liking ping.fm, just hoping it doesn’t completely mess up all my status updates on other sites! beta code available if you want to give it a go, mail me

Thanks to iain Margery for the shots of this beautiful and rarely seen stone carving from Eric Gill, uncovered during the renovation work on the old BBC Broadcasting House in early 2005. Gill sculpted Prospero and Ariel in 1932 and it sits proudly on the front of BH above the main entrance. He left this carving on a panel behind the main sculpture as a surprise for future generations. Gill was a contemporary of Modigliani, and both were influenced by Rodin.

Gill was multi faceted, giving us several typefaces, including Gill Sans (the BBC font), and many beautiful carvings, sculptures and engravings. Ariel is also the name of the BBC staff magazine. Much has also been said about his unorthodox and plainly weird behaviour. A part of the Prospero and Ariel statue had to be reduced in size rather promptly after the official unveiling - I don’t think you’ll have to guess too hard which bit it was after reading the wikipedia article…

Prospero and Ariel

BBC Broadcasting House, London

images of the stone carving with kind permission from Iain Margery. All other images are my own.

This Grundig radio faithfully sat in my parent’s kitchen for the last 40 years or so. The tuning dial was fairly dodgy, making it really difficult to tune to another station then find radio 4 again, but that didn’t matter too much seeing as BBC radio 4 represents about 95% of my parent’s listening. (The average number of radio stations listened to in the UK per listener is about 3.5, with about 80% of listening done to the first choice station. The average number of radios owned is about 6 per household)

When something of interest came up on 5Live or radio 3 then all that was needed was a trip to the sitting room where it could be listened to on a DAB/FM mini hifi or freeview, But it was a bit of a hassle.

Here’s the replacement, a Pure DAB radio. So my parents can now listen to as many stations as they want from a much wider choice, in the kitchen, without fear of missing the exact spot on the dial for the best radio 4 reception. Also, guests such as my family and I can easily tune in to stations more acceptable to our kids without fear of never finding radio 4 again. Maybe it will even encourage a sampling of other digital stations. BBC7 seems an obvious choice… Ease of tuning easily trumps sound quality in the kitchen - most kitchen radios only have mono speakers anyway.

A radio that has been sitting in my kitchen for a while now is the Acoustic Energy wifi internet radio. Perfect for listening to podcasts, on demand comedy shows or random music stations in the evening , or sampling some new international stations on the weekend.

However my morning listening always defaulted to the DAB radio for quick, reliable access to live news, traffic and travel and a bit of light relief, along with the DLS text information to help me out when needed.

The AE is now also installed up at my folks house - they are contemplating how they can navigate through 12,000 stations on a 2 line display - they’re not the only ones!

Anecdotally, the number of stations that people regularly listen to over internet radio increases from 3.5 to just over 5, with the first station representing 60 rather than 80% of listening. There’s also a lot more sampling.

I now have only one radio in my kitchen, the Roberts WM-202 combined DAB, FM, Wifi radio which also operates on batteries. I could equally easily have chosen the stylish Revo Bliq. The key thing here is that what makes the Roberts so attractive is the combination of DAB and internet radio - they do slightly different things for me, and suit needs at different times of the day or day of the week. FM could also be useful in areas where DAB coverage is missing, or for small local or community radio only available on FM.

I have mainly been talking about the kitchen in this post, the dynamic changes slightly when we move to the bedroom or sitting room, let alone outside of the home, but for now the attractiveness of a multi mode home receiver seems obvious and desirable. We’ll see a lot more combined DAB, FM and internet radios before xmas this year, but i reckon xmas 2009 will be the turning point for internet radio devices. There’s also other stuff you can already do, or will be able to do with these devices, like ipod docking or access to your music collection, let alone what will happen with the advent of large and colour screens (or some of the concepts behind the Olinda physical prototype)

There are many issues to be resolved to see internet radio devices prosper, but two of the biggest right now are how broadcasters can send synchronous metadata easily and openly across a range of output formats to a number of different devices and how the navigation and discovery around radio can be moved away from a tiny monochrome screen to a more suitable environment - either a larger colour screen on the device, or through a peronalised web portal.

One thing that’s clear to me is that internet radios are much more interesting when they include digital terrestrial radio and FM.

I stumbled on the “Simple Sabotage field manual” from the US Office of Strategic Services from 1944 which has recently been declassified. It’s amazing to see how many of the techniques for sabotaging organisations have almost become institutionalised. Recognise any saboteurs in your organisation?!

extract follows:

“General interference with organisations and production - Organisations and conferences

1. Insist on doing everything through “channels”. Never permit short cuts to be taken to expedite decisions
2. Make “speeches”. Talk as frequently as possible and at great length. Illustrate your “points” by long anecdotes and accounts of personal experience….
3. When possible refer all actions to committees for “further study and consideration”Attempt to make the committees as large as possible. Never less than five
4. Bring up irrelevant issues as frequently as possible
5. Haggle over precise wordings of communications, minutes, resolutions
6. Refer back to matters decided upon at the last meeting and attempt to reopen the question of the advisability of that decision
7. Advocate “caution”. Be “reasonable” and urge your fellow conferees to be reasonable and avoid haste which might result in embarrassments or difficulties later on
8. Be worried about the propriety of any decision – raise the question of whether such action as is contemplated lies within the jurisdiction of the group or whether it might conflict with the policy of some higher echelon
9. Demand written orders
10. “Misunderstand” orders. Ask endless questions or engage in long correspondence about such orders. Quibble over them when you can”

This is the view from inside Radio France, looking out over the inner circle. Henri Bernard was the architect behind this iconic 60’s building near the Eiffel Tower in Paris. It’s now under a massive renovation program from the centre out.

The architect allegedly got the inspiration from sitting by a pond and throwing a pebble in. The building represents the ripples radiating out from the tower in the middle which used to hold the archive. Not that necessary to have such a large space now of course.

The consequential trapezoid shapes of the segments between the walls and the centre are supposed to be the best shape for the large recording studios housed there.

The building is similar to the centrepiece of BBC television centre, but on a much grander scale. Since the break up of ORTF in 1974, radio and tv in the public sector in france have hardly any connection, there’s practically no movement of staff between the two, which must be a lost opportunity as radio becomes more visual.

The incorporation of studio space into design reminds me of the Radio Scotland building up in Glasgow Pacific Quay. The ceilings of the studios form the layers in the aztec style steps to the top of the building. Starting with radio drama and moving up finally to a huge TV studio.

I’ve finally closed down my old blog, but found a post from back in 2006 that i couldn’t quite bring myself to throw away. It was the time when BT movio launched their DAB-IP mobile TV service, which closed down a year later due to several reasons: only one handset, one operator supporting it and a lack of demand for mobile TV as a killer reason to buy a, let’s be honest, ugly handset. The pic here is one of the prototype devices but it wasn’t that much uglier than the device which was launched, even if Pamela Anderson tried to counteract the fact… (sorry virgin mobile!). The service was 5 digital TV channels on your phone; and thanks to the DAB technology it was based on, the full selection of DAB digital radio stations in your area (50 in london), with a full 7 day programme guide (EPG) with colour logos and LiveText (the scrolling text you see on normal digital radios).

You may have heard about various other mobile TV services delivered OTA. The limitation of these offerings is the number of people who can simultaneously watch video in a given area. Mobile broadcast TV has no such limitations.

BT Movio ran a trial at the end of 2005 which revealed that, counter to expectations, a significant number of people used the service more often at home than on the move. In addition, they listened to radio services more than viewing TV (95 vs 66 minutes per week respectively), with an average viewing length of 22 minutes for radio vs 16 for TV. The arqiva / o2 trial of DVB-H reported that 70% of triallists expected digital radio as part of a commercial service. The movio trial results were proved accurate once the real service launched (to an admittedly small number of subscribers). I still maintain that this implementation was the best and most intuitive digital radio interface for a mobile device - a fully functional EPG used for primary navigation rather than a nice to have.

So it looks like digital radio, as well as TV will play a part in emerging mobile services, however the big question is will sufficient numbers of people want to watch TV on their mobile phone? And how many channels will they want access to? The answer so far seems to be that a straightforward port of linear tv to mobile isn’t quite as sexy as many people hoped.

If we look at the Korean experience, the big audience drivers are pretty much the same as we see in traditional TV – e.g. big sporting events and major breaking news – however, bespoke “made for mobile” channels are becoming more prevalent as the technology gains acceptance. One could also argue that in order to get across a simple compelling message to a new audience you have to go with what is familiar – i.e. watch what you normally watch, but at times and in places more convenient to you, and that bespoke “made for mobile” services will emerge as the market matures. One thing seems to be certain for now, mobile TV isn’t going to be the main reason people buy a phone for some time to come. Something much simpler, Bluetooth, is one of the most commonly desired features in handsets for the young - not for the technology but for what it allows - free transfer of audio, video and images without fear of prosecution…

From my experience of OTA mobile TV through the operator walled gardens and from my experience of (in)consistent service from my mobile wifi skype phone, I think we are a way off providing a consistent linear service via 3g or mobile internet. It just doesn’t work if you move around too much. Nomadic rather than truly portable consumption. Of course this will get better, but however much it improves there wil always be a need for a more complete offer.

I also think that we need to think about what really works in a live environment in two respects: Firstly, TV has a much more limited live portfolio than radio, secondly there’s no reason to separate TV from radio in the same channel, particularly if the radio is visualised (retaining audio primacy - rich man’s radio, not poor man’s TV)

The particular flavour of broadcast linear mobile TV right now seems to be favouring DVB-H in Europe, and DVB-H2 offers some interesting developments, moving ever closer to claude shannon’s theoretical maxima. However as far as digital radio goes, DVB-H and derivatives are based on a different set of standards with accompanying royalties and there would be huge efforts required to get a significant number of devices in the market at vaguely reasonable prices across all the situations in which people listen to radio. a “simple” swap over to a new technology for digital radio in all it’s forms is naive at best. T-DMB at least was a technology that allowed radio to come for free with mobile TV, not so for DVB-H. This is without even considering the complexity of the spectrum required (UHF vs Band III).

It will be interesting to see what happens with data tariffs OTA, and whether linear streaming over IP will be limited by the operators or seen as a way of encouraging use, and if so how soon MBMS will show it’s limitations - and let’s keep a following brief on wimax.

It’s not too far fetched to think of a mobile service that transparently allows sideloading and downloading of on demand audio and video content, access to broadcast linear mobile tv and/or radio, 3/4g/LTE or wifi/wimax access to niche linear channels and on demand content all through a simple, intuitive ESG that always offers you something you want AND is available regardless of the vagueries of network connectivity.

I want to tell you about Olinda. The name was dreamed up by schulze & webb from an Italo Calvino novel (and by the way a Brazilian city). Olinda is fundamentally a way to help us think about what a future radio could be. Olinda is a physical prototype, it’s a way of explaining concepts that make more sense than a powerpoint presentation or a lengthy document and a way for the BBC to share it’s thinking in an open way with the wider community. It’s social hardware. The heart of olinda is about exploring the way that IP could work with a broadcast channel in a complimentary way rather than the current norm of simple additional choice, which shouldn’t be knocked but is radio 1.1 in it’s ambition.

There’s more detail here but the essence of the proposition in this first incarnation is about a modular radio that allows for social listening – connect via wifi and get notified when your friends are listening and tune in to their station. There’s some clever stuff at the back end, RadioPop, which uses attention data to provide a whole host of opportunities to complement radio listening.

the back story

Radio used to be a shared experience, it was a piece of furniture with warm valves that the family would gather around. This changed with the transistor, which for the first time allowed for a personal listening experience - rock & roll rather than the organist returns, portable rather than fixed.

and we all know what happened when it was possible to have an even more personal experience with our music…photo credits: silver, blue and green regency TR-1’s copyright Dr Steve Reyer. Pink TR-1 copyright Eric Wrobbel

MarkCuban had a BFO, a blinding flash of the obvious. He set up broadcast.net so he could hear his local texas basketball game when he was out of state. Add on the ability to tune in to the local police communications and it set him on his way to eventually owning the team he wanted to keep in touch with.

KPIG got into the game early, closely followed by Virgin Radio, where i cut my teeth, with the admirable assistance from gavin starks and his team at virgin.net

I was lucky enough to be around when the first standalone internet radio device was released, it was late 1999 when Jim Gable and his chaps brought out the Kerbango, a fixed line internet radio that was unfortunately an idea before it’s time - a combination of lack of broadband penetration and lack of faith from 3Com, but still a case study in how to provide a reliable, transparent service for listening to radio across the planet.

photo james cridland used under licence.

the arrival of wifi internet radio, which coincided with the BBC on demand offering. access to 10,00 internet radio stations is all well and good, but at the end of the day most people listen to a max of 4 radio stations for 95% of the time. Being able to listen to what you want when you want was definitely a step in the right direction.

Recently we have seen the first combined DAB and wifi radios, Revo’s Bliq is here now and we’ll see a range of combined products later in the year from more established radio brands.

let’s move away from the idea that broadcast and IP radio are mutually exclusive and move closer to the idea that certain technologies in certain bands can compliment each other. There are a whole range of economic and practical reasons why this makes sense.

OK, I admit defeat. cridders put up a much better revue of the recent radio reborn conference than i could have conjured up. so all i will do is pick up on one of the slides from the RCS pres. It was a pic of the now playing data being fed through to a billboard. It took me back to a possibly apocryphal story about the first instance of “now playing” data being publicly displayed in the UK. I heard that Heart hired out a huge billboard on the entry to the A40 westway out of london and had a live feed of tracks playing being displayed. How did they do this before the very clever GIMP from VirginRadio (which i launched <cough>)? well, as far as i recall, they had a couple of work experience boys encamped inside the hoardings with a radio and a playlist tapping in the tracks as they appeared. unethical? almost certainly. creative? without doubt.

can anyone confirm or correct this (very possibly) urban myth?

moderating a panel tomorrow at “radio reborn” - a media guardian conference in London. Keynote panel has the potential to be interesting, with my ultimate boss (for now) Jenny Abramsky, Fru Hazlitt (GCAP for now) and Phillipe generali from RCS. just a shame there wasn’t someone from Global or Bauer there too… Will update tomorrow on how it all went.

BBC radio Ulster has an engaging series of programmes called “Days Like This“, where people tell their stories about days that have made an impact in some lasting way. The Big Match below is an incredible piece of radio which was then beautifully animated. Not the sort of thing you can do for every programme, but the visualisation makes the story much more accessible to a video obsessed generation.

Still on the football theme, “Pottermouth” is the result of of an old Stoke City fan ringing up the station and leaving a message with his battle cry, a poem to rouse the team on to victory. BBC radio Stoke picked it up, added a slideshow to it and put it up on youtube. very simple but really worth checking out. The battle cry got played out before one of the recent games at the Brittania stadium.