“Pull the string tight,” he says, “and hold the tin can up to your ear”.

I’m at TechCon, the technical prelude to the Radio Festival, and I’m watching Simon Mason from the transmission company Arqiva. He’s plucked someone from the audience, and he’s demonstrating the differences between two new forms of mobile broadband transmission technology – one called WiMAX, and one called LTE – using tin cans and string.

TechCon used to be aimed at people who, when I started in commercial radio twenty years ago, were called “Engineering”. If you worked in Engineering in those days, you wore a white lab coat and spent most of your days in a dark room with a soldering iron and some isopropyl alcohol. But these days, TechCon is inhabited by rather different people: the audience this year at the Nottingham Playhouse also included policy makers, regulators and website types, reflecting the growing importance of technology in radio.

The BBC was well represented. Andrew Mason discussed why TV commercials can sound louder than the programmes – it turns out that you can measure and control the perception of ‘loudness’. Geoff Woolf showed off the two new types of radio car in use in BBC English Regions, one called VERV and one that narrowly escaped being called the SatChav, which enables full multimedia reporting from anywhere in the country. I explored the great new sound of the BBC Radio iPlayer, and was delighted when the audience failed to notice the difference between studio output and the high quality sound you get from the iPlayer these days. Also from Future Media, Richard Cooper gave us a fascinating talk about how difficult internet broadcasting is to plan for. He shared examples of the snowfalls earlier this year and the tremendous peak after Michael Jackson’s recent death, and his point was that you should automate as much as possible: if you rely on manual processes, you’ll be too late.

We also heard from a variety of others. We had a demonstration of surround sound via DAB Digital Radio in the back of a rather nice Audi – a car which also contained a bright colour screen showing images from radio stations. We learnt what it means now that some parts of the radio spectrum are being auctioned off to the highest bidder. Finally, there was a rather alarming demonstration of the most dangerous thing in any radio studio: the headphones. Any radio presenter would be wise to turn the volume down.

The variety of subjects gave a clear reminder that the technical aspect of radio has come a long way in twenty years: and that it’s more a part of radio’s future than ever before.

“Keep pulling the string,” says Simon. He now has two tin cans and two pieces of string. I think he’s showing the benefit of asynchronous communication: but the only thing I know is that whichever mobile broadband technology we go with in the UK, my iPhone will look depressingly slow. Such is progress.

I wrote this article for Ariel, the BBC’s in-house newspaper. This version hasn’t had the benefit of decent subbing.

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Post tags: bbc, radio, radio festival, techcon
These are my personal views and not those of the BBC | Full disclosure

A while back, I said that this radio ad on tv was possibly the best of its genre.

The marketing director for Capital Radio at the time, Carl Lyons, has posted more details of how the ad got to be made: and a rather good out-take. Read his blog post here.

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Post tags: advertising, capital radio, marketing, radio
These are my personal views and not those of the BBC | Full disclosure

The radio department

Save Our Sounds [Paul Easton]
A rather good writeup of a rather splendid project by Kate Arkless Gray of the BBC. You should follow @bbc_sos on Twitter if you've not done so already. And contribute some sounds!

RadioDNS – Developments Update
A nice update in developments around RadioDNS, the technology that links broadcast to IP. Worthwhile looking at, if you've not already – there's some really good news to come.

Radio Scilly [guardian.co.uk]
A rather lovely writeup of my favourite local radio station, Radio Scilly. In, naturally, the TV Blog in The Guardian – which clearly stretches to television for grownups as well (i.e. the radio).

How Many People Does It Take…? [Paul Easton]
Following a throwaway comment in this blog, Paul goes off to investigate staffing levels for BBC Radio 4. I must admit, I've no idea what 55 people do running the Today Programme either.

Digital Britain has arrived (or is at least en-route) [Nick Piggott]
Nick's take on the Digital Britain report – essential reading for anyone involved in DAB Digital Radio or the future of radio

Absolute Get it Wight [James Stodd – Radio Producer]
A rather good review of Absolute Radio's interactive accompaniment to the Isle of Wight Festival. I'm rather proud of my old team. They do a good job with virtually no resources, and could teach the BBC a thing or several.

Thrilling Radio – [Nik Goodman Media Consulting]
Nik discusses his work with his stations after the death of Michael Jackson. Proof that a good consultant never sleeps: well worth a read.

The “listen to me” department

Lakeshore FM
I was interviewed for this NPR station in North Indiana about future media for radio – and it’s an interview with a difference. Take a listen.

RadioTalent podcasts
Paul Easton noticed that there's a podcast of an interview with me at the radiotalent.co.uk website. Many are for sale – apparently, I come free (which is nice). Pop along and download it if you like, it might be good, though I do remember wittering along rather a lot.

Digital Britain [PC Live Radio Show]
As if you haven't already had enough links to my 12 year-old squeaky voice, here's another: this one with Dusty Rhodes, and broadcast on RTE Choice. Hear me summarise the Digital Britain report with the help of rather a lot of Google News.

The usability department

Pressing red turns the power off? Err… not most of the time… [Bods's Blog - Planet Bods]
A very worthwhile read, showing the difference between remote control "visual languages". If the consumer electronics industry can't even agree on the right colour for a power button, why are we trusting them with the future of our medium?

The ‘who would have believed it’ department

ASCAP Wants To Be Paid When Your Phone Rings [Electronic Frontier Foundation]
ASCAP, the American equivalent of a bit of "PRS for Music", are going after the mobile phone companies wanting money for public performance of ringtones. ZOMG. ROFL. OMFG.

The other interesting departments

Announcing the AdSense for Mobile Applications beta [Official Google Blog]
A quick way to monetise those iPhone apps. So, if you're not already on the iPhone, now's the way to make it earn you some cash.

Top 10 Productivity Basics Explained [Lifehacker]
Lifehacker makes productivity seem to easy. Oh, so easy. Why do I find all this stuff so hard? They make it so easy. Gah.

A break from the norm [My Thoughts Today]
A review of the recent Club of Amsterdam event I hosted, by Eleanor McHugh. I don't think she liked me very much, calling me supercilious (but then, at least I can spell it). I was only following my orders.

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Post tags: radio
These are my personal views and not those of the BBC | Full disclosure

Doing some tidying up this evening, and discovered my introduction to the recent Club of Amsterdam event. Worthwhile not just deleting it, but posting it here.

Radio is an interesting and, until recently, quite unique thing.

In 1954, a company called Regency Electronics made something called the Regency TR-1. It was the first transistor radio. And for the first time, we could get the latest music, news, and opinion, wherever we were – on the move, at home, in the office, on the beach. The first truly connected device. A device that changed our relationship with music forever.

The accelleration of change is getting faster – and now our connected devices talk back – they learn from us – they tell people where we are and what we’re doing, and we’re ever more comfortable with sharing more and more data, from wherever we are, to whoever wants to use it.

What the humble transistor radio did in the 1950s is now a world away from where we are today. Permanent connectivity is continually pushing new boundaries – new boundaries in technology; and new boundaries in social behaviour. And our preferred future depends on it.

I’m thrilled to be able to connect with all of our speakers and our audience this evening, and I very much look forward to an interesting night. Thank you.

Photo montage: John Ousby. The older radios are the Regency TR-1. Used under licence – thank you, John

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Post tags: amsterdam, future, radio
These are my personal views and not those of the BBC | Full disclosure

I was lucky enough to be able to chair a rather splendid evening recently at the RSA: The Future of Connectivity from the Club of Amsterdam. I heard three rather excellent speakers, and made rather hasty notes so that I could kick off questions.

It’s probably worthwhile you knowing the format for this: three speeches (15 minutes long), followed by 30-minutes of drinks and chat, followed by 30 minutes of Q&A. A rather nice format, I felt, which made for a good evening of discussion.

Dr Ir Egbert-Jan Sol was first – who went through a rather good presentation extrapolating Moore’s Law to encompass many other elements. The size of computers will shrink amazingly in the next ten years or so, if innovation keeps up; and the same goes for the cost of bandwidth. He argued that bandwidth would practically be free in ten years time, and that in fifteen years time, we’ll be down to computers the size of your pen lid. In 2020, he says, the amount of connections to the internet will be equivalent to 250 embedded wireless devices per human being. Wow, that’s some future.

His practical outcome of this was the truly ‘auto’mobile – a car capable of driving completely automatically, keeping a safe but close distance from the car in front, by 2040.

Professor Peter Cochrane was next up – the former BT Chief Technologist, he argued that we do things the wrong way round. Nature makes simple things which combine to do complex tasks; on the contrary, we make complex things to do simple tasks.

He pointed to there being over 4 billion mobile phones worldwide, with over 50% of those being internet-ready; and mentioned his Linked-In account, which shows that there are already 7,982,000 people just three degrees away from him.

He said that, in 2006, the internet had the same number of nodes as a human brain; by 2012, it would have a thousand times the number of nodes; and by 2018, a million times the number of nodes. He says that laptops aren’t smart: they have no sensors, and no concept of adaptability; but that as we build more sensors into things, our machines will be capable of being much smarter. He points to the iPhone, with its camera, its compass, its accellerometer. He says that humans can’t get more intelligent, while computers can. They can access more data, and extract knowledge from it easier. He points to a future which is more run by computers than before.

Finally, Hardy F. Schloer started shakily (”I haven’t received a fax for… nearly four months!!” he announced to a slightly bemused audience, wondering what a fax machine was), but rallied quickly to point to computers’ use being a changing one.

He says people used computers for two things: “getting information” (getting emails, temperatures, stock information, etc), and “posting information” (writing documents, sending emails, managing robots and power plants, etc). The computer is in the middle of us humans, he argues – and that the human’s role in all of this is going to disappear.

Very soon, he says, there’ll be no financial industry left. Computers can learn how to run the stock markets just as well as humans can: you won’t need humans to do this work any more, he argues. He points to chess: the interest in chess as an international sport completely died after computers started beating Grand Masters. And he points to many things – running busy ports, motor racing, banking, etc – being capable of being done almost solely by computers.

And, as was twittered by @kuxi, he said “those who are able to change will survive”.

It would seem, in the discussion afterwards, that entertainment is one of the only things that can’t be done by computers. You might want to tell that to the overnight radio presenter who’s job was replaced by a playout system, but I see what he means.

A fascinating evening, and one that – as always – opens up new thoughts and horizons.

Photo: Dawn Danby. Used under licence – thanks. Full disclosure: I didn’t get paid to chair this event, though I did get a nice piece of luggage from the sponsors, a pen from the organiser, and a dinner which was mostly soup and risotto).

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Post tags: amsterdam, connectivity, radio, rsa
These are my personal views and not those of the BBC | Full disclosure

An interesting article in Radio World International about RadioDNS. (I say interesting, since I wrote very little of it – Nick’s very good at writing stuff cogently, whereas the old radio copywriter in me can only cope with 30-second bursts).

Interesting, particularly, when you include this paragraph from the Digital Britain report:

Functionality and interactivity must become central to the DAB experience. EPGs, slideshows, downloading music, as well as pause and rewinding live radio must be developed and brought to market on a large scale. Broadcasters and manufacturers must seek to develop and implement digitally delivered in-car content, such as traffic and travel information.

I’d argue it shouldn’t become central to the “DAB” experience; but central to the “radio” experience, whatever platform you use to get the audio. I don’t care what platform you use – I just care that you listen. So it’s good that RadioDNS enables this kind of functionality on internet radio, DAB, HD Radio, FM, or Digital Radio Mondiale.

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Post tags: radio, radiodns
These are my personal views and not those of the BBC | Full disclosure

For the last few days, I’ve been talking about whether your presenters should read out their own personal Twitter accounts on the air (they shouldn’t), and whether they should read out any website address other than your own (they shouldn’t).

Today, it’s time to tackle email addresses.

It’s easy to say “Mail me – studio@smalltownfm.com”, isn’t it? Better still to say “Mail me – james@smalltownfm.com”, since that reminds people who I am. So, what’s wrong with that?

When your users reach for their computer (or email-enabled mobile device), almost all of them will have access to the web. Access, in other words, to your own website.

Yesterday, I pointed out that your website earns you money. It’s also a place where you can also communicate other things about your station – your big competition on breakfast, your latest new signing. But by reading out an email address, you’re giving a reason not to visit it. At the same time as you’re telling your listener to use their computer. This is a wasted opportunity.

It’s also a wasted opportunity since a ‘contact us’ form on your website can help your audience – by underlining who the on-air presenter is; by automatically answering some of the questions your listeners have anyway; by offering a one-click registration (after submitting the email, not before); and, most importantly, by asking the audience to give a little more information to help you make great radio.

An email will give you, if you’re lucky, a name. And lots of spam.

A ‘contact us’ form could give you, if you’ve configured it right, a name, where they are (”Julie in Bingley”), and – if your listener wants to give it to you – a telephone number. So you can call Julie and get her to repeat that great joke, rather than simply reading it out from an email.

In other words – a ‘contact us’ form enables you to produce great radio. So, I’d hope today’s the day your presenters stop reading out an email address – and start reading out: “Contact us on the website – smalltownfm.com.” You’ll do that for me, right?

I’m not mad. I’m not saying you shouldn’t have a studio email address. Respond from it to thank listeners for their email if you like. But only using an email address is a missed opportunity. Don’t give it out on the air.

(As ever, these are my own personal thoughts, nothing more.)

Photo: Thomas Hawk – it’s at Pandora. Used under licence – thanks!

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Post tags: email, guidance, presenters, radio
These are my personal views and not those of the BBC | Full disclosure

Yesterday, I discussed why you shouldn’t allow presenters to use their personal Twitter accounts on-air.

Today, it’s time for website addresses.

If you’re BigtownFM, when was the last time you promoted your rival SmalltownFM on your station? Not just mentioned it in passing, but actively promoted it? Never, I’m guessing. So it’s odd, isn’t it, when stations allow competing websites to be promoted on-air: because they’re doing exactly the same thing.

Your website earns you money – a fair amount, probably. It’s also the right place to send your audience to interact with your talent: it’s a controlled space, and one where you can also communicate other things about your station – your big competition on breakfast, your latest new signing.

Yet, if you allow your presenters to bypass that by telling their audience that the best content is on YouTube, or their own Facebook group, or – heaven forfend – their own website address, then your listeners never get to see any of your own website. And your presenters are, effectively, promoting your competition. It’s removing revenue from your business at a time when you can’t afford it; and damaging your best and cheapest marketing tool.

To fix this, you need to do three things:

1. Upgrade your website to allow your listeners to interact with your talent in a natural way. Use Facebook or Twitter’s open authentication system if you like, to avoid them having to re-register on a new service; but allow them to interact with your talent on your website.

2. Give your presenters the tools to update it. “Tools,” in this case, doesn’t mean your interactive team – they should be working on great station content, and more great tools. Your presenters should be trusted with producing great content. A simple example is, naturally, a blog.

3. Only when you’ve achieved #1 and #2, ensure that the only website that is ever mentioned on-air is your own website. No others. So your presenter can say: “I saw this really funny YouTube video today – want to take a look? You’ll find it on my page at smalltownfm.com”.

I’m not mad. I’m not saying you shouldn’t be on Facebook. It’s important you are – since you’re reaching your audience in their own habitat, and their own communities. Keep on doing it. But Facebook isn’t your site – so stop promoting it on the air.

Tomorrow, I’ll look at the odd practice of reading out email addresses on-air, and why you should stop that too. (And, as ever, these are my own personal thoughts – nothing more.)

Photo: Flickr user riffraff1. Used under licence – thank you.

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Post tags: guidance, presenters, radio, website, websites
These are my personal views and not those of the BBC | Full disclosure

When I was on-air in the 1990s, radio stations didn’t need to tell me not to read out my home address, my own email address, or my mobile phone number. It was clear that, when I was on the air, the way of getting in touch with me was the station’s phone number – or my radio station email address. As presenters, we’d never have even considered doing anything else. Of course I’d never have given out my home address, because you never knew what crazies were out there. And of course, I’d never have given my own personal mobile telephone number. When I was off-air, I was not on-show.

Skip forward to today, and many radio stations are allowing their presenters to blur the lines – with personal Twitter addresses making it to air. Probably egged on by such services like Media UK’s Radio Presenters On Twitter chart, a typical radio programme will contain a presenter reading out their own personal Twitter name – indeed, listening to NPR’s “Wait Wait, Don’t Tell Me”, I notice that this isn’t just a UK phenomenon.

This will only lead to tears. So this is the first of a three-part series over the next three days on what your presenters should say – and what they shouldn’t.

First – Twitter. If you allow a presenter to regularly promote their own Twitter account on-air – particularly in relation to an on-air feature – then this Twitter account becomes part of the broadcast output. Should the presenter say something inappropriate, it’s indelibly linked to the broadcaster – since the presenter has deliberately linked their own personal Twitter account to their on-air programme. A poor-taste joke, a racist jibe, or a libellous comment: it’s difficult for a broadcaster to argue that this has nothing to do with them if they’ve allowed their talent to promote their personal online presence on the air. Retaining editorial control doesn’t only extend to on-air any more.

And come to that – you’ve signed your presenter. You’ve spent money promoting them, in the press, on television, or at least on your own station. Yet you appear to be happy enough to let your presenter own the relationship between them and your listener.

Fast forward two years, where your presenter gets a bigger gig at your competitor down the road. You remove them from the air as soon as you can, to minimise any damage – and ensure that your presenter is not able to tell his audience where he’s going. But he’s in charge of the relationship between him and his audience. He has effectively cut you out of that conversation. He can communicate directly with them. “Hot news: SmalltownFM weren’t interested in keeping me: so I’m excited to tell you I’ll be on BigtownFM from Monday. Please join me there!” – a great piece of marketing for BigtownFM, and very damaging for you: even if he’s not said anything that’s derogatory against your company. You need to keep that relationship.

So. How do you fix this?

Give your presenters official Twitter feeds for your station, and make it clear that they can only promote these. XFM is doing the right thing here, since it has a set of them – @daveberry_xfm is Dave Berry, for example – but this is clearly part of the station’s output. Ensure that -you- retain the password, and ensure that you actively monitor what they say (just like you monitor what they say on-air.) That way, when you part company with that presenter, you can communicate this fact to their followers your way – and, crucially, you stay in control. Just like you are on their air, right?

I’m not mad. I’m not saying you should stop your presenters being on Twitter personally. But that all station-related Twittering goes on under their official, station, Twitter account – not their own. Don’t let them promote it on the air.

Tomorrow, I’ll be looking at the website addresses you allow on the air on your station. (And note that, as ever, this is my own personal opinion; nothing more.)

Photo: Gilad Lotan. Used under licence – thanks!

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Post tags: guidance, presenters, radio, twitter
These are my personal views and not those of the BBC | Full disclosure

Radio and that

Great Use of Twitter by a Radio Station [Paul Easton]
Paul Easton notes a really good bit of Twittering from 106 Jack FM. This is good stuff – and a good spot by Paul.

It’s time to get up, and get on your way… [Does that make sense?]
A rather good piece from Matthew Rudd about what it's like being a breakfast show presenter. And a title, of course, made from the lyrics to a jingle on Simon Mayo's breakfast show on Radio 1. Don't think I didn't notice.

Capital FM’s Summertime Ball [James Stodd – Radio Producer]
A positive review of Capital's Summertime Ball – but a rather negative review of what they did online. Not much, by the looks of things.

NPR: One Old Media Brand That Gets It [CBS News]
A rather interesting article, which details a lot of information about NPR's online activities. I can't help but thinking they're doing a rather more interesting job than we're doing in the UK. We should learn from them.

The BBC World Service now looks pretty on Freeview [Earshot]
…which is a nice thing. Not sure everything in there works very well, but it's a vast improvement from a dull static blue screen.

Save Our Sounds [BBC Radio Labs]
A blog from @radiokate explaining the deal behind BBC Save Our Sounds. Quite an interesting idea.

More New-Media Tripe [Radio InSights]
Quite an amusing piece of article ripping-apart. The Radio Insights team find it really galling that someone who has written for a magazine is slagging off radio. (That someone, Bob Garfield, is also a radio presenter – presenting On The Media for NPR, incidentally).

BBC doubles iPlayer radio quality, DAB weeps [Crave at CNET UK]
Crave don't understand that the future of radio is multiplatform, and it's not a fight between one platform and another. But I like the graphic. :)

A whole lot of nothing [Welcome To The North]
An excellent interview with Toby Foster of BBC Radio Sheffield, and Doncaster's new mayor. Toby does an excellent job here of asking simple questions which fluster and, eventually, completely embarrass the new mayor. A classic radio interview.

Advertising and that

On becoming a household name [Seth's Blog]
Seth points out that clickthrough isn't the only thing that's important when it comes to advertising online. Which is good news.

Brain-dead marketing? [Memex 1.1]
John doesn't like this biscuit's name. I rather like it. It's certainly different.

Miscellaneous and that

Not Playing Ball [Twitter Blog]
Twitter to launch 'verified real names' shortly. Which is rather good, since I've been doing this (with much success) in Media UK for quite some time now. It'll be excellent to be able to use Twitter's verification, perhaps, in future.

The First SoundPour [SoundPour]
A set of people listen to The Beatles (yay), their Revolver album (possibly the best one) (yay), drinking Chimay (yay), and use my photo to illustrate it (yay). I don't really understand what else is going on.

Postbox
A rather nicer version of Mozilla Thunderbird, for the Mac and Windows (sadly, not Ubuntu). Looks nice in Windows 7, that much I can tell you.

The Secret Life of the Airport [BBC FOUR]
A rather beautiful photograph on this programme (the one of Terminal 5). I waive the attribution licence for my employer. I'm rather pleased I spent a bit of time photographing Heathrow Terminal 5, my photos get used an awful lot.

This is a tidied and edited list of my Delicious links from June 11th to June 19th. You can subscribe to this list, live, via rss.

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Post tags: radio
These are my personal views and not those of the BBC | Full disclosure

So, the Apple iPhone 3GS doesn’t include an FM radio. In spite of some of the rumours.

But iPhone v3.0 is actually very good news for radio: for two reasons.

It lets your listeners hear your station

Ah, yes, I know the old iPhone let you download an application to listen to the radio. I’ve got plenty of them: from LBC, to Absolute and NPR. But now, you can listen to many more stations – even smaller ones which can’t make their own app.

On your iPhone (running v3.0 software), try visiting http://resonancefm.com/listen and clicking the “listen” icon, as you’d do on any normal computer. And you’ll find it’ll work. Because iPhone v3.0 copes with streaming MP3.

And better than that: when the stream starts, try clicking your ‘home’ key and checking your email. Note that – unlike any app – the radio doesn’t stop. It keeps on playing in the background. Excellent. (Go back to Safari to stop it).

It lets you hear your audience

The Voice Memo app, at first, seems a little pointless. But, if you record a voice memo, you can email that voice memo – as a high quality AAC file. Which means you can file broadcast-quality audio from wherever you have internet coverage.

It’s the cheapest outside-broadcast unit you have. And, unlike Audioboo, it’s private to you. Until you broadcast it, of course.

And of course, it could be a way to hear your audience as well.

So, the iPhone v3.0 could be a very good thing for radio. If we’re clever about using new platforms to reach a new audience, and to get that new audience to make our product even better.

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Post tags: iphone, radio, v3.0
These are my personal views and not those of the BBC | Full disclosure

“Today on the BBC iPlayer, I’m proud to also be able to welcome something new – this time, an “exciting new sound” for all our UK national radio stations on the internet, as we make a number of changes to our live and on-demand streaming infrastructure.”

…from a blog from me over at the BBC Internet Blog.

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Post tags: radio
These are my personal views and not those of the BBC | Full disclosure

Instructions:

1. Listen to Nick Ferrari At Breakfast on London’s LBC 97.3.

2. Pay attention at :00, :15, :30 and :45 to the traffic bulletins.

3. Take one drink very time you hear travel bloke say the phrase “that’s all because of”.

I guarantee you’ll be pissed by 8.15am. (Or if you’re a man I know in Bristol called Andy, pissed by 7.15am.)

That’s all because of the repetitive phrases we fall into from time-to-time; but after three years of waking up to it, I do wonder quite where the quality control is on that station.

Otherwise, incidentally, it’s a great listen – and that’s all because of the rather excellent Nick Ferrari.

(Associated note: the staffing level for BBC Radio 4’s Today programme was this week revealed, in an article by Andrew Gilligan, as 55. Would someone at Global let me know the staffing levels for Nick’s show? I’m interested to know if it’s similar. Cough.)

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Post tags: beer, drinking, game, radio
These are my personal views and not those of the BBC | Full disclosure

I was intrigued to discover Richard Bacon’s Secret Podcast a few months ago, on the rather nice BBC Podcast directory.

Richard (that’s him up there, at some awards ceremony I was invited to where we didn’t win anything) does a programme on BBC Radio 5 Live. I thought I’d take a listen to see whether it was any good; particularly since Richard once bought me a pint of beer, so he seemed like a nice enough man.

And I discovered that the podcast contained… well, I can’t actually say. We’re not allowed to talk about it. Richard says so. It’s a secret.

But. Listening to it was an honour, and a privilege. So, after listening to a few more of the podcasts, I’m now listening to quite a lot of Richard’s programme: even the rather more serious bits.

So, a 15-minute weekly podcast has made me listen to around two hours of his programme most nights. How’s that for a marketing triumph?

(While researching this post, I bumped into this video which does a splendid job explaining what podcasts are. It’s great. And voiced by Chris Vallance, a nice man who I nearly saw today, but he had to do some work instead. I recommend it. And him, come to that.)

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Post tags: marketing, podcasting, radio, richard bacon
These are my personal views and not those of the BBC | Full disclosure

Congratulations to Global Radio’s Trent FM, which has currently (and deservedly) got the lead story on Sky News.

A great story: and great to see that it was radio that’s brought these images to the world.

Read the story – and watch the video – on Trent FM’s website.

(BBC News are also playing the video; the BBC News website credits Trent FM.)

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Post tags: news, nottingham, pictures, radio, trent
These are my personal views and not those of the BBC | Full disclosure

Quite a while back, I wrote a few Twitterbots to post Media UK’s jobs and news to Twitter. The site already has daily email alerts, but adding Twitter support was quick and fairly simple to do. I even wrote some code to shorten links with bit.ly as part of the work. The result can be seen at @mediaukjobs, and the three news services @mediaukradio, @mediauktv and @mediaukpress. (You can pause at this point to follow some or all of those accounts.)

More recently, I added Google Analytics tracking codes to the URLs: because I was curious how many people are using these alerts, and whether it’s getting me any more traffic. Media UK also sends out email alert newsletters, so I added tracking to these email alerts, and also did the same to the iGoogle widgets I’ve been promoting for many years.

First – iGoogle. Don’t bother with it for traffic. It’s not a realistic traffic generator. Media UK’s news widget gets negligible use: its installation base is high, but it gets fewer clickthroughs per day than I have fingers. It’s probably a good brand reinforcer, but for traffic? No.

So, what about Twitter and Email?

The obvious-if-you-think-about-it news is that Twitter is significantly better at getting you brand new visits – 43% of traffic to Media UK from its Twitterbots was what Google Analytics call “new visits”, compared to just over 10% for email.

Obvious, of course – you have to come to Media UK to sign up for the free emails, whereas it’s possible to find the Twitterbots using other means – but I certainly wasn’t expecting it to be four times as good at getting brand new traffic.

And the other, obvious-if-you-think-about-it, thing: Twitter delivers more visits per person – 1.18 per ‘follower’, rather than 0.72 per email subscriber.

So – adding separate Twitter alert accounts is fairly quick and simple to do; and have can have a surprising effect on traffic if you promote them well.

The full figures are here:

Twitter
5,053 followers*
6,009 visits (1.18 per follower)
2.7 pages/visit
43% new visits

Email
13,288 subscribers*
9,602 visits (0.72 per follower)
3.21 pages/visit
11.4% new visits

* Because Media UK runs more than one email newsletter and twitter feed, these figures will be an over-estimate.

Screengrabbed by Beth Kanter. Her screengrab used under licence.

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Post tags: seo, site, traffic, twitter
These are my personal views and not those of the BBC | Full disclosure

Back in 1989, I got a Sky dish (setting it up in my bedroom, pointing it through the window). I got one of the first Sky Movies decoders, which was free for a ‘Sky Pioneer’ like myself. (I declined to buy a decoder card, when that became available). For me, the excitement was the large amount of foreign channels also on the platform – nearly 32 channels, I think, including a rather peculiar comedy channel (with an ident of a goldfish, I seem to remember).

In 1998, I was one of the first to get Sky Digital. I enjoyed BBC Choice and BBC Knowledge, the two extra services from the BBC (as well as BBC News 24). The better picture quality, and widescreen, was really rather exciting. The explosion of choice that followed was similarly thrilling: particularly the choice of radio.

Sky+ came next – it remains the best TV recorder I’ve seen, even with its new complicated EPG system.

And I got Sky HD close to when it was first available, too – HD is clearly a splendid thing, though the size of my living room (and thus my telly) probably isn’t ideal.

And, today, I’ve cancelled it.

A tree has been growing between the dish and the satellite, and as a consequence, the Sky dish hasn’t worked for a few weeks. I plugged in the roof aerial, for the first time, into the Freeview-equipped television. And frankly, I’ve realised that’s enough for me. Interestingly, the picture quality is markedly better than the Sky box, as well – at least for standard definition – presumably due to the fact that the Freeview decoder is inside the telly rather than a separate connection.

With Boxee on my Apple TV offering the BBC iPlayer and other content, I’ve enough on-demand stuff to watch if I want. But I’m simply finding that I’m watching less and less television – and that the choice on Freeview is quite enough. I’m missing nothing.

I plan on spending the £40-odd quid I’m saving every month on beer. And potentially a Freeview+ box, if I think I need one. But frankly, I’m not even sure I do.

Could you cancel Sky? What would make you realise you could do without it? Let me know in the comments.

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Post tags: sky
These are my personal views and not those of the BBC | Full disclosure

So, I’ve finally discovered a rather good radio podcast.

Produced by The Radio Academy, and presented by radio chap (and Academy CEO) Trevor Dann, it’s actually rather good. It’s kind of like Media Talk, but without the irrelevant idiot-box talk and BBC-baiting (which, for me, makes it fairly difficult to listen to).

Trevor’s a nice man who clearly puts interviewees at their ease – so that they probably say things they probably shouldn’t. I listened to Tim Blackmore MBE, saying that the pre-recording of Jonathan Ross’s programme was “ludicrous”, and Ofcom’s Peter Davies trying carefully not to be caught out by Trevor’s questioning about locality.

It’s a well-produced, well-hosted podcast, and it’s free. The only peculiar thing is that you won’t find it by searching iTunes for it, which seems odd. So, either you should follow the Radio Academy’s instructions, or just do this (which is rather easier):

Subscribe to Radio Talk from the Radio Academy
…in one easy step

1. Drag and drop Trevor’s cat onto your iTunes library.
2. Er
3. That’s it.

(Please do not attempt with real cat).

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Post tags: academy, podcast, radio, trevordann
These are my personal views and not those of the BBC | Full disclosure

A bit of radio

BBC – iPlayer Message Board – Radio
A place to discuss IP reception of all radio services from the BBC. Which I dip into when time allows.

BBC iPlayer gets a little more radio [BBC Radio Labs]
A little update to the BBC iPlayer. Which is nice. And a blog post from me on there. Which is also nice. I use the words "find, play, share" as well as "making the unmissable unmissable". I must surely win the prize for most on-message blog post.

Guardian’s Radio Listings Get Worse [adambowie.com]
Adam Bowie notes a marked reduction in radio listings in the Guardian. This is either a bad thing, or a realisation by The Guardian that a programme listing that just simply lists presenter names is a pointless waste of paper and ink. Perhaps. I don't really know.

A bit of other things

Spymaster — For your eyes only
What a good game. Simple, but it works for some reason: really rather addictive.

Photography Banned in Greenwich Foot Tunnel [IanVisits]
Madness. And I've taken photographs there (there’s one above this text), and nobody seemed to mind. "It's political correctness gone mad".

How to be a Sky News iPhone reporter [NevilleHobson.com]
Neville tips the wink on Sky News's iPhone app – rather good, too, with some video as well as a way of getting content direct from Sky's audience. A nice idea, and one that should be quite good for the channel.

Deeper or wider [Seth Godin]
A really interesting blog post – which would tend to pose the question that simply designing for 'the majority' isn't always a good idea. Rather worthwhile reading.

Worst quarter for newspapers: Sales dive $2.6B [Reflections of a Newsosaur]
Scroll down to the graph in this page. Look at it, and then wonder whether any newspapers will ever survive. That must be the scariest graph you've ever seen, no? (via <a href='http://www.lostremote.com'>Lost Remote</a>)

Page Speed [Google]
A new tool from Google to test page speed. Sigh. I'd better get busy – reading Wired (US) today, I noticed that the speed of a page download directly contributes to 'ad quality' (and thus, I'm going to guess, pagerank). So, better get working on shrinking those pages…

whatIdo [YouTube]
This is quite fascinating. A television subtitle "respeaker" in action, subtitling a Breakfast bulletin for Points West (which is done by a known voice re-reading what the newsreader is saying, and that going into voice recognition). From Martin Deutsch's commentary (on Media UK): "Out of shot, he’s hitting a keyboard to change the text colour and position of text on screen. He’s saying ‘macro’ to tell the text to speech software to insert certain words, presumably where it wouldn’t be able to work out the correct spelling from the context. " Worthwhile mentioning that, unlike any other broadcaster in the world, the BBC subtitles 100% of its television output. Yes, even BBC News Channel at 4.10am (which is done by people in Australia, I understand).

This is a tidied and edited list of my Delicious links from June 2nd to June 9th. You can subscribe to this list, live, via rss. The photograph above is a now banned photo of Greenwich Foot Tunnel.

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Post tags: delicious, radio
These are my personal views and not those of the BBC | Full disclosure