Ridiculously, I was announced yesterday, in a recording of a podcast, as “one of the BBC’s uber-bloggers”. I would doubt that seriously; I rarely say anything of any vague importance, and quite often get things wrong. And, these are my own thoughts, rather than the BBC’s - as the BBC allows us to do.

Of course, I overhear quite a lot of things at work, but never blog about them. Someone told me something today and then horrifiedly said “Don’t blog about it, will you?”. Don’t panic. I won’t. Ever. Promise.

However, when I overhear things in a public place then I’ll behave like any other member of the public, and blog furiously (assuming, of course, that I won’t ruin anyone’s plans by doing so).

Today, for example, I was queueing in the Post Office in the BBC’s White City complex (a Post Office open to the public, as all the stores are there) and had to overhear someone with a BBC ID badge talking far too loudly into his mobile phone. And here was the conversation:

Yeah.
Yeah.
No, mate.
Well, it’s, like “Ace Ventura meets Back To The Future”
No, mate.
No, he wanted something with more jokes.
You know, something easier to understand.
No, mate.
Yeah, mate.

I know nothing about television, but I thought that “x meets y” didn’t really happen in real life; it was just a device to illuminate the ridiculous world of television commissioning.

Never for a million years did I think it happens in real life.

Photo: Kate Bolin. Used under licence

An email comes through (to my work address, but I never answer these kinds of things on behalf of my employer, that would be dangerous)…

I am working on a report on the economic implications of Web 2.0 – the collaborative internet – and one of the questions I am asking is: is it a threat or an aid to traditional media? How might we see traditional media adapt to stay competitive in this new world? Would you have a window over the next couple of days to comment on this question in terms of the music industry?

I’ve no particular comment in terms of the music industry. There’s a common misconception that the music radio industry is, in some way, part of the music industry. It’s not. Indeed, there’s a common misconception outside the media that record companies pay radio stations to play certain acts. That’s not the case either; in fact, radio stations pay to play music (between 8 and 10% of their income, usually). Yes, “pluggers” are employed by record companies to ensure that their product gets played; but radio stations are pretty adept at choosing songs themselves.

But anyway.

“Is it a threat, or an aid, to traditional media?”

That depends on what you mean by Web2.0. I used Wikipedia, which has a long definition, partly including this:

The most “Web 2.0″-orientated (applications), which could only exist on the Internet, deriving their effectiveness from the inter-human connections and from the network effects that Web 2.0 makes possible, and growing in effectiveness in proportion as people make more use of them. O’Reilly gave as examples eBay, Craigslist, Wikipedia, del.icio.us, Skype, dodgeball and AdSense.

So, in short, if we think of Web2.0 as being “effectiveness from inter-human connections”, then we need to work out if it’s “a threat or an aid to traditional media”, which begs the question: what is traditional media?

“Traditional media”, in the broadcast sense, might mean a linear broadcast stream. Turn on the radio, and you hear whatever’s on the radio right now: no way to pause it, rewind it, control it in any way other than the “off” switch. And the same’s true of television. Except it isn’t.

Television, we’re told, is becoming less and less reliant on the schedule. Viewers with Sky+, the most popular digital video recorder in the UK, frequently claim that “they never watch live TV any more” - their hard-drive recording specific programmes, allowing the viewer to instantly access these programmes. This ‘disaggregation’ is made possible by the electronic programme guide. The programme title - the main way viewers navigate through the schedules - has never been more important.

Radio, too, is seeing ‘disaggregation’. DAB Digital Radio now also contains an electronic programme guide for many radio stations: it’s not as advanced or as consistent as its TV cousin (and the user interface for EPGs on DAB sets is normally pretty poor) but it holds the key to reinventing part of the medium. Broadcasters, like multiplex-owner “MuxCo”,plan to use the EPG to broadcast innovative new programming using overnight capacity. But radio has also benefitted from the internet. The BBC’s listen-again service is continually growing (in terms of unique users) month after month; and the BBC’s listen-again service is particularly efficient at growing niche programming, with some listening figures for programmes comparable to those off-air. Podcasts, too, add considerable numbers to broadcaster listening figures: and some programmes (In Our Time, Peter Day’s World of Business, The Geoff Show) are disproportionately popular online - once more, niche programming reaching a wider audience. It’s not just the BBC doing this; commercial broadcasters are there too (and, in some cases, in front of the lumbering, sometimes-inflexible beast that the BBC is).

And, while still pretty new, catch-up services (the BBC iPlayer, 4oD, itv.com) are redefining how people watch the television, too. All signs point towards these services being as popular as the BBC Radio Player, in time.

“How might we see traditional media adapt to stay competitive in this new world?”

All the above is ‘traditional media’: dramatically adapted to stay competitive, and relevant, in this new world. Total radio listening has remained steady, despite commercial radio’s suicidal tendencies in the past few years. The addition of more choice in the form of DAB Digital Radio appears to add to total radio listening, which is excellent news.

The report-writers, and the journalists, love an “Internet kills the media” story: unfavourably comparing “total spent on the internet” with “total spent on radio” or “total spent on tv”, as if a 90-word Google AdWords ad is, somehow, equivalent to a glossy thirty-second TV ad.

The reality is that the ‘traditional’ media is continually adapting its products to fit the Web2.0 world. Virgin Radio even went so far as to launch its own social networking site (before the big Facebook craze); the BBC’s Radio Player launched in 2001-ish, far before the excitement of YouTube.

And have we succeeded? Mass media like radio and television has daily access to audiences that even the largest websites would dream about. MySpace, the home of tons of music and youth-orientated websites, is used for 25 minutes a week; yet BBC Radio 1 itself is listened-to, on average, over 10 hours a week - youth commercial station Galaxy reaching over 7 hours a week. And that’s in spite of the tremendous growth of media outlets (see the photo above). If Web2.0 is all about “inter-human connections”, then we do a pretty good job.

Yes, we’ve work to do. It’s why I enjoy working in multiplatform support for radio, keeping radio relevant to today’s audiences. And no, we’re not complacent - partly the reason why we continue to reinvent our brand (by adding visuals to radio on DAB or on phones, for example).

But, I’d humbly suggest, “traditional media” is, in the UK at least, doing a good job of keeping up with the Web2.0s. Things are different in the US and other countries - and much of it has to do with the absence of a strong, forward-looking, public service broadcaster. Even the most rabid anti-BBC person (as I once was) would agree that the presence of the BBC raises the standard of all broadcasting in this country. Mark Ramsey’s hectoring from the sidelines in the US reflects a particular issue there; but not here.

I once joked in a conference: “We’re already up to ‘Web 3.11 for Workgroups’”. And I believe it, to a degree. We’re in pretty good shape. Don’t talk us down.

Photo: giovanni gallucci | new media consultant. Used under licence

–

A version of this blog entry now appears on the BBC website.

Photo by “Dusk Rude Boy” at Flickr

RAJAR, the organisation that produces the UK’s radio audience figures, did something pretty good this time round: asked people on which platform they listened. We’ve learnt a whole lot about how people listen to the radio as a result.

I discover this evening that Virgin Radio’s figure for digital listening is a new high - “my” last figures, and, as outgoing Digital Media Director (with a partial mandate to get more listeners to more platforms), I feel pleased about that. Can’t quote the figures, because RAJAR rules tell me not to, though I suspect Virgin will probably go public with those figures soon enough. (You’re allowed to mention your own figures - but not other broadcasters; and since this is not an official blog from my employer, I can’t quote any figures). Someone at Virgin quoted them to me, by the way - I have less access to the full figures than you’d think.

What’s also interesting is the breakdown, per platform, of radio stations. Thanks to someone else, I can quote that the most popular radio station in London on the internet is “Any other station”, the RAJAR catch-all that incorporates all non-RAJAR stations: everything from last.fm to Pandora to any number of other internet stations. You should know that ‘listen-again’ stuff isn’t included, so the large amount of listening via the BBC’s Radio Player doesn’t appear on RAJAR; but even so, that’s an interesting figure, pointing to a potential threat by internet radio to the established radio broadcasters. However, internet radio accounts 1.9% of all radio listening in the UK. It’s not that much of a threat - DAB and DTV beats the internet hands-down. As I’ve said; internet radio listening is not as large as you might think.

Probably more concerning is that 21% of people had no bloody idea how they were listening, and this figure, for some stations, increases to over 60%. There’s one station which is DAB-only that gets a 30% “dunno what platform” score; another similar station, which mentions “DAB Digital Radio” every link, gets a similarly concerningly high figure. This is a worry, since the margin of error is unacceptably high for these stations; but a pleasant confirmation of the truth that nobody cares about technology, all they care about is content, which I think I’ve banged on about here often enough.

Finally, from the ‘all platforms’ survey (which we -can- quote from, and which you’ll find on www.mediauk.com in the radio directory), I learn that not only have Virgin Radio’s figures increased, but that Virgin’s digital-only stations have all posted record figures. Given my involvement in the stations over this survey period, I’m delighted about this; I believe that my old team worked hard at ensuring that we promoted these stations hard and to the benefit of the main brand, and I’m delighted that we delivered on that promise. To see the full rosy picture, visit any Virgin station at www.mediauk.com/radio/starting-with/v and hit the audience figures link. Well done, chaps.

–Later–

You should read Matt Deegan’s post on this subject too, for more interesting information.

Above should be an excellent vintage discovery from Google Video - Saturday Live, a music-and-comedy programme that I remember from Channel 4 in the mid 1980s - this programme (all 90 minutes of it) being hosted by Peter Cook, no less.

Particularly enjoyable because how poor the programme was technically - I remember it being hugely cool at the time - and the bizarre comedy. Only Peter Cook would do a piece based on Harold Macmillan (a prime minister that I doubt anyone in the target audience would remember). The ‘right-on’ Ben Elton is awful, diabolically awful, irredeemably awful, and the audience clapped anything that was against ‘Thatch’ without even thinking what was being said. Bizarre. But some of this is really quite funny. Still. Excellent.

The one thing that stands out for me is that the entire show was live - and 90 minutes?! Grief. That’s longer than anything you’d see these days; the comedy sketches are almost unacceptably long for today’s television, too - compare with Rory Bremner’s programme, for example. Part of that was presumably a desperate plan to fill the space; part of that might have been the different audience expectation.

Also interesting - 90 minutes, live, and the programme still ended, exactly, to time. No mean feat.

And sadly, only 13 people had watched this video before me. I hope, by sharing it, it gets it an extra audience, all over again.

(PS: Interestingly - this appears to be a video recorded in the control room at LWT, which shot the programme; there’s no network idents and the commercial breaks are very strange indeed.)

When we bought a flat-screen television last year, I wasn’t quite prepared for the hassle it would be to get rid of the big widescreen Sony CRT television we had (which I still maintain gives a better picture, but enough of that for now).

I called local hospitals. Nobody wanted it.

I talked to local charity shops. They can’t take electrical items (by law, apparently).

I put it onto eBay, as “to pickup only”. It got no bids.

Today, I took it to “Auctioning 4 u”, a shop that eBays stuff for you and takes 33% of the final price. They wouldn’t take it.

My only option was to take it to the tip. But it worked. So I didn’t want to do that.

In desperation, I posted a note to my Facebook page. I got three calls within the hour offering to take it off my hands. So, gratifyingly, at least someone wanted it.

I’m quite pleased it has a good home, and that I’ve not had to chuck a perfectly good television on the tip: but amazed at how much trouble it was to get rid of it.

CC licenced from Thomas van de Weerd - that’s Joost in the background

I can’t quite work out whether I can blog about Joost - the free software that gives you lots of on-demand TV straight to your PC or Intel Mac.

Assuming we all can now, then I’m really enjoying the content on Joost now - there’s a ton more content. For example - Boothby Graffoe, in an episode of Just of Laughs is just excellent, and there’s three Muse videos on there, so I’m quite happy. And the quality is just fine; and when it works, it works fantastically. It’s so good I’m seriously thinking about upgrading the MacMini under the telly to be an Intel one, just so we can have Joost on the television too. It’s way better than YouTube.

The ads are now quite interesting: I’ve seen ads for Vauxhall cars, as well as for Virgin Money. They’re all short - sometimes only three or four seconds. They work really well, though are rather irritatingly repeated.

To get Joost, you need an invite. The good news is that I (like virtually every other user) has unlimited invites. If you want one, just contact me or comment on this blog. It’s really good. And it’s free.

This ties in to what I did today - I went to a secret location where we played with all of the TV platforms, just so I could understand how these things worked - particularly for radio. I saw Sky, Telewest/Virgin, TopUpTV, Tiscali, BT Vision, and a few others which are probably a little more secret. What was interesting is Tiscali’s service, which has a beautiful set-top box, a really nice remote, and some quite innovative features, albeit a sad lack of interactivity for television. Virgin TV, in the guise here of a Telewest box, was poor and slow - and I can’t for the life of me work out who watches a poor selection of music videos on Virgin TV for 40p each.

What I found most interesting was the poor attention paid to radio on these platforms. I can watch ‘Lost’ at any time I want on Sky Anytime TV; I can watch similar programmes on Virgin, Tiscali, or BT Vision. However, I can’t access any radio content apart from live stuff. Why can’t I enjoy The Archers at any time of the day or night? Why is the Hit40 not available to listen-to again, when I can enjoy the best of the TV channels? Why is it virtually impossible to record radio? Why is the EPG detail for Virgin Radio written so badly? Depressing, particularly given the figures for radio on these platforms.

So, the biggest French political news this year: France has a new president.

A quick flick through at 10.15pm tonight…

Sky News had live coverage of Sarkozy’s speech.
Euronews had live coverage of Sarkozy’s speech.
CNN had live coverage of Sarkozy’s speech.
Al Jazeera had live coverage of Sarkozy’s speech.
BBC Parliament was taking TF1 with live coverage of Sarkozy’s speech (while BBC News 24 simulcasts BBC One’s national news)

…and France 24, the international news service from France, had a pre-recorded sports report, a promo telling us it concentrates on news from France, followed by… a package from New Delhi in India.

And the prize for most non-existent live coverage of the French election goes, surprisingly, to its own news channel.

Well, and Fox News. But then, you’d expect that.