Radio Category

It seems that the writing is on the wall for the BBC’s alternative music station 6 Music, as well as the BBC Asian Network, and the services may vanish next year.

Director General Mark Thompson announced the proposed closure as part of a strategy review released today. There will also be a cull of a sizable chunk of the BBC online content, reported job cuts, and a number of other cutbacks.

You can read the full report, and also “Have Your Say” to the BBC Trust: BBC Strategic Review.

The proposals now undergo a 12 week public scrutiny period.

The “Save 6 Music” Facebook Group now has over 91,000 members.

As has been widely reported in the media in the last 24 hours, rumours are that the Beeb is considering axing digital music station 6 Music as well as the BBC Asian Network.

According to the last audience survey, 6 Music pulls in 695,000 listeners a week (0.4% of all UK radio listening). Amongst those that do listen, the station has a strong following, and we’re already seeing petitions and a “Save 6 Music” Facebook group and petitions popping up, in an attempt to stop the Beeb from closing the station.

Commercial station Absolute Radio (the station formerly known as Virgin) has been quick to leap in, apparently offering to buy 6 Music from the BBC, and run it more efficiently that the BBC has been doing. (Source: The Times)

At the moment, the future for 6 Music remains unclear…

Remember the o2 Joggler? The home device that o2 pushed in May of this year as a replacement magnets on the fridge door as a way to keep the family in touch?

Two bits of news out today are set to make this device that little but more desirable.

The o2 Joggler is already a powerful device – digital pictureframe, wireless media streamer, Internet-connected News, Sport, Travel and Weather browser, text message device and online diary… but today, it’s become an Internet radio.

An over-the-air update has added DAB radio experts Pure’s “Lounge” Internet radio application, allowing an initial 100 free streaming stations to be accessed on the Joggler.

An app store is promised by the end of the year, and the Joggler platform is open to developers to create applications.

Also, best of all, o2’s just slashed the price to under £100.

We reviewed the o2 Joggler in FrequencyCast Show 41. If you want to get a Joggler at the new low price, go to shop.o2.co.uk/joggler

Our website of the day…

The tech team at Absolute Radio has released a nifty site that allows the world to peek into the playlists of UK radio stations. Their site robot monitors the “Now Playing” information transmitted by radio stations, and uses this to work out the number of songs on a station’s playlist, and how frequently songs get repeated.

Feel you’re hearing the same songs on your commercial radio station? You probably are, and this site proves it.

The site highlights that Capital FM has played 8,800 or so songs in the last 30 days – but that’s made up of the same 223 tracks… a pretty small playlist. Artists JLS, Beyonce and Lady GaGa clock in with over 350 plays a month.

Go to comparemyradio.com and see how your station compares.

“The needle returns to the start of the song, and we all sing along like before…”

American comedy TV series WKRP in Cincinnati is finally available in the UK.

If you’re not familiar with the series, it was first shown in the late 1970s, and it’s a US sitcom based at a commercial AM radio station. The largely dysfunctional staff show how not to run a station – the first episode shows how the station switches from elevator music to Rock-n-Roll.

The crew includes Breakfast Jock the burnt-out Dr Johnny Fever, stunning receptionist Jennifer Marlow, vegetable-obsessed newsreader Les Nessman, Programme Director Andy Travis, salesman Herb Tarleck, plus the spineless boss, Arthur ‘Big-guy’ Carlson.

The show was shown here in the UK now and again in the 80s and 90s on ITV, but has not been available here for quite some time. DVD releases have been an issue due to copyright royalty issues arising from the show’s use of original rock and roll tracks.

WKRP Series 1 is now available in the UK, after a long wait by the series fans. It’s available for download from iTunes. The 22 episodes will cost you just over £20. Some music tracks have been edited or altered to overcome the copyright issues.

Thanks to listener and forum member Speedrite for letting us know.

The Boat That Rocked DVD is out on DVD today. If you haven’t got a copy yet, why not?

If you didn’t get to see the film at the cinema when it was released in April, you may want to watch the DVD. From the pen of Richard “Four Weddings” / “Notting Hill” / “Love Actually” Curtis, this BritCom is set aboard the floating pirate radio ship “Rock Radio”.

Our Carl and Pete love it – Pete saw it 3 times, apparently, and the film gets top marks from FrequencyCast.

The DVD is out today – available from Amazon or with free delivery from Play.com

The Digital Britain report is finally out. On the 16th of June, Lord Carter’s long-awaited report into plans for our digital future were revealed.

There’s been lots of media chat about this already, but in case you’ve missed it, what we think are the three headlines are as follows:

1. Analogue Radio off by 2015: The intention here is to get national FM services and existing local services over to DAB by 2015, freeing up space for what’s being called “ultra local” stations on FM. Listeners would need to migrate from FM to digital by 2015. There are also targets proposed to get digital radio listening up to 50% by 2013, a somewhat ambitious target, and a target of DAB-only car radios in new cars by 2013. AM stations also need to shift to DAB.

2. Broadband tax: To help achive the Government’s “every home must have at least 2Meg broadband by 2012″ pledge, a stealth tax of 50p per month on all landlines is proposed to improve the infrastructure.

3. Internet piracy. The target is for UK ISPs to reduce online file-sharing and piracy by 70% within a year, with measures ranging from warning letters, speed throttling, to details being passed to copyright owners. Ofcom will be given the power to enforce this.

For the full report, see http://www.culture.gov.uk/what_we_do/broadcasting/5631.aspx

According to a report on Brand Republic, the third and final round of Global Radio owned local radio station re-brands to “Heart” are set to be complete by the 22nd of June 2009.

By this date, the following stations will lose their local name, and become part of their “Heart” brand:

2CR
Buzz 97.1
Coast 96.3
Champion 103
Essex FM
Invicta FM
Marcher Sound
Ocean FM
Southern FM

That’ll take the number of Heart re-branded stations to 33

Details of first round of Heart re-brands and the second round of Heart re-brands.

Let us know your thoughts…

As reported recently, Global Radio is planning to scrap a bunch of local radio station names, replacing them with the generic “Heart” brand.

Phase 1 of the re-brand kicks in at the start of January. The following nine stations will be “Heart” by Monday 5th January 2009:

Chiltern FM, Bedford – Heart 96.9
Chiltern FM, Dunstable – Heart 97.6
Hereward FM, Peterborough – Heart 102.7
Horizon Radio, Milton Keynes – Heart 103.3
Northants 96 – Heart 96.6
Radio Broadland, Norfolk – Heart 102.4
SGR FM, Suffolk – Heart 97.1 & 96.4
SGR Colchester – Heart 96.1
Q103, Cambridge – Heart 103

Hmmm

As we’ve covered in recent podcasts, all is not well with DAB in the UK – specifically with commercial radio stations on DAB.

The commercial national multiplex, owned by Digital One, is sounding decidely empty since the departure of the GCap stations, and with Channel 4’s decision not to launch the Channel 4 Radio stations… the multiplex is half-empty.

To help out the struggling multiplex, it looks like the BBC is considering lending a hand. The Beeb is considering shifting some of its digital channels to the commercial multiplex – this would allow space for more BBC channels, or to allow improvements to the quality of BBC stations, which are running on a low bitrate.

Good to see the BBC pushing on with DAB – just a shame that commercial radio can’t make a go of DAB

Rock and Roll on May 2009… there’s a Britcom about Pirate Radio coming soon.

“The Boat That Rocked” is a comedy film based on a 1960’s pirate radio station ship moored off the UK coast.

The film’s from the makers of Four Weddings, Notting Hill and Love Actually, with an all-star cast, and if the trailer’s anything to go by, this could be a top film. The radio station’s called Radio Rock, and is a clear hat-doff to Radio Caroline and the good ships Ross Revenge and Mi Amigo.

You’ll find the FrequencyCast boys in the front row at a cinemaplex near you in May 2009. While you’re waiting, check out the movie preview… http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XnQc3lO4JDs

Good news for Virgin Media customers. The Sky channels withdrawn from Virgin are set to return after an 18 month absence.

It seems that Sky and Virgin have met, and resolved their differences, and the following channels are set to return to the Virgin platform: Sky 1, Sky 2, Sky 3, Sky News, Sky Sports News, Sky Arts and Sky Real Lives.

Channels are expected to return on the 13th of November.

We’ve just released a 5 minute ‘update’ podcast, looking at Channel 4’s decision to pull out of the digital radio business, meaning bad news for the future of national DAB radio in the UK

We also feature a couple of questions on eBook readers, some BT Vision news, and several ways to save money on PVRs, Sky HD and Humax set-top boxes, which you’ll find at www.frequencycast.co.uk/codes.

Listen via iTunes, or at www.frequencycast.co.uk/latest.html#update

 

 FrequencyCast Update 12 Oct 2008 - DAB News [4:56m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

As we’ve covered in our podcasts on many occasions, Channel 4 has been planning to make a big splash in digital radio. Today, they announced that those plans are now dead.

The proposed stations e4 Radio, Channel 4 Radio music station Pure 4 no won’t go ahead, with Channel 4’s Andy Duncan blaming the economic downturn for the decision.

Dark days for DAB, with it looking increasingly likely that there’s little future for national commercial digital radio.

Update: Podcast released covering the story – It’s attached to this blog entry, and it’s also at www.frequencycast.co.uk/latest.html#update

 

 Channel 4 Radio Update [4:56m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

The most popular of the BBC digital radio stations, BBC 7, rebranded itself to BBC Radio 7, last Saturday, the 4th of October.

With TV stations rebranding to names like Dave, Alibi and Watch for no readily apparent reason, this is quite an innocent change. According to Mary Kalemkerian, the Head of Programmes at
BBC Radio 7, “… BBC 7 is sometimes perceived as a television channel, following on from the launches of BBC Three and BBC Four. As many regular listeners already refer to the station as Radio 7, it seemed the right decision to incorporate the magic word ‘radio’.”

So now you know!

More on the rebranded comedy, drama and kids station at http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio7/

Global Radio own more local commercial radio stations in the UK than any other company, and in a bid to consolodate, they’re looking to re-brand nearly 30 of their local stations to either “Heart” or “Galaxy”.

Local radio stations set to lose their identities include: 2-Ten FM, Chiltern Radio, Essex FM, GWR, Hereward, Invicta FM, 2CR, Marcher, Fox FM, Broadland and SGR. Stations that have worked hard to establish a local identity and brand.

These changes are due to happen in the next 12 to 18 months.

More on this story: Heart-Broken about UK radio

Planet Rock, originally set to close a few months ago, has been saved, and is set to continue broadcasting on DAB digital radio.

Entrepreneur Malcolm Bluemel has bought the station, with the backing of rock names Tony Iommi (Black Sabbath), Ian Anderson (Jethro Tull), Gary Moore and Fish.

We’ve found a handy code to get 10% off the Revo range of digital radios, which include the Uno, Pico and the fully-featured Revo Radiostation Blik, which combines DAB, DAB+ and Internet radio.

To get 10% off Revo Radios, use the code affrevo at the checkout at www.advancedmp3players.co.uk. Available while stocks last, we’re told…

It’s the first of March, and Show 24 of FrequencyCast has just been released. Yes – 24 shows… we’ve reached our second birthday. Thanks for being with us for the ride!

Here’s what we cover in today’s show:

• News Updates: An end to the High Def DVD format wars, BBC on the iPhone, the US strike’s over, we discover more about podcast listening, and we say hello to the 21st Century KITT.
• Focus – Digital Radio: After DAB has had a really rough couple of months, Carl and Pete pick up the pieces, look at some DAB technology, ask whether the future is Net radio, and read through listener’s texts and mails on digital radio.
• Neuros OSD: A new piece of kit – a gadget that converts your video, streams your content and acts as a PVR.
• Your Questions: Listeners questions on wireless V+ box connections, Freeview Series Link, video on a whiteboard, TV in other rooms, HDMI cables and Freeview in hilly areas.

You can download Show 24 direct to your MP3 player, listen online, or view the show notes at http://www.frequencycast.co.uk/cast24.html

Enjoy the show? Add a quick iTunes review: Review us.

 

 FrequencyCast Show 24 [31:33m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

More bad news for DAB digital radio this month – theJazz and Planet Rock, two of the national DAB stations, are due to fall silent soon. Owners gCap recently switched off digital station Core, and are now axing two more stations. With OneWord going too, this will leave just three national commercial DAB stations, Virgin Radio, Classic fm and TalkSport.

gCap’s reason for getting rid of Planet Rock and theJazz? Cost-saving and the slow takeup of digital radio in the UK making their ongoing funding of DAB “economically unviable”.

We’re planning to run a feature on the future of DAB in the UK on an upcoming podcast. Sign up to our newsletter to be notified.

Update 13 Feb: Audio show discussing developments now online