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Posts tagged ‘Radio’

14
Jun
glasto

New look Glasto site makes use of 6music names

Every year  the BBC relaunches its website for one of the major festivals it covers or, in the case of the Big Weekend – hosts.

The latest site to get this treatment is the Glastonbury festival, normally I wouldn’t blog about this but, unlike the others there are a number of things of note. Read moreRead more

1
Mar
6music

BBC 6music: the station John Peel would have made

I’m not just an insufurably grumpy geek, I’m not just the guy complaining about everything in the corner of the office – I’m also the annoying one passing on CDs of new music all the time and raving about new bands I’ve heard.

I get my music in many different ways – promoters and bands send it to me (en mass some days), I get mp3s, I use the BBC Introducing uploader, I use MySpace BUT mostly I make use of 6music.

Read moreRead more

1
Dec

BBC Radio 2 is the station of the nation

I’m a big fan of podcasting as it allows me to listen to radio content in a more user friendly way – my process involves downloading the podcasts and putting them into a smart playlist on my iPod that just pulls in (in date order – old to new) every podcast on the device.

The advantage of listening this way as opposed to  just listening to the shows I like is that I get to hear a lot more content than I ever would otherwise and a wider range of content.

The main problem of this approach is that it is very easy to get behind very quickly. All it takes is for me to choose to listen to an audiobook for a few days instead and I fall two weeks behind on my podcasts (it’s iPod maths – I don’t understand it either).

Which is why I’m only now listening to podcasts from 16 November and this post specifically refers to an edition of ‘The Daily Mayo’ taken from interviews on the brilliant the Simon Mayo show on BBC Radio 5 Live.

The edition I’m talking about was a bit of a past and future BBC Radio 2 love in that had Simon Mayo (future drive-time host on R2) interviewing Chris Evans (future R2 Breakfast host) with a call in from Sir Terry Wogan (current R2 breakfast host and future weekend show presenter).

The bulk of the interview was about Evans new book and the first part of the Sir Terry bit was  about Children in Need and Who Want’s to be a Millionaire – but they soon got on to the future of BBC Radio 2.

TERRY WOGAN, at Abbey Road Studios, London. 7 ...
Image by Ethical Photography via Flickr

You see BBC Radio 2 is one of those great British institutions that is horribly misunderstood and taken for granted.

Everyone talks about the importance of BBC Radio 3 and BBC Radio 4, they talk about the value of a speech based station providing intelligent output and a music station providing material the commercial sector couldn’t.

Both of those are the stations people talk about being ones they would pay for the licence fee for alone.

But when the commercial radio sector or experts or critics talk about BBC Radio 2 they use words like ‘damaging’, ‘commercial’ and ‘radio’.

They talk about how similar BBC Radio 2 is getting to the audience commercial radio is looking for and how they ‘chase ratings’ instead of producing compelling content the commercial sector couldn’t.

But what they’re all ignoring here is the fact that clearly BBC Radio 2 is doing SOMETHING RIGHT or they wouldn’t be the most popular radio station in the UK.

BBC Radio 2 does something no other station does, at least no other station does properly and that is take a BBC One approach to content – they produce and provide radio for a wide audience, content the whole family can enjoy and get something out of.

The reason I invoked the podcast at the top of the post was because this is exactly what Chris Evans said in his interview with Simon Mayo.

He explained that, although people say Radio 2 chases a younger audience and should be going older – in reality what radio 2 is looking for, what they’ve always been targetted at is the family.

It is one of very few stations you could turn on during a long car journey that included Mum, Dad, Gran, Grandad, a teenager and a younger child and keep the majority entertained.

And when you take this family approach into mind the moving of Evans to breakfast and Mayo to drive with Wogan at the Weekend and hopefully still Ross on Saturday – seems enlightened.

As you move throughout the day from the fun, entertaining edge of Evans at breakfast through music and chat with Bruce in the morning on to the insanity of interview and phone-in with Jeremey Vine.

This is then followed by the showbiz, slightly mad, oldieness of Wright in the afternoon and then moving to what I’m hoping will be a mix of the brilliant interviews, music and wit of Mayo on the way home.

Then when you add in the incredible documentaries, specialist music programming and comedy – Radio 2 really is the universal network for the whole family – forget targetting audiences they target real people with great content.

THAT is why BBC Radio 2 does so well and commercial radio doesn’t.

Terry Wogan will present his final BBC Radio 2 Breakfast Show on 18 December and then, after a Christmas and New Year break Evans will begin on 11 January.

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30
Nov

Let me scrap my boxes of CDs with Spotify Stereo

I love Spotify, I love internet radio, I love podcasts, I love the freedom to just drop in and out of content as I see fit.

Whether that dropping in and out be in the form of music from almost any album ever released on Spotify or a speech based podcast show.

But I’m not overly keen on having to turn my computer on to listen to that same content when all I want is something to hear while washing up.

At the moment CDs and linear FM radio win out for the ease, cheapness and convenience of being able to push two buttons and be listening to ‘something’.

Broadcasting tower in Trondheim, Norway
Image via Wikipedia

What I’m really looking for is a reasonably priced (under £300) home stereo I can put in my kitchen that has WiFi built in with a VERY user friendly interface that gives me access to albums on Spotify, podcasts streamed straight to the device and on demand content possibly through the new UK Radio Player.

A simple device that had space for a CD at the bottom alongside a USB and SD (why are the cheaper ones still Compact Flash) card reader with a LCD screen just above that – and a speaker either side.

The interface would give me the choice of a number of services through a simple icon based menu system on the front screen.

These would be:

CD | OTHER | SPOTIFY | ON DEMAND | LIVE

CD would give you all the options for the CD player including the option of ripping the music straight to an SD card inserted in the slot below.

OTHER would give you access to the media on the SD card or any USB device plugged in.

SPOTIFY would give you access to the full Spotify library using a specially designed interface for a small touch screen based display.

ON DEMAND would give you access to the UK Radio Player on demand interface including the BBC iPlayer – so all radio content from the last seven days.

It would also give you access to the wealth of podcasts from around the world in a specially designed directory.

LIVE does what it says on the tin and gives you access to both the UK Radio Player and radio stations broadcasting live from around the world.

But obviously that wonderful dream device isn’t available at the price I’d be prepared to pay at the moment so I use a combination of the annoyance of powering up a computer just to listen to audio – at which point I find other things to do and forget what I started out doing.

And of course my iPod – I have music synced to it, I have podcasts on it and with the help of a little app I have on demand content ripped to it – but this isn’t exactly what I want or even nearly what I want.

The computer thing does still work sometimes though – normally for my children’s birthday’s we will have pass the parcel and other party games at home with family.

This involves me having a playlist of kids music in iTunes and stopping/starting as necessary – this year I used Spotify for the music and didn’t even need to load up iTunes.

I just want to finish my design of my dream stereo by saying – I love Spotify.

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19
Nov

iPlayer pick: I’m sorry I haven’t a clue

I’m Sorry I haven’t a clue is one of the best comedy shows on radio, in fact it is one of the best things being broadcast on either radio, television or online.

Well now it’s back and it is finally settling into itself with a permanent host in the form of Jack Dee for the whole of series 52 and jokes that don’t sound like they were written with Humph in mind.

Good start to the series and high hopes for the next five episodes.

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11
Nov

Desert Island Discs goes digital but I have ideas

Most of the BBC’s radio and television output is available on the iPlayer for at least seven days after broadcast – some of the TV is even available for download.

The iPlayer team are now introducing a number of other features like linking to a specific point and chapters – next up I’d love to see comments and ratings.

But one of the shows missing from iPlayer, a major part of the BBC Radio 4 output is Desert Island Discs – as a format there is so much you could do with it online.

But there has always been a rights issue around it as it was created in a pre-digital era by someone obviously not under a BBC staff contract.

However that problem seems to be solved with an announcement on the BBC Radio 4 blog that not only will DDI be available on the iPlayer but will also eventually be a podcast and there will be some cool web features surrounding it.

The suggestion on the original Radio 4 blog post said: “we have plans to make the website an all-singing, all-dancing affair – encouraging people to compare their choices with the choices of castaways, looking at the most selected tracks etc.”

Which all sounds brilliant – but I hope it amounts to more than just a list of people that have been on the show with details of the songs the songs and selection – that is great content but not ‘all singing and all dancing’.

You can see an example of this approach in place on the pre-March 2009 Desert Island Discs BBC site.

That information still exists, it’s just that now you go to the /programme site for that edition of DID – which means that in theory this info exists in a data form somewhere.

So what I’d like to see is a cool web app – let me sign in with my BBC iD account, let me enter my choices (songs, book, luxury item) and then match me to the closest DID guest.

In fact this could be expanded to match me with other DID users with the data posted to my BBC iD profile page along with my iPlayer viewing et al.

And finally – on the new DID site, as well as this cool matching app, how about linking the song titles to Spotify so they can be listened to again while splitting out the music and making the interview portion available for ever.

If a link straight to spotify isn’t possible (for legal/impartial reasons) why not create a version of the Buyer’s Guide (currently being trialled with The Archers Audiobooks) and have a page for every song (tied to /music) with details of all legal online sources for that song including last.fm and Spotify.

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10
Mar

iPlayer pick: JAM

There are some shows on the BBC that are icons in their own right – they’ve gone beyond just being normal ‘radio’ and moved into the realm of culture and … well Britishness.

One of those shows is Just a Minute, chaired by the lovely Nicholas Parsons for the entirety of its 35 year run – alongside some of the fastest, sharpest wits of three generations.

Paul Merton at Ely Maltings, signing his book ...
Image via Wikipedia

Over the decades we’ve Paul Merton, Shappi Khorsandi, Graham Norton, Charles Collingwood, Clement Freud, Helen Lederer, Julian Clary, Josie Long, Liza Tarbuck, Sue Perkins, Gyles Brandreth, Jack Dee, Josie Lawrence, Tony Hawks, Chris Neill and Justin Moorhouse.

And in a previous era, now sadly missed include Linda Smith, Kenneth Williams, Derek Nimmo and Peter Jones, but do you remember these panellists? Aimi MacDonald, Alfred Marks, Liz Frazer, Willie Rushton, Warren Mitchell, Barbara Castle, Prunella Scales, Fenella Fielding, Beryl Reid, Magnus Pyke, Thora Hird, Pam Ayres, Elaine Stritch, Bernard Cribbins and Patrick Moore. And recently, Brian from The Archers.

All of whome have attempted to talk for 60 seconds on a subject without deviation, repetition or hesitation – obviously the show is at its best when that doesn’t happen.

I’ve listened to a LOT of JAM – from the early editions right through to those being made and broadcast right now – thanks to the wonders of modern Bit…. you get the idea. Actually I’ve listened to a lot of them through audiobooks and only filled in the gaps with bit torrent.

Two of the most recent editions of the show have included Paul Merton, Shiela Hancock, Clement Freud and David Mitchell and they’ve been among the best I’ve heard.

That’s why this is my iPlayer pick of the week.

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6
Mar

Outnumbered for Red Nose Day

I love Comic Relief, I regularly work late into the night letting people know what islanders are doing and helping collect money – I’m not this year but that’s because we’re going regional.

Comic Relief party
Image by olib via Flickr

However I will be going around the island all day taking photos, giving encouragement and generally making a pest of myself.

I was hoping to have some funny ‘local’ video to put on the BBC Jersey website as part of my Stand Up For Jersey idea – but user interactivity in that way wasn’t never going to work.

Basically the idea was to encourage people to submit their jokes about Jersey, funny stories from the island and hilarious situations that local comedian Charlie Daze could then turn into a stand-up routine.

This routine would then be performed in front of a camera for bbc.co.uk/jersey and live on BBC Radio Jersey on Red Nose Day – alas the gods of caution put rain to that parade.

And this year my leg hair is staying on my legs.

Still at least I have the ever amazing Outnumbered to look forward to and any other, easy to do, Red Nose Day ideas between now and next Friday are welcome.

I love outnumbered but am often relieved (having three children myself) at how un nervingly accurate it is.

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28
Jan

iPlayer Pick: Beatles on the roof

Today’s iPlayer Pick is a radio one – normally I’d go for TV and there are plenty of television shows to peak my interest – but this time radio hit the nail first.

It is a look at the last Beatles public performance in 1969 and is named after John Lennons words at the end of that performance – “I hope we passed the audition”.

From the BBC description “‘I hope we passed the audition’: John Lennon‘s final words from the Beatles’ last public performance, a rooftop concert in 1969. This programme explores how the concert came about.”

If you don’t want to watch it here you can also head over to the iPlayer page for the episode or the /programmes page for it.

As always this embed was generated with my wholly unoficial, probably not allowed, bound to break sooner or later – PIP generator.

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