Back in September last year, I wrote a piece about how Virgin companies didn’t care much for their own brands. I cited the example of Virgin Trains promoting BBC radio and not Virgin Radio. A few weeks ago I met someone from Virgin Media, and he noted that Virgin Radio, my previous employer, had rather unhelpfully accepted sponsorship from Sky for their breakfast show just when Virgin Media was launching.

Well, all that’s moot now, as a deal with the Times Group of India and Absolute Radio International has resulted in the station being finally sold - without the Virgin name.

I understand that the decision not to keep the station branded as Virgin wasn’t a just decision of Virgin Enterprises Ltd, the company that owns the Virgin name; rather, a decision of the new buyers too. And I happen to think it was the right one.

Bauer Consumer’s rock brand Kerrang! has a magazine, a radio station, and a television station. Virgin Radio had access to the Virgin brand for radio broadcasting in the UK only; so couldn’t launch a television station - a natural step for a company which was owned by a television operator. SMG also owned a set of magazines in 2001; however, Virgin Radio couldn’t launch a music magazine either. Corporate synergies, stymied.

London station LBC 97.3 runs a dating service which, not unreasonably, they call LBC dating. Dating services represent additional revenue for stations - sometimes quite significant revenue. Virgin Radio couldn’t run a dating service under its own name (quite apart from “Virgin Dating” having some trades description problems!): instead, “81215 dating” was the rather clunky brand extension, using the text shortcode that was part of the signup process.

The “world’s first 3G radio player” was launched by Virgin Radio during my time. Did this clash with Virgin Mobile’s rights? (Someone thought so, at the time). Does Virgin Radio’s WAP site clash with Virgin Mobile’s rights, too? Did Virgin Radio’s appearance on Freeview clash with Virgin Media’s rights? When Virgin Radio earned money from premium-rate telephone calls or texts, was that a clash with Virgin Mobile too?

Perhaps the most obvious faliure of the Virgin brand to play together was Virgin Radio - the album. Someone, somewhere, allowed the album to be released, but wouldn’t let “Virgin Radio, the album” have a Virgin Radio logo on the front. The closest the station could manage was the star, and typed words, but no “Virgin” script. Hardly the branding benefit that the Virgin name needed.

There’s no doubt that the restrictions placed on the Virgin name gave Virgin Radio significant business disadvantages over other radio brands. Any non-traditional revenue had to get over the “will Virgin Enterprises allow it” issue; which manifested itself too often as an internal, self-censoring, restriction.

And, as I noted a while back, Virgin are not really known as a music entertainment brand any more. Their most public brands are all services - cable television, trains (a sexy brand extension), aeroplanes; Virgin’s record company, now wholly-owned by EMI, appears almost dormant, and their megastores have closed in the UK and the USA (in the UK, replaced by the preposterous sounding ‘Zavvi’). It’s a brand with real issues - spaceships excepted.

So - are Absolute and the Times Group of India right to junk the name? Absolutely. Given the problems the Virgin franchise has for anyone who wants to run a modern business in the internet age, a new brand is the courageous, and right, thing to do. Building a new brand will take time and money - it’s notable that the group have put aside £15m for this endeavour (and one shouldn’t forget the spaces on Freeview and Sky where they can achieve this).

And are Absolute and the Times Group the right owners? You betcha. I’ve spent some time with both Times Group people (a tour of one of their Radio Mirchi stations in India was instructive and really interesting); and the people I’ve met from Absolute have radio in their heart. They’re not a media company run by accountants. Absolute lack a London base and any large stations - owning two stations (both quite innovative) in their base in Oxford. I would see all my friends at Golden Square being very happy under their new owners; and Golden Square deservedly becoming the head office of the group.

And, god knows what a disaster it would have been for those at Golden Square - and for radio’s pluralism of voices in general - had UTV taken over the station.

Disclosure: Over the past few years, I’ve met with Times Group employees both here in the UK and in Mumbai, India. I’ve also met with a few of the the Absolute Radio International team. Both sets of people have bought me a few beers. My full disclosure is relevant and was updated 23 May.

It’s 4.45am. Do I wake this man up? He’s a slightly dishevelled taxi driver, asleep in the car in the road outside my house. I think I ought to. Bang bang on the glass. Driver smartly wakes up, pulls up his chair, and looks at me expectantly. “You for the BBC?” Aha, success. I ask for the radio to be put on - anything’ll do, I say. I instantly regret it when the radio display says 102.2 and I get Smooth Radio’s “we’re only doing it because Ofcom tell us to” overnight service which contains nothing but shit smooth soporific jazz. Eurgh.

I’m off to Amsterdam today, to speak about music at the AES, the yearly audio equipment show. Normally full of complicated discussions about microphones and audio compression techniques, they have one session around services like last.fm which allow you to discover music that you might like, and I’m talking about a few things the BBC is doing.

“Where you going?” snaps the security guard in the distinctly dowdy Heathrow Terminal 1. Why, I’m going to claim my free bowl of cornflakes and try my luck on the coffee machine in the BMI lounge, that’s where. I’m reluctantly let through. I find the cornflakes. I press the button for a coffee, and it churns, and stops, and I reach for the cup, and it starts again, and covers me with boiling water, so I wait for it to stop again, reach for the cup, and it has a final spit of boiling water, covering me yet again. I have a feeling I’m on Candid Camera.

Strike jackpot on the plane. Get a row to myself. Result.

Squish on the train from Amsterdam Schipol airport to the RAI station. The train empties all of the smart people at Amsterdam Zuid, a kind of Canary Wharf type place of sparkling new just-built buildings. Then the slightly dull looking people with pens in their shirt pockets all get off at the RAI, including me. Mmm. Audio Equipment. The only other time I’ve been here is for the IBC - this is altogether a quieter affair, and much of the RAI is covered by building hoardings; they’re doing it up - and building a new subway line here by the looks of things. That won’t be done by IBC later this year, so it’ll be a mess.

Microphones. Lots of them. Mixing desks. Microphones. A large selection of books. And some microphones. The lanyard has a peculiar central bit in it which, after looking around, appears to be for your mobile phone, so you can dangle that from your neck as well as your name badge. I ask politely for a pencil from the Yamaha stand, so I can write my speaker’s notes - having long given up on the “busk it with the slides” lark. The amount of freebies is very low indeed; though Yamaha tried to press me into a writing pad as well. No, but thank you.

In the session. Quite interesting bunch of people - dense but interesting presentations from people doing technical work to automatically spot features within music - like a soft male voice or a piano - and even to automatically choose genre, based on auto-analysis alone. A good demo. Then Liz from last.fm comes perilously close to explaining how their service recommends songs, which was quite open and cool. I felt my bit (talking a little about the relationship between /music and /programmes, and highlighting our last.fm integration and a hackday thing we did a while back called moose6) went well, and I got at least one laugh. There is good interest from the audience, though of course a room full of audio engineers start moaning about audio quality online. Someone else on the panel says that 256k WMA sounded quite good.

Into town via the newish subway, lugging heavy laptop, to find a space to sit and churn through emails aka ‘the BBC senior-manager chinese water torture mechanism’. My recent “send a message back to anyone who’s cc’d me saying I won’t read that email” rule appears to be working amazingly well. Resolve to check the cc folder tomorrow.

Amsterdam Centraal is bright and sunny, and quite hot, though windy. Amsterdam never ceases to amaze me - it’s a beautiful city, particularly in the sunshine, but also grubby and unpleasant in equal measure. I walk for miles trying to find somewhere nice for a spot of lunch, and everywhere is either, seemingly, a “coffee shop” full of spacemen smoking happy tobacco, or a really nasty cheap “slice of pizza from a shelf” type place. End up in a little bar which is cigarette-smoky inside - which I now find really unusual, now that the ban in the UK is so established. I order a cheese sandwich which is massive, and dutch fries which aren’t on the menu as a separate dish, which when they come are enough to feed 50, enough salt for 75. Order beer - Bavaria pilsner, on draught, but so fizzed up that the actual amount I ended up with was so under-measure it would have given CAMRA a heart attack. Grizzled man with bushy ginger hair under cap, skin as if it gets a daily sandpaper, weathered clothes, props up the bar, slowly sucking on his ciggy, staring into middle distance, drinking very slowly.

After half an hour, grizzle-man disappears. Where’s he gone? Oh, over there. I think he fancied a different view.

Email done, I continue walking - discovering delightful squares and enjoyment - walking through the flower market, which kicks up the hayfever a little. Indeed, I keep walking through the sunshine, and end up walking all the four miles from central Amsterdam back to Amsterdam Zuid station (close to the RAI). My initial suspicions were right - it’s like Canary Wharf or the BBC’s White City complex: a characterless, brand-new area, all concrete and glass and health and safety notices, with the equivalent of a Davy’s Wine Bar full of ID-badge toting, suit-wearing corporates at the end of their working day, having a beer with their team-members and PAs before terminating their working timescales for the early evening thirst/hunger solution portfolio.

To Schipol, where there’s a little pub at one end which is actually quite nice - proper dutch pub, all wood, and a rotund landlord with white moustache, permanent smile and rosy cheeks. A pint of Amstel later, and a trip to “Food Village” for a sarnie, and I’m back in the air - and then back in a taxi - and then home, where the cat, pissed off that I’ve not been in, yowls at me to let him out while I try desperately to get some sleep.

One of the first things that happened to me when I joined the BBC was an invitation from the Sony Radio Academy Awards to be on their organising committee. I was tremendously privileged, and really rather over-awed, to be part of the team that organises the awards: full, as it is, of radio’s biggest names. I felt rather humbled that the awards, the UK radio industry’s biggest and most critically-acclaimed, takes its job so seriously; really hard thought brings the awards to you every year, and judges and committee members alike are incredibly concerned with ensuring the awards are run fairly and with the radio industry’s best thoughts at heart.

Of course, I came with an agenda. As someone who’s worked within radio’s new media arena since the early 1990s, I was acutely aware that the Sony Radio Academy Awards were seen, by our community at least, as irrelevant. The “Interactive Programme Award” was a new award in 2007 which looked promising - but appeared, on closer inspection, to be more about phoneins and audience interaction, and less about the brave new world of new platforms and new media. (This year, that award was renamed the “Listener Participation Award”.)

And so, this year, a brand new award was accepted by the committee: the Multiplatform Radio Award. It exists to: recognise excellence in the creation of multiplatform support for radio - services that are designed to enrich and extend a radio programme, event, or station. Entries are invited from publishers and producers of radio station websites, services delivered to mobile (via text, mms, wap or web), DAB digital radio data services including DLS ’scrolling text’, or services on other platforms. Judges will be seeking to reward entries which make effective use of their chosen medium and enhance the listener’s experience. This may extend to supporting a programme or event during transmission, or pre/post broadcast. Services should be directly related to radio station output.

On Monday night, I was at the Grosvenor House Hotel, to watch the Awards being announced. I was already delighted with the amount of entries for the Multiplatform Radio Awards, and also - given I had nothing to do with the judging - delighted at a good cross-section of entries; from bronze award-winner Planet Rock, to BBC local radio, two BBC national radio services for which I’m responsible (one of which attained silver), but I was especially proud of the winner.

You see - it’s one thing doing a fantastic job capturing the excitement and additional content opportunities at the BBC Radio 1 Big Weekend. I’m proud of the team who did such a great job last year, and this year, putting it together. It supports a radio station event particularly well. With the advances this year (check it out before Saturday, due to some rights restrictions, for the full thing), I have no doubt that it’s capable of winning Gold in next year’s awards.

But this year’s winner, the BBC World Service’s Bangladesh Boat Project, was really something else; because this was a piece of radio conceived, first and foremost, as a full multiplatform experience - with, it seems to me, just as much thought on how it would work on new platforms as it would on the radio.

As Ben Sutherland says on the BBC Editors blog: If predictions about sea level rises come true, much of Bangladesh will simply be erased from the map. Our aim, therefore, was to hire a boat and use it to travel the long, wide rivers of the country to meet the people most at risk. There were amazing stories [...] but not only was the method of getting these stories remarkable, but so was our way of getting it out. We weren’t just using tri-media, and we weren’t just World Service. We were on Radio 5 Live, News 24, Radio Scotland - and on Twitter, iTunes, Google.

In the words of the judges, “it embraced everything from podcasts to GPS and Googlemaps to add value to the listener/user experience and met those listeners where they really lived using third party sites such as Flickr.” They even had the foresight to put those photos under a CC licence, to enable people like me to use them again. W00t, as apparently it’s trendy to say.

While I’d rather have had one of my team walk away with a deserved Gold, I am rather in awe of what the BBC World Service team achieved. It is true multiplatform radio; not just additional content but a great showcase of the theory that by not just embracing new platforms but producing specifically for them, you’ll contribute to the sound of the station as a whole.

Here’s to many more years of the award. And a win for my team next year would be nice.

Photo from the BBC World Service; used under licence. Disclosure: I’m a regular listener to the BBC World Service, and I have many friends there. My full disclosure is also relevant to this post.

I’m privileged to have been elected as a Trustee of The Radio Academy.

Thank you for your support. I’m looking forward to playing my part.

I’ve met Gillian Reynolds a few times. She’s the radio critic at The Daily Telegraph. She’s excellent at writing that she loves everything on her radio and is very rarely critical: exactly the sort of critic that radio needs, to my mind. She’s also wonderful in real life: a kind of self-deprecating grandmotherly figure, blissfully in love with the medium she writes about.

Writing today in the Daily Telegraph, she mentions three recent broadcasts that she’s enjoyed. Othello on Radio 3, the near sellout production with Ewan McGregor as Iago (”those idiots who wonder what Radio 3 is for had their answer”); Radio 4’s The Archive Hour (”imagine not having this kind of radio, where programmes start thought processes, make connections”); and another programme on Radio 4, British Jews and the Dream of Zion (”a fine example of how radio welcomes you into the conversation, widens the bounds of what you believed before, makes room for new thoughts, and still affords place for considered opinion”).

Her most interesting point, talking around Othello but valid for virtually anything on the radio:

There is no necessary distinction between quality and popularity. What mass audiences like is not necessarily rubbish. By the same token, some things only small audiences like are worth their place in any schedule because a) a small radio audience is still something like 100,000 listeners, while b) it is insulting to assume Shakespeare is only for posh people, and c) things that start with small audiences can be the place for new ideas and talents to grow.

It’s a clearly valedictory piece for the well-funded public service broadcaster; but in the age of ultra-relevance on the internet (hello, Google Ads), I wonder how we can encourage advertisers that mass audiences are not everything.

After all, if the advertisers don’t want this kind of radio, commercial radio is mostly stuck to playing ten great songs in a row; and commercial radio speech output would, in Gillian Reynolds’s words, be limited to “incendiary phone-ins, or bland promotions of this week’s celebrities”. Arise, LBC, talkSPORT, et al.

If “more-music” radio is better as a one-to-one service from services like last.fm and Pandora (which, when they get their algorithms right, surely will be), to safeguard radio’s future in our lives we need to invest in better and more engaging speech output; but we also need to invest in the commercial climate to make speech radio thrive.

Wonder how we do that?

Photo: Tom Watson. Used under licence

Sean Ross posts in Infinite Dial, a radio website well worth visiting, about a new radio station, being broadcast on FM and also on erockster.com:

Here’s erockster.com as heard on KAJR at 7:40 local time this morning, mostly unhosted but with various artist drops:
Yeah Yeah Yeahs, “Maps”
Beach Boys, “California Girls”
Tegan & Sara, “Burn Your Life”
Michael Jackson, “Billie Jean”
Bright Eyes, “Old Soul Song”
…
If, three years ago, you were one of those people who liked to point out that Bob- and Jack-FM were not your iPod on shuffle, this may well be.

If we continue to think of radio stations as purely music (”unhosted but with artist drops”), we’re going to hell in a handcart. Because last.fm, Pandora, et al, does a much better job of playing me new music that I’ve otherwise not heard of but I like than the likes of the nonstop music channels like Core, The Arrow, Virgin Groove, Century Digital, etc.

I’m not a typical listener: nor a typical music fan. Listen to my music choice (that’s my music collection in one big playlist), while looking at my most-played tracks of the last 3 months, and you’ll see that my most played track in that three months is The Divine Comedy’s “Absent Friends”, which I’ve played just four times. A typical commercial radio station will play their top tracks eight times a day - once every three hours. Assuming I listen to music for a total of two hours a day (in commutes and desk-bound working), commercial radio would have had me listen to that track 60 times in three months.

Indeed, over the last week, my 210 different artists, and a total of 323 tracks means that, in just 18 hours, I’ve listened to more tracks than many commercial radio stations play per week. I’m singling out commercial radio here, by the way, not because of a misplaced loyalty to my employer, but that commercial radio’s music choice is, by and large, far more tightly musically formatted - and that, for whatever reason, only commercial radio runs nonstop music services.

Clear Channel’s new radio station, or The Arrow, or Virgin Xtreme, or any number of other “music jukebox” channels, just play a mix of music which is suboptimal, for me, to that available from a computer program or a website - or, even, from a tightly tuned iTunes.

Surely the future of radio isn’t just non-stop music jukebox channels? Can’t one-to-one technology do that job better? Or is the job of a programme director really just the job of a music scheduler these days?

(And does the above shine any light on the widening gap between commercial radio services and those from the BBC? Is the Radio 1 breakfast show, or Terry Wogan, or Chris Evans, or Scott Mills ‘all about the music’?)

Photo: flickr user niznoz. Used under licence.

[updated with final notes]

A good conference today at the bottom of CentrePoint - the CBI Conference Centre. Here are my notes of the day. They might be a bit random, and may contain views that are not those of my employer.

Jenny Abramsky from the BBC talked about DAB, ensuring that people are clear of the pro-DAB position of the BBC. Then really stressed that the only thing people really want on radio… is content. Ignore the techie stuff. Get the content right. Hurray for her. And finally had a good long dig at “her good friend” Peter Bazalgette for suggesting that Radio 1 and Radio 2 should be privatised.

Fru Hazlitt: GCap are larger than last.fm (in terms of uniques) and shortly to overtake Yahoo. 2.1 million users online compared to 15 million listeners onair. And monetised far higher in terms of CPT. Audience online growing 71% year on year, and money doing that too. She believes that internet isn’t necessarily the right thing for listening to radio, but it’s certainly a way to extend the brand. Talks about her recent acquisition of welovelocal.com as a way of getting much closer to the audience; and that radio should have tons of local content. “If you’re a kid, what are you going to want? iPod touch? Or a DAB receiver?” Good point. Also claims that GCap are iTunes’s second biggest affiliate partner in Europe. And she said bollocks. Twice. Yay.

Philippe Generali (CEO, RCS Worldwide) does an overview of radio revenue. US revenue: everything down except non-spot revenue, and all is down. UK too, and France (-5.8%). So, what to do?
Starts talking about websites. Apparently content should be relevant. And fresh. And apparently you can slap ads on it. Fuck me. I’d never have thought of that. Websites, eh?
Talks about Skyrock, the third most-visited website in France (because it has created its own, French-language, social networking site, in a world where French-language is ignored by people like Facebook and Bebo). Says we should all have a social network as a result. My jury’s out.
Starts doing a sales pitch for Nokia Visual Radio (which it is now the software provider for). Does so with really, really, faked screenshots. Been there, done that, got the postcard: I wonder if it’s really popular for anyone? (Virgin Radio switched it off the minute I left, quite rightly).
Starts doing a sales pitch for iSelector, which I’ve never quite understood as a concept, given that it is a competitor for your on-air station without the bits that makes the station unique, but what do I know. Gives Nick Piggott a mention for MiXFM and My Classic FM who use this in the UK.
Does a big sales pitch for Media Monitors, an RCS company. Quite nice - it uses Arbitron PPM data to show people tuning in and out of a station, minute by minute. Plays dreadful clip of a public radio station which singlehandedly loses the station over 70% of all their audience. I’ve blogged about the use of PPMs before, but good to see it on the screen. Philippe earns a small reprieve in my otherwise most scornful scorn for showing us this.
Shows a graph showing that Abba’s Dancing Queen is the most hated song on the radio. Much amusement, given that Fru had just announced that her favourite song was, indeed, Abba’s Dancing Queen. I suspect RCS has just lost a contract!

Coffee

After the coffee break, the room is significantly less full. It’s quite cold here in the presentation hall. And the free wifi that was here last time when I was here (at a ‘widgets’ conference), there was copious free wifi, so clearly they’ve switched it off deliberately for us. Nice. Well done, CBI Conference Centre. (Later I discover it needs a key, and it’s so weak it doesn’t work in the auditorium).

Peter Davies from Ofcom did a presentation which didn’t say too much that was new. Talked about Smooth FM in London not being allowed to get rid of their jazz programming. Squirmed delightfully when Paul Robinson pointed out that they’ve shunted their jazz to overnights, so what does it matter?

Rights and radio in the digital age, the first panel session, has Andrew Harrison from the RadioCentre, Martin Stiksel from last.fm, Fran Nevrkla from PPL, and Cliff Fluet from Lewis Silkin.

Martin points out that licensing is v difficult, since he needs to get licenses in 240 countries. Paul points out they haven’t yet, so surely they’re infringing copyright? Martin points out that it’s not quite as easy as that, since they can’t even get some licenses.

Andrew says that commercial radio wants to act responsibly instead. He says that the deal with music rights-holders needs to be “reborn” - to take account of all platforms and on-demand content. Good call.

Fran loves broadcasters, and thinks that “ISPs” are being very bad, not allowing PPL to earn money from them, while still being sold for very high figures. (He has confused last.fm with an ISP - he’s just called them an ISP again.) 90% of the 47,000 performers he represents, he says, exist on less than £18,000 a year from music. Apparently we’re supposed to feel bad for them. He then moves into a polemic about “we should not give music away for free”, which I agree with. He gives a sideswipe to last.fm, saying that PPL should get money from the start, not just when your business gets sold for £300m. He wants to get to know each other better. Aw. However, he’s just said that there’s not goodwill in this industry. (Not sure what industry he’s talking about).

Cliff says that the record industry has to move away from sales to money on a per-play basis, or a licensing basis. Fran nods head. Cliff wants radio to add a ‘buy this song’ link everywhere.

Digital Radio - on the money? was quite a good session:

Matt Wells, The Guardian: he’s been in the sun, he’s bright red, with panda eyes from his sunglasses That’ll peel later this week. He says he doesn’t believe the second DAB mux will be launched. Points out that commercial radio appears to push for FM being killed in order for DAB to succeed. Interesting viewpoint. Thinks that DAB only really offers “5live in better quality” which “isn’t very impressive”. Claims 4digital will require 1200 new transmitters (ah, Guardian accuracy, it’s actually around 170). Says they’ll not earn money out of it, and/or Channel4 is only there to earn money out of it. Points out that PlanetRock and OneWord were not loved by their owners (and I suspect he’s right), but claims PlanetRock will survive. Claim that The Guardian are getting 1.5m podcast downloads a month.

Nathalie Schwarz, 4 Digital Group: talks about tv going digital and how it’s working. Wants a similarly clear roadmap for radio. However, says the second mux will launch. However, doesn’t rule out launching on Digital One. Oooh. Talks about what would be their first station, E4 Radio. (E4 produced a 65% uplift in Freeview boxes, apparently). Brilliantly shuts Matt up by asking whether MediaGuardian is in profit yet - or, indeed, The Guardian itself. (It’s not). Talks about commercial radio bulking and discounting AMers, let alone DAB stations.

Paul Brown, DRDB: is fed up of the radio industry ’staring up our own fundements’. I do like Paul. Points out listener figures, and set sales, are high. Says commercial radio isn’t very good at selling ads on digital radio, interestingly. Very bullish about radio in the future. Says that radio has been hampered by ‘indecisiveness’ because of being owned by shareholders. Says that commercial radio doesn’t crosspromote enough. Mentions that PlanetRock had more Sony Radio Academy Award nominations than any other national station (not entirely sure that’s right, but it did get quite a few).

Mark Friend, BBC: talks about hybrid sets: DAB+IP. Wants to think more carefully about the content and the interface to make it more relevant. He’s a bright, clever, handsome, intelligent man. And my boss, by the way. Cough. Says future required cooperation around technology and marketing.

Ventura Barba, Yahoo Music: wooooah, great radio name! Starts talking about the internet. Probably a little confused about what everyone else has been talking about. Starts talking about copyright and illegal sites. Hey, wrong panel, you’re 45 minutes too late. Can’t help but think he’s been badly booked, he’s had nothing else to really contribute. At the end he mentions that Yahoo earns money. Good for you.

A break for lunch - yum, salmon pasta, then breakout sessions. I went to the one about technology.

Nick Piggott (GCap) talked about the NanoDAB - a magic Bluetooth DAB receiver which talks to your mobile phone. Then showed quite an insipring video of what it might be capable of, full of an iPhone-like device which adds a whole heap of information to radio listening. It’s a brilliant video, so I hope he posts it somewhere. His summary: create “new radio”, get it on the right platforms and devices, and only DAB can economically reach the mass market. Later, Nick talked about tagging: being a way of timeshifting interactivity. He says (and I’m working on this too) that it’s a simple but crucial part of enabling a richer radio; and says it’s far more than buying music. He says that personalisable radio will hopefully result in better revenues for commercial radio.

David Muniz (Gaydar) explained his brand’s evolution - a radio station launched off the back of a website in Feb 2002 on Sky, then May 2003 on DAB in London, and 2004 on DAB in the South Coast (read Brighton, I think). Says that he’d love to be national on DAB, but it’s impossible because of bandwidth costs. Has a lot of slides, rather more than he was seemingly expecting. In terms of how people tune into the station - 60% via internet, 30% DAB, and 10% Sky.

Colin Crawford (Pure) shows an interesting “first connected DAB radio” which isn’t publicly announced yet. This is probably it then. It’s a nice black device, looking not unlike a Pure One, with software buttons on a big screen, and also runs on Linux. LINUX! Wow, that’s quite cool. He says this will enable quick upgrades for new features. He’s running a dedicated portal for this (ah, so he runs our listeners, then). Next, he shows a full-screen, full-colour touchscreen display, coming to market in 2009. Really nice looking. Slideshow support, by the looks of things. Has internet radio on it, as well as DAB. And it does media streaming from your own PC server or your “NAS box”, whatever the hell one of those is. Full colour album covers, etc. This is really nice. Wow, I’m quite flabbergasted about this; I never thought Pure was so forward-looking.

John Ousby (BBC) shows some visualisation we’re working on for IPTV. It’s very good. I won’t spoil it. Also says that 3G coverage is pretty awful and is very difficult to stream reliably with - or, for that matter, DAB Digital Radio coverage, or wifi coverage.

Analysis

Claire Enders came on with some great and interesting figures, culled from a ton of different sources, but first was very excited that she’s just gained British citizenship. Aw. Bless.

She poured some scorn on some of the figures we’ve heard so far; notably some of Fru’s claims about how music is sold as a result of listening to it on the radio (apparently she’s quoting US figures not UK ones).

iPod ownership in the UK is the second largest in the world per capita. That’s interesting.

She predicts a fairly subdued neartime commercial future for radio. Explains her figures don’t include any allowance for hypercyclicality. I had hypercyclicality once, but I got some pills for it and it cleared up within a few days.

Shows percentage share of UK advertising by medium - substantial jump for the internet, but goodness, national newspapers, and business magazines, are in shit: huge great falls. Recently, in the last three years, huge falls in direct mail and regional newspapers too (and similar, though less pronounced, in the radio).

Almost £1billion has been spent on commercial radio acquisitions in the last year, did you know that? Gosh, that’s a lot.

The last session
Well, I’m suffering a little from conference fatigue; as you might guess from the above writeup. The last session is around commercial opportunities which (for now, at least) I can ignore. So, this is my last update. It’s been a mix of positive and sobering discussion, this conference. Quite well done, with lots of arguments, which is nice. It’s almost like a “Radio at the Edge” conference which is rather more biz friendly.