

My issue regarding DAB has ALWAYS been focused on the BBC, because I only listen to BBC radio (plus Internet radio), and I hold them responsible for the incompetent adoption of DAB, because we pay them to get things right. As such, please explain why I would want to “harrass” you??

This is basically yet another example of you throwing mud knowing that mud sticks, even though you know full well that what you’re saying is completely false. As I said in a previous post, that speaks volumes about YOU, not me.

I make no apologies for the accusations I made about you when you were at the BBC, which is what this is about at the end of the day.

Let’s take an example of this, shall we? You *continually* claimed that the thing stopping you from using 128 kbps AAC for the BBC’s live Internet radio streams was that there was you claimed that there was an issue with the “reliability” of “high” bit rate streams.

In that case, James, could you explain to me why you launched the BBC’s live Internet radio streams that are available via the iPlayer with a buffer size that can only hold about 2 seconds’ worth of audio? That is an absolutely minuscule buffer size for Internet radio – Winamp uses a default buffer size that is twice that size.

In other words, you can’t have been concerned with buffering considering that you ended up using a tiny buffer – if you were concerned about buffering you would have used a large buffer to avoid rebuffering, obviously.

Steve Green said at October 23rd, 2009 at 10:32pm

@Nick Piggott,

“I’ve also been subjected to Steve Green’s bile for, well, nearly a decade now too.”

It isn’t bile, Nicholas, it is simply criticisms that you don’t like to face up to.

For example, I continually use the word “incompetent” to describe the UK adopting the DAB system. I absolutely stand by my use of that word, because it was incompetent – the decision to replace the ubiquitously available FM system with DAB, which is 20 years out of date and which delivers low audio quality and unreliable reception, when DAB coulc have been upgraded to include the AAC audio codec from 1997 onwards, was THE most incompetent decision ever taken in the history of UK broadcasting.

timpage001 said at October 23rd, 2009 at 10:51pm

Enjoying @jamescridland ’s blog comments. (inc @nickpiggott) http://bit.ly/TYlg1. Non-anoraks move along.. nothing to see here.

This comment was originally posted on Twitter

James Cridland said at October 23rd, 2009 at 11:30pm

Aha, the homophobic, racist harasser Steve Green comes back in his usual style for lots more ranting: one comment isn’t good enough, so you post four!

I’m not actually sure what you’re attempting to argue against; your homophobic tendencies, your racism, and your continued harassment (to me at two former employers as well as Media UK) are all well documented, both here and on your own soap-box, alt.radio.digital.

The only relevant part of your tirade is that apparently 6.7% of listening isn’t as small as 2.2% – and I think I can agree with that. But at least while you’re attacking me on this blog – on a point unrelated to the main thrust of the blog posting – you’re not harassing other members of the radio industry; and so at least that’ll make a welcome change.

Steve Green said at October 23rd, 2009 at 11:37pm

“Hahaha. Line of the day from @Jamescridland “If you have any other bonfires I can piss on, I’d be delighted.””

You clearly missed the bit where he disproved his own point about Internet radio listening being “tiny” that I was disputing?!

D’Oh!

Adam said at October 23rd, 2009 at 11:44pm

Steve, perhaps you could read your posts before posting them, as you have answered your own questions already…

Steve Green said at October 24th, 2009 at 12:09am

Adam,

If you’re claiming that I am a racist and a homophobe for making those comments then I suggest you get a grip.

Sean Inglis said at October 24th, 2009 at 3:11am

Readers of the 16th October edition of Private Eye – #1247 – may want to turn to page 19 and look at the responses of “Ben Bradshaw” in the “Me and My Spoon” column.

Such an astonishingly close match of prose and ideology that you’d have to suspect it was the work of another noted BBC critic…

It lacks the extra zip afforded by racism and homophobia, but you can’t have everything.

Terry Purvis said at October 24th, 2009 at 6:27am

Far from being a serious discussion about the number of people who listen to radio via the Internet, for which I have plenty to say, this has turned into a disgusting slanging match. If this is the public voice of the so-called experts in the radio industry today you should all be ashamed of yourself. James, whatever the history between yourself and the poster, I don’t know him, or his views, to post them on a comment board in this way does not do your professional credibility any good at all. I, for one, will not make comments now about the subject of the original post.

Steve Green said at October 24th, 2009 at 10:44am

Terry, this basically stems from the fact that I continually accused Cridland of being biased towards DAB and biased against Internet radio when he was in charge of the Internet radio streams at the BBC, and I also accused him of being biased recently, which he clearly isn’t happy about.

The reason why I accused Cridland of being biased was that he wrote on BBC blogs about the planned improvements to the audio quality of the BBC Internet radio streams that he planned to deliver the live streams at lower audio quality than the on-demand streams. He attempted to justify doing this by saying that there was an issue with the reliability of higher bit rate Internet streams, and that live radio is also available via DAB, FM and the digital TV platforms.

However, it is clearly hypocritical to claim that the live streams should have to use lower bit rate levels than on-demand streams due to reliability issues, because those reliability issues would obviously affect the on-demand streams as well.

Therefore, his only remaining justification for delivering the live streams at lower quality than the on-demand streams was that live radio is also available via DAB, FM and the digital TV platforms, but that is being biased against the live Internet radio streams by the very definition of the word “biased”.

In the end he delivered both the live and the on-demand streams at 128 kbps AAC. But the reason for Cridland’s latest outburst is that I accused him of being biased on the alt.radio.digital Usenet newsgroup recently, and he clearly isn’t happy about it.

Steve Green said at October 24th, 2009 at 11:11am

James,

I’ve already dealt with your laughable claims that I’m a “racist and homophobe”. The comments were “un-PC”, nothing more than that, and the fact that you made such accusations speaks volumes about you as a person.

But as you’re continuing to assassinate my character, you seem to be ignoring your own behaviour when I rang you last year to ask why a post I sent on a BBC blog you’d written hadn’t been displayed. After a minute or so of conversation where you were quite reasonable, you twigged that I thought you’d censored my post, at which point you completely snapped, and you started repeating over and over in a seriously weird voice: “You’re a fucking wanker, you’re a fucking wanker Steve. You’re a fucking wanker, you’re a fucking wanker Steve.”

You repeated that over and over again for literally about a minute, and you then proceeded to accuse me of sending you funeral magazines through the post, with the obvious implication that you were accusing me of making death threats against you. I tried to tell you to think about this rationally, but you kept on repeating this accusation over and over. In the end I also snapped and slammed the phone down.

I then emailed your boss, Mark Friend, and asked him to have a word with you about your behaviour, because I can live with being sworn at, but I am not standing for being accused of sending you funeral magazines through the post. Mark had a word with you, and you later apologised to me via email. If you dispute this happened I would be happy to upload the email to my website in which you apologised to me and admitted that I hadn’t provoked your outburst in any way.

Nick said at October 24th, 2009 at 11:22am

I hope this dries up soon.

Two final observations from me, Steve.

As far as I am aware, you have had no employment, experience or involvement with the radio industry, and certainly nothing like the decades of service held by the people you regularly harass. Indeed, I’m not even sure if you’ve had meaningful long-term full-time staff employment in a commercial environment at all, ever. This complete absence of insight means that your commentary is wholly ill-informed, and does seem to smack of searching obsessively for conspiracies that simply aren’t there. Whatever it is that drives you often goes well beyond the bounds of acceptable behaviour, in my opinion.

Secondly, you seem to have a personality trait that means you must, always, have the final word. I don’t think, in a decade of being subjected to your endless polemic, you have ever been able to just stop yourself. I know it’s even hopeless to expect it now, despite specifically pointing it out. You will prove me right, and you’ll probably do so within the hour, which simply serves to highlight your obsessive nature, something that myself and my long-suffering colleagues in the radio industry have been dealing with, largely in silence, for many many years.

To everyone else – I’m sorry that this otherwise interesting discussion on audience measurement has been hi-jacked by Steve, again. Let’s pick it up again in the future, because it *is* interesting, and it *is* valuable, and it *does* warrant discussion.

Steve Green said at October 24th, 2009 at 12:57pm

Nick,

Presumably you’re Nick Piggott, right? If so, please use your full name so that people know who’s saying what.

Re experience: I freely admit that I’ve never worked in the radio industry. However, I write about digital radio technologies, and I certainly don’t need to have worked in the radio industry to know what I’m talking about on this subject. For example, I understand how DAB works far better than you or James Cridland do, despite both of you having worked in the DAB industry for as long as you have! The reason why I understand *how* it works better is because I took an MSc in the precise subjects that are applicable to digital radio (and mobile comms systems in general).

Re my work history: I worked full-time from leaving college at 18 up to the age of 26 when I went to university for 5 years. I then worked as a computer programmer for a year, then went back to uni to do the MSc mentioned above. I then did an OU degree studying at home, then I started doing journalism part-time, and I currently trade shares online, which I do full-time.

Re searching for conspiracies: The UK radio industry IS HIGHLY BIASED towards DAB, and highly biased against Internet radio. For example, here’s a quote from a document sent by the RadioCentre (commercial radio’s trade body) to Stephen Carter just before he published the Digital Britain interim report concerning the prerequisites for commercial radio to “forge ahead with DAB”:

“This requires changes to terms of trade and the active support of the other principal players in radio – the government, Ofcom, the BBC and Arqiva – including commitment not to pursue alternative technologies to DAB”

In other words, commercial radio held a gun to Carter’s head threatening not to invest in digital radio unless Carter recommended that DAB should be the main digital radio platform and that Internet radio should be sidelined – Internet radio is the obvious “alternative technologies” they were referring to.

The Digital Radio Working Group recommended that DAB should become the main digital radio platform and they didn’t include Internet radio in ANY recommendations, and that’s despite the fact that seemingly everybody other than the radio industry themselves can see that the Internet should become a main platform for digital radio.

And John Myers said in his report about local radio that the UK radio industry is “terrified” of Internet radio.

Trying to suggest it’s a conspiracy theory that the radio industry is biased towards DAB and biased against Internet radio is frankly insulting to the intelligence of anybody who would read your remarks. Everybody knows that the radio industry chose to stick with DAB and sideline Internet radio due to protectionist reasons – despite the fact that that’s against the best interests of listeners, not that the radio industry cares whatsoever about the listeners – DAB’s audio quality being the perfect example.

Re what drives me: The thing that drives me is the DAB industry’s extreme dishonesty and your blatant disgregard for radio listeners. It’s as simple as that. The repeated character assassinations of me also spur me on.

Re me having the last word and the ever-so wonderful DAB industry suffering in silence: Yes, I freely admit that I like to have the last word. As for your industry suffering in silence though, all I do is criticise the DAB industry for things it does that are against the interests of radio listeners. If you stopped doing those things I would have nothing to criticise you about. Your industry brings every word of criticism onto itself, so don’t try to act the innocent in all this.

Let’s get some things straight:

* Your industry chose to adopt DAB despite the fact that it wasn’t fit for purpose in the late 1990s, and you could have upgraded it to include the AAC audio codec

* Your industry chose to deliver low audio quality

* Your industry chose to promote DAB as providing “superb digital quality sound” – I remember GCap stations loved that jingle especially

* Your industry chose to omit Interet radio from the Digital Radio Working Group final report

* The BBC chose initially to nobble the quality of the live Internet radio streams

* Your industry chose to deliberately mis-inform people about DAB+

* The DAB manufacturers chose to delay launching DAB+-enabled receivers

* The BBC’s Director of Radio claimed on Feedback that the audio quality on DAB is based on the distance to the transmitter

* Tony Moretta, teh chief exec of the DRDB, claimed on You & Yours that it’s an “urban myth” that DAB is less advanced than DAB+ and he claimed that DAB+ only delivers “very, very slightly” higher audio quality than DAB, amongst other disingenuous or dishonest claims too numerous to mention

* You claimed on Twitter that the DRWG knew in detail how much it would cost to deliver radio via WiMAX, despite the fact that just a fortnight before you claimed that I heard a recording of you asking Mark Friend in the Q&A of a digital radio conference and he told you that they hadn’t looked into the costs of using WiMAX

* You and Quentin Howard have repeatedly made highly disparaging comments about audiophiles and that they have no right to expect good audio quality to be delivered via DAB – despite the fact that all we’re asking for is that it delivers the same level of audio quality as FM does

The list goes on and on – and that list is only scratching the surface.

Don’t try to act the innocent in all this. All I do is criticise your industry for the actions it takes that are against the interests of the public. And in return, people like yourself, Cridland and Matt Deegan choose to assassinate my character whenever you get the chance to do so. The reason you do that is because you have no answers to the criticisms I make, so you attack my character in the hope that people won’t take me seriously. And you doing that simply drives me on to criticise you more. And so it will be all the way up to digital radio switchover – something your industry dishonestly refers to as “Digital Radio Upgrade”, which nicely sums things up.

Nick said at October 24th, 2009 at 1:04pm

Wow. I was wrong.

It was 95 minutes.

Although, given the length of the comment, you probably started writing just a few minutes after my comment was posted.

Let’s see if it happens again.

James Cridland said at October 24th, 2009 at 1:09pm

What a surprise: the industry harasser, racist and homophobe Steve Green posts again.

His tired and well-worn accusations have nothing to do with this blog posting, which is to do with internet radio measurement. Repeating these accusations ad-nauseam is another Steve Green tactic.

My relative freedom these days means that I can, temporarily, stick up for myself. I won’t be forced, against my judgement, to apologise to this well-known industry harasser; a man who is provably homophobic, unpleasantly racist, and a man who posts senior industry employees’ home addresses on the internet and thinks this is somehow acceptable. A man who sends unpleasant material through the post to what he assumes is a home address for me; a man who has reduced many industry employees to tears, and who repeatedly lies about and libels others.

I, for one, have had enough of your unpleasant, personal, rantings. And I make no apology for highlighting your disgusting behaviour here.

Nick said at October 24th, 2009 at 1:14pm

Hang on. I just noticed the last paragraph of your ranting comment, mainly because it happens to appear just above my own. (I gave up actually reading anything you write shortly after I realised you have no interest in hearing facts and realities, and show no ability to understand concepts of pragmatism, discussion and compromise).

“And you doing that simply drives me on to criticise you more. And so it will be all the way up to digital radio switchover – something your industry dishonestly refers to as “Digital Radio Upgrade”, which nicely sums things up.”

Are you saying you’ll pack this obsessive behaviour in when we’ve finished with Switchover? Is that the time when myself and my colleagues will finally be free of your endless harassment?

If you are saying that, you may have just provided another great incentive to get switched over to digital even faster.

jamescridland said at October 24th, 2009 at 1:21pm

@connorwalsh I’m afraid that digitalradiotech is Steve Green – the self-same “nut-job” you refer to. http://bit.ly/3eW49

This comment was originally posted on Twitter

Nick said at October 24th, 2009 at 1:21pm

By the way, Steve, a simple “Yes/No” answer will suffice to the last question I posed. No need to write paragraphs and paragraphs which I will be ignoring.

See if you can stop yourself from doing that. Go on. Try.

Steve Green said at October 24th, 2009 at 1:35pm

You’re JUST A LIAR, Cridland. That’s all you’re able to do.

I’ve already dealt with your dishonest accusations that I’m a racist and a homophobe.

I’m glad you’re not denying that you repeated for over a minute: “You’re a fucking wanker, Steve, you’re a fucking wanker. You’re a wanker Steve, you’re a fucking wanker”.

I see that you are claiming that I’ve sent you things through the post, though, despite the fact that I would never do such a thing, and despite the fact that you said this in the email apologising for your behaviour in that phone call:

“I accept your emails saying that you were not responsible.”

You’re just a liar, Cridland. You basis for accusing me of sending you funeral magazines through the post was “it has to be you, Steve, it has to be you. It’s you or your little friends.” – which you also repeated over and over. A compelling argument if ever there was one.

And I bet you didn’t bother to contact the funeral place to see if they had been sending out junk mail, like I suggested? No, of course not, because “it has to be you, Steve, it has to be you”. You’re a fucking lunatic, Cridland. And to think that you’re a “trustee” of the Radio Academy!! Can they really not find anyone more professional than a loose cannon like you?

I see that you’re also lying that I posted the home address of someone on the Internet. That was a reference to someone posting Jenny Abramsky’s home address on the alt.radio.digital in around January/February 2002, just after the BBC had reduced the bit rates of their stations on DAB. I actually criticised whoever it was that did that at the time, but oh no, despite there being loads of people posting on there at the time who were pissed off with the BBC reducing teh bit rate levels, Cridland lies that it was me.

You’re JUST A LIAR, Cridland. That’s all you’re able to do. All you do is fabricate accusations and put them out there without providing a shred of evidence to back up your claims. You’re despicable.

Steve Green said at October 24th, 2009 at 1:37pm

“a man who has reduced many industry employees to tears”

I missed that lie. Unbelievable.

Steve Green said at October 24th, 2009 at 1:56pm

@Nick Piggott,

“(I gave up actually reading anything you write shortly after”

Yes, Nicholas, of course you stopped reading. Everyone believes you.

“I realised you have no interest in hearing facts and realities, and show no ability to understand concepts of pragmatism, discussion and compromise).”

What a joke. In 2002 to around 2004 (before I gave up on this because your industry refused to compromise whatsoever) I continually suggested to the DAB industry that instead of using 9 stations per multiplex transmitting at 128 kbps, you should use 4 stations at 128 kbps and 4 stations at 160 kbps per multiplex – trade off one station per multiplex in order to deliver half of all stereo stations at significantly better quality.

The DAB industry’s response was: Not interested at all. Not interested in discussion at all. Didn’t change anything. 98% of stereo stations now use 128 kbps and some even use 112 kbps, and the audio quality on DAB is still awful.

It is your industry that doesn’t know the meanings of the words pragmatism, discussion and compromise. For example, when was the public consulted about FM being switched off, eh?? Hint: they weren’t consulted, because your industry takes decisions that it knows the public will be opposed to, so they choose not to allow any debate about those decisions – especially the BBC.

“Are you saying you’ll pack this obsessive behaviour in when we’ve finished with Switchover? Is that the time when myself and my colleagues will finally be free of your endless harassment?”

I don’t “harrass” people in your industry. I criticise the decisions taken by your industry on my website, in magazine articles and on Usenet.

Re when this will end: Actually, no, I doubt I would stop criticising your industry once switchover takes place. By the time switchover happens the rest of the world will have vastly superior digital radio systems, whilst we’re using DAB/DAB+.

BTW, Nick, I see from your Tweet that Grant Goddard chose not to publish your comment about Sweden’s decision to ditch DAB/DAB+ and to use DVB-T2 instead on the grounds that:

http://grantgoddardradioblog.blogspot.com/2009/10/sweden-digital-radio-to-be-distributed.html

“Comments that are libellous and/or that make slanders/accusations against individuals will not be published here.”

That’s basically yours and Cridland’s modus operandi, isn’t it: make accusations about people’s characters whenever they don’t agree with your views.

You’re both vile and repulsive individuals.

Nick said at October 24th, 2009 at 2:17pm

“Re when this will end: Actually, no, I doubt I would stop criticising your industry once switchover takes place. ”

Oh. Not what you said then. I believe you’ve said things like this before and then retracted them, or said they’ve been jokes or something like that.

Well, I’m sure that most people browsing through this will have seen enough to make their own minds up about your behaviour, and what it must be like to endure this continually and relentlessly. We’ve aired a fraction of it here, and I’m sure you’ll continue to spend frankly incredible amounts of time (what do you actually *do* all day?) producing similar polemic to any avenue that will air it.

And I’m sure you’ll be unable to stop yourself having the last word, as usual.

Jason Cartwright said at October 24th, 2009 at 2:22pm

This guy insults you, and sends you funeral magazines because of RAJAR measurements, and the bitrates of audio delivery methods? Wow.

The radio industry really does have some quality trolls. Very impressive.

Different Nick said at October 24th, 2009 at 2:39pm

I don’t understand all this fuss here. Steve Green thinks DAB radio is no good, and that seems to be an opinion held by some (and to which they are entitled). But, Steve, why doesn’t you listen to something else and get on with life?

The market will have the final say.

Different Nick said at October 24th, 2009 at 2:44pm

I don’t understand all this fuss here.

Steve Green thinks DAB radio is no good, and that is an opinion held by people other than him (which is an entirely acceptable point of view).

But why not just listen to something else that meets with expectations and leave those who enjoy their digital radio to it? If Steve Green is reading this, perhaps he could answer.

The market will have the final say here. If the proposition is naff, it’ll fail. If people like it, it will succeed.

Steve Green said at October 24th, 2009 at 2:48pm

“Well, I’m sure that most people browsing through this will have seen enough to make their own minds up about your behaviour, and what it must be like to endure this continually and relentlessly.”

Oh, my behaviour’s at fault on this thread, is it??

In case you’ve forgotten how this started, I posted a perfectly polite comment questioning Cridland’s claim that Internet radio listening is “tiny”, and for my troubles Cridland immediately called me a racist and a homophobe, when the comments he was referring to were non-pollitically correct at worst.

Today Cridland has lied about me sending him things through the post, with the implication that the things sent were funeral magazines, so in other words he’s accusing me of making death threats against him. He’s lied that I’ve somehow reduced several people in your industry to tears, and he lied that I posted Jenny Abramsky’s home address on the Internet.

And you claim that my behaviour’s been bad on this thread?! What planet are you on, Nick?

IMO, Cridland is simply making a fool of himself.

“(what do you actually *do* all day?)”

I trade shares online. But you already knew that, and instead you chose to dishonestly suggest that I’m somehow unemployed. Hold the back page: Piggott makes dishonest remark about someone’s character.

Paul Hardman said at October 24th, 2009 at 7:15pm

Wow. Just, wow.

Emily said at October 24th, 2009 at 11:27pm

I’m positively out of breath after skim-reading all of this.

Matt said at October 25th, 2009 at 12:59am

I don’t have to do anything to persuade people not to take you seriously. You manage all of that yourself. See above.

Mark said at October 25th, 2009 at 2:52am

Steve,

Whether or not James said it, or whether he has denied it or not, from what I read here alone, is it quite clear you are indeed a complete fucking wanker.

Might wanna quietly drop that angle of attack hmm?

Warren said at October 25th, 2009 at 10:08am

Well Steve

Congratulations you’ve managed in all these posts to show all the attributes that you accuse others of here yourself.

People have different feelings, idea’s, and attitudes to you that is human nature, human nature is also that you allow others to have these feelings. obviously you have no respect for James or Nick above. and that’s your prerogative but if you have no respect for their views leave them alone and don’t follow them on blogs etc.

Everyone is entitled to their opinions and the good thing about this country is everyone can air.

Now I suggest you leave caffeine alone and maybe go outside and get some fresh air.

And just to state my credentials I’m not involved in the professional Radio industry and have never been, I’ve never met or spoke to James or Nick. but have read their blogs and articles over many years and found them to be fair, intelligent, informative. you on the other hand Steve have proved that you are a troll.

I know normal practice is to not feed the trolls but sometimes you have too! sorry

Steve Green said at October 25th, 2009 at 11:40am

Matt,

If you, Cridland and Piggott didn’t take me seriously then you simply wouldn’t bother to assassinate my character periodically, but that’s precisely what you do.

Piggott’s been doing a mild form of this for years: pretty much every time I posted a comment on a newspaper article on the web about DAB, 30 minutes later Piggott would pop up claiming that I didn’t know what I was talking about, that the information on my website was inaccurate and couldn’t be trusted, and that I’d never worked in the radio industry (the last bit is true, but irrelevant). Bless.

Senior said at October 25th, 2009 at 12:09pm

So basically Steve you never leave your home. You go on your computer, listen to the radio over the internet, some of it live, some of it on demand, and while you’re doing that you post the same comments over and over again on BBC blogs about internet radio and DAB, contact people in the industry by phone, and go on some forums I’ve never heard of to make your points again and again. Oh and apparently you trade shares presumably not in companies that make DAB digital radios.

Before I read this blog post today, I had concluded that you were obsessed with internet radio verses DAB, more so than any listener to either I’ve ever met. I based this on you making the same points over and over again. I also thought you were from London or somewhere down south.

I didn’t realise you went as far as to phone the people in the BBC to offer them your views they’ve read over and over again verbally. Nor did I realise that this has been going on for many years.

The BBC has been quite tolerant of you making the same points over and over again. I have seen your comments on a few entries. Now that I know what else you’ve been doing, I am even more surprised by their tolerance of you and they deserve credit for that. It would have been easier to remove and ignore your comments, but they chose to let you engage with other commenters instead.

Steve I haveone question for you. While you were at uni and you were interacting with the other students, did you always make the same points about DAB verses internet radio, Or did you discuss other non-radio matters with them?

PS: don’t assume that I support James and Nick and that I disagree with every one of Steve’s views on DAB verses the internet. Both assumptions are untrue.

Steve Green said at October 25th, 2009 at 1:37pm

Senior,

The reason why I was repeating the same views over and over was because I was “campaigning” to try and get the BBC to use 128 kbps AAC for the live and the on-demand Internet radio streams – Campaigning 101: repeat the same points over and over to drum the points home (and ignore people who complain about being bored of reading the same points over and over!).

The reason for campaigning was because James Cridland had previously said on BBC blogs that he planned to deliver the live streams at lower quality (i.e. lower bit rate levels) than the on-demand streams, and there was no justifiable reason for doing so.

Both the BBC’s live and on-demand streams are now using 128 kbps AAC, which is what I wanted to happen all along.

With regards to your comments about the BBC being “tolerant” of me expressing my views, unless you’re actually suggesting that the BBC should censor my views then I don’t see what your point is.

James Cridland said at October 25th, 2009 at 2:18pm

Steve’s bending the truth about me again.

During my time at the BBC, we examined whether we should look at different bitrates for live and listen-again. I said that “we are looking at live radio differently from on-demand” here, as an example, followed by “it’s entirely possible that, following our tests, we’ll plump for the same bandwidth for both on-demand and live; but we’re keeping our options open” (which Steve neglects to quote often). We decided not to use different bitrates.

The other quotes used by Steve in one of his interminable complaints, refer to the different timescales for enabling Flash-based technology for live radio and on-demand radio – on-demand came first for technical and political reasons, while live radio came later.

Steve loves to bend the truth and repeat old quotes ad nauseam. It’s another form of harrassment, along with his many complaints, or the personal abuse against me at alt.digital.radio. It’s another reason why his unpleasant behaviour needs more publicity.

Steve Green said at October 25th, 2009 at 5:07pm

More dishonesty. The quote you’ve just given was on the blog you published on 27th September 2008. You started off by saying the following in February:

Streaming Radio Online

“So in April, we’re starting to make radical changes to how we stream in the UK, differentiating live and on-demand.”

And you alluded to the difference in quality between the live and the on-demand streams starting in the next but one sentence:

“And later in the year, you’ll see increases in quality for our live streams too.
And a result of the continued success of “listen again”, we’re changing that, too. Since the only place you can get this is on the internet, we’ve prioritised these to ensure that you get much higher quality.”

So just “quality increases” for the live streams, but “much higher quality” for the on-demand streams.

In an email from you dated 16th April, responding to an email from me where I stated that I was opposed to your decision to use lower bit rate levels for the live streams than for the on-demand streams, you said:

“There’s one thing worse than a slightly-too-low bitrate, and that’s buffering – where the quality goes from 100% to 0% instantly (because there’s no sound any more).”

And in an email from you dated 10th September to Mark Friend and John Ousby about a phone conversation we had, and which you Cc’d to me, you said:

“… our policy of examining live and on-demand bitrates separately. I stated … that our policy (that we are treating these bitrates separately) had not changed.”

Those quotes were all made by you before the quote you made on 27th September.

Also before your blog on 27th September, I had written the following articles that were highly critical of your original decision to deliver the live streams at lower quality than the on-demand streams:

BBC might nobble the live streams

BBC should provide high quality via the Internet

BBC would show its extreme bias towards DAB if it nobbles the live Internet streams

Furthermore, in the sentence before the one you quoted from the blog on 27th September, you said this:

“The third thing to mention is that we are looking at live radio differently than on-demand not because of some hidden agenda, but simply because of these reliability issues and recognising that there are a lot of choices of delivery of live radio – FM, DAB, Freesat or Sky, Freeview, cable, etc.”

Earlier in the blog you said:

“Second, the bitrate really does matter – many online radio listeners are using congested corporate networks, and working while they listen”

So, James, if “the bitrate really does matter”, i.e. higher bit rate streams are less reliable, why did you want to use a higher bit rate for the on-demand streams?? That implies that you were happy for the on-demand streams to be unreliable, which is precisely what you claimed that you were trying to avoid.

Also, as you repeatedly claimed that it was reliability issues that were stopping you from using higher bit rates for the live streams, why did you launch the live streams with a buffer size that can only hold 2 seconds of audio? That is a minuscule buffer. If you really wanted to avoid buffering, you would have used a far larger buffer size than just 2 seconds.

Basically, your argument was so full of inconsistencies that it was obvious from the very beginning that you had chosen to nobble the quality of the live streams so that they didn’t outclass the quality provided via DAB.

Another example of your bias against the live streams (I don’t accuse you of being biased against the on-demand streams) was the fact that you delayed improving the quality by an entire year, despite the fact that you could have increased the bit rates of the Real Player streams very easily if you really wanted to improve their quality. The fact that you didn’t do that proves that you didn’t give improving the quality of the live streams in the meantime before the AAC streams launched a moment’s thought. And the reason why you didn’t give it a moment’s thought is because you’re biased.

Spike Nesmith said at October 25th, 2009 at 5:13pm

In the interests of being the middleman here and in order to bring some tranquility to this very intense and contentious dialogue, I think it’s time we found a point we can *all* agree on:

Steve Green seems to have a LOT of time on his hands.

Agreed?

Steve Green said at October 25th, 2009 at 5:26pm

I suggest that you should be submitted to a character assassination by two people, including the main perpetrator telling numerous lies about you, and see how you like it, and see whether you choose to defend yourself or not, you prick.

Spike Nesmith said at October 25th, 2009 at 5:36pm

Charming! There goes my audition for UN peace negotiator, then.

James, is it too late to re-title the blog post? I was thinking something like “more than enough rope”….

Steve Green said at October 25th, 2009 at 5:46pm

That would be ironic title considering that the more Cridland wrote about the Internet radio streams the more inconsistent his arguments became – in the end he was so tied up in knots he didn’t know whether he was coming or going. That’s what happens when you don’t understand the technologies you’re making decisions about. Shame really.

Warren said at October 25th, 2009 at 5:48pm

I think Spike it was a very good audition! Steve you quoted above

Steve said “Campaigning 101: repeat the same points over and over to drum the points home (and ignore people who complain about being bored of reading the same points over and over!).”

Rule 101 is actually don’t cross the road with a chicken!

I’ll advise you to read a bit further through the manual to rule 205 section C which reads you do your cause no favors by sticking to your view point and not taking into account others. even if you don’t believe them.

I’m off to carry out rule 304 Place head against a solid brick wall and hit continuously until digital switchover has finished!

Steve Green said at October 25th, 2009 at 6:39pm

Warren, Cridland would definitely have used lower bit rates for the live streams if I hadn’t kicked up a fuss – it’s there in black and white on BBC blogs that that’s what he intended to do, and I’ve got over 100 emails from him (harrassment, my arse, he was harrassing me last Xmas if anything trying to convince me that he wasn’t biased towards DAB!) where we were discussing the issue, so it’s not like I don’t know what his view was at the time.

And BTW, digital switchover won’t happen till at least 2020, so I suggest you get a few bandages in.

Mark said at October 25th, 2009 at 7:15pm

Steve – Stevo. May I call you that?

Stevo, I have no affinity to James or any of the other names you’ve spewed out so far.

I use MediaUK, and in passing / through word of month heard about this post, and comments.

Dude you need to wake up. This industry you I’m guessing love, this industry you seem to spend your entire life harassing… mate I hate to tell you this, but they hate you.

James Cridland, like it or not is well respected within the industry. Even if you do hate him as much as you seem to, you must admit that he has that respect.

Do you really think harassing him to this point will get you anywhere? You have been made to look a complete fool here, and you continue to dig.

Mr Cridland will no doubt delete this soon, because he, despite being faced with a complete tool, would rather hide your shame I’m sure – as he has in the past with a few others.

Stop digging.

Steve Green said at October 25th, 2009 at 9:34pm

Marky Baby, I love the DAB industry almost as much as they love me. Each person in the DAB industry that I know of (technical or otherwise) is extremely dishonest, and all of the ones who work on the technical side are grossly incompetent. I doubt you’re au fait with the technical side, but believe me, they are seriously, seriously incompetent. So if you think I give a shit about what they think about me you’re seriously deluded. See my website for further details.

Joe Daniels said at October 25th, 2009 at 9:37pm

Steve said:- “you completely snapped, and you started repeating over and over in a seriously weird voice: “You’re a fucking wanker, you’re a fucking wanker Steve. You’re a fucking wanker, you’re a fucking wanker Steve.”
You repeated that over and over again for literally about a minute”

Steve also said:- “Campaigning 101: repeat the same points over and over to drum the points home (and ignore people who complain about being bored of reading the same points over and over!).”

So you’ll appreciate why James repeated that then, surely?

Spike Nesmith said at October 25th, 2009 at 9:39pm

Who fancies doing an experiment?

Take a note of the timestamp on this comment, and we’ll see how long Steve Green can hold off on trying to put in the last word.

Ready? GO!

Comstock said at October 26th, 2009 at 9:27am

(I doubt anyone will remember me but I was on Media UK and Usenet ages and ages ago)

Nothing to say on the DAB debate, but I do think Steve is being accused of racism and homophobia on the most sketchy evidence.

His Jewish joke was very foolish and ill advised, but hardly racist. And I’ve yet to see any evidence at all of homophobia.

These are serious allegations, so be careful when you use them.

Radio Mag Man said at October 26th, 2009 at 9:30am

Absolutely unbelievable. Why waste so much time Steve on this pointless crusade. If you’d spent as much time campaigning about world debt, fuel poverty, or famine you may have actually saved some lives or enriched the lives of some people.
It’s only Radio and it’s only radio listening!!! it’s not climate change or heart surgery. Agree to disagree and get on with your life and do something more useful instead.

And James- through the courts you could take out a restraining order which would stop any communication of whatever form with this deluded individual.

Steve Green said at October 26th, 2009 at 12:45pm

Actually, I think I might take a restraining order out against Cridland after he bombarded me with 128 emails over the period from 20th December last year to 9th March this year:

List of emails from Cridland to me 19th Dec 08 to 9th Mar 09

Nah, I’ll be honest (I’ve been *completely honest* throughout this thread, unlike Cridland who has told numerous lies), and say that it was actually a 2-way email exchange, voluntarily entered into by both of us. I wanted information from him, and he wanted to convince me that he wasn’t biased towards DAB and biased against Internet radio.

Here’s the list of emails I sent to Cridland over the same period:

List of emails from me to Cridland 19th Dec 08 to 9th Mar 09

Since that date I’ve sent him 11 emails:

List of emails from me to Cridland 10th Mar 09 to today

That last list includes 4 emails about an official complaint I made about his handling of the live Internet streams (he was obviously the right person to send those emails to), 2 identical emails about his despicable behaviour this weekend (the first one I accidentally sent to his BBC email address), 1 asking when the live streams were going to launch (they were about 10 months late at the time), 2 to point out that right-clicking on the Flash window of the iPlayer for Radio 5 listed the wrong bit rate (if that’s not justification for a restraining order then I don’t know what is – I’m surprised I haven’t been locked up for stalking him due to that email) and the other one or two were about nothing in particular.

So the fact that he sent me 128 emails over a 2-month period obviously demolishes his fantasy that I somehow harrass him. And the fact that I’ve only sent him about 2 emails since 9th March this year that I didn’t have a good reason for sending also demolishes his fantasy that I “harrass” him.

Basically, Cridland has lied numerous times in this thread, and anyone who has believed what he’s said is I’m afraid extraordinarily gullible – and given what a number of people have said in their posts it suggests that quite a few have believed him, or they’re just winding me up for the sake of it.

Thankfully, such people’s views don’t matter to me one iota. I have got a few copies of Open Office though if they’d like to buy one off me – £10 and it’s yours. Send me £10 and I’ll send you the product key when you give me another fiver. Bargain. Only got 20 copies left though, so you need to be quick.

Mark said at October 26th, 2009 at 12:51pm

Spike – I think we got our answer ;)

Steve… I do actually now fear for your sanity.

On both here, and on digitalspy, the closest you have got to ANY support whatsoever is that a few people think DAB is a bit crap.

You do realise not only do we believe James over you, but we all wish we could have listened in when he called you a wanker for over a minute?

I sense we’re heading for another Tim from The Office moment here…

‘You’re a cock, you’re a cock, you’re a cock”

Oh dear, I seem to have stooped to your level. It is quite fun though.

Steve Green said at October 26th, 2009 at 1:03pm

@Comstock,

“His Jewish joke was very foolish and ill advised, but hardly racist. And I’ve yet to see any evidence at all of homophobia.”

Thank you. And I fully admit that the Jewish joke was in bad taste, but to suggest that I’m a racist because I said that is utterly ridiculous – and obviously libellous, as is the accusation of homophobia.

IMO, Cridland has done himself no favours on this thread. He’s preaching to the converted in the most part, and I couldn’t care less what those people think, but any reasonable person who reads this thread will see a so-called radio “executive” mounting an unprovoked character assassination, which consisted of serious accusations that weren’t true, and they were followed up by him telling numerous lies (I have never sent him anything through the post, I was not responsible for posting the home address of Jenny Abramsky – those were pure lies).

Then again, this isn’t the first time I’ve had my character assassinated by these people, and I doubt it will be the last. But it’s fantastically revealing of the kind of people they are.

Steve Green said at October 26th, 2009 at 1:23pm

Mark,

Have you not twigged yet that I don’t care what people like yourself think about me? Is the fact that I fully expect to come under fire on here from Cridland’s merry band of hangers-on but I post anyway not a kind of hint to that fact?? Not very perceptive, are you Mark? That’ll be why your attempts at humour are about as lame as fuck…

BTW, if you think there’s no opposition to DAB, either because they’re simply opposed to ditching FM or they’re opposed to DAB because they want DAB+ to replace it, then you clearly must only read the Hello magazine website and nothing else. How are Jordan and Peter getting on after their split anyway?

Nick said at October 26th, 2009 at 1:28pm

Took a little longer than expected, but the behaviour is predictable. Now the abuse towards other people starts.

Paul said at October 26th, 2009 at 1:31pm

Steve,

“Have you not twigged yet that I don’t care what people like yourself think about me?”

Have you not twigged yet that being rude, obnoxious, offensive and generally coming across as a complete wanker fails to give those who might otherwise support your “campaigning” any feeling of confidence in you?

Obviously not.

You’re not only rude and obnoxious to those who dare to disagree with you but to everybody – even those who agree with you.

There’s also something rather sad about those who keep long lists of emails etc. going back years.

Get a life, Steve – if you know what one is.

Mark said at October 26th, 2009 at 1:36pm

Nick,

I know it wasn’t the point of your post, but don’t worry about me.

When he learns how to make his attempts at insults actually make sense, maybe I’ll listen.

Anyway Steve – how do you define ‘people like me’? I’m definately not a Cridland ‘hanger-on’ – he’ll vouch for that, so I’m intrigued as to what pigeon hole you’ve put me in.

Perhaps ‘people that don’t agree with Steve Green’?

Oh and based on the bullshit posted both here and on his own site, I’m sure he would be suing James for all the accusations made…. if they were false.

The fact the accusations remain on full view suggests he has done no such thing. Why?

Radio Mag Man said at October 26th, 2009 at 1:40pm

Steve… it’s JUST DAB… I have an internet radio, I have an FM radio, I have Sky, I have a car radio.
Frankly James has done more for the UK media in probably five minutes than you’ve done in a lifetime.

Steve Green said at October 26th, 2009 at 1:57pm

Nick,

I’ve been receiving abuse from people on this thread from start to finish, so don’t try to suggest that I’m abusing others and they haven’t abused me. This Mark character in particular thinks he can continually abuse me, so get off your high horse.

Anyway, why hasn’t that “modified” comment appeared on Grant Goddard’s blog about Sweden yet? Could it be that it’s still defamatory like the first one was that he chose not to publish, but you just couldn’t help yourself assassinating other people’s characters when they disagree with your views on DAB?

Tell you what, why don’t you post it on here and let’s see how long it takes me to tear your argument to shreds?

I mean, what could you possibly criticise about Sweden choosing to adopt DVB-T2 instead of DAB+ for digital radio? DVB-T2 is about 3 – 3.5 times as efficient as DAB+, so it’s 3 – 3.5 times cheaper to transmit, or they can carry 3 – 3.5 times as many stations as they could on DAB+. Sweden is a large country, so it makes perfect sense to use the most efficient, and therefore the cheapest to run, digital radio system available, and it’s very sensible for Sweden to combine digital TV and digital radio transmission using the same transmission standard. Hopefully Germany will soon follow suit, and DVB-T2 will lead to DAB+ being the new DAB. What do you reckon, Nick?

Poor old UK has to suffer with DAB though – which is ten times less efficient than DVB-T2.

Steve Green said at October 26th, 2009 at 2:05pm

Mark,

I’ve wasted too much time on this thread already, so forgive me for not wanting to waste any more time entering into discussion with someone who’s called me a fucking wanker yesterday, insane today and various other forms of abuse in every post he’s sent.

BTW, you’re not funny – you think you are, but you’re not.

Mark said at October 26th, 2009 at 2:07pm

Nope gotta take issue with that – I definitely AM funny.

For the reasons you stated above….

Steve Green said at October 26th, 2009 at 2:09pm

If “you are undoubtedly a fucking wanker” is the best you can do then you seriously need to wake up to the fact that your estimation of your funniness is hugely exaggerated.

Mark said at October 26th, 2009 at 2:12pm

Nope that’s definitely still funny now, and was at the time too.

Can I take out my subscription to Funeral Monthly today?

Captain said at October 26th, 2009 at 2:12pm

Steve you’ve made valid points but it seems to me you should concentrate your energy into either getting a job with/ or starting a company that will promote internet radio etc. Spitting venom does you no favours regardless of what the history is. I’m sure you have some dignity that you want to preserve – at least then people may think about what you say rather than looking at the personal vitriol.

Steve Green said at October 26th, 2009 at 2:17pm

Actually, I’ll give you I did laugh at that one.

Oh, poor delusional James. Funeral magazines through the post, whatever will his delusions tell him next? I might take this subject a tad too seriously, but WTF??

Steve Green said at October 26th, 2009 at 2:22pm

Captain,

Fair points – but you can’t say I haven’t had a huge amount of provocation.

I actually have a “job” (self employed), and I want to stick with it.

Steve Green said at October 26th, 2009 at 2:30pm

@Paul,

“There’s also something rather sad about those who keep long lists of emails etc. going back years.”

All I did was do a search of my Inbox and Sent Items folders this morning for emails from or to Cridland respectively, print-screen, save as GIF and upload the images to my website.

I do not “keep long lists of emails etc. going back years”.

James Cridland said at October 26th, 2009 at 2:42pm

While Steve’s doing a good job digging his own grave, so to speak, it’s worthwhile reiterating that the “128 emails” we exchanged over Christmas last year were, as Steve admits, voluntarily entered to by both of us, under the strict understanding (since broken by Steve) that the contents would remain confidential. I was attempting to mutually share some information and understanding in private; and of course, I certainly don’t see a series of emails, voluntarily entered into, as harrassment. I ended this voluntary discussion once Steve betrayed my trust; and emails sent by Steve to my personal email account are now deleted on receipt by an automated rule. He is being economical with the truth to bring this voluntary discussion into any accusation of harrassment.

However, readers of this post should note the main posting, above, which details many links to Steve’s continued public harrassment of me. It is this continued personal attack that I object to. They go far beyond any discussion of my work.

In terms of the accusations of homophobia and racism, Steve forgets that while he’s been adept at hiding these via his removal of posts from Google’s alt.radio.digital archive, his racist and homophobic rants on Media UK’s original forums exist in my archive – as well as his private messages to other users, which I had to investigate following complaints.

I have no proof that Steve has sent me two unpleasant packages through the post; and because of their nature, it would be impossible to gain any evidence. However, Steve’s attitude towards me is displayed for all to see in this blog posting and elsewhere; and I cannot conceive of anyone else with both the intelligence and hatred required to achieve this.

I don’t intend to continually refute Steve’s increasingly bizarre accusations against me – he has far more time on his hands than I do – but I would note that a Google search for “Steve Green digitalradiotech” achieves the balance that has been sorely lacking from the radio industry’s dealings with this serial harasser.

Steve Green said at October 26th, 2009 at 3:20pm

“In terms of the accusations of homophobia and racism, Steve forgets that while he’s been adept at hiding these via his removal of posts from Google’s alt.radio.digital archive, his racist and homophobic rants on Media UK’s original forums exist in my archive – as well as his private messages to other users, which I had to investigate following complaints.”

So out of the thousands of posts I’ve sent on Usenet over the course of several years, you can’t find any that display racist or homophobic language, yet you just happen to have found some evidence of this on editable files on your hard drive from the few months when I posted on your Media UK forum? How convenient can you get?

Do you think I was born yesterday, Cridland?

Up to now you’ve proven yourself to be a despicable liar, whereas I have been honest throughout. So the next stage is to doctor some files on your hard drive is it, you dishonest piece of shit.

Whilst we’re on the subject of evidence, provide some evidence to back up the following claims you’ve made previously, all of which are libelous:

* You’ve accused me of sending you funeral magazines through the post – where’s your evidence for this? Publish whatever evidence you have for this, or admit that you simply chose to think it was me simply because I was criticising your decision-making at that time.

* You’ve accused me of publishing Jenny Abramsky’s home address on Usenet. Publish whatever evidence you have to back that up or admit that you have no idea who sent that post, just like I have no idea who sent it and nor did any of the posters on alt.radio.digital at the time.

Come on Cridland, provide some evidence for the libelous claims you’ve made.

And here’s another typical Cridland accusation:

“while he’s been adept at hiding these via his removal of posts from Google’s alt.radio.digital archive”

Not a shred of evidence, and that accusation is impossible to disprove, because you can’t prove a negative.

I don’t need to remove posts from Google’s archives, because I have nothing to hide.

Steve Green said at October 26th, 2009 at 3:22pm

Here’s the contents of the email I sent you that you claim was “unpleasant” without even having read it:

“Your comment and your Tweet sum up the kind of person you are, Cridland.

I accuse you of being biased because you are biased, but you don’t like to face up to the truth, whereas you simply fabricate things about me, and those fabrications happen to be two of the most serious accusations it’s possible to make.

I’ve saved both a copy of your blog and a copy of yout Tweet to my hard drive for future reference. “

Mark said at October 26th, 2009 at 3:25pm

Struggling to post comments now?

Mark said at October 26th, 2009 at 3:26pm

Ah ok, seems it didn’t like the website.

Anyway Steve – Can you confirm then, since you have nothing to hide, that James can post here any and all comments you made on Media UK?

Simple Yes or No will suffice.

Steve Green said at October 26th, 2009 at 3:30pm

“would note that a Google search for “Steve Green digitalradiotech” achieves the balance that has been sorely lacking from the radio industry’s dealings with this serial harasser.”

That perfectly sums up the behaviour of you and your industry. You counter my pointed criticisms of your industry, where every point I make is backed up with solid evidence, with a character assassination where you’ve provided numerous accusations and no evidence to back any of your claims up.

You CANNOT counter my arguments. You can’t take criticism. So you respond with dishonesty. How very fucking apt for someone from the DAB industry to do that.

Paul said at October 26th, 2009 at 3:40pm

Re. my previous comment:

“Have you not twigged yet that being rude, obnoxious, offensive and generally coming across as a complete wanker fails to give those who might otherwise support your “campaigning” any feeling of confidence in you?

Obviously not.

You’re not only rude and obnoxious to those who dare to disagree with you but to everybody – even those who agree with you.”

I rest my case.

Steve Green said at October 26th, 2009 at 3:45pm

Mark,

Cridland has lied on this thread from start to finish, so there’s absolutely nothing stopping him from editing any post I’ve made on his Media UK forum.

Cridland’s tactic from start to finish on this thread has been to simply throw mud knowing that mud sticks, and he hasn’t provided a shred of evidence to back any of the claims he’s made so far.

I WAS THE PERSON who freely posted the remarks from Usenet where I had previously been accused of racism and homophobia, and I did that because I have nothing to hide.

Then once someone other than myself finally said that these accusations of racism and homophobia are nonsense, within the hour Cridland manages to find comments by me on files on his hard drive?

What kind of fool do you take me for?

So, no, he does not have my permission to publish any posts by me from his Media UK forum.

Cridland, if you’re reading this, please explain why you didn’t ban me from your forums for these “racist and homophobic” comments I’m supposed to have made on YOUR forum?

You eventually banned me when you had one of your little tantrums because I had said that I understood DAB (the technology side) better than you do (I did then, and I still do – but you banned me anyway).

Come on, Cridland, why didn’t you ban me for these posts you claim contained “racist and homophobic” comments?

You’re JUST A LIAR, Cridland. EVERY CLAIM you’ve made been a lie.

Steve Green said at October 26th, 2009 at 3:51pm

Paul,

“You’re not only rude and obnoxious to those who dare to disagree with you but to everybody – even those who agree with you.””

I can’t remember being rude or obnoxious to anyone who’s agreed with me.

With regards to me being rude and obnoxious to people who don’t agree with me, why are you singling me out for this? I’ve been on the receiving end of a huge amount of abuse from numerous people from the start of this thread to the finish – why are you not criticising people other than me?

Mark said at October 26th, 2009 at 3:53pm

I’ll ask again – must have lost the DAB signal for a second there or something…

A yes or no answer will be fine.

We, you and the entire world can judge whether James has edited the posts or not. Do you give him permission to posts the comments you made in order to back up his claims?

Steve Green said at October 26th, 2009 at 3:57pm

I’ve already answered it:

“So, no, he does not have my permission to publish any posts by me from his Media UK forum.”

And before you claim “oh Steve, what have you got to hide” save your breath – I’m not falling for him editing files on his hard drive. Not a chance.

Mark said at October 26th, 2009 at 4:01pm

Thanks Steve – that’s all I, and I’m sure the majority of others needed you to know who’s the liar here.

You don’t need to fall for anything at al sir – you’ve made it perfectly clear anyway :)

Good luck with your silly site, I guess a lack of friends, sex and life means you have to fill your time on your badly designed outdated mess – funny, isn’t that what you claim DAB is?

Sorry – I may have got a bit personal then. I’ll try racist homophobia next time instead.

James Cridland said at October 26th, 2009 at 4:03pm

Let us not forget that my central claim is one of harrassment; and that simple Google searches of the type in the original post on this page clearly demonstrates that.

I don’t propose to post further here.

Mark said at October 26th, 2009 at 4:05pm

You know what – I’m gonna do the same.

His refusal to allow these posts to be aired just fills in any blanks – if they existed anyway.

I look forward to his ‘last word’ which he is clearly desperate to have.

I look forward to reading, and laughing out very loud at his site for many years to come.

Steve Green said at October 26th, 2009 at 4:14pm

How very predictable. I told you to save your breath, because I’m not falling for Cridland editing files that he just happens to have on his hard drive. EVERY accusation he’s made has been dishonest up to now, so it’s so obvious that he would be dishonest again.

And more abuse from you to finish off. A nice touch, Mark. You know fuck all about me, so don’t try to claim that you do.

BTW, I don’t care about the design of my website – if I did, I’d have taken time to learn how to do it properly.

Try pulling me up over the *content* of my website and see how far your criticisms get you – Cridland and Piggott don’t even understand how DAB works properly, so what chance would you have?

Steve Green said at October 26th, 2009 at 4:36pm

Cridland,

“Let us not forget that my central claim is one of harrassment”

So no evidence of racist comments, no evidence of homophobic comments, no evidence of me sending you funeral magazines, no evidence of me publishing Jenny Abramsky’s home address on Usenet, then?

As I said: YOU’RE JUST A LIAR.

Steve Green said at October 26th, 2009 at 4:44pm

Cridland,

This is an official request for you to remove this page or I intend to take you to court for libel.

I also want a copy of your server logs.

Steve Green said at October 26th, 2009 at 4:53pm

Thanks for wasting so much of my time, you LIAR.

Steve Green said at October 26th, 2009 at 4:54pm

JUST A LIAR.

Spike Nesmith said at October 26th, 2009 at 5:20pm

Speaking as someone with a good bit of law experience, I should point out that if you were planning on suing Mr Cridland for libel, calling him a liar in the same breath probably wouldn’t sit particularly well with a judge, nor help your case much.

last word obsession in 5, 4, 3….

Sean Inglis said at October 26th, 2009 at 5:57pm

Would this be a convenient time to mention that as well as the tactics alluded to here, Steve Green also has a history of digging into peoples private lives in order to use the details to gain advantage?

In particular he’s previously had absolutely no compunction in threatening to expose a posters sexual preferences for precisely this purpose.

He’d also do well to reflect that it would be unwise to assume that just because he *requested* that something be deleted and it no longer appears, it doesn’t mean that it isn’t recorded, ready to be yielded up to someone with the appropriate legal document.

And of course his refusal to allow his posts to be publicly displayed should tell everyone everything they need to know. He could still refute any posts presented as far as accusations of tampering are concerned, but he’s wary of what he *actually* said, not what alterations may be made.

Finally, for the moment, the email screenshot he posts clearly shows, by means of the “reply” icon displayed against the majority of posts, that he was engaged in a dialogue, not being bombarded by email as he suggests.

But this is what counts as “truth” in SteveWorld.

Steve Green said at October 26th, 2009 at 6:54pm

For the benefit of other people, Sean Inglis is My Personal Stalker, and he has an obsessional hatred of me (it must be my way with words). He’s been posting on alt.radio.digital (username seani) for years despite having no interest whatsoever in digital radio, and virtually all of his posts consist of him taking issue with me over whatever it is I’ve apparently done to upset him this week, or he posts about me in reply to other people. He was in my killfile for years but that didn’t deter him.

Sean, you’ve made these accusations about these “sexual preferences” claims few times now, and I don’t know what you’re going on about (and I’ve shown throughout this thread that I’m happy to reveal the truth when I know what the truth is), and I’ve asked you on each occasion to back up your claims with some evidence, but every time I’ve done that you’ve provided precisely nothing.

So (and I’m getting a sense of deja vu here), please provide some evidence to back up your claim. Thanks. And don’t bother to make any further accusations until you provide some evidence to back up this claim, because I’ve had enough of countering other people’e lies about me, and I want to get on with some work that didn’t get done today.

“And of course his refusal to allow his posts to be publicly displayed should tell everyone everything they need to know.”

Cridland HAS LIED FROM START TO FINISH on this thread. So what do you think he was going to do next, Sean? 1, 2, 3, 4 … what’s the next number in the sequence, Sean?

You’re so naive about what Cridland is like, Sean, you really are.

“he’s wary of what he *actually* said, not what alterations may be made.”

No, it is NOT THAT at all. See above.

I don’t need to answer to you on this. Cridland needs to come up with some evidence that I sent him funeral magazines through the post, and that I published Jenny Abramsky’s home address, and until he does that I have nothing to answer for, because he’s just lied throughout.

“Finally, for the moment, the email screenshot he posts clearly shows, by means of the “reply” icon displayed against the majority of posts, that he was engaged in a dialogue, not being bombarded by email as he suggests.”

I take it you stopped reading that post at the word “bombarded”? Here’s the next sentence after the links to the screenshot (feel free scroll up to check I’m not “lying”):

“Nah, I’ll be honest (I’ve been *completely honest* throughout this thread, unlike Cridland who has told numerous lies), and say that it was actually a 2-way email exchange, voluntarily entered into by both of us. I wanted information from him, and he wanted to convince me that he wasn’t biased towards DAB and biased against Internet radio.”

I was being sarcastic, Sean.

Strewth, when will this end?

Can I have some time off for good behaviour to go and get my tea?

Sean Inglis said at October 26th, 2009 at 8:52pm

Another post exercising every perceived sleight.

But back to the question:

Have you ever muckraker someones personal sexual preferences and then attempted to use them for leverage?

It’s a very simple question, Steve, that requires only a yes or no answer.

If the answer is yes, well no comment is necessary.

If the answer is no, well move on with references.

If the answer is “I can’t remember” or “I don’t believe you have any evidence” that’s worse than “yes” isn’t it? It speaks to either the frequency with which you’ve employed the tactic, or honesty in the face of the accusation.

So which is it?

And if you fancy legal action on this matter, bring it on.

Steve Green said at October 26th, 2009 at 9:04pm

Answer: I don’t know what you’re going on about. So we’ll move on to the references, please.

Sean Inglis said at October 26th, 2009 at 9:31pm

We move straight on to the references if the answer is “no”, Steve.

You haven’t answered “no”.

At it’s most generous interpretation, you’ve answered “I can’t remember”.

So let’s have it: yes or no?

Most of us would be pretty certain if we’d done this or not, wouldn’t we?

The Enemy Of My Enemy Is My Friend said at October 26th, 2009 at 10:45pm

For the benefit of other people, Sean Inglis is My Personal Stalker, and he has an obsessional hatred of me…

Brilliant: The Stalker (Steve Green) has a stalker! So not only does the Stalker have to contend with his own monomaniacal behaviour — which must be very disabling — but he than has to cope with the very harassment he doles out to others.

You just couldn’t make it up!

Sean Inglis said at October 27th, 2009 at 8:42am

I’ve contended with that accusation from Steve a few times – it’s a handy comfort blanket for him. Popping along to alt.radio.digital and having even a cursory browse at the stats and content blasts that particular canard out of the sky.

Radio Mag Man said at October 27th, 2009 at 10:25am

STEVE

LISTEN

AND

LEARN

YOU

WON’T

WIN

Steve Green said at October 27th, 2009 at 10:39am

Won’t win what?

Steve Green said at October 27th, 2009 at 10:48am

Sean,

Searching for posts by “seani” in alt.radio.digital on my newsreader, the 47 posts you’ve sent since I removed you from my killfile consist of the following:

Replies to me: 36 (77%)
Posts about me to other people: 4 (9%)
Posts about other things: 7 (15%)

So 85% of your posts are either replies to me or are posts about me. Not obsessed with me at all then.

You also have no interest in digital radio whatsoever – I honestly cannot remember ever seeing a post by you that was discussing any of the things that are usually discussed on that NG – the only non-Steve-related posts you send are giving advice about Wi-Fi radios, and you only send them because you’re overcompensating after I’ve accused you of stalking me and never replying to anyone else.

Answer me this: if you’re not obsessed with me, WHY do you post on there, and why are 85% (I’d say it’s usually higher than that as well) of your posts on there about me?

And you come out with some of the most absurd claims about me (they almost rival Cridland’s delusion that I sent him funeral magazines through the post), such as that I used a graph in an article about DAB “dishonestly”, even though the title of the graph was there in big bold print and the title of the graph accurately depicted what the graph was showing. But oh no, Steve “definitely” used the graph “dishonestly”, apparently. I still can’t figure that one out.

Sean Inglis said at October 27th, 2009 at 11:40am

Yes or no Steve?

It’s a straightforward question.

Briantist said at October 27th, 2009 at 11:53am

Steve Green,

I also worked around the industry and I have been on the receiving end of attacks from people such as yourself, and I have watched your work over the years.

The biggest issue I have is that by using harassment, you close down the debate. It reminds me of those “logoFreeTV” people who would leap into any forum for many years to demand the removal of DOGs.

Personally I try, as I think James does, to keep my “opinions” from my “analysis”. I’ll happily throw in a search-happy headline such as “Why has the BBC given away 75% of a Multiplex to the commercial sector?” but the analysis has to explain all sides.

Perhaps you think your x-ist comments were misrepresented like this…?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_QAvkFS_cgk

Steve Green said at October 27th, 2009 at 1:21pm

Briantist,

“I have been on the receiving end of attacks from people such as yourself”

The only time I can remember coming into contact with you was on this very blog, on an article about mobile Internet, and you tried to lecture me about mobile phone networks, and I corrected a number of points you’d made in one of your posts. I’ve certainly never come into contact with you when you were “in the industry”.

“by using harrassment, you close down the debate”

Sorry, but that couldn’t be more wrong. I would love for there to be a debate, but it has never been me that’s stopping that from happening. The radio industry has simply taken the stance that they will do whatever they want to do, and they will ignore anybody who doesn’t like what they’re doing.

The most contentious issue all along has been the fact that they decided to use 128 kbps MP2 for virtually all stereo stations on DAB (98% of stereo stations use 128 or 112 kbps), and they have never taken a blind bit of notice of people’s objections to the low audio quality that that bit rate delivers – quite the opposite, in fact, because after re-launch in 2002 their radio advertising campaigns claimed that DAB delivers “superb digital quality sound”, and GCap kept on using that as a strap line for a few years.

And whenever a BBC Radio exec appears on Feedback to answer questions, when the audio quality issue is brought up they provide a highly misleading answer (and that’s being kind) then quote some of their own market research survey results on this issue. In the 7 years or so since DAB was relaunched, BBC Radio execs have been asked numerous times on Feedback whether the audio quality on DAB is worse than on FM. A simple question you’d have though, but not once have they ever answered the question – apart from Simon Nelson, who claimed at the end of his interview that “And the message we have to get across is that for the vast majority of people the audio quality they’re getting via DAB is vastly superior to what they receive via analogue.” That’s a lie of Cridland proportions.

And where was the “debate” about FM switch-off? If the radio industry wants to enter into debate, why did they choose to recommend to government that FM should be switched off without the BBC first consulting with the public about this?

The DAB industry doesn’t do debates. They do what they want to do and they don’t care about what listeners want. That’s basically my biggest issue with them – along with their extreme dishonesty.

Oh, and re your insinuation that my comments are similar to Nick Griffin’s, that just about sums up the mentality of the comments on here so far. How utterly idiotic can you get? Get a grip.

Radio Mag Man said at October 27th, 2009 at 2:05pm

Steve,
Has anyone ever asked you to take a test for ’special people’?

Briantist said at October 27th, 2009 at 3:04pm

I see what people are getting at here.

Briantist said at October 27th, 2009 at 3:06pm

“Oh, and re your insinuation that my comments are similar to Nick Griffin’s, that just about sums up the mentality of the comments on here so far. How utterly idiotic can you get? Get a grip.”

LOL. I was actually suggesting that you were being misrepresented by selective editing of your comments.

All I seem to have done is provide proof of your ongoing paranoia.

Briantist said at October 27th, 2009 at 3:08pm

“Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt” – Abraham Lincoln

Steve Green said at October 27th, 2009 at 3:16pm

Briantist,

Apologies for jumping to the conclusion that you were having a dig at me – when you’ve received as much abuse and read as many lies made about you as I have on this thread, I don’t think it’s unreasonable to start to assume that everyone’s having a go at me.

Briantist said at October 27th, 2009 at 4:51pm

Steve Green,

I think all I am trying to say is that you have lots of quite arguable points, but once you get to the stage that people like James Cridland denouncing you then you can probably say that the strategy isn’t working.

James Cridland was the first person I ever created a web link to (from the BT Broadcast Services site I created back in 1994) and I have met him a few times and he really is “one of the good guys”.

The only time we have come “to blows” was when I got over-exited about DRM on BBC Backstage, something which quite rightly gave me pause-for-thought.

I know that it’s hard to consider what it is like “on the inside” of places like the BBC, but in truth it’s full of quite normal people who try their best to keep as many people happy as possible.

In truth, you will never influence people with overdoing it. The best you can really hope for is to make your point of view known to those who are charged with making the decision and hope they are persuaded.

Taking a single or extreme position in an argument is often necessary for debate, but it is perhaps too absolutist as a long-term strategy.

Steve Green said at October 27th, 2009 at 7:07pm

“he really is “one of the good guys””

Anyone who sets out, without being provoked, to assassinate my character by accusing me of being a racist and a homophobe without any evidence, lying that I sent him funeral magazines through the post, and lying that I published Jenny Abramsky’s home address on the Internet, is not “one of the good guys” in my book, so we’ll have to agree to disagree on that.

“in truth [the BBC is] full of quite normal people who try their best to keep as many people happy as possible”

I’m sure they do try to do that when it comes to things like content (I have no problems with them about content), but when it comes to long-term strategic decisions their main priority is always what’s best for the BBC, and they couldn’t care less if such decisions are totally against the best interests of the public.

The decision to exclude Internet radio from the plans towards digital radio switchover is a perfect example of that, because that decision was taken for purely protectionist reasons, and the public loses out as a result.

“The best you can really hope for is to make your point of view known to those who are charged with making the decision and hope they are persuaded.”

But it’s been 7 – 8 years since DAB was re-launched, and they’ve had the same attitude towards DAB and towards the audio quality all along, so IMO trying to persuade them has become futile – if indeed it would ever have been possible, which I don’t think it was, because they couldn’t care less about audio quality.

So I think my only option is to continue as I have been doing, which is to campaign to switch from DAB to DAB+ and Internet radio, and to attack them about anything they do that is against the interests of the public (I’ve got my work cut out with that one).

And if I make shitloads of enemies in the DAB industry and amongst their friends along the way, so be it. And to be honest, when they do their little character assassinations on me like in this thread, IMO that simply shows that I’ve hit a few raw nerves and it’s time I started prodding a bit harder.

Briantist said at October 27th, 2009 at 7:34pm

I’m not going to argue with you on the matters of technical that you raise. Your points are quite valid.

But I’m going to take issue with the “but when it comes to long-term strategic decisions their … against the best interests of the public” bit.

These guy’s are people too. Some of them are rather brilliant, and I have no doubt some of them are lesser beings being by default.

They are, however, still people. You don’t stop being one just because you get promoted or put in charge of strategy.

IMHO by dehumanising people in this way, you fail to hit the target you so desperately want to hit. They have to balance many points of views and competing interests and make a decision.

It is in the nature of these kind of decisions that they have to be long-standing, and in life and business often just better to take a decision and stick with it, than not.

Senior decision makers are trained to filter out why try underhand methods of persuasion, and can be quite firm about excluding people who have the appearance of an aggressive stance.

Briantist said at October 27th, 2009 at 7:50pm

Sorry… finger problems…

It is in the nature of these kind of decisions that they have to be long-standing, and in life and business it is often just better to take a decision and stick with it, than not.

Senior decision makers are trained to filter out why seem to be underhand methods of persuasion, and can be quite firm about excluding people who have the appearance of an aggressive stance.

Steve Green said at October 27th, 2009 at 9:10pm

“IMHO by dehumanising people in this way, you fail to hit the target you so desperately want to hit.”

But as I said in my last post, they’re not going to be persuaded now – last year the BBC chose to recommend to the government that FM should be replaced by DAB ASAP, and the government obviously supported them.

That decision is wrong in so many ways: it’s protectionist, it’s biased, it ignored that the public’s happy with FM, it’s grossly technically incompetent, it failed to plan for the future despite the ultra-long-term consequences of the decision, they didn’t consult with the public prior to making the decision, etc etc. So I don’t see how you can object to me attacking them over it.

Also, you say that they’re still human, but almost by definition they’ll be hard-nosed fuckers to get to where they are at the top of the BBC, so they don’t need to be handled with kid gloves. So I have no qualms at all in attacking people like that, especially given the decision they took.

Briantist said at October 27th, 2009 at 11:43pm

“Also, you say that they’re still human, but almost by definition they’ll be hard-nosed fuckers to get to where they are at the top of the BBC, so they don’t need to be handled with kid gloves. ”

Firstly, I have to say that I have worked, attended conferences, award ceremonies and partied with these people in the past. People get promoted in the BBC and other companies because they are decisive and have leadership qualities.

But, on the other hand, they are as human as anyone else. You don’t develop a “shield of steel”. At the top you get a PA who gets to read all your incoming emails for you, but generally speaking these people operate as with the same emotions as everyone else.

“So I have no qualms at all in attacking people like that, especially given the decision they took.”

In many way the decision maker is the arbitrator. With the decisions you disagree with, they may no personal gain.

To attack is the wrong strategy. Only persuasion will work.

For example (and only as an example) a report that said digital radio take-up was being hampered by the poor bitrates. A quantified loss of GDP, perhaps. That would be persuasive.

But re-iterating your personal belief and attacking the person employed to take a decision is unlikely to work.

Phill Clark said at October 28th, 2009 at 12:58pm

Oh dear….

Can’t we all just agree to disagree? My Nan always said “if you’ve nothing nice to say don’t say anything at all!” That and “I love DAB!”

And yes, before I get harrassed, that was an attempt at humour to try and lighten the mood here…. How about an arm wreslte at a pub over a few beers, winner takes all?

Steve Green said at October 28th, 2009 at 2:52pm

I’d be up for a winner takes all arm wrestle.

If I win, DAB should be switched off/over to DAB+, and the BBC must stick to its remit of promoting the digital platforms impartially, and Cridland must attend a PLA (pathological liars anonymous) meeting, and a video of him saying “My name is James, and I am a pathological liar” must be uploaded to YouTube. And I’ll have Big Mac Meal with a chocolate thickshake.

If I lose, which obviously wouldn’t happen, I’m not allowed to use the letters d, a and b in consecutive order until digital switchover has completed, and I have to listen to DAB for 10 minutes (any more would be dangerous to myself and others).

Radio Mag Man said at October 28th, 2009 at 3:11pm

How easy is it to get someone like Steve sectioned under the Mental Health Act 2008?

The parts that apply to Steve are below.
Does anyone know any of his relatives or his GP?

Criteria for detention
The so-called “treatability test” regarding long-term powers of detention is replaced by a new “appropriate treatment” test. This means that patients cannot be detained unless professionals can guarantee the availability of medical treatment, which includes psychological intervention, which is appropriate to each case.

Professional roles
The approved social worker role is being replaced by the approved mental health practitioner role, which could potentially be filled by anyone with experience in supporting people with mental health problems, such as nurses, occupational therapists and psychologists. In addition, responsible medical officers no longer have to be medical practitioners. This role is being replaced by the responsible clinician role, which could be filled by social workers or any of the other professions listed above. However, medical recommendations for detentions under sections 2 and 3 of the 1983 MHA will still have to be made by two ‘registered medical practitioners’.

Nearest relatives
Patients have the right to apply for the removal of their nominated nearest relative if they feel that person is unsuitable. Civil partners are added to the list of eligible relatives, affording them the same status as husband and wife. (Under the 1983 MHA, nearest relatives and approved social workers can apply for compulsory admission to hospital for a patient who is not involved in criminal proceedings.)

Steve Green said at October 28th, 2009 at 3:37pm

Briantist,

Re attack vs persuade, I personally think I do both anyway, because I use persuasive arguments when it comes to technology, and I attack over things like bias, lying and generally doing things that are against the interests of the public.

I also say that I “attack”, but if you read articles on my website, I would say that translates to “very critical” – I don’t rant and rave in articles on my website (the DAB industry and their hangers on claim I do, but that’s just their typically dishonest spin).

Phill Clark said at October 28th, 2009 at 6:01pm

Any Police Officer can detain somebody under Section 136 of the Mental Health Act, however he’d then need to be assessed by a Doctor who would have the final say….

Worth a go if the arm wrestle plan fails?

derivadow said at November 1st, 2009 at 10:23pm

eek! http://bit.ly/4I0R4 a case study into feeding trolls

This comment was originally posted on Twitter

Radio Mag Man said at November 2nd, 2009 at 10:03am

Does anyone on here know any police officers or doctors?

Anyone?

Foreigner said at November 4th, 2009 at 10:15am

Thank you James for saying out loud what everybody thinks of this bloke.
He’s insulted so many people and gained such a negative reputation internationally that he would have better changing name.

topofhour said at November 6th, 2009 at 11:05am

Just seen Steve Green’s latest loony DAB rants at @jamescridland http://is.gd/4OJkQ I thought I didn’t like DAB, but Green is a screwball!

This comment was originally posted on Twitter

Øyvind said at December 14th, 2009 at 10:22am

Thank you, James, for telling the truth about Steve Green.

In norway, the DAB antagonist lobby group IKT Norway, use Steve Green as an “expert witness” about DAB radio. It’s simply hilarious reading seing the official documents written by Steve Green :) Of course, DAB listenings is increasing because IKT Norway realised what kind of person they relied on. Which is even funnier – Steve Green actually promoted DAB radio in Norway:)